Show us your tomatoes!!!!

[HiDelight]

Catalina that is what my heirlooms look like I have a huge pile on my table of all colors shapes and sizes!!! they are beatiful! thank you for sharing

zynski please know I share your pain! omg one of the things that is hard about growing tomatoes in the Pacific NW is we are just not made for them and very very blight prone

I can not tell you how many years I cried when my loaded plants overnight it seemed were covered with the blight ...or I would have maybe three tomatoes on a plant and they were awful ..I swore off tomatoes season after season

here read this it helped me figure things out here

http://gardening.wsu.edu/column/06-16-02.htm

every fall I would say "the Hell with this" and shed tears over my plants ..and every spring I started again ..because I can not resist the call of this wonderful fruit! ..I have had a few good years and done really well with tomatoes considering where I live ...but this year I did it

our failures in the garden give us sadness but they also really make the success' so sweet

my husband took me buy a house where someone had built about an 9 X 12 raised bed in his front yard then built a HUGE cold frame with a door over it just for tomatoes ..I keep looking to see if he/she is out there so we can chat about tomatoes ..but have not seen them yet I want so badly to see how it worked for him ..the plants look good but I can not see if there are tomatoes on them ..they roll up the sides when the sun is shining and it is dry and then roll them down at night and when it is raining ...

I always grow in raised beds and this year I did prune my vines a lot and put a cover the beds with a kind of umbrella of plastic ...I also espalier'd the vining tomatoes ...kept the bottom leaves pruned up and off the soil ...and also when the tomatoes were mature enough and I was sure of what I was getting I cut all the babies off so all the energy went into what was a "sure thing" and not into producing new tomatoes

but who knows about next year ..I do not have control and know it

 

[vfem]

If it makes you guys feel better, I live in the south east... a beautiful place for hot climate fruits and veggies of all kinds!

Somehow I suffered early blight badly, lost several plants.... as well as getting downy mildew losing several more plants to follow. Didn't end up with very good melon, and was done with cukes super early.

It was just a cool year all around the country.

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

I think I may have pulled mine back from the brink of bug/heat destruction with everything putting on blooms again.

OK, I'm seeing all these wonderful pics - what all types did you guys grow?

 

[zynski]

Have any of you had any experience or first hand knowledge of a product called Serenade?

I used it on my tomatoes this year. It was touted by on of the local gardening shows. It did make a difference... I was able to save some of the plants that were not past the point of no return.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

It was just a cool year all around the country.

Maybe most everywhere, but not all around the country. We, in the PNW, had the hottest and driest summer on record. It got the tomatoes rolling early for us. It is the first year I have had enough tomatoes to actually be able to can some.

 

[digitS']

HiDelight, there was a fellow at Oregon State U until recently named James Baggett. He brought us Oregon Sugar Pod snow peas and lots of other things before he retired.

Among the other things is a whole group of tomato varieties, including Oregon Spring, Siletz, and Gold Nugget.

I can't say too much about Gold Nugget altho' I am growing it for the 2nd time this year - amazed at its earliness. Gold Nugget does get blight, however.

One that is resistant to blight is Legend. They are nice big slicers on a small plant. Not real flavorful but I had so many of them last year that I could hardly see any green leaves - just tomatoes connected by short pieces of vine!

Dr. Baggett doesn't guarantee that Legend won't be effected by blight but there was no sign of it on those plants of mine in 'o8. Legend is not a hybrid so, sneakily, I saved some seed. Problem was - they didn't germinate! So, there was no blight-resistant Legend in my garden in 'o9.

It may be a variety that you should try. It's an early one, and that's what folks with so little sun usually need to go for. It doesn't matter if you have 10 frost-free months if the temps range between 52F at night and 53F during the days . . .

And yes, I know it was warmer this year. Warmer here too - 300 miles inland from your garden . . .

Steve

 

[HiDelight]

Thank you Digit! I have to check him out ..I spend a lot of time on birdwatching trips in Oregon ..it is such an amazing state!

how does the gold nugget tomato taste?

that is the most important thing

if you look at that silly blog I made I just piled a todays basket of tomatoes on the table and tried to take a picture

picking tomatoes with a crossed eyed three year old does not mean you get all ripe ones I realized today

it is so easy to add pictures to that blog site I have to say
but I do not think in a blog you are supposed to have one picture per post but who cares

anyway all the tomatoes on the table are wondeful but the yellow ones are very tart and I like that!

 

[HiDelight]

I think our summer here was backwards

 

[journey11]

I hear ya! If tomatoes did not exist...I would have no will to garden! I've been growing tomatoes since I was 13.

I grew Brandywines, Pineapple, and Delicious this year. I grow Brandywines every year--they are my favorite.

Someone mentioned diseased seedlings on the east. Maybe that is why I have heard so many people around here say they couldn't hardly get a tomato this year. And it was very rainy early on and only really warmed up for about 2 weeks in August.

I started my own from seed and ended up planting 30, after giving away all the rest to my family. Mine did great. The chickens have had quite a feast this year. I can't eat or give them away fast enough, canned all I can can, so they get the extras.

My 2 year old daughter eats tomatoes like a chicken...she'll take a couple bites out of one and move on to the next. She loves them too. She can't leave them alone.

Here is a picture of the biggest one i got (Brandywine). Dinner plate for scale.

 

[lesa]

Holy tomato! That is the biggest tomato I have ever seen! That could feed a family of 4!! Enjoy your bountiful harvests!