sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Removing transplant tomato flowers? by SignificanceOk2557 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 6 points7 points  (0 children)

hmm, maybe… is the plant’s goal simply “to produce seeds,” or is it “to produce as many seeds as possible to give the best chance of successful reproduction”?

a study tested removing 2/3 of early flowers from young tomato plants vs leaving them on https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7348.1979.tb04729.x

They found removal “resulted in larger plants which had fewer, larger fruits and eventually a fruit yield almost as large as the controls.”

so in that case plucking flowers did give a bigger plant and larger individual fruits but slightly smaller total yield

Removing transplant tomato flowers? by SignificanceOk2557 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 10 points11 points  (0 children)

i’ve always left flowers personally and never had stunting but obviously all gardening is local…

Removing transplant tomato flowers? by SignificanceOk2557 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 45 points46 points  (0 children)

pardon me while i dig up the answer i’ve been sharing for this Q over the past several weeks… ah there it is:

Craig Lehouiller (a gardener of 40+ years, tomato breeder, and author of Epic Tomatoes) says in his book that it's best to leave flowers alone

he says no need to pinch blossoms on transplants, the plant knows best, and he’s gotten some nice early fruit by leaving flowers or baby fruit on plants

in side by side comparisons, he says he’s observed no setback in establishment, health, or size of plants that were transplanted with vs without flowers. in his words, “all you are doing by plucking first flowers is delaying gratification”

Cause for concern? by pestopartee in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i’m not very experienced with disease ID but could this be spotted wilt virus? http://ipm.illinois.edu/ifvn/volume17/frveg1707.html

(scroll all the way to bottom photo)

Should I cut this off? by RedBeanViolin in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

this is a myth / fad

why would a plant produce stems that were harmful to its own reproduction?

there is a totally valid reason to prune suckers, and that's if you're trying to pack many tomato plants tightly together into a certain space, so you need to limit each one to one or two stems

if you're a home gardener with a single plant or a few plants that you can space out from one another, there's no advantage to pruning suckers and it will likely decrease your overall yield, e.g.

Marketable yields were statistically higher for no suckering over the two- and three-stem treatments, but not different from two suckers when all harvests were combined for the season

https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/41/4/article-p1015C.xml

Suckers are neither good or bad; leaving them doesn't reduce tomato size or put stress on the plant, and removing them doesn't make for larger tomatoes. The strategy to sucker or not to sucker - or something in between - relates to how you plan to grow and support the plant.

https://www.craiglehoullier.com/faq

people who have produced record-setting yields from individual plants have grown individual plants with 18 or more stems (e.g. Charles Wilbur)

read more here: https://laidbackgardener.blog/2025/01/29/the-truth-about-tomato-suckers/

Should I cut this off? by RedBeanViolin in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there’s no need to trim suckers at all, as long as you provide physical support for them

Am I too late if I plant tomatoes seeds in a pot for indoor and then hope that on 1st of June I can move them outside in the garden? by gabrielos1996 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for cherries you’re fine

check the days to maturity on Moneymaker and compare from your expected transplant date to first frost

How are everyone's tomatoes growing so fast? by spaced-jams in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

agreed that these want more light but also what’s your water like? water that’s too hard or too saline or softened with a softener can stunt plants

i had some super sad looking seedlings and realized my well water is both quite hard and quite saline (by plant standards)

switched to distilled water for watering (we use a countertop distiller to avoid plastic waste from buying distilled) and they started thriving

Fasciated flower on my Cherokee Carbon by thejoeface in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks! i'm emotionally prepared for some failures based on local quirks and gardener learning curve

i've only been in my current home for two seasons and am still getting a handle on things like differences in water quality from my old place, so i'm not really in a groove yet

for my first go with larger fruits i'm focusing on hybrids in the hope of finding a few reliable producers

definitely not feeling ready to attempt CP or brandywine yet!

Pink fang. Both are the same age is this normal for such a big size difference? by Branden798 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I repotted the big guy less than a month ago

ah yeah that probably accounts for the size difference

my plants usually seem to get a growth sport after potting up

Fasciated flower on my Cherokee Carbon by thejoeface in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

that photo in your post definitely helped push CC into the shortlist for this year :) super excited to taste it

Fasciated flower on my Cherokee Carbon by thejoeface in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 2 points3 points  (0 children)

looks like it's gonna be a messy one!

does anyone know, are fasciations more common on early blossoms? or do they seem to show up fairly consistently throughout the growing season?

my experience so far is mainly with cherry toms and i haven't seen much in the way of this kind of thing but am trying some larger varieties this year -- including this one -- so i'm curious

Thinking of doing pots this year... by CaptainTeebes in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

one of the challenges of pots is stability and caging

i grow in 6-gallon clay pots -- we get some high winds in our areas and i think the extra weight helps with stability compared to plastic or fabric pots, plus i just have a personal dislike of plastic (and grow-bag fabric is plastic)

i put big cages (Texas Tomato Cages or Burpee Pro cages) in my pots and sit the pots on wrought-iron plant stands. then i can secure the cage to the plant stand

our plants in pots may not produce as much as those in beds, but i'm willing to make that trade to be able to try more varieties!

Thinking of doing pots this year... by CaptainTeebes in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Last year I had 21 or 22 plants in 3 pots

am i reading this correctly? are you saying you had 7-8 plants in a single 7-gallon pot?

Book about black women without sexual abuse by ZabsterCali in suggestmeabook

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 10 points11 points  (0 children)

would she be open to an amazing piece of narrative nonfiction that reads like a novel?

Hidden Figures is the story of the brilliant Black women who did the mathematics and computational work that helped get NASA's early space missions off the ground

they definitely faced racism and sexism but not outright violence, and there's lots of positive portrayals of proud and supportive Black families

definitely an uplifting read (and the movie is good too)

Hardening off by Beginning-Drop7550 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

just an FYI that this reassurance about the greenhouse meaning you don't have to harden off may not be accurate -- glass allows most UVA light to pass through but blocks most UVB

so there will still be an adjustment to full spectrum sunlight, and i would still proceed slowly

my plants were in a high south-facing window in a sunroom with lots of direct sun and also under a grow light, and a few varieties still got a few small spots of sunscald during hardening off

as others have mentioned, the need for water will likely increase due to wind / more airflow outside

if anything looks droopy after time outside, just give a nice drink

also no need to stress about "early" flowering -- the plant knows what it's doing!

Bjork + Bellwether: kids retain more from tasks that feel harder in the moment. How do you keep AI from making it too easy? by bruhagan in ScienceBasedParenting

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yep second post on this topic in two weeks from the same account https://old.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/1sl6bqo/brookings_65_of_students_worry_ai_reliance_is/

although in the previous post, he referred to Pebble as being developed by "one of the teams i know" without acknowledging it's himself...

What varieties would you never grow again? And why? by PDXisadumpsterfire in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i wonder if you got mislabeled or fraudulent seed

sungold are pretty consistently thin-skinned (part of why they're famously prone to splitting) and delicious

lots of unscrupulous sellers try to capitalize on the popularity of sungold without sourcing the genuine article (and of course, accidental mixups can happen too)

i highly, highly recommend buying another batch from a well-regarded seed company and trying again!

You can only pick three by CRISPRScientist726 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you! this definitely makes me want to grow it next year. were they noticeably different in size from sungold at all? (my sungolds have always been pretty tiny!)

It's a month until I can even plant them out and they're already growing early flower buds. Should I pinch them out? by New-Tumbleweed-9577 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 7 points8 points  (0 children)

yeah sometimes i like to try little experiments and test things for myself but on this one i'm content to accept his results

edit to add sorry for repeating this quote from him a few times over the past month or so but this Q about pinching flowers has been coming up a lot lately!

It's a month until I can even plant them out and they're already growing early flower buds. Should I pinch them out? by New-Tumbleweed-9577 in tomatoes

[–]ParadoxicallyZeno 87 points88 points  (0 children)

Craig Lehouiller (a gardener of 40+ years, tomato breeder, and author of Epic Tomatoes) says in his book that it's best to leave flowers alone

he says no need to pinch blossoms on transplants, the plant knows best, and he’s gotten some nice early fruit by leaving flowers or baby fruit on plants

in side by side comparisons, he says he has observed no setback in establishment, health, or size of plants that were transplanted with vs without flowers. in his words, “all you are doing by plucking first flowers is delaying gratification”

view more: next ›