Tomatoes- Heirloom (or Not) for Southern IN zone 5

[hiker125]

I have been raised bed gardening for 4 seasons now and am pretty frustrated with the whole tomato growing process. I have tried only heirlooms and have had limited success. My goals for tomatoes were to:

1) excellent slicing tomatoes- 1 plant or so

2) canning tomatoes for a variety of uses- salsa, sauce, diced,etc.

Any suggestions? I have tried Cherokee purple (did TERRIBLE), Black Krim (so-so, I have to pick them a bit before they are ripe so they don't rot, but have amazing taste. Also VERY PRODUCTIVE). I also have grown Amish Paste and Oplaka for sauce-type tomatoes. Amish did better than Opalka, but neither one blew me away.

I would like to try Paul Robeson for my slicer for next year- does anyone have experience with that one? Any other suggestions for my zone?

 

[curly_kate]

What kind of problems are you having? Productivity? Disease? Cracking? I've always had issues with them cracking, but it doesn't really bother me if they're ugly. Ive found kelloggs breakfast, pineapple, prudens purple and Roma's to be reliable varieties

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

We like the Red Brandywine heirloom tomatoes, but in SE Washington zone 6-7, they took about 100 days from transplant. Our soil is quite alkaline. The plants were ENORMOUS, easily over 10 feet tall if we'd staked for that height. The tomatoes were nice big slicers that also made a decent sauce. Since they took about 2 weeks longer that I expected them to, I had to bring in green tomatoes. After ignoring them as they sat on a counter for a few weeks, they were ripe and tasty!

 

[digitS']

We have Indiana gardeners who are likely to be of more help than I am, Hiker, but I have a hard time staying out of a discussion about tomatoes .

One joy that heirloom tomatoes bring to the table is that there is always another one to try. Next year, I hope to give a Brandywine type a try. Brandywine OTV is a red but derived from Yellow Brandywine. It has been grown at much higher altitudes than my garden and, altho' that was in SW Colorado, it just might be a similar performer for me .

My garden isn't in Southern IN but I've been growing tomatoes since the 1960's. When Big Beef came out about 1990, I ignored it for a few years and then took the bait. There is a lot of hype in the catalogs about this hybrid but most of them have been true in my garden. Even tho' there are over 20 varieties in the tomato patch, the highest number of plants are Big Beef. And as usual, plant-for-plant, they are the most productive.

I am a little disappointed in the heirloom beefsteaks in my garden this year. Cracking is the problem with the fruit but there isn't all that many tomatoes on those larger heirlooms. There are exceptions. I am delighted with Casey's Pure Yellow and Dagma's Perfection did real well for me last year and it looks like it will pull thru for me again! And, the smaller heirlooms are doing fine .

It could be that one of the more modern hybrids is the one for you. The heirlooms are a great big candy store of temptation .

Steve

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Hello hiker125. I'm a fellow Hoosier from S.E. Indiana and for the past few years I have grown only heirloom tomatoes. This year I started my plants indoors in early March and they progressed very well. Something that growers must realize is that heirloom plants of any kind have not been as intensely bred and genetically selected as much as the hybrid plants have. Therefore some of the harvest may not look like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. There are two primary reasons a gardener would grow heirlooms instead of hybrids: 1. Ability to harvest seeds and propagate a true generic strain of plant. Although you can harvest and grow hybrid seeds, you never know what you'll end up with in the years to follow - 2. Taste.

This year I have planted only 4 kinds of heirloom tomatoes. I'll rate them on a 1 to 10 scale as follows.
Brandywine, Red 8 - Large juicy fruit, sometimes strange shapes, great taste, prone to blossom end rot, slightly pink.
German Johnson 8 - Large juicy fruit, nice round shapes, great taste, prone to blossom end rot, bright red.
Mortgage Lifter 9 - Large juicy fruit, sometimes strange shapes, great taste, prone to blossom end rot, dark red.
Black Krim 3 - Medium to small juicy fruit, great taste, blossom end rot, cracks in skin, very dark red on the bottom and dark green on top.

I do not grow sauce type tomatoes nor do I grow the small ones. Next year I'm going to try some sauce tomatoes instead of the Black Krim.

Gotta go . . . more later.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

OK I'm back home.

We're all alike in the fact that we like to see beautiful veggies on our table. So the seed companies and grower's laboratories have refined their hybrid plants to product the biggest, roundest, smoothest, redest (or yellowest) tomatoes anywhere. Another thing that they have done is to promote plant qualities such as drought hardyness and disease resistance. They have even reduced blossom end rot and reduced the amount of acid in their tomatoes. All of these refinements are wonderful and result in a very rewarding gardening experience. Actually the only drawback to hybrids, in my opinion, is that the next generation (from our home seed harvests) of plants do not always carry the good features of their predecessors. Some folks say the heirlooms taste better but I have not found much difference. Anything tastes better than hot-house tomatoes. Even cardboard.

Heirloom plants have been around for centuries. We just added the name "heirloom" in the last few years. Heirloom simply means "not hybrid" and the seeds typically have been handed down through the years from gardener to gardener. Many of our heirloom seeds are descendants of the seeds used by the Romans, the Druids, Mieng Dynasty, Native Americans, and of course our forefathers.

Seed companies have started to market heirloom seeds because of the recent interest among home gardeners and they could hear the jingle of money at the cash registers.

Here are some pix of selections from this morning's harvest.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Hiker125, there is another heirloom discussion going on now at I guess I don't really understand heirloom tomatoes . . ?

 

[hiker125]

I should have clarified my frustrations with my heirloom tomatoes- The Opalka's have end rot like no tomorrow and the Black Krims crack something terrible. I still eat them all but just wondered if I was doing something wrong.

Am I just growing the wrong 'maters for my zone?

Is this just normal for heirlooms?

Is it my inexperience?

Smiles- Your tomatoes look yummy.

 

[897tgigvib]

Big Rainbow is a good all around bicolor beefsteak type Tomato. Seems to be tolerant of conditions., acro

I'm seeing several posters mentioning blossom end rot. I haven't had any of that for years now. Yes, some varieties get it easier than others. Cosmonaut Volkov, an extremely flavorful tomato, tends to get it worse than most others.

BER the acronym for it, is not an actual disease. It is a symptom that appears because water had not gotten all the way to the blossom end of the tomato fruit early in its development.

That happens often because the vascular system in the plant did not properly develop. Several things cause this, most of which can be fixed, at least usually, and then prevented in future plantings. One thing that causes poor vascular development is Calcium deficiency.

With the NPK fertilizer system, nutrients are given a general hierarchy of importance. Nitrogen is generally most important, followed by Phosphorus, and then Potassium. The usual next most important nutrient is Calcium. Each species is however different in its needs. Tomatoes are a bit unusual. Calcium is actually more important than Potassium. Yes the potassium is important too, but in most soils, is not the big wory.

To add a bit of complexity, too much Nitrogen can make a Tomato plant need more Calcium, and Calcium can add to the soil's alkalinity level. If the soil is already borderline over alkaline, it may be difficult to add Calcium.

So in the situation like that, other ways to avoid BER must be used.
BER resistant varieties.
Careful, daily watering.
Planted in very good draining soil.
~adding so much compost may reduce the alkalinity so you can add the right kind of Calcium

The best Calcium to add is homemade. Take some eggshells and ash them, preferably outside because it stinks. Mix the eggshell ash to the composty soil before you transplant your tomato plants outside.

Other good sources of Calcium are Bone Meal and well crushed eggshells that are at least partially composted.

Avoiding BER is a balancing act.
~The right variety
~Careful with the Nitrogen
~Moderate soil ph
~Ensure the soil has Calcium in it.
~Plenty of compost if alkaline soil
~Careful you don't skip water days. Don't let the plant wilt very much from water need.

These are also the conditions that give healthy Tomato plants, and is also good to remember for Melon crops.

 

[hiker125]

Marshall- Thank you so very much for the lesson. You are an amazing teacher!

Since 4 of my 6 Oplakas have BER, I wonder if it was the watering? We have had a terrible drought in IN, although not as bad down south as the rest of the state. I tried to water deeply 2x week, should I have watered daily? Was that watering schedule also what may have caused the cracking on the Black Krims?

I garden in raised beds that contain a mixture of compost (composted horse and chicken manure (homemade)), peat moss and vermiculite. Maybe it needs some calcium?

How exactly do you ash the eggshells?

Thank you again for taking time to post such an excellent lesson on tomatoes. I truly appreciate it.