My Tomato List 2021

And 🌶

but this year, because of many of the gardens I'm growing for the food pantry, I chose for production.

Early Girl
Beefsteak
San Marzano
Roma

for fun I chose:

Green Zebra
Yellow pear

The usual peppers, mostly bell. Orange, red.

Did you know there's a peppermint Swiss chard? Doesn't refer to taste, just the stems.

Because of powdery mildew, I'm restricted to a couple different types of squash and cukes. Had good luck with them last year; no powdery mildew.

We didn’t have much luck with Brandywines a few years ago, hope you have better luck.

Hubby planted 3 kinds of eggplant this year in addition to the usual tomato varieties, cukes, lettuces, and Desperado green beans.

I have never had any problems with Brandywine tomatoes. As with all tomatoes:
Good Soil (fresh every year no diseases from last year), even watering, as with other
tomatoes let them dry out so they are a little bit wilted sometimes, espoma plant-tone,
no more than 1 tablespoon of organic urea per plant over a couple of square feet if
the leaves are not the healthy "blue green", allow plenty of area for the wind to blow on
the plants ... less fungus ... and keep some native perennials and grasses close by.
They bring in beneficial insets and wasps.

We just didn’t get the production from the Brandywines that we got from our other tomatoes.
Best growers for us are Early Girl, Health Kick, and Better Boy and I always insist on a few Moby Grapes.
Oh,and Beefsteak.

... of the fruit is better.

BTW I grow 'em in 10 to 15 gallon nursery pots with the bottom 1/2 in wheat straw* and then
the planting medium is bx promix, composted manure, silica sand, potting soil, and plant-tone
organic fert. I have the pots about 3/4 of the way into the ground. This keeps the temps. moderated
and you need much less water too.

Besides you can always say, "look @ the potato leaf on my brandywines."



* the growing mix migrates down into the sand over a mouth or so.

which is plenty good enough for me (my best yields ever - because we moved from super hot humid Raleigh to much more mild Hendersonville - gardening is a joy here!)

The fruit does look nicer but although far superior to 90% of "store bought" tomatoes I don't think
it it tastes as good as some other varieties but it does seem to produce more and in some cases later
into the year.

"Jet Star" developed by Ohio State in the 1960s (?) is a really good variety.

I think a lot of this one variety tastes better than another variety is much more a function of
picking the fruit @ the point when all the factors that governor taste are at their peak instead
of one variety vs another variety tasting better over all. The taste of any given tomato is the
result of a complex combination of factors and these factors are not static.

BTW "Early Girl" although good is not all that special to me.

It was just too much to keep up with. Big enough to turn into pasture for goats.

Now we do raised beds....tomatoes, peppers, one lonely cuke. Perennial blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes. Asparagus that's never done much. Big watermelon and cantaloupe bed. Herbs in pots. Peaches are coming in big time now.

On the other hand, the flower garden is huge. I need to take some pics when I get a break from mulching (I have it delivered by the dump truck load from an Amish sawmill. Cedar--smells heavenly).

we live on a floating home. My tomatoes are all grown in containers. I grew too many this year. I have at least a dozen. I also have one green pepper and 3 cucumbers

17 varieties including big beef, Caspian pink, ponderosa red, Rutgers, yellow pear, sweet 100, mortgage lifter, better boy, delicious, small yellow?, etc.

Last time growing Caspian pink which is delicious but hasn’t been very productive for me.

Dog has already picked and eaten a green tomato.

I hope to have a tomato tasting party for my garden club in mid-August.

My methods are similar to what you do but no sand and no urea. I think I’ll try the urea.

.... and helps with the roots and root hairs.

Urea just use a little bit.

I ordered heirlooms online. (Bad idea, but the catalog lured me in!) They arrived in poor condition, so we headed to walmart for more plants. Plus I started cherry tomatoes in one of those pod-type hydrogardens on the windowsill. When I transplanted them they looked awful but now they are bouncing back.

I also have green, purple, yellow, and jalapeño peppers. August will be salsa time! Ole!

I haven’t had much luck with cucumbers the past couple of years. So disappointing.

Happy gardening, everyone!

Do you grow a particular strain of Brandywine? I prefer the "Sudduth" strain; it's on the low end, production-wise, but the taste is to die for!

I ended up with 50 tomato plants this year; 17 varieties. Not gonna list them all, but Big Beef is my main producer. Folks can get into the "heirloom vs hybrid" debate all they want, but for my money, Big Beef is the all around best tomato I 've ever grown...

Delicious and Speckled Roman are new to me this year, along with a couple of fun ones called Rebel Starfighter Prime and Not Purple Strawberry. Good growing, Y'all!

I've got some fun ones. I created some new hybrids last year, crossing great tasting heirlooms just to answer the question - does a great tomato crossed with a great tomato make a great hybrid? The one I am most looking forward to is Lillian's Yellow Heirloom X Cherokee Purple.

I've got a bunch of my favorites - Nepal, Yellow Oxheart, Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Green, Green Giant, Anna Russian, Hugh's, Yellow Brandywine, Blue's Bling, Brandywine, Dester, Polish, Large Lucky Red, Magnus, Yellow Bell, Sungold, Tiger Tom, Mexico Midget all growing in straw bales.

Mostly it is a busy summer - the tomato course that Joe Lamp'l and I launched has 600 students!