Welcome to OK. I moved here from Texas myself in 1999.

Of the varieties you listed, these are the ones I've grown here:

Black and Brown Boar--did great here last year in Oklahoma's hottest year ever, and did moderately well in 2011 which was almost as hot and, at least in our garden, much drier than 2012.
Black Cherry-we grow it ever year
Box Car Willie-does fine here
Cherokee Green--grows and produces well
Cherokee Chocolate--grows and produce well
Druzba--grows moderately well
Green Zebra--grows fine but not a heavy producer in our heat
Jaune Flammee--we grow this one every year. It does great here.
Kosovo--grew it for 2 or 3 years and it did not produce well at all
Lemon Boy VFN--grows and produces well here
Livingston's Paragon--grows and produces well here. When I grew it in 2003, during which we had rainfall of just about 19", it produced very, very well on very little irrigation. I really like this one.
Mule Team--grows and produces pretty well here.
Orange Minsk--a huge producer last year which was my first year to grow it. Produced heavily long after some of the other varieties had slowed down.
SunGold F-1--a must grow here. I don't remember when we started growing it here, but it has been on our grow list ever since.

Our weather here is highly erratic. Each year I try to "read" the weather patterns and choose a seed-starting date accordingly. In an average year when we are having a cold December and January, I normally start my seeds on Super Bowl Sunday. My aim is to plant out, if the weather allows, close to my average last frost date of March 28th. I could start seeds a couple of weeks later, but I like to have plants a decent size so that if the weather suddenly turns warmer and it seems like a pretty solid pattern change, then I can put the plants in the ground a week or two before my last frost date and just cover them up on cold nights.

In a year like 2012 when December 2011 had been insanely warm, I felt like the warmth would continue so started seeds around the end of the first week in January 2012. I wanted to be able to put them in the ground early if the warm weather allowed. It did. I started putting tomato plants in the ground around March 7th or 8th, and put in another row or two every week until they all were in the ground. The staggered plantings were a form of anti-freeze protection. As I gained faith in the continued warmth, I accelerated the rate at which I was putting plants into the ground.

To give you perspective on my last frost date compared to yours, I think yours might be sometime in the first week in April. However, that's one of those average-date things that do not really consider microclimates and, unfortunately, I am in a really cold microclimate, living in a low-lying creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River Valley so I have a lot of trouble with late frosts and freezes even when my gardening friends on higher ground about 3/4 mile are not having those late frosts and freezes. Since moving here in 1999, we have had our last freeze and frost as early as the very end of February and as late as the first week in May. No matter when I transplant, I have to be prepared to cover up the plants on a moment's notice. I cannot trust the forecasts. One year (I think it was 2007), our forecast low was 50 and we went down to 32 and most of my tomato plants and peppers froze. Some of them already were a couple of feet all and had good-sized fruit. It was either May 3 or 4, and that late freeze or frost in May continued for another 4 years, before the curse lifted in 2012. So, I guess all I am saying is that you're a lot further north than central Texas and the weather fluctuates here so often than no dates are engraved in stone. You'll need to experiment and see what works for you, especially if you're in a microclimate that differs from the surrounding area in a significant way. The OSU-recommended transplanting date for OK in general is April 10-30, with the 10th being recommended for SE OK, which warms up earlier, and the 30th for NW OK. People in between the two extremes generally pick some date in the middle. Based on my experience here, I get much better crops when I plant earlier. Having lived and gardened in central Texas I am sure you're already familiar with the mad dash to beat the heat in order to get good fruit set. It is the same here. The only time I've ever planted a bit late and not regretted it was 2002 when we still had some nights at our house in the 40s even into late May. The nights were cold and soil stayed pretty cool and I knew I couldn't rush the tomato and pepper plants into the ground. That year, planting out worked out well. Normally it does not.

For the record, when it comes to transplanting I always push hard to plant earlier than recommended, but wait until the soil temps are warm enough no matter what the air temps are doing. Even getting the plants in the ground just 2 or 3 weeks earlier than recommended pays off in a huge way most years if you can protect them from cold weather.

Hope this helps, and I've linked the OSU Garden Planning Guide in case you haven't seen it before.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU's Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide

Thank you Dawn. Have you grown any hearts in the past? The reason for selecting Kosovo was due to it's reputation as a heavier producing heart. Do you know any varieties that might do well?

ReedBaize, You're welcome. I selected Kosovo for the same reason. I got zilch from it a couple of years and I think it set one fruit in another year, and I even grew it in one of our wettest and coolest summers when it likely had the best chance of producing here that it ever will have. I haven't tried it as a fall tomato and have wondered if it might do better in fall's cooler conditions from transplants put in the ground in July. Of course, with fall tomatoes, you're hoping the weather doesn't cool off too early. As in spring, you can prolong the fall season a lot with floating row cover. It is just that it is a lot harder to cover tall tomato plants than low-growing plants like bush beans or even mid-sized plants like broccoli. For informational purposes, I think your average first frost there ought to occur in early to mid-November. Mine here should be around Nov 17-22, but it has happened as early as September 29th and as late as about December 18th, so I never really know what to expect. It does tend to occur early a lot more often than late, but that likely is because I'm in such a low-lying microclimate.

The heart that has done best for me here is Brad's Black Heart, which produced a modest number of tomatoes in 2011. That was remarkable because it was very hot and very dry. In 2011, my county had recorded only 12" of rain through the end of August and our high temps were often in the 108-115 range. I expected nothing from BBH in those conditions so I was pleasantly surprised, and I need to grow it in nicer conditions to see how it does in an average summer.

Hearts don't do well in our heat and I'd love to be able to grow tons of them here, but they have disappointed me time and again.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

I found OCS's quick climate facts page for your county and have linked it below. It looks like your frost-free growing season is only about 10 days shorter than mine. Your average rainfall is less, which surprised me. I would have guessed it would be slightly higher.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma County Climate

Thank you again. I happen to have Brad's Black Heart seeds so I'll plant one. Know now that, with your wealth of information, I'll probably call on you a lot. Thanks again,

Reed

Dawn,

What are some varieties you have had good luck with?

Japanese Black Trifele?
Berkeley Tie Dye?
Ananas Noire?
Aunt Ginny's Purple?
Costoluto Genovese?
Black Giant?

Reed

This post was edited by ReedBaize on Wed, Jan 9, 13 at 22:47

I am glad you are discussing tomatoes. You sent me some of your family's Porter seeds last year. I haven't tried them yet but I will this summer. Three years ago I had good luck with Reif Red Heart but I am far north of you. I didn't know you could edit posts. How do you do that?

Thank you seedmama. That will come in handy. It bugs me when I see spelling errors and left out words. Also I often think of something else just after I have hit submit.

This post was edited by helenh on Sun, Jan 13, 13 at 10:49

Reed,

You're welcome. I've tried at least (I'm guessing) 500-600 tomato varieties in my lifetime (one day I need to make a list of all the ones I can remember!) and am trying to cut back on a lot of the experimentation now because I feel like I have a good list of tomatoes that grow great here in our conditions whose flavor my family likes.

Of the ones on your list,

Japanese Black Trifele did not produce many tomatoes although maybe it was a bad year for tomatoes when I tried it.

Berkeley Tie Dye did really well, though it did slightly better in the year we had a prolonged cooler spring.

Ananas Noire grew and produced okay. Neither production nor flavor were especially outstanding in the 3 or 4 years I grew it, which was some time ago.

Aunt Ginny's Purple--does okay here. I just like Pruden's Purple better and it produces better for me.

Costoluto Genovese--does better in cooler years than in hotter ones. I like it better as a sauce tomato than a fresh-eating tomato.

Black Giant--haven't grown it

I grow lots of pinks, purples and blacks. I'm trying to stop adding new ones to the list and I'm trying to learn to be happy with the ones I have. I've experimented endlessly since we moved here (in one insane year I grew 600 plants representing over 150 varieties just in the spring planting) and I feel like I need to cut back on the experimentation and just stick with the ones I've found that do best for me. It is hard to imagine there are any that would do better or whose flavor we'd like more than JD's Special C Tex, Gary 'O Sena, True Black Brandywine, and Indian Stripe, for example.

Most of my future trialing of new varieties will be paste tomatoes for a while. I haven't experimented with them as much as I have with cherries and slicers. I know I'll probably still try 2-4 new non-paste tomatoes a year, but I am really trying to reel in my out-of-control gotta-grow-them-all tomato habit.

Dawn

Purple Calabash?

Helen, look at the right hand side of any of your own posts made after November 30(ish) and you will see a link allowing you to edit your own post.

Dawn, do you have any experience with any of the other Wild Boar Farms varieties?

I'm looking at pulling red and green zebra and druzba and replacing them with something else.

ReedBaize,
Sorry to sneak in on the tomatoe questions (I luv them by the way)BUT, I have been using earthboxes since the 90's with great success UNTIL I moved to central texas and OK.
Even if I shade, I get extremely hi temps.
What soil mix are you using?
Do you use them early season only?

Regarding my Earthboxes, I used the mix they offer on their site in the planting kits. As far as temperatures, I have white Earthboxes so soil temperature hasn't been a problem.

White? I have the green...hmm. Thanks, I think I can fix my problem..............or try anyway

I also use the white side of the mulch cover. Maybe paint the dark green with a cover of the white?

Reed, I only grew Purple Calabash once or twice and it wasn't impressive in yield or flavor. However, I grew it in wet years with the kind of heavy rainfall that can water down flavor.

I've grown a lot of the older WBF varieties but none of the new ones he has released after 2010. In the years I've been trying them, we have mostly had atrocious heat and drought so it likely hasn't been a fair trial. I'd like to try them again in a year with normal weather, if we ever have one of those years again.

I have grown Michael Pollan every year since I first tried it. Like most WBF's varieties, it has a beautiful appearance. This variety produces well, but tends to be more prone to Early Blight than most others. Last year it continued setting new fruit into August, even after I gave up fighting the weather in July and stopped watering the garden. It is a pretty tough variety. The flavor is only average though. Red Boar has done pretty well, Large Barred Boar did really well one year but not in another year, and Freckled Child, which I got from forum member, Carsonsmimi, at one of the Spring Flings a couple of years ago did well in a very hot year even though it went into the ground here fairly late. In general, I feel like the Wild Boar Farms varieties are likely better suited to milder weather than our typical summer weather here, although Black and Brown Boar performed about as well as any other variety I grew last year. You could tell it was very heat/drought stressed though, because the tomatoes got smaller and smaller with each successive round of fruit set.

If I was going to pull the zebras, I wouldn't replace them with a WBF variety. I'd plant Chocolate Stripes which would give you beautiful red and green striped fruit with superb flavor. I grew it in a molasses feed tub that holds 20-25 gallons of soil-less mix in about 2009 and it performed just as well in that container as it did in the ground. We got very heavy yields that year and the flavor was superb.

luvabasil, Most of my containers are black molasses feed tubs so I am sure the soil gets hotter than I'd like, but there's no way I'm going to attempt to paint them. I have used the Fusion spray paint before to paint containers and the paint washes away over 2-4 years, so it ended up being a total waste of time. I use several different techniques to keep the pots as cool as reasonably possible. First, I often plant trailing companion plants that will cascade down over the side and then the plants can shade the black sides of the container from the sun. I most commonly use trailing nasturtiums for this, planting them as early as possible in spring (after frost danger is past, of course.) Any trailing plant would work. I often group smaller containers of herbs and flowers on the south and west sides of the molasses feed tubs so that those smaller containers of heat-tolerant herbs and flowers can take the brunt of the direct sunlight and shade the sides of the molasses feed tubs. I also try to position my containers so that they get shade either at mid-day or in late afternoon from either buildings or taller plants to their west or southwest. I get perfectly lovely tomato production from plants that receive sun only from sunrise to noon or in another location from about 10 a.m. in summer until about 4 p.m. Even for plants that are said to need "full sun", our intense heat and sunlight can be too much for them, particularly in years like 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2012, and they can be perfectly happy and produce well in a half-day of direct sun.

Dawn

Well, I planted my tomatoes for my Gatesville, Texas garden on Sunday and I've already got one seedling poking up. That's pretty quick ha ha. It's mostly hybrids since it's for my grandfather but the list looks as so:

Charles Herring's Porter
Florida 91
Solar Fire
Celebrity
Grandfather Ashlock
Dr. Lyle
Heatwave II
Riesentraube
German Giant
German Head