16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

What you have is a product distributed by Melissa's in CA and although they represent them as heirloom tomatoes I can tell you that your striped one is not one that would meet the definition of an heirloom whatever definition is used.

If you really want to know if it even has a known name I suggest you contact Melissa's and see if they will ID it for you, and I say if b'c I'm not even sure they know at this point what it is.

Melissa's is a high end wholesaler of fruits and vegetables and in the past have even invented names for some varieties that already have names. ( smile)

There's almost a similar situation in Europe where a company in the Netherlands is sending pints of mixed cherries and the good fortune there is that someone I know well in Germany got a pint and was intrigued with what looked like a mini cherry Green Zebra.

He was able to trace the shipment back to the Netherlands but not the company producing them and ended ip naming this cherry Green Zebra Cherry, and I love it.

Green Zebra has never been a favoite of mine and this one that looks like it is so sweet and lucious and also produces a lot. I've been offering seeds for it for the past two years in a seed offer I do elsewhere and if you go to Tania's T-base, via Google, I think you might see some other places that are now offering it. I didn't take the time to check b/c a T-storm is almost here.

What do you think of the taste of that wee striped one?

Have I got a deal for you. LOL How about you save about 30 seeds and I'll send you back 30 seeds of Green Zebra Cherry?

I need that many seeds b'c although I've grown several thousands of tomato varieties I fell in Dec of 2004 and now have to use a walker so there are three folks who help me with seed production and one who raises all my plants for me for at home and someone else does all tha gardening here.

If this interests you please contact me at cmale@aol.com and tell me either yes or no, so I know where things are at.

Thanks ever so much.

Oh, and I'm not a general source of Green Zebra Cherry to anyone other than user name Punk Rotten, gotta love that use name. LOL

Carolyn, who can also throw in a not well known great black cherry as well, as a teaser. ( smile)

Here is a link that might be useful: Baby Heirloom Tomatoes ( Melissa's)

Hi,

I did save some seeds but I only had one of these tomatoes out of the whole package. So I did not get many. I will have to count how many I got. The package to these tomatoes had a website called martinezandsonsproduce.com . I tried to contact them but got no reply.

The package had other cherry-like tomatoes; stuff like yellow pear, chocolate cherry, grape tomato etc. There was a few small orange and yellow tomatoes but I didn't bother on trying to ID or save any seeds. I only saved this one because it was interesting.

I fermented seeds from a beautiful Virginia Sweet tomato and found after four days, that about half of the seeds had little tails indicating germination. Should I bother saving these for 2012 planting or are they a lost cause?
victor

the seeds that didnt sprout will be ok to save

Late blight does not overwinter in the soil. It survives on living tissue.

Early blight, late blight, and Septoria leaf spot are common tomato diseases caused by fungi. The fungi overwinter in the soil. That's why a good preventative measure is to rotate your tomato crop each year. You can also grow disease-resistant varieties. You can read more through the link below. Good luck!

*****

As has been noted, late Blight ( P. infestans) does not overwinter except in certain areas of the US where the two mating types are present and then the sexual oospores can do so.

But having posted online since the early 80's I can share with you that there are a lot more tomato diseases/conditions that folks refer to as "blight" than the few foliage ones in that link, which I thought was quite incomplete.

There is no need to rotate your tomatoes every year, many folks simply don't have the room to do that.

For the foliage diseases prevention is the key, spraying with a good anti-fungal ASAP after the plsnts are outside. The two fungal diseases of Early Blight ( A. solani) and Septoria Leaf Spot are perhaps the two most common ones worldwide. The two bacterial ones which I don't even think were mentioned in that link, are Bacterial Speck and Spot and prevention for them is not all that effective.

Again, speaking only to the foliage diseases, all NEW ones are acquired via air and embedded in rain droplets. But any diseased plants also can shed spores and bacteria to the ground and then the next year rain and irrigation can splash back those pathogens to the lower leaves of the plant and away it goes up the plant. Mulching can help prevent splashback.

One of the best thigs to do is in the Fall to turn over the soil deeply, not just with a tiller, to bury any spores and bacteria that may have fallen to the ground so that they're buried very deeply.

But again, blight to most folks means a sick looking plant and there are lots of possibilities for that including the systemic tomato diseases, nutritional problems and the weather in any one season.

I grew my tomatoes on the same 1/2 acre field for about 16 years and never had a buildup of pathogens in the soil.

Hope that helps.

Carolyn

No, Ananas Noir isn't an heirloom. It was found in a field of the tomato variety Pineapple , just one plant, this in Belgium, and it is a cross between Pineapple and an unknown other parent, presumably a dark colored one. It was genetically stabilized by the person who found it and so while OP it is not an heirloom, it's the result of crossed seeds.

Aha, I just found that the response I gave to the clarification didn't post although it was here last night. Wonders never cease, so here we go again.

As posted above:
Of a pack of ananas noire I grew one plant. That plant produced globes - all globes on that one plant. I saved seed from those globes. I grew out 5 plants from the seed I saved from the globes - all 5 plants gave me the beefsteaks.

******

The one plant that grew all globes could well have been from a stray seed which you don't know since you only had one plant.

If it resulted from a stray seed of a known variety then all 5 plants whould have been the same.

If you saved seeds from those globes, which is not what A Noir should be, and then put out 5 plants from those saved seeds and you say that all 5 plants gave you the beefsteak shaped fruits that WERE Ananas Noir, then I don't understand what was going on.

If the Globe plant was a hybrid from a natural cross then saving F2 seeds and putting out 5 plants should have given you sone different plants and fruits b'c the genes would be segregating.

The fact that you got ALL true Ananas Noir plants is not something I can understand.

So perhaps someone else can offer a different explanation that might help. If all 5 F2 plants were different or at least some of them were I could understand the situation better.

Carolyn

Could you have possibly mislabeled your seeds? Did you grow any of the seeds from the plants that gave you the Ananas Noir? Maybe those that you labeled as that were in fact the green globes.

Perhaps there is a latent recessive gene in the AN similar to how an albino is formed. Maybe you got a plant last time that was just a very rare recessive permutation and even the offspring will revert back to the dominant gene. I'm not sure if plants work the same as animals, but it's a thought.

Thanks for the responses... My wife really likes the flavor of AR, which I think is going to be similar to other heart-shaped varieties. I was wondering if someone can suggest a heart variety as good or better in fruit quality and growing characteristics (time to maturity, productivity etc.) that I might next next year instead of AR, just to see if it resists disease better? I know AR is pretty early, and well liked for its flavor, so it might be a tough act to follow.

I don't mind different-colored ones either, as long as they produce as well and mature at about the same speed as Anna Russian.

I think that disease is just a fact of life where I garden- it's a community garden and people tend to crowd their plants together in a huge thicket, plant in the same spot year after year, let their disease-ridden vines stay in the ground once the season is over (sometimes with rotting), etc. I don't do that, but the neighboring plots do, so whatever I grow needs to handle folliar diseases well.

You could consider the following:

PInks

Kosovo, grows well for almost everyone
Nicky Crain
Tsar of Bells
Anna Maria's Pink Heart

Reds

Linnie's Oxheart
Danko
Indiana Red
German red Strawberry
Russian # 117

Maybe take a look at those, and there are many more, at Tania's T-base and see what you think. I could have listed many more b'c I'd a dedicated heart lover, but when lists get too long it gets ridiculous IMO.

I'm not going to list any yellow/orange or white or black hearts b'c I think it's best you start with the pinks and reds.

Carolyn

You can also take measures to accelerate their ripening on the vine: reduce watering, pick off new blossoms, shift the roots a bit, and even cover plants at night, especially if temps remain in the 40s overnight. Here's a link that gives more tips for ripening tomatoes on the vine quicker:

Here is a link that might be useful: 10 tips for ripening tomatoes on the vine

I got to put in my 2 cents too. Wrapping in newspaper is a waste and you have to unwrap to check. I just set them in a back corner of the kitchen. And from advice here, I set them on the stem end.

BUT, I could NOT find a Youtube video of peeling that did not include blanching. HUMMMM, somebody with experience needs to do this ;-)

Tom

a pound of cherry or sun golds?? - easily!!

This is my first year growing tomatoes. I grew Sun Gold, Black Krim, Black Prince, Cherokee Purple, and Jaune Flamme. I grew several Sun Gold and Black Krim plants from seed at the end of March and bought 4" starts of the Black Prince and Cherokee Purple. I transplanted them all at the end of May under plastic tunnels, watering weekly and adding Dr. Earth tomato fertilizer once a month, and left the plastic on until the beginning of July, when one Sun Gold grew tall enough to touch the plastic.

The Sun Golds, Black Prince, and one Black Krim started setting fruit while under plastic around the end of June, and the Cherokee Purple and other Black Krim had fruit set by mid-July, when I added a Jaune Flamme from a 1 gal container. I also put 1-2 2L bottles full of water around each plant for a little extra warmth. The fruit on most of the tomato plants grew about 1/2" to an inch per week.

The Sun Golds finally started breaking at the end of July (~30 days after fruit set and ~70 days after transplant), and the larger tomatoes started breaking in mid-August (40-50 days after fruit set and 80-90 days after transplant).

We've harvested hundreds from the 4 Sun Gold plants, and they're all still producing 40-50 tomatoes/week while we get about 2-3/week from the Jaune Flamme. We've harvested about a dozen each of the larger tomatoes, all between 2.5-4" in diameter. We would have gotten more, but I was paranoid about diseases and pruned them to a single stem since I'm staking them. Next year, I'll prune to 3-4 stems, so we can get a higher yield. The larger tomatoes stopped setting fruit after the first bunch in July, but now we're getting a second crop setting on the Black Prince and Cherokee Purple, but they probably won't mature before the rain and cold arrives for good.

I posted photos of the plants on this thread: PNW Post Your Tomato Pictures 2011

I'm about an hour and a half south of Seattle and this is my 3rd year growing tomatoes. This year they didn't start ripening until about the end of August. I grew 2 Brandywines, 1 grafted Brandywine, 2 Big Beefs, and 1 grafted Big Beef. I bought them all as starts from Territorial Seed. The 2 regular Brandywines are spindly, but that may be because I didn't give them enough room. I didn't see a difference between the grafted and regular Big Beefs. The big beefs haven't had a lot of flavor and the brandywines have been mushy. I haven't used any tunnels or cloches. Next year I'll try some Roma-style plants. The Cherokee Purple recommended above sounds good, too.

On a side note - I put mylar around my Early Jalapeno and I'm getting a few peppers now. I'll do that again next year and might try it on new tomato transplants.

Yes, tomatoes can also be called berries according to some definitions.

So tomoato= fruit, aka berry or Tomato = berry, aka fruit. LOL

See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato; Fruit and/or Berry

This is a hilarious post. Truly great,since the answer is already questioned.

Tomatoes love manure,and also care, and attention,and whatever thought you put into them.

Ever think about the idea of attending to a plant in plain dirt with all of your might versus not attending to a plant with optimal soil? Yep, you guessed it, the plant you care about will win. Know why?

Care. It defaults most all scientific knowledge,as well as environmental situations, because you care,which means you are on top of it.

Take care,
Travis

Are the gallons smaller in Dubai? Your plants are going to be happy with all that room.

Since you're Zone 11 the trick to a smaller container is that with smaller soil volumes and container diameter you have to keep the soil from getting too hot, so I'd try to shelter the base/container from getting too much direct sun.