My tomato collection - opinions for 2010?

14 years ago

My gardening addiction kicked into high gear this past year. I have collected far more new tomato seeds than I have room for.

I am in (almost always) frost-free Southern California, so I looked for early varieties to set out as soon as February, and then other interesting tomatoes to continue plantings through August.

Most of these I researched and selected, but a few are wildcards/extras from swaps etc. I think I will have room to try out about half of these, perhaps 15 plants. We love cherries, so probably at least 4-5 cherry types in addition to my usual Sweet 100. I'd love to get opinions/recommendations to help me choose.....

My List:

Arkansas Traveler

Beefsteak

Black Cherry

Black From Tula

Black Prince

Bloody Butcher

Brandywine, Pink

Cherokee Purple

Dr. Carolyn

Gardener's Delight

German Red Strawberry

Green Zebra

Heinz 1439

Ildi

Indian Stripe

Japanese Black Trifele

Kellogg's Breakfast

Lahman Pink

Marglobe

Potato Tomato

Purple Calabash

Rutgers

Sub Arctic Plenty

Sungold

Super Marmande

Wapsipinicon Peach

White Currant

White Queen

White Wonder

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Comments (6)

dickiefickle
14 years ago
Siberian and Matina and Stupice and Volvograd
neohippie
14 years ago
Cherokee Purple is a good tomato for hot climates. You might want to use that one for some of your later plantings. It always does well for me.

Don't have experience with any of the others, but I have seeds for Arkansas Traveler, Black Cherry, and Dr. Carolyn too, so I'm looking forward to finding out how they do myself. I've heard Arkansas Traveler is also a good hot weather tomato, which is why I got it. I need those in Texas.
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Gary, Oh, I don't "think" you said enough to get yourself in trouble. I am sure the GW admin can distinguish between an innocent mention of one's livelihood versus blatant advertising. I am not sure how strongly the rule is enforced, but the rule as I understand it is that no commercial advertising is allowed in any of the forums. If you say something about your business that they think comes too close to advertising, I think they send you a "warning" by e-mail. Anyway, I'm glad you mentioned your operation. How else would someone like me down here in southern OK know you were up there in northern OK? I'm glad to know we have someone else up there (in addition to Lisa) growing heirlooms that we can refer people to when they're searching for plants or for information, answers to the hardest tomato questions, etc..... Maybe you cannot refer people here to your operation, but the rest of us can. There's a guy in Texas who sells heirloom tomatoes by mail but ONLY mails them within the state of Texas. (He has a real job and trying to mail them all over the country is too time-consuming for a part-timer.) I've always wished 'somebody' here in Oklahoma had that kind of business because lots of folks here want to try heirlooms and some people don't have the space to start seeds indoors or their job takes them out of town too much, etc. Finally, what would any of us do if a late freeze (or baseball-sized hail or a tornado or a wildfire) wiped out every plant we had in the ground in, let's say, early May? Would we be forced to grow only hybrids? Well, it wouldn't be the worst thing on earth, but it would be close. No. We'd send out an SOS and find someone in the state of Oklahoma who raises/sells heirlooms and we'd be hoping and praying we could find someone like that. So, you see, we NEEDED to know that you are there. Laspasturas, Welcome home to Oklahoma and also welcome to the Oklahoma forum. I'm glad you decided to stop lurking and start 'talking' to us. I read over your list and think most everything you have on it ought to grow just fine here. If there's one that might not produce well here, it likely would be German Red Strawberry since the heart types don't generally produce well in our endless and brutal summer heat. I grow indeterminates in containers and, in general, they perform quite well there. The larger the container, the better they perform. I grow indeterminates in containers of all sizes from cat litter buckets that seem slightly smaller than 5-gallon buckets (I've never measured to see how much the buckets hold but guess 4 to 5 gallons) to molasses feed tubs (about the size of a half-whiskey barrel, so I'm guessing 20 gallons or so?). To grow in containers here in OK, you have to pay careful attention to watering. In our hottest weather, and by that I'd say anything up to about 105 degrees, the containers may need to be watered twice a day. When the temp goes over 105, I drape old bedsheets over my containerize plants to shade them and then water them at meal times: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Luckily, that kind of heat usually only lasts a few days. Because Oklahoma's heat is so brutal, I try to strategically place my containers where the plants will receive 6 to 8 hours of direct sun and no more than that. I get better production from those plants than from containers placed to that they get sun for 8 to 10 to 12 hours a day. The plants also are happier if they are not lined up alongside a driveway, patio or south or west-facing wall that reflects a lot of heat up onto them. And, light-colored containers reflect heat away from the roots better than dark-colored containers do. AND, I spray-paint my kitty litter buckets a nice shade of green or blue (using Krylon Fusion paint designed specifically for plastics) so I don't look too much like a redneck gardener (not that there's anything wrong with being a redneck gardener). I don't think that your questions about how many tomatoes to grow for canning or dehydrating is a hijacking of the thread at all, but I am worried that people with a similar question in the future wouldn't find this thread if they do a GW search because the search feature here is a little squirrelly (with no dispect to our friends the squirrels). So, if it is OK with you, I'll start a separate thread about growing tomatoes for canning and drying and such in the hope that by putting the words canning and drying in the title, it will ensure future searches find that thread. I'll get busy on that thread after dinner. Dawn
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jjs7741
14 years ago
Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple are both fantastic tomatoes with the Indian Stripe being much more prolific for me at almost 2 to 1. Kelloggs Breakfast is also a very good tomato and I gotta have Brandywine in the garden every year. Not very productive but the taste makes up for it.

As far as cherries go, I do not grow many of them, but I do grow the Black Cherry and Sungold. Both have a very good taste and the Sungold is super productive.

jacob
sautesmom Sacramento
14 years ago
My experiences:

If you love cherries, I would add Green Grape, it's one of the best and I've grown them all! And I always grow Golden Honey Bunch, a yellow grape that's delicious.

I would do Stupice, Kimberly or Moskvich rather than Sub Arctic Plenty if your intention there is early-- all 3 taste better, and Moskvich and Stupice LOVE the heat and become fabulous by August.

You don't say if you have nematodes, but for me all of the whites die from nematodes with little, if any, fruit.

I find Green Zebra to be really sour, so if that's what you are looking for, great. For me, it's a "spitter" (as in "YUCK") Some people love it though.

Heinz 1439 is just OK--Heidi tastes better and puts out TONS of fruit.

Wapsipinicon Peach was very disappointing the one year I tried it--I went back to Garden Peach, it's much sweeter and has a bigger crop (nematode thing, I think)

Carla in Sac
HoosierCheroKee
14 years ago
Arkansas Traveler: Excellent, pink, hot weather tomato as are Traveler 76 (more crack resistant) and Bradley (its predecessor).

Black Cherry: One of the best cherry tomatoes you can grow. Tasty. Pretty. Good parent.

Cherokee Purple: Best, sweet, complex, wine like flavor. Awesome.

Gardener's Delight: Another great cherry tomato with sweet and tomatoey flavor.

Green Zebra: Memorable appearance. Forgettable flavor.

Indian Stripe: Best overall tomato you can grow under most conditions. Earlier and more productive than Cherokee Purple with equal eating qualities.

Marglobe: Old standard for commercial open pollinated market tomato.

Rutgers: Ditto but with better flavor in my opinion.

Sun Gold: Sweet, fruity, aromatic, aggressive vine, awesome production starts early and extends into cool fall weather.

Good growing!
mtbigfigh
14 years ago
below are some suggestions for early tomatoes in So Cal from Gary Ibsen
Alaska
Black Plum
Black Prince
Blondkopfchen
Carmello
Dad's Barber Paste
Druzba
Fireworks
Flamme
God Love
Green Grape
Green Zebra
Jaune Coure de Pigeon
Manitoba
Marmande
Moonglow
Northern Lights
Purple Russian
Rose
San Francisco Fog
Sisters

These are seed I have that are for for tomatoes that can handle cool growing conditions either at end of summer season into fall or as early plantings in So Calif

Allicante 70 Days Ind C Red Golf Ball Full Bodied old time taste
Anna Russian 70 days Ind CJuicy Pinkish Red Heart to 1 lbAzoychka 65 days Ind CHYellow 3" 7-8 oz Juicy sweet rich touch of acid
Black Ethiopian 81 days Ind CH 5oz sweet rich and tangy Plum heavy production
Black Krim 75+ days Ind CH 10-12 oz Rich Sweet reddish brown
Black Pear 80 days Ind C Plentiful yield of 6-8 oz sweet well balanced flavor
Black Plum 82 days Ind C Deep Mahogany elongated Plum rich sweet and tart
Black Prince 70 days Ind C6-8 oz rich intense tpmatoey juicy fruits
Russian Black 80 days Ind C 4 0z sweet balanced complex flavor
Black Zebra 85 Ind CH
Box Car Willie 80 Ind CH
BuckbeeÂs New 50 Day Ind
Camp Joy 80 CCHH IndCherry
Carmello 75 Ind CCHH Red Salad
Ceylon 70 Ind C Red mini-beef
Crazy 55 Ind CH Cherry
Dona 75 Ind CCHH Red French Salad
Eva Purple Ball 68 Ind CH German Pink Purple 2" 6-8 oz
Fireworks 60 Ind CCHH 2 Â½ " 8-12 0z
Hezou 80 Ind China 2"
Illini Star 72 Ind Red 6-8 oz
Jaune Flammee 70 Ind C2-3 oz orange globe
Kelloggs Breakfast 78 Ind CH Orange Beef
Lida Ukrainian 75 Ind C
Lime Green Salad 52 Det CH 3 oz luscious tangy taste
Malinowski 75 Ind C Polish Lots of red round 6-8 0z delicious fruit
MariannaÂs Peace 80 CCHH Czechoslovakian Dense RichTomatoey flavor 16 0z
Moskovich 60 S-Det CC 4-6 0z luscious rich taste
Mule Team 80 Ind CCHH8-12 oz Mildly sweet Â bears till frost
Nyagous 76 Ind 6 oz C Russian Black Mahogany with sweet, complex fruit flavors
Omars Lebanese 80 Ind CLarge Pink Beefsteak
Paul Robeson 74 Ind CCH luscious, earthy, exotic with good balance
Prudens Purple 75 Ind CHPurple Pink with excellent flavor like Brandywine
Riesentraube 78 Ind C E Germany lots of pointed sweet grapes
Rose 78 Ind CH Amish 3" meaty luscious taste
Sisters 82 Ind CH Pot leaf 4" delicious pink beef
Slava 65 Ind C Red 2"Delicious from Czech Republic
St Pierre 84 Ind CH French Red thin skinned with a fine, sweet flavor prod up to frost
Stupice 52 Ind C Czech sweet 2" deep red globes cold-tolerant Standard Early
SunsetÂs Red Horizon 72 Ind CCHH Russian 4" delicious tomatoey in to November
Super Snow White 75 Ind CVery sweet 2 oz Ivory ping pong size great for salads
Thessaloniki 80 Ind CH Greek exceptional yields of 8oz wonderfully rich globes
Tommy Toe 70 Ind Bright Red 1" cherry with excellent juicy flavor

My tomato collection - opinions for 2010?

Comments (6)

dickiefickle

neohippie

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