Tomatoes and Texas

[SweetMissDaisy]

Hi All!
Last year the only tomato I had much luck with were Juliet's. Not even the yellow pear plants produced much to speak of, and I've never had issues growing yellow pears!

Anyone growing tomatoes in Texas having any luck w/ anything heirloom? I would love to grow an heirloom variety this year, but don't want to set myself up for disappointment if they're known to not do well here...

I love homegrown tomatoes and am having a very hard time accepting the idea of only having Juliet's in the garden this year...

 

[thistlebloom]

It seems as though last years tomato crop sucked for a lot of folks all over!
(I don't want to hear from any of you who had bumper crops! pout...)
I know my crop was a little underwhelming. I picked 2, count 'em,
two ripe tomatoes. I didn't exactly rush right in and can them.
Well my cherries did produce slightly better than that, but only very slightly.

For me it was a combination of a looong cool spring and summer nights that mostly stayed in the 40's. I did use a frost blanket finally, but it was too little too late.
And oh yeah, I'm not in Texas and can't recommend an heirloom for you, I just mostly saw an opportunity to whine!

 

[digitS']

Well, I'm not in Texas either but I can let Texas A&M recommend one:

Porter (information at Tomatofest.)

TAMU says, "Porter tomato has small fruit and does well in East Texas; it can be grown in containers." It is has plum-shape and -size fruit. Perhaps it would be okay in containers but the plant is smallish, not really little.

Porter has done well in my garden!

Steve

 

[baymule]

Last summer was a scorcher-hot and dry. And did I mention HOT?? My tomatoes did great. I planted Ponderosa Pinks from www.rareseeds.com and also Black Cherry tomatoes-YUM!! I compost heavily, dig deeply, (with a shovel-small beds) :tools and cover the dirt with opened paper feed sacks. I cut a hole in the paper to plant my veggies in. The paper holds in moisture and keeps weeds down. Newspapers also work well, I weight the papers down with bricks.

I just planted 18 Jersey Giant tomatoes and 9 of the Black Cherry tomatoes, both from rareseeds.com. Because I can't use all the plants from the seed packages, I give the extra plants to friends. This past winter, my husband and I put up a PVC redneck greenhouse, covered it with plastic and put a small electric heater in it. We had fresh tomatoes all winter.

The down side to mulching with feedsacks or newspapers is it provides hiding places for bugs. Go catch some frogs and lizards and turn 'em loose in your garden :rainbow-sun

 

[ninnymary]

I have a hard time growing heirlooms also. The first year I stopped growing early girls (which always did great for me) and switched to heirlooms. DON'T make that mistake! As you guessed, I didn't get many tomatoes. I now plant both to ensure that I get a good crop.

My advise, stick to the tried and true and try different heirlooms to find some that will do well in your area. Even if they don't do well, it's always fun to try a different one next year.

Mayr

 

[jktrahan]

I did ok last year, but not as good as years past, It was dry... I normaly grow Better Boy and Celebraty varieties. This year I'm trying some Beef Steak and Celest hearlooms and they seem to be doing very good and starting to flower.

 

[riverman]

I live in Central Texas(around San Marcos/Austin area) and last year I had TONS of Cherry's, Roma's, and Early Girls. As for heirlooms I had 1 Arkansas Traveler and it gave me a decent amount and I really liked the size and meat-to-juice ratio so this year I went all out and planted all Arkansas Travelers and Cherries except for my 1 Cherokee Purple.

Early Girls do real well in my area for big juicy mators. I've already got some blooms on a 2 foot tall Arkansas Traveler (Man I love Texas weather!) so I'm gonna let them go and see if I can get a couple early ones. I'll let ya know how they do overall!

Good luck!

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

**ENVIOUS!**

 

[baymule]

I have 1 tomato plant from last August that is still going. The rest of them died, they were in a red neck greenhouse all winter and they ran their natural life course. But this one put on new growth and is covered with green tomatoes and blooms. I bought them at the hardware store and we had tomatoes all winter from them. We'll see how long this one keeps bearing.