Am I alone on this?

Dan

All ya'all might try my trick of picking half a dozen green ones, best with just a hint of rouge, and bringing them inside and on the counter, out of the sun. They ripen up just fine and taste just fine. Or pick more than half a dozen. I pick a couple dozen. But we got a lotta tomatoes.

But other than that, its been an off tomato year, to be sure.

We are having a warmer than normal summer here. I could have done better getting a 2nd helping of fertilizer to the tomato patch - the plants are kind of skinny.

They've been getting water fairly well but the Gold Nugget cherries are on the outside of the dryside. They should be overwhelming me with early cherries but are small plants and struggling a bit.

Early Girl, of course . . .

A handful of this-and-that cherry every day (Sweet 100, SunSugar, Sun Gold, Red Pear). Bloody Butcher started everything out but I just had my 1st ripe slicers this week! They were Goliath, tasty and well appreciated.

Still waiting for Big Beef and a few others.

Steve

I got one Thessaloniki at the Spring Swap and didn’t have the tomato area turned over yet, so I put it in a deep gallon size pot (the size you get vines and stuff in). It grew well in there, bloomed, and set fruit for a couple tomatoes. I didn’t get it in the ground until the middle of June, and it already had 2 small size tomatoes on it.

I couldn’t stand not having more REAL tomatoes for a whole year, so I bought a couple more plants, a Better Boy, and a Celebrity—just because they were the best looking ones I could find by then. I planted them in the ground on June 25. That same day I started seed for Sungold and Juliet red cherry! Couldn’t imagine a whole summer without cherry tomatoes either, and I figured I had nothing to lose but a few seeds! I don’t remember exactly when I put the cherries in the ground, but it was sometime in mid or late July—and they were very small!

This pic was taken on August 5th. You can see the three big ones—which are twice as big already now—and you can see one of the cherries in front in the middle, just left of the dying dill! The full size tomatoes are cram packed full of green ones, but none starting to turn yet. The cherries are a little over a foot tall now and have flowers, but I don’t know if I’ll get any tomatoes from them or not! Cherries develop quickly, so I’m hopeful!

From Veggies - 2009

Oh! And the 2 tomatoes that were already developing on the Thessaloniki ripened and I picked them on August 6th—along with my first 3 wax beans! I just had the second of the two tomatoes on a BLT for dinner tonite! Is there anything as good as crispy bacon with home grown tomatoes!

From Veggies - 2009

So that’s the whole tomato story here. I hope to have some of the big ones ripening enough to take with me on my vacation when I leave on the 9th! And whatever doesn’t ripen by the time we get a freeze will be hung in the garage again. I have LOTS of tomatoes, it’s just a matter of getting them to ripen—sooner or later—doesn’t really matter a whole lot when!

So mine are slow too, but I think it’s mostly because they were planted so late. With our cool, wet spring, maybe it didn’t make any difference that they were planted so late! I missed the cool, wet weather, and now they’re doing very well!

Skybird

The 1st slicers from my garden were . . . Rainy's Maltese!

I haven't grown Goliath for about 5 or 6 years. I didn't remember them as being "pink" and ripening to kind of a rosy red.

Went back and read a catalog description, even went on the tomato forum and checked their FAQ for Goliath . . . no mention of pink.

This morning, I found the "sticker" in the garden: Maltese! Of course, the plants look different than those around them but it is getting hard for me to distinguish where 1 plant ends and another commences in the patch.

Just excellent and remarkably early, thank you Shelley!

Steve
Aren't tomatoes wonderful?!?

My family taste test:
Nyagous - wonderful
Black Cherry - ok - not sure what the hype is all about
Galinas - bland - waste of garden space
Brown Berry - ok
Chocolate Cherry - ok
Sugar Lump - very good
Indian Stripe - ok - also not sure what the hype is all about
Peach Garden - wonderful
Blueberry - yuck - looks kind of neat
Snow White - wonderful
Giant Belgium - wonderful - 2lb fruits

George

Dan

Early Girl - Seems so small now, still only 3-4', and have eaten probably 8-10 baseball sized maters, with about that many left still growing. All very tasty.

Husky Cherry Red - Producing several ripe cherries every day now for a few weeks, great flavor, plenty of zing. Need to get some stakes, as it is way over the little cage and now flopping over onto the cucumber cage with tomato weight. Would be 5-6' tall or so.

Beefmaster - Way outperforming my expectations, up over the 8' posts I added. Eaten about a dozen baseball to softball sized tomatoes slowly over the past few weeks, and now it has kicked into high gear and I have about a dozen that just blushed. Way more still growing, I bet I get well over 50 from it total. Most are really good, though a few were a touch lacking in flavor, perhaps due to water/rain frequency. Great BLT slicers. Also made salsa for the first time along with home grown onions and jalepenos yesterday.

Next year I'm going to try some heirlooms after reading all about them here.

I will start chilling the Black Cherry before we eat them.

My 22mo yells "Mama - Black" when we hit the tomato patch, so that says something!! Getting her little tummy full with the Black Cherry, Brown Berry and Chocolate Cherry leaves the Snow White for me:))

Today, Gardening Bear hit the mother lode.

Steve's digits

My plants are finally giving a bit but after two bad hailstorms, including one at the end of July at 3 am (how odd!!)they have had to do a lot of recovering. What I have left are all dimpled and bruised but hey, they are maters. :)

Bloody Butcher wasn't first this year. That went to Kotlas, followed by H19 (KimberlyX(StupiceXSweetQuartz)). Buisson set some beautiful trusses before the early morning hail and is just now putting on a blush. The Siberians -- Otradny, Olga's Biggest, Grandpa's Cock's Plume, and Market Miracle are just loaded with dimpled babies.

We'll see. I have enjoyed a few different ones so far, but not many.

Nothing I've got is going to win prizes this year for flavor. We're having temperatures going from the mid-30's at night to record highs during the days, and now I have leaves turning on my trees and bushes, my okra topped out at 12 inches high, yet I have a basil crop that just won't quit.

I miss my Black Cherry's that I had last year, they were my favorite next to the Cherokee Purple. Guess I have a thing for the black tomatoes!

Bonnie

I heard where a local greenhouse grower had his houses just shut down during the heat and they haven't started back yet. I was told by a market grower that no one had any tomatoes at the markets in the TX Panhandle and the few they did have it is name your price and they are gone in minutes. The Psyllids and the TSWV along with several other things all hit us this year. Just hope that all the green ones on the vines ripen. I have never threw so many vines away loaded with 40 or more fruit. Gets sickening after a while.
Bonnie your results sound similar to mine. Jay

That's it so far - hopefully we'll get some warm nights, or I'll be needing a lot of green tomato recipes.

Ian

Mayberry, how does the Amish paste compare to say San Marzano, or Opalka? Have you tried either of those? I didn't grow any paste tomatoes this year, because last year, the San Marzanos were too small and very mealy, and the Opalkas were big, but most didn't ripen before the first frost. I actually have seeds for Amish paste, so if you promise they aren't mealy, than I'll give them a shot next year.

Bonnie

AT any rate, in the past 7-10 days the toms are leaping out of the ground/pots, just in time for me to miss them as I am traveling for 3 weeks soon. Lots more 'Brandy Boy' than last year and 'Bloody Butcher' is weighted down with green fruits, and maybe Monday I'll have 4-5 'Black Sea Man' in a salad...

Dan

There is a squirrel who sniffs this variety out, and eats the fruit he can reach. On every plant of this variety, he's nibbling away at at least one tomato. I dunno how many total plants I have left, but north of 60 and 8 or 9 varieties, and the squirrel will nibble on some of the others, but nothing like this one variety.

Of course, the only times I see the thing, he's standing in front of 15 big ripe tomatoes on a vine, so I won't use the shotgun. I set a havaheart trap, baited it with peanut butter, and caught a skunk. I set the trap, again, baited it with peanut butter, and caught a raccoon. The squirrel now has taken to a short cut through the garage, down the steps into the greenhouse, out the greenhouse door, and off to the garden.

Next, he'll leave a note, asking for grilled bacon and the mayo for a BLT.

I'm overwhelmed with tomatoes, mostly cherries and learning that Red Pear grows large, produces well, and doesn't split easily but the skin is tough. I'm not too impressed with the flavor and DW isn't happy with it and she's the prime motivator with regards to the "pear" choices.

Supersweet 100's are crack-free and sure are gooood! A tendency to split was the reason I stopped growing the Sweet 100, years ago. Is this part of the improvements for the "Super"?

I wish I'd have remembered to order the Sweet Chelsea seed. Head-to-head, it would be interesting to compare with the 100's. Of course, I'd need to make sure which was which . . .

I've got Submarines mixed into the Ildi . . . I can't find them at all in my neighbor's garden, where I thought some of my shared plants went. I really like the flavor of Ildi but now this! It will take some time to sort things out and find the stickers . . . obviously, I've gotta spend more time out there (20 miles away) and take a bucket to sit on . . .

Here's a question for our cooking experts: what beefsteak can stand up to broiling?

digitS'

Producing a lot
Brandywine
Black Russian
Big Beef
Kotlas,
Matina
Azchoyka
Neaves Azorean
Caspian Pink
Rainbow
Abel
Sun Gold
Sweet Million
Black Cherry
Just starting is yellow pear and a few purple heirloom, rose and Cherokeek Purple. I tried Black Mystery this year and it still hasn't turned color yet. Must be a lot longer season tomato than anything else I am growing.

I have grown San Marzano for the past few years, SM then SM 2 and Redorte and although the flavor is wonderful, I wasn't happy with the fruit size and production. I grew SM 3 this year and it's not SM.

I found Galinas un-impressive as well. My kids just pass it by - and Blondkopfchen. I think I'm done with the yellow cherries. One cherry that is on my must grow list is Snow White - AWESOME!! The production finally surpasses my family's appetite so we don't need to hide the fruit from each other.

My 22mo yells "Black" when we near the tomatoes, so Black Cherry has also made the must grow list. She is "banned" from picking any color but red...

Bonnie - I hope that Big Rainbow is fabulous. I see photos and drool...

Dan

When I pulled it off the vine, it cracked. Oh well. Guess whats for dinner tonight .....

;o)

Dan

Dan

Ian

I grew (w/ estimated qty):
Cherokee Purple, 40-50
Big Beef, 30-40
Sungold, 200-300
Super Fantastic, dozens, then one day ripped it out of the ground out of frustration at the lack of flavor!

Here was a tomato harvest from late August. From L to R, Cherokee Purple, Super Fantastic, Big Beef. I'm a little underwhelmed by the flavor of the SF and BB, but I'm learning that my gardening skills or the weather may be to blame.

This Cherokee Purple tipped the scales at 20oz, which I understand is big for a CP.

It was also probably the best tasting tomato I've ever had in my life! Now I understand what all the hype is about.

This is getting a bit off subject, but here is what I'm currently pulling out of the garden. No complaints!

I got an isis candy at the spring 2008 plant swap and they were FANTASTIC. This year we planted some from seed that we ordered from a catalogue. They turned out to be large orange colored cherry tomato types. Only slightly larger and slightly more orange than a ripe yellow Sun Gold.

I'm wondering if last year's isis candy may have been mislabeled.... Any ideas on a small tomato that ripens a deep red, is very sweet, and grows to 3-4 times the size of a regular cherry tomato (around 2 inches in diameter)?

thanks!
Veronique

So, it seems, the person who bred and promoted this is somewhat of an 'outcast' amongst the 'mater cognizanti, and as you know, true 'mater whackos are of that increasingly rare breed of humans that will not say anything about someone unless they can think of something nice to say. Very little comment on Isis Candy and its breeder, sort of: "Well, we all know the history here, don't we. Move along, nothing to see here, move along" kinda stuff.

That probably isn't much help.

David, roflol :) Bingo!

A friend that I gave another IC seedling too had the same sickly looking plant and threatened to yank it. I couldn't yank mine because it's part of my crazy Florida Weave trellis and plays a pivotal anchoring role for it's neighbor.

The plant redeemed itself.

IMO - the fruit is amazing!! My 4yo said it tastes like candy - hence the name I guess. No one that I shared fruit with disagreed, but perhaps that was because I pre-bragged the flavor??

In my search for sweet cherries, I've found a must grow. Although I'm thinking I need to plant in Jan (just kidding) since this plant was planted mid-March and I didn't get ripe fruit until Sept. Perhaps our summer was too cool for this plant to ripen in a timely fashion...

Looks like next year's toy may be a dehydrator. Thanks for the suggestion!

No frost here in the recent cold snap. Should get a few more tomatoes in (have a number of Cherokee Purples almost ready), and I'm still hoping that I can nurse a few melons to ripeness. Fingers crossed!

Ian

A dehydrator is a 'must have', In my humble opinion. Ours gets used for fruit leather, drying tomatoes, drying backpacking food. When you make fruit leather, and you have kids, make sure you package it in an opaque container and label it "creamed Brussels Sprouts" or "Boiled Beets", or they'll eat it all.

Anyway, I'll leave it up to you to put a few dried black cherry tomatoes on the catalog page with the Excaliber dehydrator, and let the wife find it......

It's been a warm almost toasty summer. Once we got to it in late June. Couldn't have asked for much better tomato ripening weather.

What took some time out there was picking the cherries - notably Ildi. The plants were loaded with fruit! This is a bit of contrast to last year, the first time I grew Ildi. They were rather weakened by blight, late in the season.

Meanwhile, next door to the Ildi, Gold Nugget is completely on its way out. If the frost doesn't kill the plants soon, I'd say that they've got a couple of days left and they will be dead. At least, blight didn't damage half the fruits as it has in the past. This just has to be the last year to grow this variety.

A fair number of SunGolds and SunSugars were there for the picking. This is the 1st year that both are in my garden. The SunSugars have a more tender skin. SunGolds may be just a notch up in flavor. I suppose the one could be eaten outdoors where spitting the skin could go unnoticed and the other indoors . . .

Steve

We picked off all our green tomatoes today as suppose to be a hard freeze tonight. Sigh.......

My SunGold/SunSugar match-up came down to a draw. The SunGold plants are covered with green cherries and it must have taken me 20+ minutes to pick the ripe & near-ripe off of 4 plants. I breezed thru the SunSugars in less than 2 minutes! Nevertheless, they were more productive thru the season and I appreciate their thin skins.

Bloody Butchers (or as we know them in our garden, Jaliranchr's) are BACK. They are a remarkable little tomato in being the earliest of the season and here they are again.

Ildi also had a very, very strong finish. They are much appreciated.

SuperSweet 100's shrank in size to as small as marbles and there were quite a few that split. Large Red Cherries were smaller also but the big plants had plenty of fruit for a final taking.

My grandmother's tomato had a good finish with healthy plants. These tomatoes are so mild that late ones, haven't much flavor.

Beefsteaks were sorely lacking. I grabbed a few not-so-big Big Beefs and that was about it.

At the nearest weather station where they check such things, growing degree days this season amounted to 2562. That's 342GDD above the normal 2220GDD - or, 15% above normal heat for the growing season. If that had been reversed with 15% below normal, and 1700GDD considered as a benchmark for ripening early tomatoes - I would have had one of those disappointing years. (As it is: :o)

Few weather stations are on the list linked below and fewer have a sufficient history of record-keeping for those all-important Growing Degree Days. The 50 degree standard is for corn but it probably holds equally true for tomatoes.

Steve

I picked all my tomatoes, all the green cherries even, and all the green beefmasters bigger than a golfball a few days ago. Got a huge paper grocery bag full, probably about as many as the rest of the season combined. It's too bad that just when the plants are hitting full stride the freeze comes! We'll see how good those greenies end up being that didn't even have a blush. I'm guessing they won't be great.

Definitely learned some things about gardening this year, and I'm prepared to have a better one next year. My placement was definitely not ideal. Rule number one, keep those damn zuchini out of my little raised bed so they don't take over the place. Also, only plant burpless cukes, no pickling, as they weren't nearly as good. Can't wait to try some heirloom 'maters next year.

Til next season!

Kotlas took the early prize away from Bloody Butcher this year. Slightly smaller than BB, but nice tasty early fruit.

Amateur's Dream was the lone casualty to the hail then attacked by psyllids. It never did recover so I'll give it another go next year.

Grandpa's Cock's Plume was a nice slightly oxheart with the wispy foliage that is always a nice change of pace in the patch. Nice flavor and very productive.

Otradny was a real winner. This plant didn't get very tall, at all but it was just loaded with good mid-sized fruit. I think there was some totally unexpected cross-pollination on a couple because some earlies were ribbed but most were not, so I saved seed from both. :)

Olga's Biggest is a total misnomer. The plant was beat down to two surviving leaves but recovered like a champion and topped six feet. However, the fruit is small, about the size of Kotlas. Nice flavor.

Market Miracle. This was the big winner for me. This one really took a beating and just shrugged it off. And lots of nice big globe-shaped fruit (8-10 oz) with a nice balanced flavor.

They all produced relatively early (even though that was late because of the early beat-down) and on to the final last gasp. I will be growing these again and adding more to the trials.

Market Miracle beaten, but it didn't stop.

Otradny

One that I fell in love with, but it isn't a Siberian is Buisson from old seed sent to me. What a lovely det plant and just scrumptuous fruit. Buisson.

Here's three Costoluto Fiorentino fruit and a Market Miracle in the upper right.

Steve

Posted by windwhipped Z4 WY (My Page) on
Thu, Oct 8, 09 at 17:15

What kind of season was it? Well, to use a highly technical term, it was really sucky! There was no spring, just an on and off winter . . . And yet, there is a bright spot; good old Galina pumped out her usual heavy crop of yummy little cherry tomatoes. Thank heavens for old faithful. . .

Now, I just learned something! Galina is a Siberian cherry tomato and for short-season, RMGardeners, that's a fairly 'ringing' endorsement by Windwhipped in Wyoming.

Linked below is how Bill McDorman came to introduce Galina and some other Siberian varieties to the west, 20 years ago. It's an interesting and moving story.

Steve's digits

Of course, expectations and some measurements of results can also be subjective.

Biggest expectation I have - - is that there will be SOME fruit that ripens on the plant!

If I based an evaluation of production on every . . . last . . . tomato . . . grown (including the multitude of green ones that I walked away from just before killing frost), I'd probably grow nothing but Large Red Cherries! NO!

I gotta get back to Sweet Chelsea. I like a cherry that doesn't take a couple of companions to make an impression. Grew Jelly Beans one year - gracious! Nearly wore the arm out trying to pick a mouthful!

Steve's digits