Tomatoes
 

We are waiting for the Toms in large pots in the greenhouse to ripen. All
the leaves have been removed, should we continue watering?

Mike


--

....................................

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

....................................

Tomatoes
 

On Sep 11, 9:50*am, "'Mike'" wrote:
We are waiting for the Toms in large pots in the greenhouse to ripen. All
the leaves have been removed, should we continue watering?

Mike

--

...................................

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

...................................

Why take all the leaves off? It is detrimental to the plants.

Tomatoes
 

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Sep 11, 9:50 am, "'Mike'" wrote:
We are waiting for the Toms in large pots in the greenhouse to ripen. All
the leaves have been removed, should we continue watering?

Mike

--

...................................

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

...................................

Why take all the leaves off? It is detrimental to the plants.
.................................................. ...

Because the plants have finished growing/producing and it is more
advantageous for the Tomatoes to ripen that way.

Mike


--

....................................

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

....................................

Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing all the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put all it's energy into ripening the fruit,

Tomatoes
 

Granity wrote in news:Granity.8e2d216
@gardenbanter.co.uk:


Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing all
the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put all it's
energy into ripening the fruit,





Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his researchers
gave him the correct information.

Baz

Tomatoes
 

Baz wrote:
Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing all
the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put all it's
energy into ripening the fruit,

Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his researchers
gave him the correct information.

If you remove all of the leaves, where does it get its energy from?

Tomatoes
 

wrote in
:

Baz wrote:
Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing
all the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put
all it's energy into ripening the fruit,

Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his
researchers gave him the correct information.

If you remove all of the leaves, where does it get its energy from?

The roots and old helios (the sun)

Baz

Tomatoes
 

Baz wrote:
Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing
all the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put
all it's energy into ripening the fruit,

Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his
researchers gave him the correct information.

If you remove all of the leaves, where does it get its energy from?

The roots and old helios (the sun)

But surely the conversion from sunlight to energy happens on the leaves,
which are now in the compost?

Tomatoes
 

wrote in message ...


But surely the conversion from sunlight to energy happens on the leaves,
which are now in the compost?



Best work on a compromise basis -
I only remove all the leaves below the still fruiting trusses .

My experimental tenth truss is fruiting nicely as I write !

Pete

Tomatoes
 

wrote in news:9dhsu3FufjU3
@mid.individual.net:

Baz wrote:
Friday night on "Gardeners World" Monty Don suggested that removing
all the leaves this late in the season would get the plant to put
all it's energy into ripening the fruit,

Monty Don knows eff all about gardening, but in this case his
researchers gave him the correct information.

If you remove all of the leaves, where does it get its energy from?

The roots and old helios (the sun)

But surely the conversion from sunlight to energy happens on the leaves,
which are now in the compost?

I am no expert but,
If you mean Photosynthesis, that process has ended because the fruits have
grown, the pollination has ceased because of defoliation and no more
trusses will appear. The little tiny tomatoes and flower should be taken
off, they will serve no purpose now, in fact they should have been nipped
weeks ago.

If my understanding is correct, the tomato ripens to a red colour so that
the birds are attracted to it for food. The birds eat the sugary bits of
the tomato and also some seed.
The bird then flies away to have a poo and places a seed in situ. The seed
grows into a plant when the temperature allows, usually in spring.

By defoliation what you are doing is fooling the tomato plant into thinking
it is autumn and "it's time I started to ripen my fruit into a nice red
colour" to attract the birds in order to disperse the s........and so on.

As I say I am no expert but the above is what I beleive happens.
Baz

Tomatoes
 

Baz wrote:
I am no expert but,
If you mean Photosynthesis, that process has ended because the fruits have
grown, the pollination has ceased because of defoliation and no more
trusses will appear. The little tiny tomatoes and flower should be taken
off, they will serve no purpose now, in fact they should have been nipped
weeks ago.

If my understanding is correct, the tomato ripens to a red colour so that
the birds are attracted to it for food. The birds eat the sugary bits of
the tomato and also some seed.
The bird then flies away to have a poo and places a seed in situ. The seed
grows into a plant when the temperature allows, usually in spring.

By defoliation what you are doing is fooling the tomato plant into thinking
it is autumn and "it's time I started to ripen my fruit into a nice red
colour" to attract the birds in order to disperse the s........and so on.

As I say I am no expert but the above is what I beleive happens.

You could well be right. But I'm puzzled about where the energy to convert
from green to red comes from, given it's not using photosynthesis, and that
is the main (afaik!) source of energy.

I also don't really see why you need to put energy into ripening just yet,
it's not as if the days are getting seriously short yet. By mid October I
may well agree, but for now I'm still happy for, at least my cherries, to
still attempt to turn flowers into fruits.

Tomatoes
 

wrote in
:

You could well be right. But I'm puzzled about where the energy to
convert from green to red comes from, given it's not using
photosynthesis, and that is the main (afaik!) source of energy.

I also don't really see why you need to put energy into ripening just
yet, it's not as if the days are getting seriously short yet. By mid
October I may well agree, but for now I'm still happy for, at least my
cherries, to still attempt to turn flowers into fruits.



If I were you, I would do a little experiment.

I don't know how many tom. plants you have, but I would take off all the
foliage and trusses with flowers off on ONE plant, leaving only the unripe
tomatoes. Leave the others as they are. See what happens. I think you have
to do this because you are just like me as in sometimes only self proof
works. Also, does it matter why some things happen? Accept the fact that
mother nature is mysterious, and after your experiment, if you choose to do
it, you will see what I mean.

Good luck,
Baz

Tomatoes
 

Baz wrote:
You could well be right. But I'm puzzled about where the energy to
convert from green to red comes from, given it's not using
photosynthesis, and that is the main (afaik!) source of energy.

I also don't really see why you need to put energy into ripening just
yet, it's not as if the days are getting seriously short yet. By mid
October I may well agree, but for now I'm still happy for, at least my
cherries, to still attempt to turn flowers into fruits.

If I were you, I would do a little experiment.

My entire gardening experience is one long experiment. :-)

I don't know how many tom. plants you have, but I would take off all the
foliage and trusses with flowers off on ONE plant, leaving only the unripe
tomatoes. Leave the others as they are. See what happens. I think you have
to do this because you are just like me as in sometimes only self proof
works. Also, does it matter why some things happen? Accept the fact that
mother nature is mysterious, and after your experiment, if you choose to do
it, you will see what I mean.

It doesn't matter why, I'm just curious about the process. Mother nature is
a very mysterious being, but there is no harm in working out how best to
give her a helping hand.

The suggestion isn't a bad one, unfortunately it isn't entirely feasible
with my current set up, since I have rather a large variety of different,
er, varieties. So trying something on one and different on another would
mean working out which 2 were the same.

As it happens, I'm unintentionally doing that anyhow, since I'm cutting off
any blighted branches as they appear (and cutting down the stems to below
the blight where necessary) and some of the plants are looking a little ...
limbless.

I did something a bit odd for the time of year this afternoon, I repotted a
bunch of old straggley tomatoes in pots that I had forgotten about into the
old blighted grow bags. I figured, they will be getting infected at this
point anyhow, may as well try and get a bit of growth out of them first. So
I moved about 15 stragglers ... unfortunately some of them were over 5'
tall, and on canes. Thank goodness it was raining and no-one witnessed it,
it must have looked quite entertaining.

Which reminds me, I found out a few of my varieties whilst I was digging!

Tomatoes - Jersey Sunrise
 

Sacha - discovered where the Jersey Sunrise are today. The bad news is,
they seem to have been the first in that greenhouse to be blighted. :-(
Got a couple of fruit, but they're not looking like they did their best, and
they won't be providing any more.

Tomatoes
 

wrote in
:


It doesn't matter why, I'm just curious about the process. Mother
nature is a very mysterious being, but there is no harm in working out
how best to give her a helping hand.

The suggestion isn't a bad one, unfortunately it isn't entirely
feasible with my current set up, since I have rather a large variety
of different, er, varieties. So trying something on one and different
on another would mean working out which 2 were the same.

As it happens, I'm unintentionally doing that anyhow, since I'm
cutting off any blighted branches as they appear (and cutting down the
stems to below the blight where necessary) and some of the plants are
looking a little ... limbless.

I did something a bit odd for the time of year this afternoon, I
repotted a bunch of old straggley tomatoes in pots that I had
forgotten about into the old blighted grow bags. I figured, they will
be getting infected at this point anyhow, may as well try and get a
bit of growth out of them first. So I moved about 15 stragglers ...
unfortunately some of them were over 5' tall, and on canes. Thank
goodness it was raining and no-one witnessed it, it must have looked
quite entertaining.

Which reminds me, I found out a few of my varieties whilst I was
digging!


There you are then! You are learning by experience, as I knew you would.
The best way IMO.

Baz