2014 Seed List- I have a problem!

digitS'

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What do you think of Big Beef, @HotPepperQueen ? Sometimes they have early splitting problems but year after year, they do the best in my garden.

Tell me about the flavor of Lemon Boy, please.

Steve
 

journey11

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I think the Golden San Marzanos are hybrids. You'll have to purchase seed each year for those, unless you want to try your hand at stabilizing a strain. ;)
 

HotPepperQueen

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What do you think of Big Beef, @HotPepperQueen ? Sometimes they have early splitting problems but year after year, they do the best in my garden.

Tell me about the flavor of Lemon Boy, please.

Steve
Big Beef has actually done pretty well for me as a juicing tomato, but it doesn't have the flavor that I enjoy.

Lemon Boys have a very bright tomato flavor. They have an excellent, smooth texture to the flesh. I really like them.
 

Pulsegleaner

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I grew Mexican Sour Gherkin a few years ago. My opinion is mixed. It's certainly a productive veggie. In fact it's often a little TOO productive; verging on the "how the hell do I use all these UP!" level. And it will keep churning out fruits
right up until the frost kills it.
Most of my issues come down to the fact there really aren't all that many things you can DO with the things.They're very small, so unless you are really good with your knife skills and have a very good knife, slicing them can be a bit tricky, so they're usually used whole. Straight raw, they're a little tough to be really pleasant in a salad, and they're a little sour for use in any place where one might want cucumber juice. They don't work so hot in things like horatiki or cucumber dill salad all that well either, they're basically all innards so they tend to make them rather watery. Basically, you can pickle them, and that's pretty much it. Pickled they make a fun cocktail snack (in fact, given that they are about the size of an olive, they'd probably make a novel substitute for them in some creative martini variation.) But it's easy to get tired of them after a while, and unless you have a HUGE amount you may not have enough of them at any given time to make going through the palaver of pickling worthwhile, unless you are doing it "solera" fashion (taking old pickles out of the brine as you use them and replacing them with fresh gherkins as you eat them). I also should point out that the pickles I made of them were "cold pack" (i.e. refrigerator) pickles. I'm not sure how they'd handle the process for making shelf stables ones (though given the nature of the insides, I think they might get really watery or mushy.)
 

HotPepperQueen

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I grew Mexican Sour Gherkin a few years ago. My opinion is mixed. It's certainly a productive veggie. In fact it's often a little TOO productive; verging on the "how the hell do I use all these UP!" level. And it will keep churning out fruits
right up until the frost kills it.
Most of my issues come down to the fact there really aren't all that many things you can DO with the things.They're very small, so unless you are really good with your knife skills and have a very good knife, slicing them can be a bit tricky, so they're usually used whole. Straight raw, they're a little tough to be really pleasant in a salad, and they're a little sour for use in any place where one might want cucumber juice. They don't work so hot in things like horatiki or cucumber dill salad all that well either, they're basically all innards so they tend to make them rather watery. Basically, you can pickle them, and that's pretty much it. Pickled they make a fun cocktail snack (in fact, given that they are about the size of an olive, they'd probably make a novel substitute for them in some creative martini variation.) But it's easy to get tired of them after a while, and unless you have a HUGE amount you may not have enough of them at any given time to make going through the palaver of pickling worthwhile, unless you are doing it "solera" fashion (taking old pickles out of the brine as you use them and replacing them with fresh gherkins as you eat them). I also should point out that the pickles I made of them were "cold pack" (i.e. refrigerator) pickles. I'm not sure how they'd handle the process for making shelf stables ones (though given the nature of the insides, I think they might get really watery or mushy.)
Unfortunately, none of these little buggers came up for me. Thanks for the review!
 

Jared77

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I'm on board with Lemon Boys. VERY productive, good skin thats resistant to cracking, with good flesh and flavor. They are a staple in my garden for yellow tomatoes. For me they have been as reliable as Early Girls.

I've had them the last four or five years now. I keep growing them because they are so reliable.
 

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