What you can learnA high-value tomato diary comparing several plants and documenting height control, pruning, nutrient imbalance, blossom-end rot, staggered harvests, and termination decisions.
Actions:2 Harvest2 Pruning1 Finished1 Solution
Useful practices
top and prune to control height
monitor nutrient strength and pH closely
remove nonfruiting overheight branches
harvest large fruit to free capacity for later fruit
restart poorly performing plants rather than preserving tall bare stems
Problems encountered
branches repeatedly grew into and above the lights
poor fruit set
flower drop
out-of-range EC
PPM
and pH
blossom-end rot
excess foliage
*The days were calculated automatically and approximately.
Day 102
UPDATE#3
Grower update
Update #3
🔧Actions taken
🧺HarvestPicked three tomatoes that had started ripening.
Three tomatoes on the remaining Dwarf Awesome have started ripening, so I harvested them today. The plant has some more unripe tomatoes and some new blooms at the top, so it will get its scheduled R&R tomorrow and survive for another couple of weeks! This is how the plant looks now--it's grown up to the lights, but the new blooms are below the lights:Loaf of bread included for scale, as these are fairly small for a DA plant:
Terminated remaining Dwarf Awesome on 3/19/24, after harvesting two more tomatoes. Family loves these, so worth growing again. Need to figure out how to get fewer leaves and more tomatoes.
Day 40
UPDATE#2
Grower update
Update #2
🔧Actions taken
🧺HarvestHarvested the last tomato from the original Bounty plant.
✂️PruningRemoved overheight branches from the terminated plant.
✓FinishedEnded the original Bounty Dwarf Awesome plant.
💧SolutionPerformed reservoir rinse-and-refills on both continuing Farm plants.
Today I terminated the Dwarf Awesome tomato that was grown in a Bounty Elite. I took a reference photo after the last tomato was harvested and the errant branches were removed, to remind me of how this plant grows. I have two more DAs going now, in two Farm 12XLs.The original DA produced at least 7 big tomatoes. It kept sending branches up above the lights, but never set any fruit on those branches. There was a branch that went at least 8" above the light hood (not shown in the photo). "Reach for the skies" is the DA's motto!One of the ongoing DAs has two developing tomatoes on it. The other has produced blossoms, but most have dropped off. So far, no fruit has set on that plant.Both DAs got R&Rs and pruning today. If the second plant doesn't produce a tomato soon, I'll terminate it and plant something different. We love the DA tomatoes, so I'll probably have at least one plant going in the foreseeable future.
Today I tested the water in one of my two Dwarf Awesomes, and found that EC, PPM, and pH were all far out of range for optimal tomato growth. I added nutes, Koolbloom, and CalMag for a quick-and-dirty fix, and will see what the plants do. Both plants are almost too tall for the Farm 12XLs, and only one has set fruit. I'm about ready to start over with at least one plant, and will try monitoring carefully from the beginning next time.
Today I terminated one of the two Dwarf Awesomes in this project. I let the plants get out of hand again. Clearly I need to monitor and adjust the nutes closely when trying to grow full-size tomatoes.The terminated plant produced two beefsteak-sized tomatoes right away, but they were still green when I harvested them yesterday. They will have to ripen on the kitchen countertop.Otherwise, the plant grew lots of foliage, few blooms, and was developing just one more tomato about halfway up the full growing height of the Farm 12XL. Clearly I needed to reduce the nutrient that produces leaves (nitrogen, I think), and increase the Koolbloom.The plant that is still growing has a lot of developing tomatoes on it--wish I knew what I did differently. However, two had blossom end rot, and all seem stalled in their growth. More nutes are needed, I guess.It does appear that DAs grown in AGs can support only a few large fruits at any given time. With my first DA, harvesting the earlier tomatoes caused the plant to start working on developing other existing smaller tomatoes.
News from the Dwarf Awesome growing in a Bounty Elite, at 111 days. The third of the original three tomatoes is ripening.Most of the flowers that insisted on growing into the lights have dried up, but one has set fruit (on the left). Another batch of flowers that showed up after I topped the plant has set one fruit (on the right).There are three good-sized developing tomatoes in the middle of the plant.There is another batch of blossoms that are growing at the top, but to the side of the lights.The plant as a whole is looking pretty good. The hope is that it will produce more blooms on lower branches!