We had some very warm weather which quickly disappeared, replaced with cold stormy weather, so my tomato seed pots came back inside onto a heating mat, which made all the difference. Ginny, thank you SO much, really looking forward to this really nice beefsteak heirloom cultivar! The Campari tomato seeds were collected while I was back in MD visiting my brand new granddaughter. SUCH a delicious store-bought tomato that I saved some seeds from this F1 hybrid. We’ll see how true to type F2 is, I’ve heard mixed results but mostly favorable with F2/F3 sometimes developing a white central pith. Going to also try Mountain Magic, which is supposed to be about as close as you can get to Campari, which is a proprietary cultivar.
And, for my other tomatoes this year, going to try “Iron Lady”, as I do have a fairly significant amount of tomato virus/fungus pressure here for some odd reason. And, I’d like to try either Brandyboy or Brandymaster, both hybrids of Pink Brandywine with better disease resistance, just hoping to get feedback from folks about which might be the better of the two cultivars. I could plant both, though, and see for myself I have room for about 4 to 6 cultivars, maybe 2 plants, each in this raised bed.
Lastly, I need to improve my drip system in this raised bed. Currently, I have it hooked up to one of my stations, and have soaker hose spread through the bed, but it’s just not providing enough water in the raised bed, so looking to reconfigure my drip system. If anyone has a better suggestion, I’m all ears. I may even set down a supplemental watering system that can be hooked up manually to a hose bib, so I can just hook it up and set my timer to add additional waterings during the really hot summer days. But, I need a regular and better watering system I can hook up to my automatic sprinkler system. I just don’t have the time to stand with a hose and hand-water.
My goal for tomatoes has been to play with crossing the flavorful varieties I like with other types. I grow Cherokee Purple and Prudens Purple as the intended flavor donors.I am growing Amish Paste and German Strawberry as the shape and growth donors. Last year was terrible for tomatoes for me and I didn’t get any deliberate crosses made. I grew out about forty saved seeds from the Prudens and Cherokee, and I am ready to try again this year. My goal is a stable line of purple paste tomatoes that get large. I am betting on sn early spring, so I actually planted out a dozen Cherokee Purple today. I have some backups I am going to pot up just in case the weather turns on me.
Anyone try grafting tomatoes? I was considering seeing what happens when I put the Prudens,which grows vigorously but only sets a couple of very large fruit on a vigorous cherry tomato root.
This year I’m mostly growing out some old seeds to restock seed supply. My seeds are getting old! I may do that next year too. A few new ones too. I’m growing a couple from the dwarf tomato project. With over 60 varieties now from the project I thought it time to grow what was reported as the best of the best. I like the idea of super productive tomatoes that don’t grow over 4 feet tall. Great for container culture.
Planting a couple green tomatoes too to make green ketchup, that’s going to be fun! Minimal sauce this year, as my older seeds are mostly slicers.
I’ve read other places that the Campari are bred to be green house grown or they get that pith issue. I’ve grown Mountain Magic because of the Campari comparison. Wasn’t impressed enough to grow again even with their supposed great disease resistance. I’ll be interested in your results for next year to try and grow them out.
Yes, that’s what I’ve read as well, John. So, hoping they do well for me. Being in S. California coastal area, it’s almost like growing in a greenhouse I’m sorry that Mountain Magic was not that good. I’ll report back on both cultivars at the end of the season, then end of season two as well, at least, from Campari.
EarthBoxes are complete engineered systems that are hard to beat for busy people. They make automatic watering add-ons among things. EB pay for themselves quickly here as we can grow plants year round.
Well, my challenge is, lack of space (I know, on an acre that’s hard to imagine, but if you saw how my yard was laid out, you’d understand). I have this very lovely, all redwood raised bed that my very thoughtful husband bought for me as a Mother’s Day gift a couple of years ago, that he took the time to built and then surprise me with, I feel somewhat obligated to use the bed So, kinda stuck with the bed for tomatoes. So, still trying to figure out the best watering set up to use, so it really gets drenched. I’ll come up with something, no doubt. I do love those Earth boxes, though.
@MisterGuy I did some tomato grafting a couple of years ago. Only onto the “standard” disease resistant rootstocks. It wasn’t all that hard to do (lots of videos online). My grafting results were good (for a beginner, 80+%), but I did not think the effort and expense was worth it.
I was trying to get tomatoes last longer in a smallish greenhouse, where they have been grown for years. The grafted plants did do better, but not enough to make it worthwhile for me at least.
It would be interesting to hear if you got a fruiting difference with your grafting. Tomato grafting does not impart disease resistance to the scion, it just puts a set of disease resistant roots in the ground. Perhaps it will be different for fruiting.
What I have largely done instead is go to more disease resistant varieties and skip the grafting. Brandy and Johnny Boy from Burpee are pretty good tomatoes and relatively true to their heirloom ancestors. Certainly the yields and disease resistance are much improved.
I have about 300 varieties i want to grow, but I decided this year to try and grow older seed. I had some pepper seed from 2012, and I want the cultivars so I need to get some fresh saved seed. Amazingly all came up Orange Habanero Tree, Red Habanero tree and Blue Mystery. All come up! Yeah! The tree habaneros grow very tall and do well if overwintered. I just want fresh seeds, so I doubt I will overwinter. Here is the orange tree, my seeds come from this one.
On tomatoes I’m growing
Jasper and Sungold cherry hybrids. My two favorites.
Rebel Yell
Lucid Gem
Green Giant
Tennessee Suited
Malakhitovaya Shkatulka
Rutgers
Biyskaya Roza
Yablochnyi Lipetskiy
KBX
Indian Stripe Heart
Girl Girl’s Weird Thing
Brandywine (Cowlicks)
Also
SLIVOVYI DZHEM-PLUM JAM Russian Heirloom Tomatillo
Well the seeds I sowed. I’ll grow whatever comes up!
Peppers I’m growing
Numex Big Jim Heritage
Big Jim Legacy
Lunchbox
Carmen hybrid
Tennessee Cheese
Numex Joe E Parker
Todo Dia Mira El Sol
Beaver Dam
MOA Scotch Bonnet
Nu Mex Heritage 6-4
Carolina Reaper
Orange and Red Tree Habanero
Blue Mystery
7-Pot White
Ancho211 hybrid
Elephant’s Ear
I wanted to grow some other hots, but ran out of room I planned to grow 2 or 3 others, but just no room!
Let us know how they do for you. I grew Blue Berries last year and they were pretty good. Not super sweet, although were pleasant tasting. The colors are great, beautiful tomatoes. Not many cracked either. A prolific producer. I would grow again. I still prefer Sungold and Jasper. Nothing really tastes like Sungold. Jasper tastes sweet, although not overly sweet. I think it has a perfect balance of acid and sugar. My seeds are getting old too! Better use them up! It’s nice tomatoes have some many taste profiles so you can grow for many purposes.
I have a cookbook by MrsG and she has a recipe for tomato pie, and it sounds good! I will be trying it! All the recipes look awesome. I can’t wait to have some home grown product to try them!
In the beginning of February I sowed my peppers and some tomatoes.
Here are tomatoes:
Lucid Gem
Texas Star
Caspian pink
Mexican
Auria
Korean long
They are now outside in the makeshift greenhouse. It has soil warming cable under the soil. So far everything worked well. The soil temperature is around 60-65 degrees. The air temperature varies. This night it was 29 at the coldest and the air temperature inside greenhouse was 39. Right now it is 33 F with wind and snow and it is 60 inside. This night I would probably throw a blanket on top of tomatoes as it is supposed to be 26 F. Here are the pictures of greenhouse.
In the beginning of March I sowed more tomatoes, many of them are Russian varieties, which received good reviews on Russian tomato forum
Korol Sibiri (King of Siberia)
Gribnoe lukoshko (Mushroom basket)
Yablochniy lipetskiy (Apple- like from Lipetsk)
Mashenka
Mama Alla
Maksimka
Nikola
Dina
Black from Tula (return from the last year)
Black cherry
Tomato pie is great! This year the tomatoes I am growing are:
Cuore di Bue
SunGold (can’t live withouth that sweet tomato)
Green Zebra an all time fav.
Two from the Indigo Series
Ox Heart
Costoluto di Fiorenza
Brandywine
Lemon Boy an old fashioned tomato that is great too.
there are about six others but I can’t find my list. It should be a great mix. Hope I have better luck this year!
Couilles de Taureau
Campari
Iron Lady
Brandy Boy
Brandy Master
Magic Mountain
Only one heirloom. I think I am also going to mulch with several layers of newspaper, to see if I can keep the diseases down, which often occur from splash up. I’ll see if that helps, as well as helps to retain moisture in my raised bed.
@hoosierquilt, curious where you got your Campari seeds. Also, are they determinate growers, potato leafed, etc? The clusters I see in the market make me think they might be determinate.
Thanks, Mrsg47 I have so much tomato disease pressure here that I pretty much have to go with hybrids. One of our lovely list members, barefootgardener (Ginny) sent me the Couilles de Taureau seeds, which was very cool, because they came directly from Dr. Male’s garden, and I happen to have her heirloom tomatoes book, so that was very, very special. I am praying I can get them to maturity without succumbing to some wilt. Clint, the Campari seeds came from some Campari tomatoes I had while I was back in MD, visiting my brand new granddaughter. My daughter buys them (“only store-bought tomato I will eat”), so I saved the seeds and brought them back home to propagate. All seeds sprouted, so I will be planting up some in my raised bed. They’re a “green house” tomato, and “Campari” is proprietary, so you can’t get the seeds out there. The only retail seeds that are similar and available are Mountain Magic, so growing both as a comparison. I believe they are indeterminate, not potato leaved.
I have to agree about planting hybrids when subject to intense disease pressure. The past 3 years every dark heirloom variety (cherokee purple, black krim, black japanese, indigo) I’ve tried has succumbed to disease - either bacterial or fusarium wilt, not sure.
In my area Great White has done well and I also have a natural cross that’s basically wild here now. It’s a small yellow / orange grape tomato that was probably a cross of a yellow tomato like lemon boy with a red cherry tomato. Every year that tomato sends multiple volunteers, too many tomatoes to eat, and never has problems with disease. Yellow varieties in general seem to do better here than others. Lemon Boy, Golden Jubilee all do well. Black and red seem to have more problems.
This year I want to try Aunt Ruby’s Green, Great White, Golden Jubilee, San Marzano, and these yellow tomatoes. Something I would like to experiment with is horizontal trellising like the disney tomato tree. If I do I might just do 3 or 4 plants and see how it goes.
I have some extra fence wire that’s not being used so I was thinking of using it as the trellis. From the picture it looks like it would help the plant get more sun, more support, more air circulation, and make it easier to pick. Every year with tomato cages the plants grow prodigiously here and eventually fall over under their weight. It’s infuriating when it happens because it blocks the path and makes it harder to pick tomatoes and probably contributes to my tomato disease pressure.
I have room for about 4 to 6 cultivars, maybe 2 plants, each in this raised bed.
