Late PNW Grow Report

16 years ago

We had our first dip into the below 32 degree temps last week, so after the first night I harvested the remainder of my tomatoes, green or not. They seemed to have escaped the freeze thank goodness, no rotting yet.

So here's what I grew this year:

QFL (Quedlinger Frue Liebe - sp?) seeds from GW Jeri-OR

Great tasting, early cold tolerant productive smaller red tomato. Reminds me of Stupice somewhat. Keep very well! Will grow again.

IPB (Imur Prior Beta) - seed source Ed Hume. I've had these for a while, finally grew them out. OK taste, productive & cold tolerant small red tomato.

Sasha's Altai. mid-size red tomato - not very productive for me at all, but what I got was quite tasty. I should try again in a better spot. Reminds me of Moskovich in taste and grow pattern.

Dona. mid-size red tomato. Yuk, blah. Not productive, early or cold tolerant. Not the tomato for my shady conditions.

Rostova a.k.a. Sunset's Red Horizon. heart-shaped mid-size red. Not early or productive for me, in fact pathetic plant. Have read better results this year from fellow PNW folks so should try again.

Stick - the novelty plant with "poodle" foliage. I tried to grow this last year, but got all regular leaf. This year I got almost all the correct plant. Well, it didn't like me and I got maybe 2 tomatoes out of 5 plants. Nice novelty but...

Fireworks Original - source my own saved seed orig. TGS. Great tasty workhorse as usual. mid to small size red tomato, large clusters most with pointed end.

Stupice - source my own saved seed orig. TGS. The only tomato to be consistently grown in my garden every year.

Queen Mary - source mary_in_pnw GW. Finally grew this out, very nice small to mid-size red tomato! Medium productive, cold tolerant. Am saving seeds.

Jaune Flamme - second year of growing, seed source Lieven David Belgium, GW. Very tasty small-medium orange - sweet. Early, productive, and cold tolerant. Can't ask for more!

Santa F1 cherry. Hey, I just like this one for snacking. I still have a few seeds from T&M that I paid a fortune for and I'll probably grow one plant a year until they're gone.

BWxStupice - seed source Carolyn. 3 plants. I dropped back to my 2005 seeds from this project, as the 2006 seeds got mixed up so I'm sort of stalled at year 5. That's OK - the tomatoes are very tasty, plants are early, cold tolerant and medium productive - very cute small-brandywine shape.

Taxi - seed source Territorial. OK this had a bad spot but... it was a weak plant, tons of ber, I didn't get one edible tomato off of it. Won't grow again.

Noir de Crimee - seed source mary_in_pnw, GW. Black mid to large size. I grew this previously, and it was hugely productive. This year it was medium productive and still excellent - I saved seed. Note: it was previously determined in years past between Carolyn & Mary that this was not the "real" NDC. Original seed source for Mary was Chuck Wyatt.

Well that's it, folks. One more year gone by the wayside. I need to fix my old poly "greenhouse" so I can actually close the doors and retain heat again next year, for a better tomato crop.

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Comments (5)

carolyn137
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Great report Kathy and I wanted to make a few comments about a few of them and have thus deleted the others.

So here's what I grew this year:

Rostova a.k.a. Sunset's Red Horizon. heart-shaped mid-size red. Not early or productive for me, in fact pathetic plant. Have read better results this year from fellow PNW folks so should try again.

****

There have been several threads about this one at more than one place. It should not be heart shaped, it should be a large red beefsteak. The folks who originally introduced Rostova have said that they are trying to clean it up. It appears that what's being sold as Sunset Red Horizon, aka Rostove, at Tomatofest is not correct for the variety the way I read it. I grew the real Rostova and it's great. Until a few years ago the Rostova from TF was also correct so I don't know what happened there. Actually my Rostova was sent to me in the TF package.

(Queen Mary - source mary_in_pnw GW. Finally grew this out, very nice small to mid-size red tomato! Medium productive, cold tolerant. Am saving seeds.)

Queen Mary is a variety I got out of the USDA many years ago and listed in the SSE Yearbook. I also got King George and Alice Roosevelt and quite a few others that were round reds. What characterizes them is that old fashioned non-sweet really tomato tasting trait that so many look for.

(Jaune Flamme - second year of growing, seed source Lieven David Belgium, GW. Very tasty small-medium orange - sweet. Early, productive, and cold tolerant. Can't ask for more!)

Jaune Flammee is widely available in the US at several seed sources for those who might want to grow this terrific variety. I received the seed originally from a Frenchman in a huge trade back in 1992 and listed it in the SSE YEarbook at that time. A great variety. I don't experience it as being sweet, though, as does Kathy.

(BWxStupice - seed source Carolyn. 3 plants. I dropped back to my 2005 seeds from this project, as the 2006 seeds got mixed up so I'm sort of stalled at year 5. That's OK - the tomatoes are very tasty, plants are early, cold tolerant and medium productive - very cute small-brandywine shape.)

Sounds good Kathy. This cross, which I offered here at GW twice, was done by Stanley Zubrowski of Canada who was trying to introduce some taste into early varieties and he crossed Brandywine with several earlies such as Stupice and Glacier, etc. I too love the wee beefsteak fruits that I got from some of the crosses.

(Noir de Crimee - seed source mary_in_pnw, GW. Black mid to large size. I grew this previously, and it was hugely productive. This year it was medium productive and still excellent - I saved seed. Note: it was previously determined in years past between Carolyn & Mary that this was not the "real" NDC. Original seed source for Mary was Chuck Wyatt.)

Hmmm, I don't remember that your NDC was not the real one. LOL This is another variety I received in that trade with the Frenchman back in 1992 and while it should be the same as Black Krim it does differ in some minor ways and I prefer it to Black Krim.

Chuck Wyatt got his seeds for NDC from me but for several years before he passed on he was not in good health and I know there were many varieties that were not correct. may you grow the REAL NDC and enjoy it.

Nice report,

Carolyn
jwr6404
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Kathy
I live in University Place Washington and had tremendous success with the SRH. They were the most productive and largest tomato's I've ever grown.The Mr's,who never liked Tomatoes said this is the best and is the only one I should grow next year,between her and my Dog I have too many Bosses. My e-mail is hyunjun98@yahoo.com. I'd like to email you a couple of photos of my October SRH. I know how to post these photo's to a message but seem unable to to attach them to a message board,I'm not computer bright. I've sent seeds to 6 PNWers who wanted them after seeing the pictures. I have plenty of seeds if you want to try them.
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atash
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
My SRH from TomatoFest was not heart-shaped. Mine looked like small flattened (unusually flat) pumpkins. They were bland, mealy, almost woody, and prone to blossom-end-rot.

JWR, I'll email you. You tried to email me a while back but the email forwarding wasn't working.

>>BWxStupice

These sound interesting. I have noticed a precious few tomatoes that are small enough to ripen here but "meaty". That's what I like.

>>QFL (Quedlinger Frue Liebe

I've been meaning to try that one.

MY TOMATOES ARE STILL ALIVE!! No blight yet! Maybe all the mulching and beneficial/benign fungi are starting to help.
tomatogreenthumb
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
jwr6404............I would love to have some genuine SRH tomato seeds.
I have a few different varieties I can trade, including Ultimate Giant.
Please let me know.
Thanks, Owen Lambert
kathy_wa
Original Author
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Carolyn - thanks for the nice comments!

jwr6404- thanks very much for the seed offer. You'll be receiving an email shortly! I would like to taste the real thing as Carolyn describes.

Atash - some of my plants are still alive - but out where I live it dipped well below 32 several nights already - that's why I harvested all the tomatoes. A lot have ripened on the counter, I'm going to need to make a tomato pasta dish real soon.

I'm already thinking about what to grow next year :)

Late PNW Grow Report

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Late PNW Grow Report

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