Tomatoes! Looking Forward

[digitS']

What variety do you most look forward to???

@baymule showed lovely pictures of soon to ripen tomatoes. My plants are well hardened and really should have been in the open garden over a week ago. Of course, they won't even have flowers!

But, what tomatoes hold the promise of that surge of happiness when you have finally waited long enuf for one or a handful to ripen? Sure, I mean the variety you will be risking a bite at first blush - when craving pushed you to pick one you really, really should have waited on, for a few days longer.

Steve, & Sweet Chelsea "bright red, soft-skinned and extra sweet"
Edit to add link to pic

 

[Collector]

We are going to replant our tomatoes today after getting nipped with frost on 5-15,.
Not sure if I posted the varieties yet or not so here they are Ethel Watkins, Gold ball, Shoshone ,coyote ,Sun gold, and Sweet 100. The first 3 we have never grown and two of them were bonus seeds that came with other orders . The last three we usually grow and enjoy eating in the garden, with the sweet 100 being our favorite . Sweet 100 is usually the first cherry tomatoe to start turning and DW and I start "negotiating "who is going to get the first one lol. Last year we talked about it for days then the day it was ready DW texts me at work blaming me for the missing tomato. I was not the culprit we decided it was a bird or something. Then at dinner that night out DD asked if anymore tomatoes were ready because the one she ate earlier was so good lol. Looks like there is another contender for the first ripe tomato. The sweet 100 is the favorite here.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

looking forward to all of them! my dh loves the pasta sauce i make with the mix of all the different types i get. it was touch & go on a couple of them getting started. something kept getting to one of the trays & digging them up.the other tray was hardly touched, so those grew nice, strong & quickly. this year i can saw they look the same height as those of the local stores & farmers markets. i must have done something right this year with that 1 tray & i didn't have to transplant them since i planted about 2-3 seeds in each 3" pot.

 

[w_r_ranch]

What variety do you most look forward to???

For slicing, we like 'Heatmaster'. Mrs. Ranch just picked 3 of them & let me have my first taste of the year... WOW!!!

For canning, sauce & salsa, we like 'Health Kick', which is a very prolific producer for us. We harvest tubs of them every other day & can from sun-up till sun-down for a solid month...

 

[Zeedman]

Out favorite year-after-year is "Elfin", an OP grape tomato. Determinate plants with HUGE clusters of 1", meaty tomatoes with thin skins. The first to bear every year. After that, I look forward to whatever oxheart variety I'm growing that year, and to some of the orange slicers (such as "Nicoviotis Orange"), and to some of the larger paste tomatoes.

 

[digitS']

Nicoviotis Orange ... 85 days ....

Health Kick ... 72 days. I grew that about 10 years ago. I thought "72 days, no problem!" And, I like saladette tomatoes. The plants were loaded with green fruit going into September but not a single one ripened on the vine before frost!

I think that this was my first real experience with the notion that "not all days to maturity are using the same standards." Varieties have different requirements and different responses to, say, 30° night-to-day temperature swings compared to 20° temperature swings, for example.

@w_r_ranch : Interesting that the other that you are looking forward to is named "Heatmaster."

Oh, and @Collector : Sweet Chelsea is from the same Japanese folks who brought us Sweet 100 with some of the same genetics, according to Stokes.

Steve

 

[Collector]

Oh, and @Collector : Sweet Chelsea is from the same Japanese folks who brought us Sweet 100 with some of the same genetics, according to Stokes.

Steve[/QUOTE]

I put sweet Chelsea's on my list to try next season. Do you have any experience with either Ethel Watkins or Gold ball. They were bonus seeds from seed orders so we are trying them out.

 

[digitS']

Neither of those, @Collector .

They look like they would be worth trying from their write-up in Tatiana's Tomatobase - at the very least, because of that listing as midseason, in days to maturity.

Nearly always, the trial packets that come with my seed orders are for varieties beyond my 80 day limit. And, one plant of any that late is all the garden space I'm willing to risk. It's not much of a trial but I'm hoping that unique situations may encourage me to continue with it.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I have tried lots of different cherry tomatoes and I like Sweet 100 the best. I like Sungold too. For first red tomato I really do like Bloody Butcher. DD was given some seeds from her future SIL. They are a Roma, but the package is in Italian and calling them a San Marzano, but the picture looks like a Roma. I have a bunch of them started and she started the seeds herself and I am hardening them for her. She is going to pick a couple to take to her apartment when she moves after the wedding next month. Marglobe and Abe Lincoln are a couple of new ones I am trying.

 

[ninnymary]

I would have to say Japanese Black Trifele.

Btw, @digitS' remember that pic I posted of galia Diplomat that was just a seedling in the ground? Well something ate it shortly thereafter. I don't know why I try growing melons. Our weather is really too cool for them.

This weekend we were up at our cabin and I found Spineless Beauty in a 4". I bought it knowing I really don't have room for it. I should have taken a picture and ordered seeds for next year instead. Oh well....

Mary