Show us your tomatoes

[Nyboy]

BLT

 

[digitS']

Very pretty tomatoes, @Duckworth !

Do you know if you had Brandywine OTV? I sometimes take the risk of growing that one. It would probably ripen better in my protected backyard than the open garden. As it is, I go for the cross between Brandywine and Cherokee Purple: Gary O Sena.

Boxcar Willy was one of the first failed experiences testing the heirloom limits of my growing season ...

Oh boy, those pictures are a great inspiration for next year!

Steve
who has real problems not commenting on tomato threads

 

[catjac1975]

Cat, do you think the Russian Beauty is sweeter or better than Sungold? I don't find Sungold to be all that sweet or super productive. I've grown Sungold for years but I think it's time for a change. Trying to find one that is sweeter or more productive. That's why I'm interested in trying yours.

Mary

The Russian beauties are the sweetest ones. I do think your own soil might change a tomatoes sweetness. Another one as sweet as many is Burpee's Sunpeach.

 

[catjac1975]

Sorry I forgot the name but I just had to show you its' beauty.

 

[digitS']

!

@catjac1975 ,

do you think that it might be a Costoluto Genovese?

Steve

 

[Duckworth]

Very pretty tomatoes, @Duckworth !

Do you know if you had Brandywine OTV? I sometimes take the risk of growing that one. It would probably ripen better in my protected backyard than the open garden. As it is, I go for the cross between Brandywine and Cherokee Purple: Gary O Sena.

Boxcar Willy was one of the first failed experiences testing the heirloom limits of my growing season ...

Oh boy, those pictures are a great inspiration for next year!

Steve
who has real problems not commenting on tomato threads

I don't know whether what I planted was OTV. I got them from a local non-big-chain nursery as starts. One pink, one red. I got a huge amount of foliage from the pink. The red went in late and with a cage instead of the tall trellis the rest had. It sprawled everywhere and gave some fruit. I wouldn't say either of them produced heavily.

This was my first year growing on a tall tressising system. My beds are two 6 by 4 foot raised beds, set end-to-end for a 12 by 4 foot bed. (These were the lengths the cedar fence slats we used came in.) There is a main path about 40 inches wide down the middle of my garden, running east to west. On either side of the path, the 12 by 4 foot beds are set perpendicular to the main path, with the long sides running north and south and two feet between each of the six rows. This leaves about 30 inches between the north ends of the beds and the house and about 15 inches between the south ends of the beds and the fence. There is a large oak in the front yard to the west, which starts shading the garden by about 3:00 p.m. during the summer, with the shadow extending further and further east as the afternoon progresses. So my garden gets at least eight to nine hours of full sun each day and most of it gets more. It stays light until dusk around 9:30 p.m.

On the north side of the main path, most of the beds have been set up with a WW fence stake at each end, about eight inches in from the long side. An 11-1/2 foot length of remesh is hung from the fence stakes with heavy zip ties, with the bottom about 8 inches from soil level on each long side of the bed. Another length of remesh is zip tied on top, forming a square archway. The remesh is wider than the beds, so the "roof" overhangs the paths between the beds and I bend it upwards so that, in combination with its neighboring trellis, it forms something of an archway over the path between the beds. The soaker hoses for my watering system run on the ground, right under the bottom of the trellises and I plant my tomatoes, squash, melons, or pole beans alternately on either side of the trellis.

In the case of tomatoes, I tie long lengths of garden twine to the bottom of the trellis next to each plant, then, as they grow, zigzag the twine across the plant to keep it supported by the trellis until it grows up onto the roof of the arch. After that, it's not going anywhere. I didn't single-stem this year, but I did prune most suckers, so there was a lot less foliage than had I not pruned. Once the vines got to the top of the trellis, they were mostly out of reach for my petite stature. I also pruned heavily for late season blight, which was helped along by several weeks of frequent heavy rains late in the season.

The vines got so heavy that one trellis leaned and I cargo-strapped it to the fence to keep it upright. I will be building sturdier supports for the remesh next season. I also will not be planting pole beans on the same trellises as the tomatoes. It was just too much plant load in too small a space. Everything did really well, but access for harvesting got quite challenging by the end of the season.

The Brandywines and the Yellow Pears are the only things I would hesitate to plant again, mostly because they got very large, but gave less fruit than most. In the case of the Yellow Pears, they went everywhere and didn't taste as good as the ones we grew in Arizona. The Black Prince were very tasty and sweet, though not as prolific, possibly because of the Yellow Pears next to it. I will plant more BP next year. Overall, we get good-tasting veggies from our soil and our peppers are very hot compared to the grocery store.

 

[Farmer Connie]

 

[Farmer Connie]

Plumb tom sauce..

 

[Duckworth]

Plumb tom sauce..
View attachment 23187 View attachment 23186 View attachment 23182 View attachment 23183 View attachment 23184 View attachment 23185

Okay, now I'm seriously hungry!

 

[catjac1975]

!

@catjac1975 ,

do you think that it might be a Costoluto Genovese?

Steve

It looks like CG but, I think it had another name. I save the seed packets. I keep meaning to look for it.