OH WOW!!! (Note to self - order some of these too!)

Makes my mouth water just looking at that.....

Holy Cow ~ now that's a tomato plant!

Carol,
Your title made me think I had either sent mixed,crossed or mislabed seed. Glad to see you are happy. Hope it continues to do well for you. I've always liked most of the Goliath series of plants. Jay

Jay, I thought that would get your attention. If you had sent me the wrong seed, I probably wouldn't have known it, and if I did know, I probably would have just quietly grown it out. I appreciate you generousity. I am liking the looks of several of them so far. A few of them are a little slow to set fruit, but it is mostly the potato leaf plants.

I hope I start seeing some color soon because I am ready for a BLT or BPT. So far I have only had a few cherries and currants and I'm ready for the real thing.

Most of my peppers are just now starting to bloom, but I have had one giant Marconi, and I have another pepper that is quite large and a very light green that came from one of Burpee's mixed packs that they call Carnival Mix. The little Yummy pepper has four peppers on it but they are still all green. I planted peppers in green, red, yellow, orange, and purple. Next year I need to order Bianca or the one with Blushing in the name or something that is ivory. I forgot to do that this year. I am sure I won't miss it, since I have many peppers. I am way heavy in bells and next year I want to plant a lot of the NuMex types and see which one I like best. I am sure gardening would be easier if I just settled on a few varieties instead of trying to plant them all. LOL

Thanks again for the great seed. Carol

Jay - that's good to know about the Goliaths. This year I have several of the Italiam Goliaths that I planted because I can a LOT of tomatoes, sauce, salsa, etc. So far, the plants are really healthy and loaded with big fruit.

Carol - this year I'm trying the Numex Sunrise. They're a yellow mild heat anaheim pepper. I gave Seedmama several at the swap so surely between the two of us we'll have some extra seed. Let me know if you want me to save you some!

Paula

Provided everything grows like normal, I can provide seeds for NuMex Big Jim and NuMex Joe E. Parker (should we decide to start a trend). ;-]

Yep Paula, I am interested. We loaded seedmama up with peppers this year. Her garden probably looks like mine.

Maybe we should share seed packs or grow a whole pack and trade plants at the swap.

Lynn - that would be great!!! I've already decided that next year is going to be my Pepper Year. I really didn't keep enough of what I started...and I didn't do a large variety...so I've ended up purchasing pepper plants here and there. Seedmama helped fill in my need for Sweet Banana's, Peter Peppers and Mild Jalepeno's. However, I've picked up 2 more varieties of bells, a Costa Rican Sweet (it was only .99!) and 2 Red Hot Cherry plants. Those are my Dad's fave so I HAD to get those. Between you, me, Carol and Seedmama - we can be the Pepper People! (but I'm sure we'll have to include Jay too). Maybe we can grow peppers that will at least compete with Dawn's Tomatoe Trees next year?! LOL!

What do ya say, Carol? I think we're on to something! We can either share seed packets or grow the whole one and share at the swap. You all know where it will be next year, providing Mother Nature doesn't either blow me away or flush me down Little River.

I must be a REAL addict if I'm already thinking about next year when this one is just gettin' goin'.....(sigh - and I'm also going to get these tomatoes that Carol got from Jay!).

Paula

I have already bought several packets of seeds from NMSU Chile Institute. I bought both Nu-Mex Heritage Big Jim and Nu-Mex Heritage 6-4. They are supposed to have 10% higher yield and contain 20% more flavor compounds. I've always had good results with Nu-Mex varieties. And after I found out ast week on my trip to Pueblo my source of seeds for the New Mexico types in CO has bad health and probably won't be offering many if any seeds in the future I decided I'd plant mainly Nu-Mex types next year. I will have some seeds to spare and share with a few of you. If some of my new to me tomato varieties keep on setting and survive the heat may have some seeds of new varieties to share. Jay

Count me in, either way. I should have plenty of bell pepper seed. I will go back and check them all but I think most of mine are open pollinated.

The problem we will have is just like the tomato plants were this year. Those of you further south usually plant your seeds earlier than I do mine. I can just start a couple of weeks earlier tho so they will be ready to plant when your weather is ready. I put mine out fairly early this year, and I am sure they were forming roots as they sat there, but they didn't put on much top growth until the weather got hot. They are just not a plant to be rushed. With a few exceptions, mine are just now blooming.

I am just giving you fair warning, in case my plants are a lot smaller. LOL

Paula, That tomato pic is only the bottom two fruit trusses of that plant and it has already set more fruit higher up. Those are supposed to be 4-5 oz tomatoes, so I hope it can hold them up when they are full size. They may need a crutch. I think I wish I had a garden full of these.

Jay, I previously read on one of the NM pepper websites (can't remember which at the moment) about the 'new' Heritage peppers. It was a very interesting article about how after years and years of grow outs across the country, that the flavor of the peppers was getting further and further away from the original taste. In response, the NuMex pepper gurus went back to the drawing board and worked to create peppers that tasted much more like the originals. So, I decided next year I would grow some of the Heritage varieties. Since we've grown anaheims for years and are familiar with their flavor, it will be interesting to compare the taste against the 'new' originals.

Lynn

Carol,

That Cluster Goliath looks amazing. It makes me tempted to go to Totally Tomatoes and order the whole Goliath line. It's been 6 or 7 years since I've grown a lot of Goliaths (one row of them will give you all the tomatoes you need).

I grew regular Goliath and Bush Goliath as early tomatoes this spring, but gave them away to a friend when I ran out of space for them. I gave them to our friends still in 5-gallon pots (they needed to be potted up or transplanted and all my larger pots were full and so was my garden) and covered with fruit and they were harvesting tomatoes a couple of weeks later. They harvested the first one before it broke color (lol) because they were so excited to have fruit. They have sandy soil with nematodes and had just about given up on growing tomatoes so I may have 'converted' them into container growers with those Goliaths.

You tomato addicts (OK, we tomato addicts) are now becoming addicted to peppers.

One fun thing we could do next year for the swap is that everyone could pick a favorite variety or two to grow in quantity for the swap. Then everyone could bring 'their' chosen variety or varieties to the swap and trade with everyone else. Of course, everyone could bring other extra peppers too, but we'd know Carol was growing Variety A, and Lynn was growing Variety B, and so forth. Someone would have to be the Pepper Coordinator and keep a list of who was bringing what, but wouldn't it be fun?

On another note, like tomatoes, peppers are perennial. I have a couple of plants that are now in their third year because I overwinter them in containers in the garage. We went down to about 6 degrees on a couple of nights, but I know the garage stayed somewhat warmer...maybe it briefly went down to 15 or 20 degees on those 6 degrees nights. Anyway, the Red Sweet Bell Pepper I overwintered from last year starting blooming in Jan. or Feb. and set a couple of early bell peppers that I harvested in April. Then it set more in March or April. Those peppers are now a gorgeous red and ready to pick. This is despite the fact that the overwintered plant lost its leaves and some tips of some branches froze several times on cold nights although it never completely froze and died.

This fall, when pepper production drops, I'm going to dig up and pot a few and try overwintering them again in an effort to get an earlier pepper harvest. It works with hots, sweets and ornamentals....the ornamentals were the first ones I ever overwintered.

Finally, if y'all want 'pepper trees' to go along with my tomato trees, you'd need to start them in January for a late April swap. They grow a lot slower than tomato plants.

Carol, I've held peppers in cups forever some years waiting for the weather to warm up and they always take off just fine when they're finally in the ground even if they were root-bound in the pots. This year a lot of my peppers (both sweets and hots) had flowers and tiny fruit when I set them out into the garden, and I'm harvesting those peppers this week. It seems like this year the peppers grew faster than usual once I got them into the ground. It likely can be attributed to the July-like temperatures that arrived in southern OK in the last half of May.

I'll be canning something.....likely hot peppers and plums (not together!) tomorrow, and maybe salsa by the end of the week. When the harvest starts rolling in, it sure gets busy around here.

Dawn

We can eat a ton of tomatoes and peppers fresh, but if my tomatoes start getting ahead of me I may need to order that 'thingy' you bought last year. The first thing I try to make is salsa, and your gadget looks like it would be great for that. I read that it removes seeds. How does it remove seeds without crushing the tomato down to the juice stage. Is it just the difference in screens. I saw yours advertised recently with a set of screens.

Dawn, I think that would be a great way to do it, then we would be sure that we were growing something that someone wanted.

I grew extra tomatoes for the swap and they were in great shape for the swap but hardly anyone took them because yours were 3 weeks older and looked wonderful. LOL I actually got tired of watering my extras and finally just took the remainder to the compost pile. I held them for a long time because I was trying to keep some for a church gardening program. They were getting leggy but I didn't want to put them in anything bigger. I would have been better off to have just taken the whole thing down to the senior citizens instead holding for the church program. They had it too late in the year and people already had most of their garden planted. That's the first year that I have had any leftover to throw away. I could have put a few more in containers, but I was tired of buying the mix for the containers.

What a beautiful tomato! Now I have to add Goliaths to the list for next year......It looks very healthy too; that always catches my eye.

Carol,

I don't know it I can adequately describe how it works, but I put the tomatoes in the top and turn the handle. A form of tomato puree comes out the chute, and the seeds and peel go out the side. Sometimes I run the peel and seeds through a second time to squeeze every bit of tomato flesh and juice out of it. (That's a tip I picked up on the Harvest Forum) When you use the tomato screen it gives you a sort of tomato puree because it has pretty large holes. I haven't even tried the other three screens that were in the set I bought--one is for berries, one is for pumpkins and I dont remember what the other one is for. I love it and wish I'd had it 100 years ago as it would have simplified canning so very much. I did have a food mill years ago and it was adequate, but this thing is so much better. The first time I used it, I was astonished at how fast it was. It was so fast that I could process 2 or 3 salsa batches in one afternoon!

I got tired of buying ingredients for a container mix too. I still have about 40 five-gallon buckets with nothing in them. These are 'new' (recycled) ones that I haven't even drilled drainage holes in yet. It has been a few weeks since I last planted containers. Maybe I'll start some seed for fall and plant fall tomatoes or peppers or something in them. I've been trying to paint all of them with Krylon Fusion spray paint for plastics so they'll look nice, so I drill holes, paint, make up the mix, fill them and then plant them. It takes me forever. I think I have about 40 or 50 containers planted, so only about half what I could have if I'd planted all of them. Maddie has been here a lot and I'd rather play with her than work, but she went home a couple of hours ago so I guess I have no excuse to slack off now.

How about "it is too hot". Our heat index hit 95 by 9:30 a.m. so I only worked outside for a couple of hours, on and off, this morning. I did weed-eat around most of the perimeter of the garden, and put out a little more Semaspore (thought I'd used it all already, but found the container in the garage refrigerator with about 1/2 cup left in it). Then I watered containers and came inside. I need to harvest more plums and tomatoes and peppers when it cools off a bit. You know, we wait so long for the harvest to start, and then once it starts, it is like a deluge.

With all the rain, I bet heat index numbers all over the state are much worse than mine today...our highest heat index today has been 97 so far, which feels 'almost' cool compared to 2 weeks ago when it stayed between 100-105.

Glenda, I haven't grown as many of the Goliath varieties as Jay has, but I've grown a few and all of them have great disease resistance. Of all the 'exclusive' tomato varieties from Totally Tomatoes that I've grown, the Goliath series have been the best.

Dawn

Okay - I'm hooked! I will put these tomatoes on my list for next year. They look outstanding and I'm drooling about now.....slurp.

My seedlings have come along so well that I will be planting them for my fall tomatoes. These include, as you probably are sick of hearing, Victorian Dwarf, Lime Green Salad, Burpee Super Beefsteak, Baker Family Heirloom, Black Cherry, and Jelly Bean red.

I read on the Tomato Forum, in response to someone's inquiry about seedlings stalled and not growing, maybe only 1 or 2 true set of leaves, and advice given that they were genetically flawed and should be dumped. Well, they don't know me. I gave them another chance by repotting into better mix, etc., and all of them have taken off like they're being chased by a herd of hornworms.

Consequently, I think I should give them an opportunity to produce in the fall, don't you?

Susan

Susan,

You probably should them give a chance. I've had some 'slow starters' work out fine in the end. They didn't take off as fast as normal, but in the end they produced just fine.

I haven't had any make it to the 1 or 2 leaf stage and then stall, but I have had a few make it only to the cotyledon stage and never progress. That's a genetic thing too, as best as anyone can guess. I usually toss those, but I kept one for a couple of months once and watered it and it finally formed 1 leaf, and then never did another thing, and then I finally tossed it.

Dawn

Susan,
First it matters how they stall. Out of all I've grown I've had very few where I thought it was due to a genetic thing. What I've found is that many times it is the mix they are started in. The last two years I've had some either stall or grow extremely slow. In both cases when I potted them in another mix and fed them a little foliar feed they took off. Last year they ended up being some of my best late plants. The same thing happened this year. And now they are some of my best plants to this point in the season. I would give them a chance. I imagine they will do fine for you. You can't tell the stalled ones from those that grew well all along now. Jay

Thanks, that's what I did and they are doing fine now, albeit they are still small plants. But, they are growing and will be ready for potting probably the end of this month, first part of July, which is just the right time for fall planting.

I usually do give these a chance, not just tomatos. I mean, I can't see throwing out something without giving another chance. Another indicator, they did have very nice roots on them as well. While little top growth, the roots completely filled the little seed-starting containers. I use the clear plastic soda bottles, large 2 litre and small individual bottles as well. This allows me to view the root progress, too.

Susan