Tomato Pruning Experiment, Week Five

Week five of me answer the question: do pruned tomato plants produce more than their un-pruned sisters?

The  Oregon Spring tomatoes produced NINE pints  this week!  I also got nearly a pound of Sun Golds, a type of salad tomato.  My neighbors are about to benefit from those salad tomatoes :)


To recap, I have 2 Sungolds, 4 Oregon Springs, and 4 Grandma Mary's Paste tomato plants growing in my garden this year.  I pruned 1 Sungold, 1 Oregon Spring, and 1 Grandma Mary and let the rest go wild.  I'm also growing Legends and Green Zebras, but I left them out of the experiment this time around.

The Grandma Mary's are still doing nothing.  I have high hopes that they're waiting to wow me.

The Sungolds have to be harvested twice a week at this rate!  Sorry the pictures are split up, but that was the only way to keep ahead of the game.

Pruned Sungolds:

Un-Pruned Sungolds:

Pruned Oregon Spring:
The pruned Oregon Spring tomato has finally started producing tomatoes.  It's first week produced 15 ounces more tomatoes than its three other brothers their first week combined.  Better late than never :)

As you can see, I was too excited to take a picture before I started harvesting!

Un-Pruned Oregon Springs:

Total harvest from Pruned Sungold: 8.75 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Sungold: 11.4 ounces
Total harvest from Pruned Oregon Spring: 47.30 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Oregon Spring: 163.05 ounces (32.61 ounces per plant)
Total harvest from Pruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces

What to do with all of these tomatoes?  Well, make Frankie's famous marinara sauce, of course!

Keep watching the blog, I'll continue to post the harvest tallies each week.

Cedar Experiment, Week Six

This is the sixth installment of me answering the question: do cedar beds really inhibit the growth of vegetable seedlings?  This experiment looks to see if cedar beds lined with cardboard will help veggies grow bigger and faster.

This week, the beds look nearly neck and neck.  I honestly can't tell the difference between most of the seedlings.  The only slight variation is in the carrots and the pole beans; those are faring better in the lined bed, but only slightly.

Lined Bed

Unlined Bed:

Only time will tell which one produces more food!

Tomato Pruning Experiment, Week Four

Week four of me answer the question: do pruned tomato plants produce more than their un-pruned sisters?

The  Oregon Spring tomatoes produced another four pints  this week!  I also got 3.85 ounces of Sun Golds, which isn't alot but since they're salad tomatoes I will take it :)


To recap, I have 2 Sungolds, 4 Oregon Springs, and 4 Grandma Mary's Paste tomato plants growing in my garden this year.  I pruned 1 Sungold, 1 Oregon Spring, and 1 Grandma Mary and let the rest go wild.  I'm also growing Legends and Green Zebras, but I left them out of the experiment this time around.


The Pruned Sungold plant (and babies!!):

Six tomatoes with a total weight of 2 ounces

Un-Pruned Sungold tomoato (and babies!):

Second week of the  pruned plant is producing more, but not by much.

Grandma Mary's:
No difference between last week and this. ho-hum...

Oregon Spring, unpruned:

And the unpruned Oregon Spring:
 

It appears we're missing some tomato-y goodness....

The pruned one is almost ready!!!

Total harvest from Pruned Sungold: 3.3 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Sungold: 2.6 ounces
Total harvest from Pruned Oregon Spring: 0 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Oregon Spring: 66.45 ounces (16.61 ounces per plant)
Total harvest from Pruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces
Total harvest from Unpruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces

Keep watching the blog, I'll continue to post the harvest tallies each week!

Cedar Experiment, Week Five

his is the fourth installment of me answering the question: do cedar beds really inhibit the growth of vegetable seedlings?  This experiment looks to see if cedar beds lined with cardboard will help veggies grow bigger and faster.

Why even grow in garden beds at all?  Some famous gardeners, like Steve Solomon from Territorial Seed or John Jeavons, the author of "How to Grow More Vegetables," are advocates of growing in amended but native soils.  Those who claim beds are best, like Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening state the reason for raised beds is that they'll help the soil drain faster and warm faster in the spring. My own experience has shown me that I can use Jeavon's process of double digging and combine it with raised garden beds to the benefit of my garden.  If I dig out the area to contain a bed eight inches down, mix that with my imported soil , then add that mix back into the bed, I get the microbial ecosystem from my native soil along with the lighteners I add to the imported soil.  Root crops and potatoes seem to love the amended native soil raised beds, while cabbages and squash fare best in native soil with only a small amount of extra compost.

Here's the Lined Cedar bed:

And the Unlined Cedar Bed:

The marked differences are still apparent.  The beans and carrots are faring better in the lined bed,  the beets are bigger in the unlined bed.  Can't wait to eat 'em... and of 'em. 

Tomato Pruning Experiment, Week Three

Week three of me answer the question: do pruned tomato plants produce more?

A bit more excitement this week!  I had about 4 pints of Oregon Spring tomatoes from the garden this week!  I also got 3 ounces of Sun Golds, which isn't alot but since they're salad tomatoes I will take it :)


To recap, I have 2 Sungolds, 4 Oregon Springs, and 4 Grandma Mary's Paste tomato plants growing in my garden this year.  I pruned 1 Sungold, 1 Oregon Spring, and 1 Grandma Mary and let the rest go wild.  I'm also growing Legends and Green Zebras, but I left them out of the experiment this time around.


The Pruned Sungold plant (and babies!!):

Four tomatoes with a total weight of 1.3 ounces

Un-Pruned Sungold tomoato (and babies!):

So far, the pruned plant is producing more, but not by much.  This article from Fine Gardening does mention that indeterminate tomatoes like Sungolds do well from pruning.  How well?  Who can say, for now the difference is hardly an ounce.

Grandma Mary's:
No difference between last week and this. ho-hum...

Oregon Spring, unpruned:

Harvest from the Oregon Spring, unpruned.

And the unpruned Oregon Spring:

  

It appears we're missing some tomato-y goodness....

As you can see, a BIG DIFFERENCE in the Oregon Spring Tomatoes.  Apparently, pruning the plant did harm to it; as of today, I've harvested zero ounces from the pruned plant but 32 OUNCES from the unpruned plants.  That's an average of eight ounces per plant!

Total harvest from Pruned Sungold: 1.3 ounces

Total harvest from Unpruned Sungold: .75 ounces

Total harvest from Pruned Oregon Spring: 0 ounces

Total harvest from Unpruned Oregon Spring: 32.85 ounces

Total harvest from Pruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces

Total harvest from Unpruned Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes: 0 ounces 

Keep watching the blog, I'll continue to post the harvest tallies each week!

Cedar Experiment, Week Four

This is the fourth installment of me answering the question: do cedar beds really inhibit the growth of vegetable seedlings?  This experiment looks to see if cedar beds lined with cardboard will help veggies grow bigger and faster.

I've been doing research on companies that install raised garden beds and have found that several companies offer both hemlock and cedar beds.  The cedar beds come at a premium; no doubt because the cedar beds are thought to last longer in wet weather and the wood is more expensive.  No one has mentioned on their site that cedar can inhibit growth.  The extension service from Washington State University does not bleive cedar inhibits seedling growth per se, but they do mention that cedar can kill off beneficial soil fungi.

Here are images from the cardboard lined cedar bed:

And the unlined cedar bed:

The differences are becoming clearer.  The bed lined with cardboard has marked larger bean plants and more sprouted carrots.  On the other hand, the unlined beets are fairing better than their lined friends.  Only time which box has the largest overall yield.

Cedar Experiment, week 3

I'm a little behind posting this one.  Wet weather strikes again!  This is week three of finding the answer to the question: Is it true that garden beds made of cedar will harm plant growth?

Cedar Box with cardboard liner:

Cedar Box without cardboard liner:

The beans in the lined box are definitely taller than the beans in the unlined box.  Both boxes have about 4 carrots up, and it looks like both  boxes have quite a few beets up.  The lined box seems to have slightly more beets than the unlined box.  They are neck-and-neck when it comes to carrots.

Check back next week for more pics!

Saturday Visitor

Don't have much time to chat today, it was very busy in the garden.  I was transferring some brassicas out of the greenhouse when I found this little guy living in my Pok Choy seedling:

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) visiting my greenhouse

Sights like this make me so grateful I decided to be strictly organic in my gardening practices.  According to Josh he is known as a Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla) and is repsonsible for the froggie noises I hear at night.

I'll rest a bit easier knowing he's guarding my seedlings from any buggy predators.

Tomato Pruning Experiment, Week 2

I'm a day behind, because there was a big rain storm over the past few days in the Pacific Northwest.  Usually the tomato plants don't care for a lot of rain, but I let them get it this week since it was only for a few days.  At this point, they just appreciate the moisture.  as long as they get to completely dry out for a long while, that is.

I'm glad the heatwave broke because while tomatoes love the heat, it's been so intense that the blossoms fell off.  Now, all the plants have fresh blossoms.

Grandma Mary's Paste Tomatoes -  both the pruned and un-pruned plants did not produce red fruits this week.  it does appear that the pruned ones have breakers on them, according to the tomato color chart.

Big changes in the Oregon Springs!  One is definitely light red, so should be ready this week.  I"m so excited.  The unpruned Oregon Spring is ahead of the game.  I think this is to be expected, as Oregon Springs are determinate and bred specifically for the Pacific Northwest.  Territorial Seeds sells them, and I swear by them every year.

Another change!  The pruned Sungolds are producing finally.  Sungold tomatoes are indeterminate cherry tomatoes, very different than the determinate slicing tomatoes.

I am surprised to see that for one variety pruning helped it produced faster than it's unpruned brother, and vise versa for another variety.  I do not know if it's because one is determinate and one is not, one is slicing, one is cherry, etc.  I'll weigh the amount from each plant throughout the season and keep a tally so that we'll have a type by type comparison.  Go Science!

Tomato Pruning Experiment, Week 1

This year, I planted 16 tomato plants.  Eight (four Oregon Springs and four Legends) went out April 15th (under cover and  PacNW cold tolerant varieties) and eight more (two Sun Golds, two Green Zebras, and four Grandma Mary Pastes) went out May 17th (also under cover).  After I made sure they had everything a growing tomato plant needed, I pretty much left them alone.  This time last year, the Oregon Springs gave me their first tomatoes on July fourth.  This year is hotter, so I thought I'd get them ever earlier, but that is not the case.  July 17, and I have had not a single red tomato on any of my plants.

I started thinking about what i could do to remedy this, and I came to a decision.  Some gardeners insist that pruning off nearly all the leaves and all the side branches paradoxically gives MORE tomatoes than to a plant that has never been pruned.  This made very little sense to me in the past, because tomatoes produce just as many fruit on the side branches as their main branches.  And, since leaves photosynthesize, they should give energy to the plant, not take it away.  I have decided to prune 25% of my tomatoes.  I have so many healthy plants this year, I can stand to spare some of them to science.  And since I am growing so many different varieties, I can compare a pruned tomato to it's unpruned sibling.

Oregon Spring - Pruned

Oregon Spring - Unpruned

Oregon Springs side-by-side

Paste Tomato - pruned

Paste Tomato - unpruned

Paste Tomatoes side by side

Cedar Experiment, week 2

I went to check on the two experimental garden beds to see if cedar really does inhibit germination in seeds, and if so, if lining with cardboard prevents this phenomenon.  I planted 4 beans, 6 beets, and 8 carrots in each bed.

Here's the verdict after 7 days:
Cedar bed with cardboard:

And Cedar Bed without cardboard:

They look fairly similar right?  There are slight differences; in one of them, there are more beets.  An interesting thing to note about beets:  their "seeds" are not seeds per se, but dried berries that may have one or more seeds within.   So, often a beet seed will give 1-3 seedlings.  It appears that one of the bush beans didn't sprout, but I can see it just under the surface.


But wait!  What's this in the cardboard bed?  Could it be the first carrot seedling??!

Alas, no it is not.  It's a weed.  One of the downsides of home-made compost.

Tally for the two beds so far:
Cedar without cardboard:
Pole beans: 2/2
Bush Beans: 2/2
Carrots: 0/8
Beets: 4/8

Cedar with cardboard:
Pole beans: 2/2
Bush Beans: 1/2 (but almost 2/2!!)
Carrots: 0/8
Beets: 4/8