Need recommendations! :)

[Rusty]

Well, the sleet is still falling. The whole day is wet and nasty. What better time to start thinking about next year's garden?

I'm looking for recommendations and opinions on tomatoes and corn. I'm kinda leaning toward the new Whopper Improved from Park and maybe Sugar Buns for my main corn crop. I like the lower profile of the Sugar Buns at 5 ft because it tends to be so windy here that it can lay over my corn. Any other suggestions?

And I do prefer the beefy-type tomatoes but I don't like the real acidy ones. Is there a VFFNT variety out there that is better than this one?



Rusty

 

[obsessed]

Last year I had better boy and big boy from burpee and a pink heirloom (name?). I also hand the million cherries? All but the heirloom was bought at Lowes as transplants because my seed starting was bad. The big boy did best but cracked a bit. the cherries were awesome because there really were a million. It is still producing now.

ETA: the heirloom didn't really do much I got only two from one plant and one from another but thats another story.

 

[obsessed]

I would be interested in recommendations for a short season heat loving tomatoes than can still produce with the heat and humidity of the Coastal South. I say short season because the heat usually stops and flowers and fruit setting making my maters done by early June.

 

[digitS']

. . . and maybe Sugar Buns for my main corn crop. I like the lower profile of the Sugar Buns at 5 ft because it tends to be so windy here that it can lay over my corn. Any other suggestions?

And I do prefer the beefy-type tomatoes but I don't like the real acidy ones. Is there a VFFNT variety out there that is better than this one?



Rusty

I would be interested in recommendations for a short season heat loving tomatoes than can still produce with the heat and humidity of the Coastal South. I say short season because the heat usually stops and flowers and fruit setting making my maters done by early June.

See, that's a little confusing to me -- until a few years ago, I thought it was only people like me that had those kind requirements for short season varieties. Now, I realize that difficult weather may mean that there's only a narrow window of time to grow crops - anywhere!

Rusty, I've considered growing Sugar Buns but corn varieties that I do grow take up quite a bit of room growing, as it is. Sugar Buns is an early, sugar-enhanced yellow corn. Some seed companies call it an se (sugar-enchanced) some call it an eh (everlasting heritage), if I understand the terms. Two things are important to me - the early maturing and that the se's are usually tolerant of cold soil and can germinate. Seed from some corn varieties would rot in the ground at the soil temperatures I have to plant in.

You don't have that problem in Alabama, Rusty, but that "lower profile" would be of help in the wind. Smaller plants are usually quicker to set a crop, also. Succession sow and you should have the earliest and the longest season on the block !!

I'm not too sure about humidity - that just isn't something we have here during the growing season. There are lots of tomato development that have gone on in Florida. I like Indeterminants. It just seems like Determinants ripen about half of the crop and then some disease begins to weaken them before the other half comes off. Legend has been the only Determinant that I've grown that is able to stand up to the problems that doom the others. Here are recommendations from Florida Extension.

I see that my favorite cherry, Sweet Chelsea, made their list. It has lots of that "resistance" that Rusty is looking for. A gardening friend grows Better Boy each and every year - and she grows a lot of them! I've often stood there looking at 'em and wondering if they don't do better than the larger hybrid I grow, Big Beef. I'm staying with BB but I can tell you, BB compares well to BB . . . huh?

A Texas heirloom saladette that can take the sun (we've got plenty of that during the summer ) is Porters. Thessaloniki is another heirloom that can get thru those hot (dry) months but it is just a little later than I'd like it to be for ripening. The last 2 summers have been unusually warm and the growing season has extended several weeks into fall so Thessa has done fine for me. Both of these are real mild, flavorwise.

In fact, that seems somewhat characteristic of early tomatoes. Maybe the plants need those long months to build up flavors in their fruit. An exceptionally early and flavorful heirloom is Bloody Butcher. It is already trying to bloom and set fruit 6 weeks after the seed goes in the soil in the greenhouse. However, when those dark red little guys ripen - zow! They are a big surprise.

Disease-resistance? The heirlooms pretty much don't have it. I understand that they were developed from only a very few tomato seeds taken from South America to Europe by the Conquistadors. More recently, the horticulturists have gone back to South America and gathered more varieties so as to develop modern hybrids with greater resistance to diseases.

Okay, I think I'll stop. Knowing so little about the southern garden experience makes me wonder if my 2 even amounts to that.

Steve

 

[journey11]

Rusty, if you have a county extension agent in your area, that would be a really good place to check for what grows best in your particular area. You have a long season, so I would recommend Brandywines (heirloom variety), but that is just my personal favorite. The extension agency is a WEALTH of knowledge and it is their job to share it with you. Good job, looking ahead to next year. Best of luck!

 

[obsessed]

Steve - I grew one bloody butcher this year. I planted it in Mid- August and it only grew one tomaote. In the tomato defense, it neglected it and I was over it long before it flowered. Maybe I will try again this year.

One thing that I don't like about the sun series or type of tomatos is that they are all hybrids and red. I would like to save some seed which from what I read most are sterile. I have also read that determinate tomatos set a few fruit and then stop. I have a short growing period as far as that it is cut short with the heat but an indeterminate variety should allow me to come back into production once the temps cool a bit in August and September. Like I have some Million cherries that are still flowering now in December! The determinate thing turns me off because I would have to start two plants which I did this season with sucky results. My goal next season is that I can grow some plants then cut them back durring the heat and continue to let them grow and HOPEFULLY they will come back into production. Then their is the red. I want something I can't get at the market! I want to wow my little children into eating veggies. Or that is my goal at least.

 

[Greensage45]

 

[injunjoe]

This was a bad Tomato year!

Joe

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

This was a bad Tomato year!

Joe

Oh, not for me! The plants I started with in March are still blooming even as this cold front and soon-to-be-snow is spelling out certain death for them. Yesterday I finally picked all my tomatoes and ended up with three 5 gallon buckets and five 3 gallon buckets overflowing with various-staged tomatoes.

I just had to baby them a bit thru July and August. But once I figured out my lack of attention was killing them I got that all straightened out right quick!

I would not even begin to pretend to know how to garden in a colder zone than mine. I'm afraid I would be to selfish to live somewhere colder unless I was rich and could have a big fancy-smancy greenhouse

 

[obsessed]

My notes stink! I have gardened in three different climate zones of the last 5 years. I still feel in shock. Like I was mentally done gardening in September but I could still be gardening now. I think I was still Montana gardening in Lousisana this year.