nice jay. i am starting to get them too from the hoophouse. there is a seller at our market that has had them for a couple of weeks now. he grows jet setter(?..jet something)in a greenhouse.
what are you getting for them?

I am getting $3.00 a pound. I am the only one who has locally grown tomatoes at my markets. There is one other person who has tomatoes, but his are coming from his wood heated greenhouse. He is almost done and has been charging $3.50 a pound.

Last year, I started at $3.00 also, but there were lots of reluctant customers, so I slowly went to $2.75 and then to $2.50 and stayed there all summer long.

A few funnies from Market today.
Customer "Oh, tomatoes, did you grow them yourself?"

Me, "Yes I did, I only sell what I grow"

Customer " I have some tomatoes growing at home too, I think I will pass, I bet mine at home are ready, if yours are"

Me, (Rolling from laughter inside) "Really, when did you plant them?

Customer- "Oh, around May 15th, when did you plant yours?"

Me, "March 20th, then again two weeks later."

Customer, " Wow, that is early. They take that long to grow?"

Me, "Yes, most varieties are from 55-80 days to maturity"

Customer, "Wow, I didn't know that I thought they just started to produce in July"

Some people are just totally clueless!

Jay

LOL! That is a very true story! I see a lot of customers who stare longingly at your produce but say they have a garden and they will eat from it. They obviously made this resolve to grow a garden and not buy produce and how wonderful that will be! Then they don't learn how to grow a garden and nothing produces but they don't want to buy anything.
Like if I bought fabric but couldn't sew a dress myself. Then looked at clothes I wanted but didn't buy because I planned to sow my own.

Anyway Jay how many plants do you have? I had like 75 in 2009 and hundreds of pounds of tomatoes that season. In 2010 we had disease issues so my 80-90 tomatoes really struggled. This year I have 108 including 4 in pots and they aren't ready to produce yet but look great. This is the first year I am not pruning but letting them be. And no stupid supplements in the holes- just compost and some fish emulsion in the beginning. I have over 60 varieties of heirlooms and Sungold.

Minnie, if you have 108 plants and 60 varieties, does that mean you only have 1-2 of each? I usually try to plant at least 12-24 of each variety, but not as many varieties.

Jay, next year, we may try some toms in the greenhouse, just mainly for fun and to prove that we can do it. Along with green beans and potatoes.

Marla

Nice Jay! I was hoping for a sizable harvest by now, but I think I am a week away. How have the rest of your sales been?

Dont work to hard in the heat :)

Minnie- How many tomatoes plants do I have? Well in the big high tunnel, I have 200 big tomatoes, 40 hanging baskets of cherry tomatoes and 35, 2 gallon pots of cherry tomatoes. In another building I have 56 more cherry tomatoes. I planted outside another 52 determinate tomatoes for the end of August/early September and I am going to be planting another 75-80 determinates in one of my movable buildings (hopefully by July 4th) This last planting will take me up to Thanksgiving, I hope. I am planning on adding some heat, if needed, to get me this far. I also am planning on adding lots of row cover and extra layers to see how late we can go. Once they finally freeze, I will move that building over the carrots that I will plant in early August.

Always something to do at this house.

Joe,

Sales have been good. Alot of my early tomatoes have catfacing. Most look really nice, some leave alot to be desired. When they were setting, it was too cold.

Jay

Hmm.. Ya I have an issue with my peppers that I think is due to cold fruit setting. They are "squatty" Wide but flat as a fritter. I have just been cutting them off and using them in my salads.

I've been told that catfacing can be caused by early cold spells long before any fruit has set. Hope this information helps explain some.

Marla

Marla,

That is right. I worked very hard at keeping them warm. It never got colder than 47.8 in the high tunnel after they were planted. Even though it was in the mid 20's outside.

Jay

Jay, I just wanted to thank you again for your comments in my thread regarding market gardening. I enrolled in our local small town farmers' market as a trial run for the future.
A 20 degree difference is huge! How do you manage that? Was this at night? Do you have a double layer of 6 mil poly? Or a different type of plastic?
By the way, would you know why my okra are buttoning? I get pods that never grow larger than a bean seed.

How I managed a 20 degree increase, with out heat, is as follows. I placed a 2 liter bottle of water between every other plant. Then I covered two rows with a 6 foot hoop. I put a double layer of row cover, Agribond 19 and finally, I put an old piece of poly over the two rows. This is inside my 6 mil single layer poly covered high tunnel.

It is important to have everything on and covered by late afternoon, to get a little boost before the sun goes down.

In the morning the plan on taking off the plastic. The plants can breath with the two layers of row cover, but the plastic will heat them up too much.

Here is a picture.
{{gwi:112240}}

I don't know what to tell you about your Okra. Have you given it time to get bigger? Do you have any pictures?

Jay

Wow, that is a lot of layers (and work)! I experimented with a similar setup last October-November attempting to grow kale and pak choi when it was already in the teens outside, but they got viciously attacked by aphids in the damp, tepid environment. How do you deal with pests inside the high tunnel, especially in the off season?

I'll try to post a pic of my okra. They are in my high tunnel; the plants are about 18" tall and have 7-8 leaves on them. The first flush of pods set four days ago and they haven't grown at all in the four days. The next flush is setting now, I hope those are more normal.

Indeed it is just a couple per variety. Some are experimental. I am not growing in a big scale to sell at market but like a bunch of color with a lot of taste.

If I do indeed specialize to some extent next year one idea is to do a lot of heirloom tomatoes and sell at a fancy market. I would have to do a tunnel for sure. I really want to see what varieties are best for me and grow less varieties but I do a lot of seed trades and get all these choices and just have to try them. I have some that I know not to grow anymore and more I will decide not to grow after this season.
Here is my list from my documents:

Tomato varieties 2011
Mc Clintock�s Big Pink 4
Cuostralee 3
Big Rainbow 3
Persimmon 3
Mortgage Lifter Estler�s 3
Sudduth�s Brandywine 5
Red Brandywine 2
Granny Cantrell 2
Kozula #125 1
Omar�s Lebanese 2
Cowlick�s Brandywine 2
Aunt Lou�s Underground Railroad 1
Kozula #137 1
JD Special C Tex 3
Caspian Pink 2
Barnes Mountain 2
Orange Banana 3
Purple Russian 1
Kellogg�s Breakfast 3
Black Krim 2
Gold Medal 3
Hege German Pink 2
Orange Russian 117 1
Chinese Purple 1
Aunt Ginny�s Purple 2
Amish Paste 2
Speckled Roman 3
Jersey Giant 2
OSU Blue 1
Polish Linguisa 2
Goldman�s Italian American 3
Marmande 2
Stupice 4
Casady�s Folly 2
Japanese Black Truffle 2
Green Zebra 3
San Marzano 2
Rose 3
Manitoba 1
Sicilian Saucer 4
Flamme Orange 2
Sungold 3
Sungold OP 1
Matt�s Wild 2
Juliet 2
Green Doctors 1
Isis Candy 2

It is copied and pasted thus the funny symbols instead of apostrophes.

Also Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge 1
Thai Pink Egg 1
both in pots
don't taste great but had free seed

Minnie, I totally understand about wanted to try varieties, but after trying to keep the varieties separate for my market I found it impossible for me, and I only had 19 varieties. I have to produce quantity to market garden, that's why I asked. I can't bring in less than 10 lbs of tomatoes, preferrably the same variety or have a fight at my counters.

Marla

I don't necessarily keep mine separate. Mmost of my customers aren't that gourmand. Plus I might quit market soon and do all CSAs.

I have 24 varieties of tomatoes for sale and haven't sold a single one. I advertized on Craigslist and got about half a dozen replies but no one actually showed up to buy any. People will take them for free but no one wants to pay. There is a limit to how many tomatoes my own family can eat. I had a bumper crop this year, and I use no pesticides or fungicides, but that doesn't even help my sales. Just today I gave away about $50 worth if I was getting even supermarket sales prices.
I was asking $2 a pound if they wanted just one variety or $1.50 a pound if they wanted a mix. And the varieties I am selling are all the most highly rated for taste after going through the results of many tomato tastings as reported on the tomato forum.
I am thinking about stop watering my garden except for a few of my own favorite plants.

how many people do you have nearby growing their own gardens? If that happened to me, I would think that there are several gardens near.

Marla

To be real honest, a huge percentage of people don't care what variety of tomato it is they are eating. They just want one that tastes good. There are a few that people know and ask for by name. Those are Sungold and Cherokee Purple.

That is why I have gave up on growing many of the great tasting heirlooms and have gone to good and almost great tasting hybrids.

I mean, I grow Florida 91, a very commercial variety and I get rave reviews for them, why? I let them ripen on the vine and pick them red. They have great flavor when done this way.

Jay

I saw on something this winter that a tomato taste test where Brandyine always wins, recently had the first hybrid as winner. I wonder if some heirlooms are losing their purity?
Sungold is the one hybrid I grow. I wish there was an OP that was similar but there isn't and a lot of heirloom growers feel like me.
Last year with all the disease I had, sungold did very well, otherwise the heirlooms produced better than any hybrids I had! Especially Stupice and Green Zebra. Stupice is my favorite tomato to grow. The pot on my deck is loaded with tomatoes!

Minnie, like all things, people's tastes change. that could be why the hybrid won this year. Give it 20 years and heirlooms will be back. It seems like there is a 20-30 year cycle on people's likes, look at the mini skirts.

Marla

I can't live off of Brandywine's production. I have 5 or 6 plants, just for the heck of it, and I have picked 3 tomatoes to date. They may taste good, but I would have to have $800-$1,000 a piece for them!

Also, I wasn't blown away by its flavor.

Jay

I finally made my first sale, 24 pounds at $2 a pound to a restaurant owner who also grows his own but can't grow enough for his needs. He said he may buy 20 pounds a week from me. I have had 11 other responses to my ad, all saying they would come, but none showed up yet. But if I could sell 20 pounds a week that would be good enough for me, I'm not a bigtime farmer, just a home gardener trying to sell my excess tomatoes. The reason I have so many varieties is I sell tomato plants in the spring and always plant at least one plant of every variety I sell so I can give an honest opinion about how the tomatoes taste and how well the plants grow in my area.
Talking about Brandywine, I grew if five different years, and this was the first good year I ever had with it, maybe because I used seeds from the rare Suddeth variety. It does taste very good, but the tomatoes are all fluted looking. All the other years most of the fruit rotted before it ripened, this year we had a week of 100 degree days which might have helped, plus I caged the plant this year instead of letting it sprawl.

Sudduth's isn't rare actually. It is supposed to be the common pink brandywine; the true brandywine and original. I have Sudduth's, Cowlick's and Red.

Rather than letting your fruit rot if you cant get any paying customers you can try the website ampleharvest.org and see if there is a foodbank nearby that would gladly take your excess.

Sales are picking up, two more customers showed up today and bought 20 pounds of tomatoes at $2 a pound between them. But I am selling the best tomatoes and end up with the culls for myself.
I have actually run out of some varieties like Juane Flamme and Black Krim and Paul Robeson.

High tunnel is the only way for tomatoes. Will be building another one this fall. We have had about 10 days of monster rains. Totaling @ 10 inches of driving rain. Outside tomatoes have septoria leaf spot real bad now. Roma tomatoes look chloratic (new growth) look better today. Even on raised beds and on a slope they are showing signs of being water logged.

anyways, I wanted to post an update on varieties.

Scarlet red- miserable tomato. Smallish and you CANNOT pick this until it is very very very ripe. It is a very hard shipping tomato. I have picked 1 that was ripe enough, otherwise they are like cutting a baseball. I wont sell them because I dont know how ripe they are. Stay on the vine forever. You have to pick when they are blood red, even then they are very firm. I understand way one tasting trial give them low marks - it was due to picking under ripe.

Brandy Boy - much better production than brandywine. Wont grow again in the tunnel. The early tomatoes tend to be small-disfigured, the ones coming on now are better.

Super Fantastic- average yield , size is ok 6-12 oz most 8-10

belle rosa- this one splits easily, commercial tomato with a commercial taste.

burpees sweet seedless- Actually a very good tomato (grown outside) decent size 6-8 oz. as seedless as a seedless watermelon. Been asked to grow it again. Might be a good tomato for price exploration for you guys in better markets. (maybe a .50 cent/lb premium?)

bhn-589 -is the real deal. Probably the only h tunnel tomato I will grow next year. Determinate that got 6 ft tall for me. It is perfection in a tomato.

cherry tomatoes

sweet baby girl- what a waste of space. large ping pong tomatoes that are bland and not sweet at all.

bhn-624- like sweet million ,little firmer, sweet million has better yields.

anyone else have some reviews? anyone grow suncherry?

I sell Sweet Millions to an institutional customer. I get $1.75/lb. Seems a little cheap, but he takes everything he can get. The market just won't pay much this year.

I grew Parks Whopper's and Big Beef this year. Both have been terrible in the mid to high 90's we have had in Wisconsin the last two weeks. Blossom end rot is terrible. I am switching to more commercial varieties next year. I have thrown out over 150lbs of rotting toms so far. The new ones coming now are looking fine, but it really sucks to throw hundreds of dollars of toms away.

I also grew Agriset (Tami G) grape tomatoes this year. They are VERY prolific. The damn things are 6.5' tall (my T-Post are only 6' tall) and they are still going. They set so many tomatoes that if I had used wood stakes I would worry that they would snap off unless I did one stake per plant. I noticed that with these you MUST leave them on until the tomato is deep orange to red for best taste. They are bland if harvested at early orange and ripened inside.

Cracking can be a problem with Tami-G is you have high heat during fruit ripening. They are more prolific than sweet millions.

I have read many good things about the BHN varieties. Just hard to pay the price. Parks Whoppers and Big Beef were what my mother grew for many many years. I should have went with my instincts and done the commercial varieties. Inputs cost too much to dink around with older varieties unless you have a controlled envrionement (high tunnels)

I'm liking pik rite for the last two years and mountain spring. Haven't tried any of the bhn---tomatoes yet. I'm also trying applause and moneymaker, but I'm already not wild about moneymaker. The tomatoes are too small, but I might be able to sell them as cluster tomatoes.
Applause is looking promising too with large deep round tomatoes.

My first heirloom that was starting to break rotted :-( I just checked this AM and soft rotten spot on the side and black mold growing on top near the stem. Darn rain.

Sold about a lb of Glaciers yesterday for $3. Could have sold remaining 2 lb for $5 (was selling 3/$1, had 22 left) at end of market but customer got greedy and wanted 14 serranos ($3 worth) also thrown in. So I took the serranos home and gave half the tomatoes to my parents, kept the other half. Time to make salsa!

Jay, that's so funny about "mine must be close to ready if yours are ripe" - lasy next to me sells fresh salsa, pretty big operation since she's in a few grocery stores too. Must not use her own produce though since she said she was hoping she'd get some tomatoes soon, she has started seeing flowers. I didn't ask what kind(s), but asked when she planted them - she said not til July. I said I got a late start too, mid-June, b/c of all the rain, though I started them in greenhouse March 25. She said she had just thrown seed down and was pleasantly surprised when they germinated during the 1 dry month we've had! I just said "Wow, you direct-seeded tomatoes? I don't know anybody who direct-seeds tomatoes around here, though of course there are volunteers from last year. I hope you get some ripe ones before frost!" Of course thinking if she's got 90-day varieties there is no way unless we don't get frost til November!