Thinking About Tomatoes Already

[Jared77]

I grow Early Girls & I grow blacks. I grow heirlooms and I grow hybrids. Each serves a purpose or to satisfy my curiosity. I grade heirlooms or hybrids each on their own merits and don't stress over their past. It's a keeper or not based on what it tastes like, quality of the fruit produced (prone to cracking, excessive core, etc) productivity, and overall performance in the garden.

And @digitS' Wildboar farms has a Black heart. It's called Brad's black heart. Scroll down you'll see it.

If you like Berkley tie dye there is also a heart version of that too called Berkley tie dye heart.

The hearts I grew last year I liked. VERY meaty which I really liked and cooked down like a sauce tomato when used that way. They were not huge but really quite productive. They are a nice change for me and encouraged me to think about other heart varieties.

You should read the description of Berkley tie dye & pink tie dye. The Berkley tie dye has a strong following much like Gary O. I've never grown any of those varieties but are high in my list. My family keeps expanding so starting seeds is keeps getting pushed back.

The last few years I've been just buying starts of what my local nursery has available. They have an impressive bunch of varieties so I'm not stuck with just a few choices.

 

[baymule]

Some tomato plants just cry out for discipline.

Ridge, I just have this mental picture of you out in the garden spanking your tomato plants....

 

[thistlebloom]

Ridge, I just have this mental picture of you out in the garden spanking your tomato plants....

...sauce everywhere!

 

[majorcatfish]

@Ridgerunner i must say thats a very impressive system you have there..
for years we have grown howard german tomatoes they produced good, last year switched to san marzano another type of paste tomato holly cow did they produce
as @baymule said we had yellow flagging tape holding them up everywhere. so next season going to spread them out and do the weave thing, think 30 plants was a wee bit on over planting we gave buckets away.....

 

[majorcatfish]

Ridge, I just have this mental picture of you out in the garden spanking your tomato plants....

@baymule starting to worry about you, have you had your well water checked ? some of that fracking fluids may be leaking...

 

[Ridgerunner]

Major, I tried San Marzano a few years back. They were prone to blossom end rot here. My soil has plenty of calcium, I mulch heavily, and keep the moisture as consistent as I can but many of the paste tomatoes I've tried have had a real problem with BER even when other tomatoes grown side by side in the same conditions have not had that problem. That's why I settled on the Big Mama and Supersauce.

The Supersauce is supposed to be indeterminate but it sure grew like a determinate when I grew it. It produced really well to start with but the vine never grew that big and production tapered off. I'll probably not prune it this year at all and see how it does.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridge, I just have this mental picture of you out in the garden spanking your tomato plants....

No Bay, spanking is to good for them. If they refuse to behave the pocket knife comes out. If I remember right though @seedcorn does spank his Okra.

 

[Jared77]

San Marzano here was crazy productive for me. They were sprawled all over everything but we didn't get that many tomatoes to the table. Took longer to ripen than I would have expected but last year was a rough tomato year for us.

Going to try them again with a Florida weave but glad it wasn't just me.

 

[baymule]

@baymule starting to worry about you, have you had your well water checked ? some of that fracking fluids may be leaking...

Major, I've been a brick shy of a full load all my life......works for me....don't have a well..... but I did squeeze toothpaste from a lead tube when I was a kid..... maybe that explains it...

 

[baymule]

No Bay, spanking is to good for them. If they refuse to behave the pocket knife comes out. If I remember right though @seedcorn does spank his Okra.

Switched okra is supposed to grow better.

http://neillineberger.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/whipping-up-the-okra/