Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato — John Shaqi
Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the TomatoTracy, W. W. (William Warner)
Science
Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato
Tracy, W. W. (William Warner)
Tomatoes
So treated the plants will ripen the upper one or two clusters very
early but will yield little more until late in the season, and it is
generally more profitable to plow them up and put in some other crop as
soon as the first clusters of fruit have ripened. Others pinch out the
central bud as soon as it is well formed, usually within 10 days from
the sowing of the seed. When this is done a great proportion of the
plants will start branches from the axils of the cotyledons; these
usually develop blossoms in the third to the fifth node and produce
fruit much lower than in a normal plant. It is questionable if there is
any gain in time from seed to fruit by this method, but it enables one
to get older plants of a size which it is practicable to transplant to
the field.
In most cases it will be found more profitable and satisfactory so to
grow the plants that by the time they can be safely set out of doors
they will be in vigorous condition, about 6 to 10 inches tall, stout,
healthy and well hardened off. Such plants will ripen fruit nearly, and
often quite as early as older ones and will produce a constant
succession of fruit, instead of ripening a single cluster or two and
then no more until they have made a new growth.
=For late summer and early fall.=--It is generally true in the South and
often equally so in the North, that there is a more eager local demand
for tomatoes in the late summer and fall months, after most of the
spring set plants have ceased bearing, than in early summer. In Michigan
I have often been able to get more for choice fruit in late October and
in November than the best Floridas were sold for in May or early June,
and certainly in the South the home use of fresh tomatoes should not be
confined to spring set plants. For the fall crop in the South seed may
be sown in late spring or up to the middle of July, in beds shaded with
frames, covered with lath nailed 3 to 4 inches apart and the plants set
in the field about 40 days from sowing, the same care being taken to
put the ground into good condition as is recommended for the spring
planted crop.
A second plan, which has sometimes given most excellent results, is to
cut back spring set plants which have ripened some fruit but which are
not completely exhausted, to mere stubs, and spade up the ground about
them so as to cut most of the roots, water thoroughly and cover the
ground with a mulch of straw. Most of the plants so treated will start a
new and vigorous growth and give most satisfactory returns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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