To date Biyskaya Roza has started blooming in WOW, not sure yet if any tomatoes to be seen... overall since I could not plant ALL of my earlies at same time in same area it is impossible to say which one would have been winner. But BR is called this way because of the city Biysk, which is South Ural, former USSR. So not question it is one tough plant. Picture is from Russian tomato forum http://www.tomat-pomidor.com/newforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=237.0;attach=3730;image

NEWS BREAK:

Today I saw a cherry size fruit on one of my SILETZ plants. Woohoo. I will take a picture and post it here.
I have been expecting my Bloody Butchers will be the first. But so far their fruits are still inside the dried up flower petals. So is the case with Sun Gold cherry. Stupice is a bit behind because I bought is as a tiny transplant (about 4") and planted it out couple of weeks later than the others. But it has several trusses of bud and flowers. Matina is way behind. Surprisingly Cherokee purple is about to flower so is Mortgage Lifter.

I am excited to pick some ripe fruits in time to celebrate The Fourth, maybe sooner.

Our weather is still cool. Forecast is calling for lows down to 46,47/48F and high around 63/64/65F for the next 3 days.But my plants have seen much cooler temps before.

OK. Follow up on the latest in MY garden.

I have a picture to share.
It is one one of my SILETZ that making the competition tough on Bloody Butcher and Sun Gold. I have some pea size fruits on a BB. Will catch up with the Siletz ? Stupice is also moving. Matina, TOO slow so far.

So my garden nominees seem to be SILETZ and BLOODY BUTCHER. Nothing in the envelope yet :D

Seysonn, congrats!
Two green tomatoes on my Biyskaya Roza! Yay! Lots of plants are blooming too. Unfortunately did not start all of them at same time so not sure which one is close second.

Thanks Linda .

Should we put the name " Biyskaya Roza"in the envelope or you have other contenders too ?
For myself, so far, I have just nominees and no prize winner yet. I will announce my winner on the Great Day of Fourth of July 2014. That will be the time to celebrate.

I have 8 tomato varieties this year. I planted them out under a low tunnel 4 weeks ago. (My last frost date is May 10th. I was lucky to have the tunnels because we had hard freezes the 11th -13th. I even put a space heater out there those nights because I was so worried.)

Italian Heirloom
Opalka
Kosovo
Marianna's Peace
German Pink
Black Krim
Park's Whopper
Cherry Roma

And, although none of these are "early" i expect that i will have a few red ones by the 4th of July which isn't too bad in my town.

All have a few baby tomatoes except Marianna's Peace and Opalka. Park's Whopper was first and Italian second but they are growing much bigger tomatoes than the cherry roma...

The attached pic is from about a week ago.

JP

This post was edited by jonathanpassey on Wed, May 28, 14 at 14:28

Well I was going to take a couple of pics of some Black Prince that were perfectly ripe. I had some errands to run so I was going to take the pic when I got home. My wife said they were very tasty. It started to pour rain, and some of the others have splits now. Looks like it will only be cosmetic though thankfully.

Bush Goliath, and Better Bush have given quite a few nice tasting tomatoes, I have eaten a few Yellow Pear as well.

Husky Cherry Red continues to put off fruit. Branches die off, and another pops out, and then sets a cluster of more tomatoes. Not many make it to the house. My wife eats them before she makes it into the house.

Creole hybrid has some large fruit starting to blush. Park's Whopper does as well. Mr Stripey has fruit set on one plant. The other will have some soon, as it is blooming like mad. I am letting this one sprawl. The other has outgrown the cheapo store bought cage, and I am staking the branches. (No complaints from me on that. It is a problem I like to have.) Cherokee Purple has set fruit, and my Sweet 100 is starting to set fruit despite being only 2 feet tall.

I added a large container for a few more plants, as I had more back ups than space would have allowed for, and I ran out of pots. So I built a large box planter for them, and filled it with my own 5-1-1. (18"deep by 24" across by 6 feet long.) Everything in that one seems to be doing well, as is the common sage I interplanted between the maters.

I will try to post a pic when my computer will jive right with my phone again.

Centexan, So already have a winner. Husky or Black cherry?

JP, congrats. for zone 5 with May 10 LFD you are doing great. I am sure you'll have ripe tomatoes on or before The Fourth. Definitely low tunnel is the best season extender. I have smaller, shorter hoops. I used them to shelter my plants while I was hardening off.

My Bloody Butcher has tiny fruits beside the Siletz. First harvest for The Fourth is realistic. It is warming up a bit around here. Some of my plants are growing like half of an inch a day.

Alright. Ye'all have a good season and keep posted.

For us I have green tomatoes on Biyskaya Roza, Kermit, Indian Stripe which are all larger tomatoes. Also green tomatoes on Moravsky Div and Sugar Drop. I think I get small fruited first so it will be either Moravsky Div or Sugar Drop. Both are early varieties. Getting to be exciting here. I just switched today to Amaze NPK fert for extra boost of Ca and Phosphorus and will start next week Texas Tomato Food.

Good for you Linda, we have then waith to open the envelope. Would it be Sugar Drop or Morovsky Div ?

What is "Amaze NPK" fertilizer ? What kind of analysis it has? Is it synth or org. ? Price and availability ?

I like to experiment different ways of doing/growing. My plants, almost every single one of them, has flowers now, besides the one with tiny green matoes.

Alright. How is your weather? We are slowly but surely warming up here. High mid to upper 70s and lows around 50F. That is GREAT for PNW.

Weather has been near perfect since May18 here. Dry, hot days, cool nights. Couple of nights were a bit cooler but overall great.
With Amaze we go into territory of foliar sprays, negative and positive charges, Ca mobility and rest of the stuff that I am just learning. Pretty fascinating. It is produced by International Ag Labs. I got mine from Smiling gardener store. Gotta say effects I am seeing well worth the investigation.

Well, the Black Krim won here, (Southern Calif).
It had 3 blushed maters on it, and I picked them May 31st, 2014~~~that's the earliest I have had tomatoes.

They were bought as plants from Laurels Heirloom Tomatoes~~~~~all the maters are beefsteaks.

Gary

Gary, that is great.
My BK last season was probably the last one. I guess it likes your climate.

Linda, Same here. Relatively speaking we are having very nice weather lately and forecast calls for more of the same (sunny, warm, no rain).

I am betting on Siletz and Bloody butcher in my garden.

Good Luck to you all !

The "Awards Committee" is still accepting nominees.
Please enter your EARLY nominee before it is too LATE and red. hehe

My early nominees are:

Sungold
Jagodka
Eary Annie

I think Sungold will probably win because one of the fruit is turning from green to orange.......

The other two are growing in containers and Jagodka is loaded with fruit.

Linda

My early nominee is sun sugar. I've already picked and enjoyed my first sun sugar tomato :) It also has a few others starting to color up. Black cherry isn't too far behind, and cherokee purple won't be too far off after that.

Congrats, Hopeful.
The envelope please !
And the winner (In Hopeful's Garden) is : Sun Sugar (Hurray).

Question: When did you plant out your Sun Sugar ? I want to get a ball park figure on its DTM. Thanks.

I am trying Fourth of July and Champion this year for early tomatoes. Unfortunately because we were reconstructing vegetable beds they got in the ground late. Fourth of July has a couple of small tomatoes on it now.

Congratulations on Sun Sugar! I grew that last year and stuck with Sun Gold this year again, our perennial favorite cherry. Would love to hear when and how you planted that SunSugar and if you did anything special to get a ripe tomato so early?

Welcome, prairimoon.
I can bet that your 4th of July will have ripe fruits to celebrate the name that it carries. Good luck with that. We accept your nominee.

Yeah, lets share some of the things we do as well.
I myself extending my season by covering my beds with plastic from a month before plant out ; Soil temperature is more important (IMO) than air tem for tomatoes. I also used cold frame and hoop during hardening off ; I made my own WOW. Actully WOA (wall of air) by wrapping a small cage with bubble wrap.

Thanks Seysonn, I appreciate a friendly welcome! :-)

That 4th of July has just a few small green tomatoes on it, so I will be pretty surprised if I get a ripe one by July 4th!

I actually just got the last of the tomatoes in the ground this morning. I've never gotten them in the ground so late. I've tried using Wall of Waters once or twice when I can get myself organized enough and that worked well. Bubble wrap cages, very interesting. Very creative!

I hope to build some cold frame tops for my beds in the fall, but that's not a sure thing. I don't know if I could take all those extra steps you do, but we do love tomatoes, lol. I should try a little harder next year!

Latah!
Latah is the first tomato plant that has little green tomatoes on it.

Sun sugar was one of only two I didn't start for myself. I bought it when it was only a few inches tall the first Saturday in May, and planted it that day. So it had right at a month in my garden before harvesting the first tomato. Black cherry was the other I bought that weekend. Everything else (including the cherokee purple) was started in March indoors and transplanted into the ground the same weekend that I bought the two cherry varieties.

Hopeful4ky,
So then you already have a winner , Sun Sugar ? Congrats.
My Sun Gold is WAAY too slow. My best hops are Bloody Butcher and Siletz (99%). Unless some others come from behind and win.

@ Green _go and @Hopeful4ky
From small green to ripe should take less than a month. I hope you get it by The Fourth.

Yes :) Sun sugar is already producing. I'm hoping by the 4th the others with green tomatoes will have something ready to pick. I noticed today a japanese black trifele and matts wild cherry also have green fruit.
My Sungold is about like yours. It is growing slower than the sun sugar. So far it has no fruit.

For me the race for the earliest ripe tomato is between Hanky Red, Manitoba, and Banana Legs (planted against the recommendations here). These three varieties are new to me. They were planted on May 18th and all three have little green fruits.

Rodney

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner: Sun Gold.
Congrats Linda.

Here is an update on my nominee, SILETZ. I took the picture today. Coming along pretty good. I am more hopeful to have some for THE FOURTH>

Linda, congrats! Am wondering why not Jagodka...

Hi Ellen,

I'm wondering that too! Jagodka, Early Annie and Sungold were all started at the same time, in February, but I was nervous that I wouldn't have a big enough container for Sungold (knowing that it becomes huge) so I planted it early, in wet clay soil, augmented with two shovels full of damp compost. It sulked for a while, so I think it was stressed and decided to ripen it's fruit in case it died!

I'm happy to have some fruit, and maybe Sungold will cheer up and grow bigger!

Linda

I posted this same reply in another thread but since I had already made guesses in this thread i figured I'd duplicate it here for y'all:

I started my tomatoes from seed on the 15th of March and planted them outside on May 3rd under Low tunnels.

The tunnels stayed on for about 3 weeks and on two nights I even put a tiny space heater in there because we had lows in the mid twenties on mother's day weekend.

I have had some unexpected results. Italian Heirloom 2 days ago:

Contestants for runner up:

Kosovo:

Black Krim:

Cherry Roma:

Oddly, Park's Whopper which is supposed to be earlier than all of the above is still perfectly green.

JP

Since posting a few weeks back, I have had more varieties kick in and produce ripe tomatoes. Sungold, black cherry, and matts wild cherry have given me quite a few ripe tomatoes at this point. Still waiting on my first noncherry variety. Cherokee purple is getting close.

Alright guys. Good to hear good news. I am tired of hearing problems, dying plants ...
Jonathan, you have so many of them coming along nicely.

Hopeful, You already have winners, 1rst, 2nd, 3rd place. My Siletz just keeps getting bigger and bigger. No color break yet. But anyday now. I have few runner ups, SFT, Bloody Butcher, ..

We finally had a real summer like weather today, highs reaching 93F. Tomorrow will get up to 85F.

Beside SoCal, Florida and Central Texas, the rest of country is getting into harvest mood too.

Happy Summer !

I'm thinking SFT is going to be the winner in my garden. It and a mystery tomato were the first to set fruit and it's been growing along nicely. Since I have no idea what the other one is, I don't know how big it's going to get before it starts ripening. My JTBs are doing really well, too, but I know they got some sizing up to do yet before they think about ripening. Everything else is still really small.

nwhg,
My SFT is surprisingly catching up. Already has half a dozen fruits, largest one bigger than cherry. And it is loader with flowers.

My JTB has a few cherry size fruits. Again it is moving along. Now that summer is official and we are having summer like weather up here, in the NW I see the light .

Hadn't posted in quite sometime but this appears, at this time, to be my best season ever. Earliest and loaded with Greenies are Gardeners Delight(Cherry) and Bear Claw(super large Beefsteak). Alice's Egypt has been in my garden for 3 years and never ceases to amaze me with it's productivity and longevity. It's a heart variety with weak appearing heart type foliage that prefers to sprawl rather than grow upright with fruit that varies greatly in size. I would describe it as an ugly plant that will produce heavily from late August until late Oct.. The taste is very sweet,
not to my liking but My wife and her Korean friends can't get enough of them so for the 1st time ever I've grown 3 plants and I know that wont be enough.

Ok Not sure which one will win for me but the following are the ones I am growing this year

Stupice
Homer Fike's Yellow Ox heart
Risentraube
Lollipop
Dwarf Jade
New Big Dwarf
Mohamed
Al-Kuffa
Elfin
Red Robin
Azoychka
Paul Robeson
Silver Fir Tree
Tasmanian Chocolate
Pearls of Wisdom
Livingston's Paragon
None are ripe yet so my pick won't be till much later!

Of all I had planted Better Bush, and Bush Goliath ripened fruits first. Next was Husky Cherry Red the next day. Black Prince was a couple of days behind that.

I am going to award Black Prince the flavor medal for early producers. Lots of fruit, that ripened fast. Though the plants are no more. The heat here was not nice to them. So I took cuttings of the healthy parts. If they do well I will put them back in the same spots in a couple or three weeks.

Creole Hybrid did outstanding, as did Park's Whopper. Mr. Stripey is quite tasty. As is Cherokee Purple. German Johnson has one fruit set on it. I am hoping it gets bigger, and gets a chance to break color.

The heat here is sweltering right now at 102 in the shade according to my back yard thermometer.

My comment from June 10th: "For me the race for the earliest ripe tomato is between Hanky Red, Manitoba, and Banana Legs (planted against the recommendations here). These three varieties are new to me. They were planted on May 18th and all three have little green fruits."

To give an update, Hanky Red won the race for me. I picked two ripe tomatoes from the plant today. Manitoba came in a very close second (it was orange, changing to red). Banana Legs has no color yet.

Rodney

Congrats Rodny

So everybody has a winner ?

Myself, I anticipated that SILETZ will win. I was wrong. Bloody Butcher won the race around July 8. Now SiletZ is getting red. But compared to Bloody Butcher with a 2 oz fruit, Sileltz has large fruits. I estimate it about 8 oz maybe more. Sun Gold also give its first ripe fruits. Very tasty , very tomatoee the way I like it. I ate about 3 off the vine today.
Stupice and SFT are coming way behind so is Matina and Legend.
we are having a perfect summer like weather here in PNW. Very unusually warm. and things are on fast gear right now.

Finally, finally I have an actual blush! It's on the mystery tomato that was the first fruit to set. SFT has been sitting looking slightly yellowish for probably two weeks now, and I am losing my patience with it. Also, it dropped lots of blossoms during the worst of this heat wave. Not sure it's going to be invited back to my garden.

hi NW hg,

Glad you are there with a winner.
I have the same story with my SFT. Fruits are quite yellow and it has been losing a lot of blossoms in this heat wave. It does not take heat very well at all. Two more days and we will be back to our normal weather pattern.

My "earlies"aren't going to be that much earlier than my mid-late indeterminates b/c I planted them all out over the course of 3 weeks 200 plants (plus 13 in pots and 96 peppers). But BK has some good sized fruit on them. Some smaller varieties too but the only ones I think might give BK a run for the $ are SS100 and Gardeners Delight cherries. Maybe a Sandpoint in 1gal pot that has teeny fruit set?

BK transplanted June 6

This post was edited by ajsmama on Tue, Jul 15, 14 at 16:14

In my garden, BB won the race and SiletZ finished second. But its fruit size was 3 times as big as BB.

Here is a picture. I have to sit on the counter a few days to fully ripen.

Latah is not only the earliest of all 30+varieties of tomatoes I am growing, but also insanely productive for such a small plant. First ripe tomato was picked at the beginning of July:

I try a new early tomato every year. This year, Glacier was my earliest. They're OK. Early tomatoes don't impress me much. The best early I've grown was Matina. It was better to me than Bloody Butcher or Stupice. Personally, though, although it may not be considered an "early" tomato Jaune Flammee is always less than a week behind my earliest tomatoes, but even the first Jaune Flammee off the plant is as good to me as the best late season tomato. There is no early tomato that can compete with it for flavor, IMO. I try one new early variety every year just to extend the season a week, but I'd rather have more space in my garden for late season tomatoes, which are far superior in flavor.

I finally picked a Stupice today, although it will probably still need a couple of days on the counter. More blushing on both plants, and SFT is finally actually blushing, not just sitting there looking faintly yellow. Siberia and Glacier are still just growing and setting fruit, not even a hint of a blush on those. Next year I am going to try Cole and Northern Delight for earlies and see how they do.

We have been picking Fourth of July for a couple of weeks, but minimal amounts so far. It has grown well, the tomatoes are small, maybe 2 or 3x bigger than a cherry. I'm disappointed in the flavor. I won't grow it again, unless as time goes by the flavor changes at all. I guess I would rather give space to a later variety that has better flavor next year.

Euarto, I will look for Juane Flammee next year to try.

Anyone else actually happy with the flavor of their early tomatoes? At our house, our favorite tasting tomato is Sungold. It's sweet, but has a little acid too.

I really like the taste of Early Annie. It's a large red cherry tomato, suitable for growing in a container.

I also grew Jagodka, another early red cherry which is a bit smaller than EA and ripened a week earlier. I think they taste very good too, but when I compared them, my favourite was Early Annie.

Oh and I have some Russian Cherry tomatoes which are ripening on the plant for lunch today. This is yet another red cherry. I think they are delish, but haven't compared the taste to the other two yet. I planted the seeds on April 7 and ate some a few days ago, so I'd say that they matured in about 100 days from germination!

Linda

Thanks Linda, I'm going to look for Early Annie to try for next year too. :-)

You have quite a few tomatoes coming in already! :-)

yes, Big vote on Matina and Jaune Flamee. Great ones.
Also Moravsky Div is excellent, compact, easy in the container, early and great taste.