What tomatoes will you grow this year (2017)?

We picked a Gordost Sibiri yesterday, as it was getting a bit gnarly looking and looked to be pretty ripe:

The taste seemed a bit washed out, but it was OK. These big fruit seem to be like that.
Today we picked a Girl Girl’s Weird Thing, it is another huge specimen, and has that lumpy appearance that the GS has. I suppose it’s because of multiple blossoms fusing together. It has beautiful striping on the outside, but the inside is even nicer:

The taste was much better than the GS, with that typical sweet and smoky purple tomato flavor. Not a lot of acid, but still a good taste. The plants are still producing, not as bad as disease is concerned. So, it may get a place in next year’s garden.

@Drew51, I have Striped Roman also, and some of the initial fruits got some BER, but the later fruit did not. They’re not ripe yet, so hope we can get a few to sample. Deer hit our plants pretty hard, so we’re having to wait on the second wave of fruit.

6 Likes

Beautiful tomatoes dood! Still waiting for my first tomato to turn red, pink or yellow! All green🙁

3 Likes

Thanks, we haven’t had a lot to sample, but the GG was a good 'un. Out fruit is continuing to ripen, with no more deer browsing since I put in the ‘black curtain’ a couple weeks ago.

Good grief, it’s August, you should have at least one ripe 'mater! Have y’all just had too wet and too cool of a summer? Oh well, you prob won’t have to worry about cool summers in the sort of south of France!

1 Like

Some more pictures of tomatoes.
Yablochniy Lipetskiy tomato - large red beefstakes, medium early, very productive, very good taste.

Unfortunately I did not make pictures of Hungarian heart tomatoes, but they became my favorite. Very large pink hearts, very productive, very meaty, very good taste.

Red Pear Franchi. I grew several pear tomatoes in different years and these are the best. Large, nice shape, meaty, good taste. They are late tomatoes (I have no idea why the first of them ripened very early) and they are good for the climates with long season. They keep setting and giving tomatoes over long time, when all other varieties are stalled.



Dina tomato. This name is unremarkable, I would call it Golden egg because of the shape and the size. They are bright golden orange tomatoes, very late, very productive, very meaty, very good taste with little acidity in it. It is our favorite and it is worth waiting. The color and the clean skin are attractive, they also keep well on the counter. You can see some of them on the previous picture behind Red pear tomatoes. Here is another picture.


9 Likes

Just great!

2 Likes

The tomato pictures are very nice. I have been growing “Garden Peach” - a productive yellow variety, and “juliet” - a large oval productive cherry type.

2 Likes

Garden peach is a delightful novelty I have grown it on and off for years . The tomatoes aren’t very large but they have a good non-acidic taste; you have to laugh at a fuzzy tomato!

1 Like

I love juliet. Super productive, easy to harvest, and a great tomato for drying.

A friend gave me these heirloom green tomatoes and let me say they are excellent! Taste just like a really good red. Decided I would have one of these tomatoes for supper!


5 Likes

Looks good! I still like the dark better, but agree the greens can be excellent.

1 Like

I found Super Sweet 100 to be a good cherry tomato. The fruits are both sweeter and more tender than any of the mixed cherry herilooms I buy at the farmer’s market.

It does seem rather blight prone for my area, as it suffered from what I think was blight withering away branches almost all year. It also grows very tall, tall enough that I needed a bigger cage than what I had.

2 Likes

Blight was all over this year, even struck the industry that produces plants for sale. I agree for cherries hybrids rule. For regular tomatoes some good hybrids too. Hybrids are just a cross of two heirlooms, somebody has to check what the heirlooms offer, as it may lead to better hybrids.

I planted about 25 plants of about six varieties in a new area on our rural acreage with wonderful soil this year. When we left for a vacation in mid-August, there were about a bushel or more of wonderful green tomatoes. I told a friend they could pick any getting ripe while we were gone. Well, the whole bed suddenly got late blight. When I returned two weeks later the vines were all dead! The tomatoes got big rotten spots before they would ripen. My friend and I were able to salvage parts of tomatoes, but there wasn’t ONE good whole tomato. My question is, next year I expect there will be a lot of volunteers coming up in that area. Is there any point in letting any of them grow?
A number of longtime-gardening friends had the very same problem with their tomatoes, but a couple people I know did not. Next year I will try putting straw around the plants to prevent backsplash. Since I have never gotten late blight that bad before I am not sure I want to just routinely use chemical sprays. Was it mostly the humid weather (though drier than usual August and September) or is there another cause? It was sure disappointing to lose them all after such a promising start. Or should I plant two different areas, one with sprays and one without, then give away all the sprayed ones if the unsprayed ones do fine?

Some tough questions I’m not sure I have the answers for? It sounds like multiple problems because the blight didn’t damage my fruit. Spots is bacterial spot. Or possibly BER? I’m still getting tomatoes. The plants are dead except for the tops. I’m almost done though.
Chemicals offer little help only if sprayed all season every 7-10 days. Agri-fos can be used for late blight, it is Mono and dipotassium salts of Phosphorous Acid. It is systemic. I have no worries about this chemical.
I was gone for the weekend. I came back and picked anything that started to turn. I like to ripen inside when night temps get low, as tomatoes will not ripen in these cold temps, or at least slows them down.

2 Likes

My friends who had blight said someone took a sample in to have it analyzed, and the result was late blight. Their fruits did the same, get a glassy patch on them that then rotted and spread through the fruit. Picking them early didn’t seem to help much. I don’t think I want to use a systemic chemical.

I am familiar with blossom end rot, but it wasn’t that.

I may not have late blight, it looked like it. I use Phosphorous Acid (OMRI listed organic) as it is not considered toxic Organicside is one organic product. Although I do like to look at organic products the same as chemical products, as they are one in the same as far as I’m concerned. I don’t get why one chemical is organic and another is not? Even if both occur in nature.

1 Like

This is my last harvest of veggies for the year.

Tony

8 Likes

Not bad for your final haul, Tony. We’ve had some light frosts, but still getting a few tomatoes. Probably done after this next cold front, though.

1 Like

Yeah I have a few to pick and time is almost up here too.