Tomatoes 2025

[Branching Out]

One of my favourite summer activities is wandering the garden and checking out the tomatoes. Pictured are Tigrella, Sasha's Altai, and Zlatava. Seeds of Tigrella were started on February 4th, and the others were sown on April 9th.

 

[digitS']

Tigrella,

... I was very pleased with Tigerella the last time I grew it . Nice little, quick, tender-skinned, flavorful tomato! DW thought the beautiful color was "weird." . . . no accounting for some people . .

 

[heirloomgal]

I'm having an interesting little adventure with a tomato called 'Fantastico' this season. I bought a small hanging basket tomato at Home Depot, it was discounted by 50% because it looked 3/4 dead. This normally would be of no interest to me, and I typically have plenty of tomatoes already growing, but what made it irresistible was the fantastic load of small, ripe red tomatoes on the plant. And I had no tomatoes close to red at that point.

So, I brought it home, repotted it and gave it some chicken manure. The leaves looked like they had been severely attacked by flea beetles and suffering with malnourishment. I cut off what bits of the plants could not be recovered. I laughed at myself once I had subjected the tomato to the 'love treatment' because I could see how futile & ridiculous this project was. (I have a bit of a thing for getting discounted half dead plants and trying to resurrect them.) I really didn't pay much more attention to the pot after I harvested the tomatoes - because they were all absolutely gross. Tasteless doesn't say it. And too firm to boot. Maybe the result of being grown in crap soil with chemical fertilizer. Anyway, this week I'm amazed to see the tomato is looking like it might actually recover! Might it produce decent tomatoes in good soil & a bit of TLC?

Leaves looked worse than this when I got it home

New growth and shockingly a whole new flush of flowers.

And in writing this post up I discovered it's......a hybrid.

 

[Decoy1]

I’d love to be able to identify this mid-sized tomato. I received it several years ago labelled ‘Wagner Blue Berries’. I think this was a guess from a vague memory. As far as I’m aware, varieties with ‘berries’ in the name are Brad Gates, not Tom Wagner. The nearest I can get to a Wagner variety is ‘Wagner Blue Green’. The online images for Wagner Blue Green are slightly variable, some showing more yellow and some more green. But my tomato is quite green internally which might also suggest this could be the variety.





If anyone can shed any further light on this I’d be very grateful. I’m very fond of my unnamed tomato!

 

[heirloomgal]

I’d love to be able to identify this mid-sized tomato. I received it several years ago labelled ‘Wagner Blue Berries’. I think this was a guess from a vague memory. As far as I’m aware, varieties with ‘berries’ in the name are Brad Gates, not Tom Wagner. The nearest I can get to a Wagner variety is ‘Wagner Blue Green’. The online images for Wagner Blue Green are slightly variable, some showing more yellow and some more green. But my tomato is quite green internally which might also suggest this could be the variety.


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If anyone can shed any further light on this I’d be very grateful. I’m very fond of my unnamed tomato!

I grew 'Wagner Blue Green' last year @Decoy1; interesting you post this as I had assumed my seeds were crossed from Prairie Garden Seed, where I sourced them. But I looked again at the website after seeing your post and they list yellow as one of the variations of color, which is exactly the base color I got. I think they were actually somewhat green inside as well. I think you do have WBG. My tomatoes were the same size as yours as well. My tomatoes had really ripened by the time I took this photo.

https://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/a-seed-savers-garden.24181/post-440831

 

[Decoy1]

Thank you @heirloomgal. That is very interesting. Did you receive any response from Prairie Garden Seed?
The main diagnostic difference between Blue Gold, which you mentioned, and Wagner Blue Green seems to be the colour of the inside flesh which is red-yellow in Blue Gold and definitely green in WBG. Good to have your corroboration.

 

[ducks4you]

What a weird growing season for Ducks!!
All of the tomatoes that I planted along the three 6 ft fence lines have survived. DD's pulled my hoses to the drip hoses a few days after my July 10th surgery, but the tomatoes that I DID transplant don't look bad, green, not a lot of growing but some green tomatoes and DH and I went on a field trip, him walking, me walking with "Peanut" (my knee recovery walker, since I am 17 days from my left knee surgery,) and we picked 3 small tomatoes to have with frozen leftover (microwaved), grilled hamburgers last night.
I think that all of the methods of transplanting are viable but I Knew that my tomato care would be sketchy for July and August, so the 15 inch holes that I rounded out for these babies certainly has worked.
Sometimes we don't calculate the time and $water costs for gardening.
I Meant to poke holes in my collection of water jugs, leaving the tops on, to tie next to each tomato so that I hose could full each, but I don't think it's necessary for the rest of the growing season.
Yesterday I did some gardening, 15 ft from the back steps. DD's were away this weekend at a convention, so DH had to put out sweet feed for the ponies. They don't really need it, but you get to take a look at your horses to be sure that they are ok. I asked him to retrieve my shovel. I had 5 tomatoes that were temporarily planted in 2 planters--I meant to transplant before surgery, but it didn't happen--so I got them transplanted in my leaky 100 gal Rubbermaid water tank by the house. I had earlier rescued 2 small tomatoes from my abysmal seed starting this year, got them in a 1/2 gallon milk jug, and, since they were about to outgrow it, I also planted them in the tank.
I had 5 sweet and hot peppers that I had purchased in a smaller pot, and They are now growing in the tank, too. I had started a handful of sweet bell peppers in a gallon jug and They are now in an old horse water bucket, sans drainage holes. The 6th pepper went into a small muck bucket that has no drainage holes.
It has been SO DRY that I am not worried about the peppers, but I will monitor them all to be sure that they don't dry out and their little roots reach deep for water.
A few years ago, when my knees were starting to bother me, I kept 17 bell peppers in a plastic windowsill planter all summer. It was a wet summer, and they loved the water. Lesson learned...
We went out to eat all weekend. This Son of a Bxxxx shelf cloud poured BUCKETS of water on C-U, NW of my property, NONE for us!!!

 

[flowerbug]

...This Son of a Bxxxx shelf cloud poured BUCKETS of water on C-U, NW of my property, NONE for us!!!
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similar to what happened here the other day. north of us a few miles got plenty of rain twice.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thank you @heirloomgal. That is very interesting. Did you receive any response from Prairie Garden Seed?
The main diagnostic difference between Blue Gold, which you mentioned, and Wagner Blue Green seems to be the colour of the inside flesh which is red-yellow in Blue Gold and definitely green in WBG. Good to have your corroboration.

I never got to it, and was swept up in the tsunami of seed collecting then never circled back around to that task. But it looks like your post has answered my wondering about that, now that I re-read what Prairie Garden described. I agree that interior flesh seems to be the main determinant of which is which. I grew Blue Gold in 2018 I think it was and it was more bright yellow, with that kind of yellow-pink inside coloring. WBG did seem to have limey coloration in there only.