Understanding early, mid and late season tomatoes

[Dace]

I understand that early, mid and late season varieties have to do with the length of time that the plants take to set fruit, BUT....do they have different temp requirements?

I potted up several tomatoes, two are early at least one is late. I read that in my area, San Diego, I should also plan to plant another round of maters in early June to extend my crop out until October/Nov. But the early, mid and late 'labels' are confusing me. If I buy earlies to plant in June, will it be too hot? If I buy late will they they should be starting to fruit in early oct. Does that sound correct?

Sorry to ramble, I am sort of thinking this out as I type. I hope that all made sense!

 

[digitS']

Temperature difference for early, mid, and late season varieties -- I don't think it necessarily follows, Dace.

I just related on another thread how some of my tomato starts died last year when they went from a warm greenhouse to an unheated plastic tunnel for an overnight stay. It didn't even freeze in there but a few plants actually wilted so badly, they died!

Those were the Bloody Butchers.

Out of the 29 varieties of tomatoes that were in that tunnel overnight, the only ones that died were the very earliest to produce fruit in my garden . . . on better years :/.

Heat is what you are probably wondering about -- and, I just don't know. I've grown some heat-resistant varieties like Porter and Thessaloniki and both are fairly early to produce fruit.

Steve

 

[Dace]

Ok, thanks for helping to clear that up.

I guess I will look for some heat resistant varieties to plant in June rather than focus on the early/mid/late aspect.

 

[journey11]

My extension service garden calendar says to plant a late crop of tomatoes too, but I never understood the point of that. With indeterminates, regardless of the days to maturity, they keep on producing until frost. I have tomatoes coming out my ears and by then I am sick of them, why would I want more? Maybe it's in regard to determinates (particularly for commercial production). That would be my guess, since they're used for canning, etc. and put out all at once.

I usually just plant whatever sounds good to me and make a point to put out a few earlies so I don't loose my mind waiting on the others to ripen. Seems like the longer the days to maturity, the more complex flavor a tomato will have, from my experience.

I live in a very average and mild climate though, so maybe for folks way down south or in CA, it might be more important for them to stagger those plantings. It wouldn't make much difference for me here. I think the number of days in your growing season are more of a factor.

 

[digitS']

Well, that makes sense too, Journey. But, I don't really know what they are up to in long-season, difficult-summer climates.

If I don't get a 78 days-to-maturity variety out at nearly the earliest possible moment, I may well have zero ripe fruit by the end of the season. And, those 78 days are no doubt only the perfect ones!

I can have a guaranteed ripe harvest of a 58 days-to-maturity variety . But, you are probably correct - flavor develops with the latter varieties. There are other factors, of course. One of them might be leaf surface to fruit ratio. I know that sounds esoteric but one like the aforementioned Bloody Butcher is a small plant, makes a lot of leaves, and then small tomatoes show up one after another - lots of flavor with those little guys !

When I've grown Legend I've been very happy with the earliness, the size and the beauty of the fruit! The production on such small plants has been amazing!! It is a determinate so they are all there and just cover the plant -- but, the flavor isn't there to much of a degree.

Rather than really drift off-topic on Dace's thread, I think I'll drift over to that forlorn Robin thread and post something about tomatoes. I love to talk tomatoes; can you tell?!?

Steve

 

[journey11]

Me too. But better yet, I love to eat tomatoes...and those first ripe beauties seem sooooo far away right now.