By Beth11
New Big Dwarf Tomatoes
Submitted on Fri, 2009/02/20 - 1:49pm
Last updated on Fri, 2009/02/20 - 2:42pm
Hi All,
This is my new grow log! Hopefully I'll have pictures of New Big Dwarf tomatoes to show you instead of just plants. Here's a slideshow so far:
http://s463.photobucket.com/albums/qq355/beth11_album/?action=view¤t=08eb6bc5.pbw
My first ever lightbox:
Beth
Fri, 2009/02/20 - 3:53pm
#2
Yay! Well done. 
On the lightboxes and grow log as well as the picture! Your tomato plants have such nice stocky stems!
Fri, 2009/02/20 - 7:05pm
#3
Those are stocky stems, they won't be falling over in a hurry.
I've been looking at some pictures of this oxymoron of a plant, they look quite large, no wonder the stems are thick. Nicely grown.
Fri, 2009/02/20 - 7:56pm
#4
Wow, those look like bulldogs, no worry about them toppling over. Nice job!
Fri, 2009/02/20 - 8:38pm
#5
Hi All,
Yes, the NBD are truly a full size pink tomato on dwarf plants (supposed to be 24"). Anyone hang out on gardenweb growing tomatoes forum? I'm passionate about heirloom toms. Sadly, I have Fusarium in my soil (soil borne fungal disease). My shining star is Eva Purple Ball. Grows well in my soil. All others need to be grafted on a hardy rootstock (Maxifort).
Beth
Wed, 2009/02/25 - 7:04pm
#6
Hi All,
NBD toms are doing well. On flora bloom, EC 2.0, pH a little above 6.0. A few blossoms ready to open! I just ran down to measure the height - 16" tall. The first buds look big. If you grow toms outside, sometimes the first buds set spawn mutant tomatoes. We'll see, they may have to be snipped off. But plenty of others forming.
Beth
Wed, 2009/02/25 - 10:15pm
#7
Nice, Beth! I still just can't get over how stocky those little beings are. Guess they'd need to be, for pounder tomatoes!
Mon, 2009/03/02 - 8:38pm
#8
Hi All,
Coupla more pix. Toms are 18" tall, three blooms opened - hope they set. Emptied and refilled yesterday with Bloom mix - EC 2.2 and pH 6.0. And a few bonus pix of 8" of snow in southern Maryland and other grow projects-
Beth
Edit: So, if you put titles on the pix in photobucket, they don't stick I guess. Pix are of toms lights on and off, tom bud, cucumbers, mohawk pepper in a prepara, pep blossom, swiss chard ready for a 4th picking, new swiss chard babies an two pix of the backyard in snow-
Beth
Tue, 2009/03/03 - 2:12am
#9
Wow, those toms are bulldogs, can't wait to see how they do. Are you shaking or brushing to pollenate? The rest looks fantastic too, especially the snow, we haven't had any precipitation in about 4 months so I'd like to see that for a change. How are you liking the prepara? I can't wait to see your next set of photos. Can't help with photobucket but Picassa does wonders.
Tue, 2009/03/03 - 2:50am
#10
Wow, all your projects look great, Beth! LOL - even that tomato's flowers look stocky!
We got 9" of snow here. About par for this kind of winter in Connecticut, but isn't it a tad late for a blizzard in Maryland? I used it to melt 8 new gallons of snow to replenish my stocks. My plants hate my tap water. 
The Picasa Lightboxer carries over captions, but the Photobucket plug-in just lets you drag pictures, sorry. Maybe sometime I'll get around to extending the Lightboxer to read Photobucket.
Tue, 2009/03/03 - 1:32pm
#11
Nice Beth, I'm liking your grow room setup - the swiss chard is impressive.
What I do with my photobucket images is right click on the image, once it's on this site, and bring up Image Properties. I then put a title in the 'Alternative Text' box, it saves them being named image 1of 45, 2 of 45 etc.
Tue, 2009/03/03 - 1:34pm
#12
Actually, it adds a caption in addition to the info "image 1 of 22", etc.
Tue, 2009/03/03 - 1:45pm
#13
P.S. Beth, if you want to see something amusing, try adding lime (powdered limestone) to some soil you grow swiss chard in. It gets huge. I did that by accident last summer - put one of my chard plants in a tomato container I'd added lime to. It got almost no sun all summer, but grew enormous.
Sat, 2009/03/07 - 10:14pm
#14
Oh, I ran across a picture from my last-summer chards, showing the effect of growing chard in lime-enriched soil, vs. a shallow windowbox. 
Mon, 2009/03/09 - 9:25am
#15
Hi Gisette,
Oooh - I'm going to give the lime a try! BTW, the NBD have set 2 tomatoes!
Beth
Mon, 2009/03/09 - 1:36pm
#16
Congrats on the tomatoes!!! Good luck!
Tue, 2009/03/10 - 9:47am
#17
Hi All,
The NBD tomatoes are approaching max height of the ag (near 24"). I plan on clipping off the growing point to stop any more upward progress. I'll take before and after pix (poor tomatoes!).
Beth
Tue, 2009/03/10 - 9:58am
#18
Aw, so sad to do, isn't it? But necessary...
Wed, 2009/03/11 - 8:20pm
#19
Hi All,
NBD toms have been clipped. Here is a really bad picture - they really aren't white - nice and green. Three toms have set. My camera refuses to focus on the tomato, prefering the foliage. I'll try again tomorrow.
Beth
Wed, 2009/03/11 - 8:45pm
#20
Hi All,
Bonus pictures of the swiss chard after 4th clipping and Cucino cucumbers in the same box:
Beth
Wed, 2009/03/11 - 8:58pm
#21
Nice, Beth! I couldn't really puzzle out the tomato, but the cukes and chard look great! Chard are so pretty! Really looking forward to how your cukes do. I'm thinking after the seedlings are out of the way, I may do an indoor cuke on my seedling shelf. Where the cucumber beetles can't get at it.
You inspired me to plant some more chard this past weekend. 
(Outdoors - it'll come up whenever.)
Wed, 2009/03/11 - 9:56pm
#22
Wow! Beth that looks great! Now I want to plant cucumbers! Those & Peat's hydro grown carrots!
Sat, 2009/03/14 - 10:31am
#23
Picture of the NBD tomato that set on 3/3.
Fri, 2009/03/20 - 4:08am
#24
Hi All,
NBD tomato plants are doing well. In retrospect, I should have planted only one. Snipping the growing tip set back bud development - but I do have 3 tomatoes set. The biggest is 2" in diameter. One day I'll figure out how to get my camera to focus on individual tomatoes!
Fri, 2009/03/20 - 11:12am
#25
2" diameter already! Wow, that's pretty good, Beth!
Yeah, I need to take out my camera manual... There's a closeup ("macro mode") setting, but it has like 6 different foci it chooses between, and I can't remember how to tell it to use a different one.
Fri, 2009/05/08 - 9:33pm
#26
Hi All,
Closing out this grow log. NBD is a promising tomato - but it needs to be pruned. Two plants, one tomato. Here are the monsters prior to clipping -
Fri, 2009/05/08 - 11:00pm
#27
Nice-looking tomato! But that was the only one? Taste good?
Fri, 2009/05/08 - 11:08pm
#28
P.S. Mind if I ask why "closing out this grow log" and posting all pix in forums instead? (I'm not complaining - express yourself how you like. But I can move the forum posts into your growlog if you want, as well.)
Sat, 2009/05/09 - 9:45am
#29
There's a closeup ("macro mode") setting, but it has like 6 different foci it chooses between
Try automatic setting & macro. You'll be surprised how well it does.
Enjoy!
Sat, 2009/05/09 - 4:50pm
#30
Judith - that's what it's on. It's just that it keeps picking a different focus than I want, so I need to look up how to override and tell it to use my choice instead of its choice.
Today's picture. Had to raise the hood!
Beth