Tomatoes for the Garden!

Thanks Steve, I've tried two that are usually recommended, Stupice and Siletz. I was not impressed with either of them. The Siletz gave me only a couple tomatoes. I must admit they were beautiful!, perfect shape and color. Sort of like the ones Jackb grows! :lol:

I will try bloody butcher which is supposed to do well here. Most of the ones for cooler weather tend to be the smaller cherry types which I don't like. I guess I have an excuse to try others to see how they do. :)

Mary
 
Amish Paste
Riesentraube (this packet was a free gift from Baker and they are doing great)
Creole
Mortgage Lifter bi-Colored
Big Beef
Arkansas Traveler
 
I am not sure of the number yet because I haven't transplanted the seeds yet.

Amish Paste (not doing well)
Thessaloniki *
Black Krim *
Caspian Pink *
Koralik *
Super Italian Paste

* new to me

My Amish Paste are not sprouting well. They came up just the seeds are attached and the four that did come up ok look small and weak. I started the Super Italian paste to try to make up for the disappointing AP's.

I am still kicking around if I want to plant some mountain princess or marglobes just because. I have the seed and it is already two years old so I really need to use them up.
 
I only did 17 varieties this year, I can't remember all of them right now.

Gold Medal
Striped Roman
Jersey Giant
Costoluto Genovese
Ananas Noir
Tess' Landrace Currant
Plum Yellow
Great White???
Mortgage Lifter
Pink Caspian
.....
 
Going back to an old favorite this year which I find in nurseries, the cherry Sweet Million. Always had great success with them, tasty right off the vine, and one year, I had them in pots and brought 2 indoors and was still eating them at Christmas!

Tumbling tom red and yellow, works great in pots and tasty, too
Park's Whopper Improved (tried it a long time ago, can't remember how well it did)
Martinos Roma an heirloom I've never tried before
Costoluto Genovese never heard of it thought I'd try it
Big Rainbow

Those are the ones I'm growing from seed. I need another large tom or two, I may try early Girl or Celebrity again though I've never had much luck with either. But the "usual suspects" are easily obtainable in pots around here.

I'm open for suggestions though. :)
 
I have eaten a Costoluto Genovese . . . it was very good! (Should have dribbled some pulp and gone home to scrape the seeds off my shirt :P.

No, there are some that I really don't think I can grow. The 80 days-to-maturity is a bridge too far. Late 70's will usually not ripen until the last minute! I feel safer with 70-and-under varieties. And, I've learned that these aren't real days - they are ideal days. A 70-day variety may very well ripen fruit 3 weeks before a 78-day tomato! Late season warmth just isn't there - even if frost doesn't actually occur. Everything slows down during the final weeks of the growing season, more often than not.

I have become somewhat convinced that a very early-maturing Mediterranean heirloom should work well for me. This isn't based on a whole lot of experience - altho' I'm thinking I should be doing some direct research ;)! It is also part of my belief that I am privileged to garden where the summer weather is somewhat like areas near the Mediterranean :). Hey! Gardening is about hope and fantasy, right?!

Steve :cool:
 
digitS' said:
I have eaten a Costoluto Genovese . . . it was very good! (Should have dribbled some pulp and gone home to scrape the seeds off my shirt :P.

No, there are some that I really don't think I can grow. The 80 days-to-maturity is a bridge too far. Late 70's will usually not ripen until the last minute! I feel safer with 70-and-under varieties. And, I've learned that these aren't real days - they are ideal days. A 70-day variety may very well ripen fruit 3 weeks before a 78-day tomato! Late season warmth just isn't there - even if frost doesn't actually occur. Everything slows down during the final weeks of the growing season, more often than not.

I have become somewhat convinced that a very early-maturing Mediterranean heirloom should work well for me. This isn't based on a whole lot of experience - altho' I'm thinking I should be doing some direct research ;)! It is also part of my belief that I am privileged to garden where the summer weather is somewhat like areas near the Mediterranean :). Hey! Gardening is about hope and fantasy, right?!

Steve :cool:
Click to expand...
I'd love to visit the Mediterranean, not going to happen though.

I've tried going by the days to transplant number before and it seems to be hit or miss, Whopper is 65 so I'm hoping that will help, it's a 4" tomato though assuming it can reach that up here. I'll be happy with something big enough to slice for a BLT.

Maybe I'll just leave the walls of water around the Costoluto, it depends on the summer heat. Two years ago was overly cool, last summer, once the overly long spring rains abated was way hotter than normal. Just can't tell lately what we're going to have. If it tastes that good I hope I can get a few to ripen.

Big Rainbow is probably a mistake at 90 days but it looks so pretty! I've got a couple huge pots in front of the south side of my house, Maybe I'll put them in those, that way the reflected heat may help.

Martinos Roma is 75 days so that should be okay, I'm hoping it's more reliable than Roma II which is all they sell as plants around here for a paste.

Forgot to mention the freebie I'm getting from Park:Container Choice Hybrid 69 days and it's determinate. I should make a note whether a determinate large tomato works better than an indeterminate one. Doesn't seem to matter with cherries. (don't even know whether any I've grown in the past ARE determinate).

So, fingers crossed and I'd like to get Big Rainbow planted soon if my Park order ever gets here.
 
I used to think that I hated determinates. Gold Nugget cherries were the final straw!

It wasn't that Gold Nugget was a bad cherry tomato. It was that they disappointed me :rolleyes:. The problem was, I was wrong in what I was expecting from them . . .

Determinates are supposed to ripen all about the same time. So, what happens to the plant after the fruit has ripened -- nuthin'. With Gold Nugget I had like this 55-day tomato, covered with ripe cherries, a couple of weeks before anything else in my tomato patch! I was delighted :D !! Then, after this rush of production the plants just sat there . . . . .

It wasn't really critical that I have this wonderfully early cherry tomato. It isn't like this is the "North Slope" or something! Heck, I wonder if I couldn't just plant Gold Nugget seeds in the garden and get a crop before frost ;). There really is no other variety that can do that for me and any volunteers that are saved have proven that to me over & over.

I can grow Sungold/SunSugar and have dribs & drabs of cherries early - goes on for weeks. After awhile, they will begin to kick out a larger number and then the season comes to an end. They kind of fit my needs better.

A slicing tomato that I grew a couple of seasons was the determinate, Legend. It did real well for me. I could hardly believe the number of fruits on each compact, little plant :cool:! It seemed to have more fruit than leaves! Probably ALL of them ripened - Legend just seemed to perfectly match my growing season. I suppose that is the value of determinates - all of the tomatoes, when you want them. Of course, if they all come too late, there is little value. Too early just meant that I didn't enjoy looking at the tired, old plants just sitting there for the remaining 6 weeks of the growing season. I guess I should have just pulled them up and thrown them away . . . :/

Reflected heat should really help. Kellogg's Breakfast is in my garden again this year. It is usually listed as a 78 or 80 days-to-maturity and surprised me with doing okay, last year. I can say that the last 80-day tomato that I grew before KB was Box Car Willy. I got 1 ripe fruit off each plant! Once grew a determinate that was supposed to be a 75-day tomato: Health Kick. By the night of the expected frost, it had not ripened 1 fruit :(! Covered with green fruit - I didn't pick any, just turned and walked away . . .

Steve
 
I am pretty sure I picked up a 4 pack of Sungold last year and I liked them. Hopefully, the nursery will have them again. I think I might get an Early Girl. Been years since I tried them. Used to keep a notebook of stuff I planted but it fell out of use, fell apart and disappeared. Yup, just looked, it's not in the bookcase where I used to keep it. Some sort of software would be nice to try, especially if it's free but I haven't come across one, haven't looked in a while though and Office spreadsheet just doesn't cut it either.

Legend sounds interesting, I've never heard of it, I'll have to google though I am not buying any more seeds online. I do have a budget.
 
This year We are going to grow,
Early girl,
Sweet baby (cherry)
& Rutgers

Last year we grew Rutgers as our main crop and only a few EGs, this year we will do the opposite. The Rutgers were slow to get growing but were pretty loaded by the first frost. We had to pick them all green and put them in the basement for a few weeks to ripen. The EGs & sweet babies produced great for month and a half before frost, thats why we are using them again.
I just need to learn how to prune the Early girls so they dont go wild like last year.
 
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