TheEasyGarden - Gardening Forum

What do I think?

I think that you are gonna have lots of tomato & pepper plants, HPQ!

I've only had 2 of each of the varieties in my garden. I'll give you the brutal truth (cause I know you can take it ). The Early Girl, Bush -- I thought, how could I possibly go wrong? It's an Early Girl, right? It went right off the rails . . . I had maybe a half dozen plants, they all performed poorly, here. That doesn't mean they won't be okay for you and you may have already grown them, HPQ. Just what happened here.

Wore myself out picking Sugar Lump the few years that I had it. I think you will be happy if they perform as well. I didn't find them especially sweet but you just have to wait for the little guys to fully ripen.

What can I say about Sweet Banana? Had them again this year and they did just fine. Easy, prolific - with a nice flavor. I'd almost be willing to give up the hybrid bells and just grow King of the North. It isn't especially thick-walled but it is tender with a nice flavor, great production and it ripens early. I've had it a good number of times and it stands up to most everything that is thrown at it, weather-wise.

Just my experience with a very few of them with 2¢ thrown in . And, I'm a long way from placing an order for my own - probably the end of January

Steve

It's been winter here since early November! Let's just hope it lightens up a little bit...

Steve- I love hearing your 2 cents! I was a little leery of the Bush Early Girl just because I thought "why would they change something that doesn't need fixin'?" but I figured i'd try it anyways. Let's hope it at least earns it's keep! I am pleased to hear about your King of the North results- I am very excited about those. Growing bell peppers in MN can be tricky!

Jared- Uh, about 9 of those varieties are new to me! NONE of my new varieties from last year were worth keeping so I got rid of all those seeds at a seed swap. I'm kind of at a point where I have only found a handful of things that I have to grow every year because they earned their place. Still in the trial and error stage. This will only be my third or fourth attempt at starting plants from seed myself. Here's to hoping these are worth it!

Now,

you two are in the same

Time Zone, right?

Steve's
in the "comfort" zone with snow falling all around

Last edited by digitS' (12/19/2012 10:58 pm)

HPQ I know the feeling, I've only had 2 keeper varieties with tomatoes, that's why I wondered what's working for you.  The Black Krims have inspired me to try Japanese Black Trifele to hopefully get a good black paste tomato for sauce.  Id love to have a black tomato sauce vs adding a black slicing tomato to enhance the sauce. 

Do you have problems with bell peppers in general or getting colored bells?  I have a devil of a time getting colored bells.  Doesn't seem to matter what color either.  Orange or Red.  Maybe yellow will have a better chance of turning?  I don't know.  I talked to one person at the Famers market who has LOTS of colored bell peppers for sale and he said they start them with the tomatoes even to the point of repotting them just like their tomatoes to get them big enough to color up.  He said once the are transplanted they produce well its just getting them big enough so the focus is on the fruit not growth.  Once I can get a greenhouse Id do the same but until then well Im kind of stuck.

I'm really tired of eating just green peppers, or having other colors that don't turn and eating them green too.  I may have to breakdown and buy the biggest red bells I can find at the nursery and hope I can get some to turn.  I had a few last year but it was so blazing hot here that I think factored in.  I hate not having my own greenhouse.

I even tried some hybrid supposedly really early to mature reds, they were a bust too.  They were red alright but never got any bigger than a habanero.  They had bell shape but were mushy.  Plants were small, weak and had very little in the way of leaves either.

Anyway PLEASE keep us posted on how your varieties go over, as well as customer feedback.  I'm always looking for something new so I can find some more keepers and save more seeds.