i know i'm not in your zone, and i know this is sorta ot, but it does pertain to you, if your willing, i have a friend who grows tomatoes in his home, and he goes by the plant and shakes it, (everytime he goes by it) he said gently. i guess that must let the pollen drop?? but when i read your post it made me think of that, he has a 5yr old tomato plant and a 3 yr bell pepper plant. ~Medo

You rock Gail! You might want to post on the tomato site, too. I see folks ask about the glacier from time to time. How many days on the glacier? I planted a stupice in July, and it's supposed to be 50 days, but, like you, I've found you can't trust those things. Other varieties I'm going to try b/c of short season are: bloody butcher, ildi, and kimberly. I'm going to try some indoors too, in earthboxes.
I wonder if early varieties make a natural fit in an sfg anyway because of the concept of continual planting? What do you guys think? I know I always consider it.

I was reading up on the Glacier tomato, thought it was fitting since I am 50 miles from Glacier Ntl Park. I am planning on some for next year (this is the first year here of tomato planting in the ground, always container planted before due to the short season.

I think the Glacier is semi-indeterminate, it vines a bit, but remains compact. This would explain its size difference from the other indeterminates. I am sure it is due to the short season production it has.

I agree that these early varieties really lend themselves to sfg due to the compact size. Right now I have a lot of tomatoes, but not yet ripening.

It is challenging to love the flavor of fresh tomatoes in a place that has such a short growing season, but the heirloom varieties offer so much for us "northerners."

I have no idea what I am growing this year in this tomato patch. My boss gave me 2 of each of 3 different kinds, all determinate. I had to reward the kindness by at least giving them a chance. These aren't the short season kind. I will have to cold frame.

Thanks for the info moabgail! It is definitely going to be a tomato to grow next year!

Thanks for the responses. It's good to see there are others growing in a trying, cool, short season climate. From the posts to this list I was thinking the only other one with these conditions was the fellow from Canada who built a wonderful garden were there were only rocks before.

Medo, I grow tomatoes inside during the winter like your friend does. I don't shake them to get the tomatoes to set though. I just tickle the new blossoms with my index finger. I know tomatoes are self-pollinating but I don't know if each single flower has both male and female parts. Since just a tickle results in new little green tomatoes, I suspect they do.

Carolyn, I thought the Glacier was a 59 day tomato but checked the package to be sure and to my surprise it is listed as a 65 day. That makes it even more of a surprise to have them ripen first. That variety must be well suited to the micro-climate here.

The tomatoes I wintered over were Stupice. We've had them ripen nicely outside too. Stupice isn't a very large tomato and is not my favorite taste wise but it adapted very well to living in front of my south-facing windows. The windows are energy efficient and coated with something so they only let in 35% of the solar energy. So far, Stupice is the only tomato that doesn't get leggy and weak in those conditions.

I put my Bloody Butchers out June 1st. They froze almost to the ground June 8th. Since there was still a little green showing on the main stem, I didn't pull the plants. They've recovered and are nice really bushy plants now but the freeze put them back enough, I doubt I'll get ripe tomatoes from them this year. Usual first frost for this place is only 4 weeks away. I hope you'll report your results so I'll know if it is worth trying them again next year.

I don't have an ildi but I did plant something called Illni Star. The closeness of the names makes me wonder if they're the same variety.

My best guess is the next variety to mature is one called Cold Set. I think the seed is from Gurneys. I started them a week or ten days after all of the others and they have more and larger tomatoes than any of the other 2 dozen or so varieties in the garden. It is also a nice compact little plant but has a bigger and more tomatoes on it than the Glacier. Jeeze, I hope they taste good. If they do, they'll definitely be a keeper and always have a place in my garden.

Karin, I suspect your growing conditions might be even harsher than mine. Like you, I often have to use cold frames on my tender vegetables. It is so discouraging to have a mid-September freeze followed by a month or 6 weeks of Indian Summer when everything could still be growing. Good luck with your mystery tomatoes.

As you can probably tell, tomatoes are my favorite vegetable. I should probably check out the tomato forum but I fear I would fall in and never come back out. I spend too much time in front of this computer already.

Gail

LOL I spend too much time on these forums myself. I just had to add that even though I'm not currently living in a cooler area, your post has a lot of great info in it, even some I can use now. I also may move to a cooler area in the future and this would be even handier then, so I just had to thank you for the great info. I can't wait to hear the news on the heirlooms you're doing tests on, too.

~Angela

I was watching a local agricultural show and we have short growing season, June 6th - Sept 29 and I have yet to grow a red tomato on the vine.

A farmer had tried out Latah and they beat his hothouse tomatoes by a week. In another canadian province, New Brunswick there was only one farm last year that got red tomatoes and it was the Latah.

I will try Your recommendation and the Latah next year.

Mine just got the first tomato starting today...

Though I'm in 8b, check out the rest of my zones and you'll find I'm in a cool growing season. It's long for cool-weather crops but amazingly short for warm. It's early season varieties or hothouse for us.

Thanks for the info. Early Girls are a bit small for my taste.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

I also dislike the Early Girls because for some reason, mine always look like they're next to death. All the other tomatoes around them will look healthy and nice, but the early girl will look just awful. And that has been the entire time I've had them in. Oddly, it's also been a serious survivor plant. I hacked off the top half in one bed because I thought it might have blight. It has come back and is producing. Who'da thunk?
I love the tomato forum, too. And now, I have an enormous list of tomatoes to try next year, lol.

It's been a while since I posted about the Glacier tomatoes. It has taken almost two weeks for the next variety to ripen. Coming in second is a Gurney variety called Cold Set. The seed packet doesn't say it is a hybrid but I suspect it is. From the look of the plants it is a determinate variety. Each plant has about a dozen tomatoes on it. The tomatoes are just a little under baseball sized and have a very good flavor.

Each of the half dozen of these plants I have growing stay nicely in their own square with just one of the cheap small wire tomato cages around them. In my opinion they're a perfect tomato for SFGardening. Nice and tidy, not too large but with a good yield of tomatoes per plant under these circumstances.

Also, I started these plants inside at least a week, maybe two weeks after I started the other varieties. So far they're outperformed any of the heirlooms, some of which are heavily laden with green tomatoes and some of which are only now putting on blossoms.

I'm still getting golf-ball sized Glaciers every couple of days but the plants are almost spent.

Gail

We are way behind last year and this year I even tried putting them in a nice litter shelter away from the wind off the ocean.

I only have about 6 tomatoes in total on all the plants but they are heavy in flower. Now it is just a race against the first frost.

These were some Heirloom tomato seeds that my mother sent me.

Last year our first frost held off until Oct 15th but I still never got a red tomato.

These were Reugers.

Mike, I'm amazed that you have a longer growing season way up north there than we do here in Western Colorado. Our average first frost date from the records my husband keeps, is September 22nd. Last frost this spring was June 13th. I like your tomato 'houses" . I've done something similar in previous years but built with PVC pipe.

The forecast for here last night was in the low 40's. The outside thermometer on the house recorded 34 degrees early this morning.

Damage in the garden was mainly to the squash and cucumbers but several tomatoes, some basil, the okra and some pepper plants were hit pretty hard.

On a more positive note, the Illni Star tomatoes are ripening and seem to have made it through the night OK. The Cold Set and Glacier tomato plants are still producing and seem OK as well.

Gail

I worked for a US company based out of the Denver Tech Center for 10 years and spent a lot of time there. You have better weather. What we don't have is the extreme cold plunges or hot spells. We just have a lot of dreary, sunless windy days.

The ocean tends to moderate us but it is always windy and wet or snowy so it seems worse than it really is as far as actual temperature.

The big difference is in Colorado the snow seems to evaporate whereas here is is wet and mushy.

We actually have reasonable fall weather but late spring weather. Our typical growing season is in the 120 day range but it can be as low as 55 and as high as 160.

I have some tomatoes at home in a mini green house and they are not doing very well either but the green peppers are.

I was able to find some Latah Tomato seeds at a local organic farm today.

Attached is a link to an article about them...As well the the originators contact info...

Mapple Farm (wingate@nbnet.nb.ca)

He develops a lot of short season crops and apparently a very successful sweet potato as well!

Here is a link that might be useful: Latah Tomato Article...