Tomato growers?

[foescan]

This year I'm again running all heirloom strains, except for some Roma that are hybrids. Everyone should grow Roma, try cutting them in half and roasting on a charcoal grill, or even in the oven. So many uses or can be frozen for the Winter once roasted.

Black Krim
Brandywine
Pink Brandywine
Jubilee
Yellow and Red Pear
Green Zebra
Sweetie (Also not heirloom IIRC)
Assorted Tomatillo varieties, including ground cherries

Black Krim is great! After growing Cherokee Purple as my mainstay for years, I'm switching to Black Krim based on last Summer's fruit. She will be representing my garden in local restaurants. Earlier and heavier producer. Not as pretty fruit as CP but the flavor is equal, possibly better.

Last Summer was pretty awful harvest-wise. High temps and little rain. But this will be a good year!

 

[woolybear]

I just bought my first tomato plant, a nice healthy supersteak tomato. Will read this thread, was just going to give it my jack's pro hydro veg nutes, or I guess I can use my 1-3-2 bloom booster as it's been vegging for a while at the store!

 

[hubcap]

well, my once slow growing black cherry tomato plants are now 6 feet tall. guess its safe to say they take a little time to get situated, then BAM....theyre off. SO excited.

ill grab some pics once i remember to bring the cam home from work, but, everything is doing pretty well.

cherokee purples dont seem to be big yielders, but the plants are big and healthy. cant wait to try these, either.

[cool photo, BadTicket]

-cap

 

[beanja]

Here are my tomatoe plants . Sweet 100 and sweet million cherry tomatoes and Scotia for regular variety. Have some in greenhouse and a row in my outdoor garden .
Plants are all organically fed in a soil mix i made myself.
Mixture consists of Veg bat guano, Flower bat guano, worm castings, kelp meal , bone and blood meal.
Some plants in greenhouse I have just used aged chicken manure mixed in to peat moss . Everything seems healthy just need some tomatoes to start growin.

 

[LesterBangs]

This year i am growing: Black russian, san marzano 3, black cherries, sweet 1oo f1 and brandywine!

gonna be a good year! I give them cowshit, treeash and eggshell powder as starter food, then i go over to a mixture of nettle tea and liquid organic fertilizer!

 

[Smoke Buddy]

Some really nice lineups you all have...
This year Im growing:
Sweet 100
SunGold cherry
Parks Whopper
Big Beef
Bulls Heart
Black Zebra
Early Girl

Best wishes for all your gardens!

 

[bonecarver_OG]

im growing local spanish varieties. very productive. the one i like the most is "tomate gordo" meaning fat tomato. very big, juice and tasty, and very very vigorous and productive. mines are way over 2m tall allready and give many kilos a week per plant.

i stopped growing cherry tomatoes since they grow too fast and produce 1000's of cherrytomatoes wich leads to exhausting harvest sessions each day. normally 1-2 hours a day for 4 bushes occupying 2x3m. in the end the fatter tomato varieties are much faster to harvest, and give same weigth or more per m2.

i use profesional mineral plant nutrients, same as they use here in the greenhouses and organic soil mix. honestly dont need to use a lot of mineral nutrients, since the organic mix is compost of chicken and rabbit manure mixed with used coco from my indoor projects. the manure i use is several years old and very well composted and makes an excellent soil alternative. all this in combination with the mineral clay soil and sun typical for south spain gives incredible results.

i allways end up giving away tomatoes to all relatives and friends.

peace all!

 

[Claude Hopper]

Bonecarver,

Spanish tomatoes sound good! American tomato varieties are bred for shipping and handling characteristics and good looks. Taste is often lacking.

When I had a market garden I would raise nearly a quarter acre of trellised tomatoes. I ordered Italian and French seeds. I would have tried Spanish varieties had any of the catalogs I used carried them.

My large tomatoes are a ways off yet, but I should have cherries this week.

(Continued) Good luck with your garden!

 

[Claude Hopper]

Smoke Buddy,

Sun Gold
Big Beef

That Sungold is incredibly sweet. Big Beef is great, not huge tomatoes but big on flavor, uniform size and healthy vines. Lots of people pass it by at market until they taste it because it never gets as dark red as some varieties. Its so tasty you can eat it when it just starts turning pink. I planted hundreds of row feet of these every year. A great variety originally from Italian breeders.

 

[Smoke Buddy]

Smoke Buddy,




That Sungold is incredibly sweet. Big Beef is great, not huge tomatoes but big on flavor, uniform size and healthy vines. Lots of people pass it by at market until they taste it because it never gets as dark red as some varieties. Its so tasty you can eat it when it just starts turning pink. I planted hundreds of row feet of these every year. A great variety originally from Italian breeders.

Hi Claude,

I had no idea that big beef was an Italian strain... though I am not surprised. We have been growing it for years and I whole heartedly agree with you on its quality! What a great tasting tomato. My grandfather has a market farm and big beef is his main tomato strain and has been for at least a decade I believe. He supplies restaraunts and the local old folks homes. They cant get enough... Sungold is new to me this year but I heard it was a good one. I agree with you that store bought American tomatoes are not tasty... homegrown are always excellent.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

Bonecarver,

Spanish tomatoes sound good! American tomato varieties are bred for shipping and handling characteristics and good looks. Taste is often lacking.

When I had a market garden I would raise nearly a quarter acre of trellised tomatoes. I ordered Italian and French seeds. I would have tried Spanish varieties had any of the catalogs I used carried them.

My large tomatoes are a ways off yet, but I should have cherries this week.

(Continued) Good luck with your garden!

tomatoes in general are very tasty here, atleast the ones for the local market. its almost allways locally produced to reduce shipping costs and also this gives fully mature tomatoes to buy. before i moved here i had no idea what a mature tomato was. most of europe eats inmature shop tomatoes.

spain grows for the european and world market, but those go directly for export. those varieties should be like any export tomato (not so tasty).. (well atleast compard to home garden produce)

i think most of the varieties that go well down here in the heat might not like that much colder climate.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

Hi Claude,

I had no idea that big beef was an Italian strain... though I am not surprised.

most old heirloom tomatoes and peppers available in US are of european origin, and some brought over by the mediteranean, hungarian and russian imigrants.

in the first place it was the spaniards who brought it and introduced it to the world.

"After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean. They also took it to the Philippines, from where it spread to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian continent. The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It grew easily in Mediterranean climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s. It was probably eaten shortly after it was introduced, and was certainly being used as food by the early 17th century in Spain. The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources.[3]:17 In certain areas of Italy, such as Florence, however, the fruit was used solely as a tabletop decoration before it was incorporated into the local cuisine in the late 17th or early 18th century."

i think the variety that is called "gordo" i grow here is a kind of beef tomato for sure.

Bonecarver,

Spanish tomatoes sound good!

some info on some varieties. very good article.

http://www.foodsfromspain.com/icex/.../0,9459,35868_6908150_6917901_4482451,00.html

 

[RollmeoneKenobi]

Sweet 100's rock.

 

[DaPurps]

I have 8 plants and they are taller then me already.

 

[vanilla moon]

just picked up a Cherokee Purple (heirloom) at the farmers market im super excited about... never cloned tomatoes before, you're supposed to clone the suckers correct?

 

[mlmkvr]

yeah, I've got a sweet 100 too. I found they split easily from the rain, gotta pick them if you know it's gonna rain or at least right after.

And a currant tomato, that one's actually growing better than the sweet 100 right now.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

vanilla moon - tomato clones so easy its a joke. just take any branch or tip and stick it in the soil. in a week it will be growing.

i allways do that to prolong the season a bit. in strong sun light i cover the clone with shade cloth.

i never heard of currant tomato?!

 

[supermanlives]

i plant my cherries in stages so as each plant fades another is ready to go. i clone tomatos in water in my window sill then put in soil

 

[DaPurps]

I took everything I had learned on this forum and applied it outdoors for my tomatoes. This was my first year trying tomatoes and mine are the biggest in the area that i've seen.

I started the season out and caged my plants. It only took a few weeks before they out grew the cages and I then staked them with 7foot bamboo stakes (about a foot of them are underground). Well the plants are now to the point they are a foot above the stakes and I have no clue how to stop them from toppling over at some point.

Next year I will be better prepared, I had no clue they got this big. I dug out an area 8x8feet square, 3feet deep and made my own soil. I started them in mid April thinking they would get nuked by a frost but I'll be damned if we never got one.

 

[Cmobile69]

I have three Brandywine plants in one 3 gal. Smartpot, I am about a week away from first one harvest. I have to water twice a day about a gallon or more and I have a saucer underneath to allow the bottom of the pot to sit in the run-off. This is fun I didn't think that it would be this successful! Fox farm trio for nutes.