So lets talk tomatoes;

I start with my own DEFINITE plan: (No ifs and buts here)
I am growing the followings: They have all germinated and have their cotyledon leaves already. For the record I started them on Feb. 26. Here they are in alpha order:

== BLOODY BUTCHER
== BUSH STEAK
== CHEROKEE PURPLE
== COSTALUTO
== EARLY TREAT
== GREEN ZEBRA
== KUMATO
== LEGEND
== MATINA
== PINEAPPLE
== SIBERIA
== SILETZ
== SILVERY FIR TREE
== STRIPY (?)
== SUNGOLD
== unknown - brown/purple

Now your turn.

Anyway, Here is my list, some of them I have grown before and had good luck with~~~hence they are on the list!

Black Krim, Brandywine Red, Brandyboy, Cuostralee, Giant Belgium, Green Giant, Hillbilly, Neves Azorean Red,
Kelloggs Breakfast, Virginia Sweets, Chapman
Cherokee Purple, Omars Lebanese.

Are some of these sooo "similar" that I should drop one?
(Cherokee purple and Black Krim), for example.
(I will be buying all "Live Plants"), I hope!!!
Is KBX enough better than Kelloggs Breakfast to merit the extra work I would have to use to find a KBX Plant?

Feel free to add/subtract from my list, criticize or whatever!

Sunday May 9th, 2014

Gotomato, LLC. commented on your post.
Gotomato, LLC. wrote: "The event will be a How to Tomato 101 class. I will share my 30 years experience covering, soil preparation, watering, pruning, plant selection, Heirloom tomatoes and varieties, organic growing practices, insects, diseases and much more. See you there!"

So I will be looking forward to meeting him and will seek his inputs and report back here with Same!

Thanks, in advance.

We are not "Space Challenged", have a 3rd of an acre, My "Challenge" is the wife, who does not want the work than more than 6 maters encompass!

Thanks "In Advance"!

Gary

I never had any luck with Kellog's Breakfast, even though a friend down the road raved about it (and gave me the seedling). I wasn't thrilled about the flavor and it wasn't productive at all.

I grew Oma's Lebanese one year, but never again. For me, the large beefsteaks don't do so well.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Linda

Another point is: Since you are going to buy plants, How can you be sure that you will find everything you want? Unless you buy them by mail order.

I'll definitely get the following:

Brandywine (Sudduth)
Cherokee Purple
Kellog's Breakfast
Lemon Boy
Super Sweet 100
Momotaro
Selbo's ribbed red cherry

and two of the following:

Neves Azorean Red
Red Penna
Chapman
OTV Brandywine
Cuostralee
Druzba
Red Brandywine
Box Car Willie
Mule Team
Aker's West Virginia

Don't know which of these will be in stock, so I don't know
what I'll end up with. But they're all on my definite maybe
list.

Last year Laurels had every plant I wanted except Giant Belgium, and she was able to get me one.

This year we are going to a local nursery, (Blue Hills in La Habra) that is hosting "Gotomato". They have a really good selection of "OP tomato Plants", and I hope they have most the ones, we finally decide on. Any that they do not have, I will buy from Laurel or another on-line source.

Hence on of my questions about KBX, it could be a "Real Challenge" to find that tomato as a live plant.

Gary

Of those, the only ones I've grown before are Stump o the world and Marianna's Peace, both of which tasted great but weren't so hot on production--but I'm learning, maybe I had them too close together last year. Trying to see what varieties do best in this climate. I generally put the tomatoes out around tax day. If I try to go any sooner, they don't do anything until the soil warms up anyway.

FWIW, I grew Black Krim last year, and liked the productivity and flavor, but they seemed more prone to cracking than other varieties. YMMV.

I envy those of you who deliberate between starting the Black Krim or Cherokee Purple plant.

Green Zebra
Kellogg's Breakfast
Cherokee Purple
Pruden's Purple
German Pink
Armenian
Anna Russian
Opalka
San Marzano Redorta
Italian Heirloom
Pantano Romanesco
Neves Azorian Red
Big Beef OP
Stupice
German Red
Yellow Brandywine

Starting For others:

Big Boy
Early Girl
Roma
Black Krim
Porterhouse
Supersteak
Superbeefsteak
Rutgers

Probably start some next weekend as I can't stand waiting any longer than that. I might stagger it out over two weeks and have some backups in case things go horribly wrong.

I met Steve Goto a number of years ago. Very nice guy
with tons of tomato knowledge. Glad to hear he's still
around.

He held a tomato tasting at the LA County Arboretum. I've
never tasted so many different tomatoes at one time in
my life. There were at least 5 tables of goodies. He had
(I think) three people there cutting tomatoes constantly
to keep the plates filled.

In most gardening zones, seeds are sown. In some Northern states and Canada, still there is a window of time, depending on how early or late one like to get it started.

I started the remainder of mato seeds on Feb 27. Now they are potted into 4.5" round pots and growing true leaves under light. I am just missing two varieties: i.e. Mortgage Lifter and a Red Cherry. I could not find the seeds for them off the rack. I will probably get them as plants, when the time comes.

We are still 3 to 4 weeks away from plant out here(LFD). April 1st will be the testing time. If the long range forecast looked good, I will then move the seedlings outside and start hardening them off.

Let us hear and see how your plans are coming along.

seysonn

I bought 4 tomato plants from the Blue Hills nursery and they are in the ground.
They are:
Black Krim, Brandywine Red, Kelloggs Breakfast and Omar's Lebanese~~The plants look great!!!

Then we gave Laurel, (Of Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes) a call and ordered the Following:
Cuostralee, Green Giant, Hillbilly, Neves Azorian Red & (per her suggestion) Brandywine OTV. Laurel says it is better than Brandwine Red, and her write up on the OTV says Dr. Caroline was "Involved in that tomato"~~~~please feel free to "Elucidate on that", if you care to Dr. Caroline.

Laurel did not have the Giant Belgium tomato which always does well for me and I luv the taste and size, nor did She have Virginia Sweets~~~but~~~~She said She would grow them for me then ship them, probably take about 8 weeks~~~~No problem we have a long growing season here in Southern California, (near Disneyland).
Laurel is great to deal with and I find her plants to be of the highest quality and well packaged and shipped.

The Gotomato presentation was very good, last Sunday at Blue Hills Nursery. Quite a crowd turned out! Most of the things He covered, I have learned here from you good folks, alto there was a "Surprise", at least for me, about our soil here. It has a lotta salt and you have to use a lotta mulch to combat it!!!! Steve Goto said that is the cause of a lotta tomatoe plants not doing as well as they could because of the leached out salt!

Anyway, I have not bothered to count how many tomatoes I have ordered, (and I sure hope the wife doesn't), but even if She does, we are only about 3 years away from our Golden Wedding Anniversary and I thinks She wants to stay "Peared Up", at least till then???

I did install a drip watering system too!

I will keep good notes as to how each tomato does, size, taste, production, How long the plant lasted~~~etc etc, that way (Hopefully) I can be of some help to folks pondering which tomatoes to buy for 2015.

I will buy a couple of cherry tomatoes, luv them in salads and for just "Poppin' in the mouth".

Also I do want to find a Brandyboy, as I've heard so many good things about it.
It will be "Interesting" to compare the 3 Brandywines, (or 2 and the "semi-brandywine"), Ya thinks?

Gary

The 'surprise' to you was also a surprise to me. I never knew
about us having high salt content here in SoCal.

I'm curious though. How does mulch help the salt leach
situation? Did Steve go into that?

I do mulch and have for years. So there's
nothing new for me to do, thank goodness.

I have noticed what I now know is salt on the top of my
garden beds when they get very dry.

Anyway, where does the salt come from ? is it in your native soil or in the water ?

My best tomato year, (most tomatoes/plant and largest sizes), were the first year I grew tomatoes, (about 10 years ago). I had my gardener rototill in great quantities of mulch and the tomatoes really responded to it.

Next year I did add some mulch but not near the amount the gardener did the previous year & I did NOT use a rototiller. The tomatoes, that year were not nearly as good as the first year and every year after that, production and size declined. I figured it was just diseases getting into the soil.

Last year I started the tomatoes in a different area, but I did not have the gardener rototill in copious amounts of mulch, I just added some, and mixed it up with the soil using a shovel. Last year was probably the best year since the first year I planted tomatoes in the other area I mentioned, but still nothing like that first year.

Fast forward to this year. I had my gardener rototill in "tons" of mulch in the area I used last year. We will have to wait until the 2014 season gets going to see the results of my efforts, and as I mentioned, I intend to keep a good log of results, on this year's production.

As I recall, seysonn, or maybe I "missed it", Steve (Gotomato) did not go into a lot of detail on how the salt got here. If you study "plate tectonics" you will find that California was once under the ocean.

Some areas of Calif are worse than others as far as salt goes, (take the extreme SE corner of Calif, for example).
Calexico, Brawley, El Centro~~~~~they grow a lot of vegetables & fruits there, and after irrigating for a few years the salt leaches up and really becomes a problem.

Some of the salt, I'm sure does come from our water here.
It is VERY High in Sodium, I used to sell and service equipment that would measure Sodium, and I don't recall any numbers, (I retired in 2005), but I remember when I measured the salt content out of our faucets, it was very high.

I hope this answers most of your questions? Gotomato is on facebook, and in fact that is how I first contacted him (Steve). So one could find him on facebook and ask him to "Elucidate on the salt problem for Calif Tomatoes".

Gary

I was planning on doing that if you didn't have an answer.
I was in touch with him a couple of years ago and he was
quite helpful.

When you say mulch, are you referring to compost? Anything
can be a mulch. I use all my grass clippings for my mulch
and dig it in every year when the season is over. Seems
to work quite well.

I'm sure you'll see quite an improvement this year. I dug
in lots of compost and lots of coffee grounds last winter
in addition to the regular grass clippings and I had a bumper crop.

You are right. There are all kinds of mulch. But I don't consider compost a mulch. One of the functions of mulch is weeds prevention. Compost is more like soil that any weed can grow in it REAL GOOD. Another role of mulch is moisture retention. Again, compost does not qualify for that.

My gardener buys the "bulk stuff", not in bags~~~~He had a truckload full. He said it was "Especially for fruits & veggies".

As seysonn says, It does not "look to me" that the compost has any moisture retention properties and that's good as we have lousy clay soil here and from all I've read, tomatoes don't like their toes in too much water!

Gary

Amana Orange
Eva Purple Ball
Northern Lights
Black Krim
Black Cherry
Purple Dog Creek
Honey
German Lunchbox
German Johnson
Grandma Viney's Yellow and Pink
Zeke Dishman
Minnie's Pinstripe
Lenny and Gracie's Kentucky Heirloom
Brandywine
Pineapple
Cosmonaut Volkov
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Grant County Pink
Isis Candy
Reisentraube
Tommy Toe
Dr. Wyche's Yellow
An Unknown orange variety that I saved seeds from last year. I bought the plant at a nursery and it was supposed to be a Boxcar Willie but it turned out to be something entirely different. The plant wasn's super productive but the taste of the tomato was excellent. It was my favorite tomato last year! Hopefully it is an heirloom and grows true to seed. It was medium sized, flattened, slightly ribbed and the orangest tomato I have ever seen. It was almost a neon orange. The taste was very sweet and fruity and it was meaty with few seeds.
Sun Sugar (I will be buying it at a nursery)

I Have:
** Aunt Ruby's German Green (which may not make it, b/c my baby ripped off ALL the leaves);
** Black Krim (Black Beefsteak);
** Brandywine Red;
** Carmello (Medium Red);
** Cuostraleé (Big Red);
** Hillbilly (yellow w/red stripes);
** Mortgage Lifter;
** Stupice (early medium red, also winter);
** Sungold yellow cherry;
** Super Sweet 100 red cherry (setting fruit now!); and
** Tomatillo.

That said. Do I have enough variety?

I don't have room in the beds, but *MIGHT* be able to find places for more... I really want to try:
** Marianna's Peace (Big Pink)
** Peacevine Cherry
** Pride of Flanders (crazy black/green acidic)
** Paul Robeson (black, flat, ruffled beefsteak tomato, sets fruit in cool weather)' ** Costoluto Genovese (red ruffled)
** Brandywine O.T.V. ("OTV," not regular red pink or black)
** Sweet Baby Girl (Red Cherry)

Am I missing any entire categories I should try? Something amazing and obvious missing? Any input here?

I wouldn't put in any more cherry varieties.
You'll get a lot of fruit from just those two.

Otherwise, a nice selection.

So i will have just this one and Sungold which is yellow.

-- Stupice (early)
-- Japanese Black Trifele
-- RC Mortgage Lifter (mid to late)
-- Red Husky Cherry
-- Large Cherry ( from store bought heirloom fruit)

Two of my tomatoes have already good size fruits: (1) Siletz (2) Bloody Butcher. Below is a picture of Siletz. Thee rest have buds, flowers and/or tiny fruits.

Let us see how your plants are doing now.

BUT IF FORGOT KELLOGGS BREAKFAST... actually I gave 2 of them away, thinking I planted one. So please report later on how yours turned out!

Regards,
Tom

Azoychka
Black Krim
Black Plum
Bloody Butcher
Early Annie
Matt's Wild Cherry
Russian 117
Stupice

I started everything from seed (Tomatofest) just about the same time as Seysonn. I'm in about the same place too, with tons of flowers and good looking fruit on both bloody butcher and Russian 117 plants. Pic is of the 117s.

This interested in another way. It is a kind of survey on varieties that are popular. So far I have encountered (NOT tabulated) the following:

== Cherokee Purple
== Sun Gold
== Sweet 100
== Mortgage Lifter
== Cuostralee
== NAR
== Stupice
== Kellogs BS
== Early Girl
== Black Krem

Those are the ones at least mentioned 3 times.
Cherokee Purple is the front runner. (Mentioned about 6 times). No varieties in this mini survey is as popular as Cherokee Purple.

Another interesting point (to me) is that very few of you out there care to grow EARLY varieties. That is where I depart. About half of what I am growing are early varieties. OK. For each their own. In my COOL climate I cannot bet on LATE varieties, cause being when they come to ripening my season comes to an end soon after. .

Here is a picture of another one of my ERALIES, Bloody Butcher. '

-- WHAT TO PLANT WHAT NOT TO PLANT for 2015?

Have we learned any thing from our 2014 experience ? Another words: "From Our Mistakes "?.
Stop saying "I should've, would've ..". Now you have another chance to do it differently. Or "why fix if it works !"

FIRST THING FIRST:
Make a list, get the seeds.
.....
......
Seysonn

1. Cherokee Purple of course. I plan to have at least a 1 gal pot sized one to go in ground after LFD. Our season is so short for the first part you have to start bigger plants if you want to get many fruit off of it. If it is a large fruited variety it may be the only way here to get the full size fruit.

2. Bush Goliath will be planted again. Lots of slicer sized tasty fruit from a fairly compact plant. I plan on doing another of the Bonnie basket cage planter sized one. The one I planted last year gave the most fruit in the smallest space.

3. Black Prince it was tasty. It was compact enough. It was prolific. Fruit was early. I will use land scape fabric over this one to see if I can prevent the cracking issues I had.

4. Creole Hybrid a true work horse.

5. Mr Stripey will get a larger plant to start the season this year. The plant got huge though production was cut short by the heat. I have several of the greenies in a box wrapped in news paper. The taste is the deciding factor on this one.

6. Arkansas Traveler a crowd fave. A close second only to Cherokee Purple.

7. Park's Whopper Nice pretty, and good taste. My wife loved them for tomato sandwiches. I agree they are good. Way better than anything from the store. The plant was prolific till the mercury rose to over 100 during the day. Then production stopped, fruit that was set stunted, though the good taste was still there.

Not planting again.

1. Homestead Heirloom I planted two of them year before last. Neither produced even one tomato. They were sickly the whole time. f

2. Heat Master got zip off this one as well.

4. Better Bush due to the fact that it has been replaced by Bush Goliath. The Goliath out produced better bush by a literal 5 to 1 rate. BB did produce. Fruit was good, not great. Tasted was good as a sliced in a salad tomato.

My thing for this year is that anything I am going to plant from seed will be started way earlier this year. Also I will keep potting up, to keep from having to replant so many times, as I can take them back into the house if it is going to rain, then freeze.

I will plant more than what I listed, the list is the just off the top of my head list.

From 2014 followings are coming back:

1) SiletZ. As an early it did pretty good . DET.
2) Cherokee Purple .
3) Legend, a MID variety. Semi-Det
4) Ananas Noire: Juicy, tasty, multicolor, productive: LATE
5) Matina: so so early but productive
6) Bush Ateak: Det, Compact, MID,
7) JBT: a brown tomato. Not very productive but tasty.
8) Red large Cherry heirloom: Name =unknown

NEW for 2015:
a) Brandy Boy : Try it based on good reviews.
b) Kellogg Breakfast : I got to have a yellow/orange
c) Yellow Grape: Heirloom . Name : unknown
d) Brow small fruit (~ 2-3oz): Heirloom. Name: Unknown
e) Large orange cherry: Heirloom . Name : Unknown
f) Mini Roma

Zapped from 2014:
1) Mortgage Lifter - RC
2) Early Treat : Matina size fruits but not as good.
3) Bloody Butcher : Huge plant, little production
4)Stupice : Not early and small/inconsistent fruit size
5) Siberian : Not early as I was shooting for.
6) Sun Gold : small, prone to cracking
7) Pineapple : Did not like my garden
8) Husky Red : not productive
9) Green Zebra

So I am reducing number of varieties overall.

BTW: I might add or subtract one or two.

Seysonn

1. What to plant in 2015
2. What NOT to plant in 2015 (upper cases for NOT are important.)

Making only ONE thread: WHAT TO PLANT WHAT NOT TO PLANT for 2015? would confuse many.

JMO.

But no matter what I grow, it will be fewer plants with more varieties next year. This year I did a half dozen each of four kinds, and I had wished I did something more like 2-3 each of 6-8 kinds.

BeesNeeds , ... That is very interesting : Growing just one color.
I like colorful basket of tomatoes; Red, Pink ; Brown, Bi Color, Brown, Yellow/Orange, Green, ... But always Red/Pinks are dominant. Well, we all have different preferences.

A rough count in this thread alone shows that in 2014 close to ONE HUNDRED varieties mentioned/grown.

Maybe another hundred was not mentioned ( just GW members). But I have read that there are 20k tomato varieties in the world today. Let us say that there are just 2k. So we are just growing one out of 10 of them. I have come to believe that smart gardeners like YOU screen and pick the best to grow. So , instead of going to the commercial seeds catalog I would pick my tomato plans based on the recommendations and reviews right in this GW forum. AND that is what exactly I have been doing. I bet growers like Bonnie listen to you as well and grow/sell what is REALLY good stuff.
Thank you all

Seysonn