2020 tomato to-grow list
Mokinu
4 years ago
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Mokinu
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoRelated Discussions
2013 Tomato Grow List
Comments (112)Mike, Most beefsteak types are late to set fruit and to mature fruit. Since yours are from volunteer seedlings, you have no idea what is normal for them if you don't remember what variety they are, but it sounds like they are setting fruit late and, thus, it ripens late. Too much horse poop also could mean they are getting too much nitrogen which makes the plants stay vegetative for a long time before they flower and set fruit. If you want fruit earlier, your best bet is to start out with purchased transplants and to choose varieties that mature more quickly than the average beefsteak type. You could plant Early Girl, Bush Early Girl or Better Bush and get fairly early fruit...a couple of months after you put 6-8 week old transplants into the ground. Jetsetter or JetStar would give you fruit a couple of weeks later than those, and most standard hybrids that produce red, roundish tomatoes would give you tomatoes 75-80 days after the transplants are put into the ground. Many beefsteak types, although they produce big, luscious tomatoes, do not produce fruit well in heat and they have DTMs of 80-90 days or more so they always are going to be fairly late. It may just be that in your climate, you still won't get many ripe fruit until fall. It depends on how early you can transplant tomato plants into the ground there. When's your average last freeze date? One problem is that tomato plants mostly stop setting fruit once daytime highs are above 92 and nighttime lows are in the 70s. You have to get your plants into the ground early enough that they set fruit before that happens. They won't start setting many fruit again until the temperatures cool down. That is an issue we face a lot here in OK. Cherry tomatoes or the varieties that produce smallish slicer or salad types like Jaune Flammee' or Fourth of July will set fruit more or less all summer, except in the hottest weather, so they might be a good variety for you. I like Early Girl because not only does she set fruit early, but unlike many other early types that shut down after producing early, Early Girl will go right on setting fruit almost all summer long. Some years it still is setting fruit for me in August when it is ridiculously hot here. Hope this helps, Dawn...See More2012 Tomato grow list
Comments (83)I did post before but it changed. Some I started didn't make it after attempting to harden off in a freak storm. And I kept finding others I *HAD* to have. Others I'll plant if I find them are Gold Medal & Dr Wyches orange. The new list: Arkansas Traveler Aunt Ruby's German Green. Black Cherry Black from Tula Black Krim Black Zebra Burgandy Traveler Carbon Charlie Chaplin Cherokee Green Cherokee Purple Heart Chocolate Stripes Eva Purple Ball Frank's Large Red Grandma Viney's Y & P Green Doctors Green Doctors Frosted Green Zebra Hazel Mae Hillbilly Indigo Rose JD's Special C-Tex KBX Kentucky Striped Kosovo Marianna's Peace Matt's Wild Cherry Medovaya Kaplya (Honey Drop) Momotano New Big Dwarf Pineapple Prue Snow White Striped Cavern "Suprise" (an unknown dwarf from Craig LeHoullier) Sun Gold Sweet 100 Virginia Sweets Wes I was given plants in bulk by someone that's the main tomato guy locally so with certain varieties I have easily 10-15 plants. I'm at around 200 plants. I think I went a bit overboard this year, lol....See Morethe post your tomato growing list thread.
Comments (103)In previous years I have coddled my tomato babies and used different contraptions to protect them from inclement weather. I usually have great success. This year, I can barely spare 5min away from my baby girl to sneak into the garden to see how the maters are doing. They aren't doing so great. So, from my original list, I have had to do a few replacements with whatever I could find from the "big box" stores or local plant sales. 1.Great White (need a beefsteak) UPDATE - DEAD 2.Purple Calabash (hoping for taste since I liked purple prince) UPDATE - 1 barely alive (Jbox) 3.Green Sausage (novelty) UPDATE - DEAD 4.Purple Prince (LOVE the taste) UPDATE - DEAD 5.Polish Linguisa (need a paste!) UPDATE - Pretty sure it will be dead when I get home today. 6.Black Cherry (hoping for taste and early) UPDATE - Really DEAD 7.Sungold (last year sucked, give it another chance) UPDATE - One of 4 tomatoes I had in 2 J-Boxes(Josho) that is alive 8.Stupice (early) UPDATE - Not sure actually. Suckers are forming where the original branches were sunburned and windwracked (Jbox) 9.SilveryFirTree (for the foliage) UPDATE - I give it 45% survival chance at this stage 10.Oxheart (need a regular red!) UPDATE - ALIVE! One of 4 in jbox. Managed to find - Red Zebra - Amish Paste Box Stores - Lemon Boy - Sweet Million Will probably get something like beefsteak etc. .Will cross my fingers and pray the rest survives!...See More2015 Tomato Grow List
Comments (101)Docjoc, Pretty much any bite-sized tomato you choose will grow well here. I don't think I've ever had any tomato plant that produces bite-sized tomatoes not perform well. So, really, it just comes down to taste. Most bite-sized tomatoes are commonly referred to as cherry tomatoes, but there's also grape tomatoes (size and shape of a grape) and currant tomatoes (smaller than cherry or grape types, and normally round in shape). For the typical red cherry tomato, you can't go wrong with Sweet 100, Sweet Million, Large Cherry, or any other red one you see. For a red cherry tomato that tastes not as sweet as the ones listed above and has a flavor that is more like the flavor of a beefsteak tomato, Riesentraube is outstanding. It is a heirloom and not always easy to find, but I think I've seen it in stores some years. For a red grape tomato, there is a variety called Red Grape or sometimes sold simply as "Grape". Other red grape types include Juliet (an AAS winner in 1999) and Jolly (an AAS winner in 2001). For a pink grape tomato, there's Rosalita, which has superb flavor. For a yellow grape tomato, there's Cuban Yellow Grape. There are several yellow cherry tomatoes, and my favorite is Galina's. There's also Snow White and Super Snow White, both of which are more of a pale ivory than a true yellow. For an orange cherry tomato, the standard is SunGold or its improved version with less cracking, which is SunSugar. For a black cherry tomato, you cannot go wrong with Black Cherry, which isn't black at all--it is sort of a deep red-maroon. For a plant that would stay more compact, you cannot go wrong with Cherry Falls or Sweet Baby Girl. There's thousands of tomato varieties available, so I encourage you to try different ones each year until you find the ones you love. Finally, although it is slightly larger than a typical cherry, for a tomato plant that can tolerate the worst summer heat and can handle quite a lot of drought and never stop producing, there's Porter. Sometimes you see it listed as Porter Cherry, Porter Dark Cherry, Porter's Pride or Porter Improved. It produces pinkish tomatoes that are just a bit larger than a standard cherry or grape tomato and are sort of egg-shaped, about 1.5" long and weight 2 or 3 oz. It was developed and sold by the now defunct Gene Porter & Son Seed Company based in Stephenville, TX, so was bred for pretty much exactly the same climate that we have here....See More
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