A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 TOMATO

Well, after a winter of store boughts...
having a fresh picked tomato, in my eyes, and really also in my mom's eyes'... they're good.
But I do preferr like the Celebrity, Rutgers,
Beefsteaks, etc. that I also plant..

but they are early, we were eating those kinds, at least 2 or 3 weeks before the other on'es..
so, we can not complain..

And they were very good producers...
and like I said, she gave a whole bunch away to the MOW's people and no one gave them back to her...

Well if nobody gave them back then they can't be all that bad right!

Well, I guess you never know...everyone likes different things, and different tastes...Maybe I'll like these more than any others...You just don't know. Last year we gave a ton of them away too...to anyone that would take them...Mark took them to work, I gave them to neighbors, etc....

Njoynit said that the early girls do well in the summer heat...if they're that early, and produce in the heat, I guess I'll have to grow those, too. Anyone know of any heirlooms that will keep producing at 90 degrees, 100 degrees?

Arkansas Traveler, Costoluto Genovese, Stupice(Very Early) and Homestead 24 are known to be very heat tolerant OP varieties.

John, seems like I read somewhere that Stupice was delicious, is that right? Which of these would YOU recommend?

I have yet to grow AT or CG. I'm a fan of trying as many new varieties as you have room for. There are just so many better tomato varieties than just the common hybrids. I need to give Stupice another try. I grew it last year for the first time. It was not a great year for tomato growing here in CT. spring seemed to last forever and then right into the hot summer temps. The early varieties on my list this year are Kimberly, Taxi, Silvery Fir tree and possibly Siletz if I can find the room.

John, you look familiar, I bet I've seen you on another forum. I grew Stupice last year and really was not overly keen on the flavour. It does produce early so for that we got garden tomatoes in our salads in July and that's never a bad thing, but as soon as any of the others came on strong, the Stupices were relegated to salsa cruda or something with a lot of other spices so the flavour of the tomato wasn't the star attraction.

I also grew Costoluto Genovese last year. This is a big producer and we had a bad patch of humid, droughty weather in the height of the summer which caused a LOT of blossom drop. This tomato kept right on producing and I personally liked the flavour because it harkens back to the Italian tomatoes of my childhood. It also has really pretty pleats and looks a bit like one of those jack be little miniature pumpkins in shape-it's a red tomato, not orange. It's also great for any Italian red tomato salad like caprese or panzanella.

Other tomatoes that did really well in those conditions were Black Plum which cranked them out all season and the plant itself doesn't get overly enormous, just very bushy. All the cherries except for Sungold F1 which succumbed to Early Blight did very well. I'd recommend just about any cherry for hot weather. I just got a whole whack of cherries from a chap down in Texas, so if he's growing them there, they must do ok in heat. I remember growing Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes in Davis, California when I lived there and I had tomatoes coming out my ears until well after American Thanksgiving.

John, you're growing Kimberl(e)y this year as your early...woohoo, so am I and am very excited about it.

Buona fortuna,
Julianna

I am alll giddy over so much tomato BEST!!

And you as well Julianna! Yes, I'm looking forward to it also. CAN'T WAIT to finally start all of these new seeds I've been fanatically collecting. I'm in the process of building a new combination seed starting/potting bench for my basement.

Peppereater/Dave,

You've got mail. I'd love some of your cosmos seeds if you still have some to spare. I'm pretty clueless about most flowers but I have had some success with growing cosmos from a large packet of mixed butterfly garden flower seeds so hopefully that will work again. Mostly I grow flowers thatn I can eat: pansies, nasturtiums, sunflowers.

Regarding isolation distances for tomoto seed-saving. You're right, Dave, I grow a LOT of varieties and I don't isolate them so what I do instead is cover the blossoms with a tule bag, like those sold at wedding favour supply stores. They have a little wee drawstring so you just cover the flower cluster and pull the string carefully against the stem to prevent cross-pollination. Once you see a tiny tomato growing inside the bag, remove it and mark that tomato or cluster with a bright coloured string or ribbon so you can find it later. Save the seeds from several different bagged tomatoes and you'll have yourself some seed that should breed true the following year. Keep in mind this won't work for hybrids so you want to check the package. If it says "F1" that is an indicator that you've got a hybrid. Look for OP or Heirloom on your packaging and save those seeds.

Weezie, you want tomatoes that are like Celebrity or Beefsteak. I've told you what I think of Celebrity, lol. A beefsteak just refers to a large slicing tomato and you've already indicated that you don't like the real huge ones. John's got some extra German Red Strawberry seeds and I think that variety would be an AWESOME one for you to try this year. It's productive for a heart-shaped variety and the fruits are really outstanding.

I have to agree with John, Early Girls are well...just early. They taste like cardboard to me and that's not hybrid snobbery, I really do love Sungold cherry tomatoes and they're a hybrid. I just don't like Early Girls, especially since there are so many other earlies out there that beat EG hands down. Probably the best early we tried last year was Azoychka, a medium yellow, slightly flattened beefsteak from Russia and I'd also have to mention Silvery Fir tree which gets another go in our garden this year for a really lusty, jump in your mouth red.

C'mon Weezie, come on up to Heirloom Heaven..John and I will keep your seat warm ;o)

Cheers,
Julianna

PS more about seed saving as the season progresses. John and I can help you out on that score. It's messy but fun.

Great post Julianna!

Dave...everyone (not me) here in Arkansas swear by the Arkansas Traveler, I tried them one year, but I wasn't crazy about the taste. But our weather here is pretty close to what you get Dave...My Dad lives in Oklahoma and I get a weather report every time we talk, at least weekly, so I know the weather is pretty similar...Hot, dry and humid in summer

Weezie, did you ever plant those heirlooms I sent you a couple years ago? How about the Great White? I had one planted last year and it was sooooooooo sweet tasting.

You scare me with the talk about taking your pruning tool to bed with you. Does your husband know?!

Talking about tomatoes sure has me pumped up but I must restrain myself and not plant my seeds too soon. Been there, done that. I'm shooting for about April 1 here in MN. Too chilly at night until almost Memorial Day. No growth, soil too cold.

Tiller lessons I've learned: it's not good to over till soil- especially soil that has high loam or clay content. The more you till the harder it gets after a rain or watering. I remember my dad, a 60 year farmer, always said that it was bad to plow too deep, work the soil too much, or be in the field when it was wet/damp enough to pack the soil into a ball in your fist. Once, when I first got a garden tractor tiller, I thought it fun to make repeated passes every few days between the sweetcorn rows- even when there were no weeds present. I had 17 rows each 100' long planted side by side. After a soaking rain and a few days of dry weather, those rows were like concrete while the ones I had stayed out of were mellow and unpacked. Most good farmers in our area of high loam seldom use a disc to work ground in the spring . . . it, like a tiller, breaks the ground up too much into small, non-aerated soil. Instead they make one pass with a spring toothed digger/field cultivator (multiple rows of teeth) and then plant.

FWIW

Same here BigBoy. I'll be shooting for the weekend of April 1st also. If I can control myself that is! I'm most likely gonna experiment by starting a Silvery Fir tree, a Kimberly and maybe a Stupice in a couple weeks though to see how early I can get a ripe fruit.

As far as tilling, I do it once a year in the fall to mix in my compost and thats it. Otherwise I'll use a digging fork to turn over soil if I need to. Tilling often just does too much damage to the soil's structure IMO.

Heyyyyyyyy Bigboy
Remember you sent me those seeds, and I planted them, and I got sick, some flu bug, that had me down in bed, like 3 days, and the temps in the greenhouse were like 100+*'s...
And they got fried !!!
I was soooooo sad..
You sent me Great Whites, Purples, a Golden one and one other, which slips my brain as of this typing...

And Limey sent me some from England area too and they got fried also..

I felt sssssssssssssoooooooo bad...
I never took any seeds from anyone again...
**I didn't want to hurt anymore seeds **


I start my seeds for the greenhouse in April...
*I'm waiting for Santa Claus to send me a greenhouse heater **

As it is right now, the temps' get up into the 100's right now, but can't hold night time/over night heat....

Ooooooooh yeah, he knows, he's put his foot down.. he won't let me...
and he says I can't wear my MUCK BOOTS either :p

Aw Weezie-meister, if you were closer to Buffalo, I'd come down and plant tomatoes FOR YOU just in case they croaked, you could then blame ME, lmao.

Hugs,
JuliBean

I have some roma, cherry and grape tomatoes sprouted and I got some brandywine from Obywan that I hope to plant real soon I just need to find a spot. indoor space is definitely at a premium now. Once I start planting outdoors it won't be so bad I guess lol.

I am only about 50 minutes really from Buffalo...

Tammy,
Congrats on the "sprouts"
It's still wayyyyy too early for up here..
Afternoon temps are 100+*'s in the greenhouse,
but below 32*'s at night still!!!

Best tomato I've found is Chianti rose from Reneesgarden.com. Walmart has the Brandy Boy and Jellybean cherry tomatoes - 2 winners

Does it matter if I plant all sorts of tomatoes close together, was wondering about cross pollination?

detectorbill...that's only an issue if you're going to save seed...Is that part of your plan?

Hum so when I save seeds from mine this year they will be just plain tomatoes? I don't have enough space to plant them in different places. Almost wish I did though. But that's ok. Who knows maybe the hybred will be even better next year lol.

does it work the same for the peppers?

Hybrids don't come true from saved seed TK.