Planting out tomatoes and other veggies thread 2017

General Gardening
#10

I’m hoping my “new” garden will produce - - something/anything!

I’m forced to break ground on a new spot as my metal building went over half my old garden spot. (that I had amended over the years…)

Been trying to get a fence around the new garden between rains and commitments, so I could get some stuff planted out. Was running out of daylight last night, so as soon as I got three sides fenced, I picked up all my tools and put the ATV away in advance of the rain, then got the tiller out and tilled - planted 12 tomatoes and at 9:45 my daughter stopped by and walked out into the garden with her cell phone light to shine on the last two I got in. It was just too dark by then.

So I got Brandywine Sudduth, Neves Azorean Red (NAR), and San Marzano heirlooms in and then a couple of Hybrid Beefsteaks in ahead of the rain (12 total)

Then I ran and got a spare roll of lightweight fencing that I could run across the front of the garden to keep wildlife out.

Then the rains came…

Well, 8/10th anyway.

1 Like
#11

That’s dedication, planting by phone light! Those sound like a good variety of tom’s, the first two varieties can make some huge fruits. Did you grow those from seed?

We like San Marzano a lot, but the last two years we’ve tried to grow them, they were one of the first plants to get diseases, so we dropped them from the rotation this year.

On another theme, are you trying strawberries this year? I know you had some issues with them last year, and ended up plowing them up. So, are you giving them another shot?

#12

It’s just been such a frustrating year I guess. I can’t remember ever planting a garden this late, and I knew if I didn’t get something in the ground it’d be even longer before the ground dried enough with the rain we had coming our way. Plus I’d started my seed trays on 3/6 & 3/10 so they were feeling a bit crowded anyway.

I still have a few other varieties I want to get planted out but they’ll be later now.

Mostly I use seeds I save from year to year, but I lurk over on Tomatoville and after following a couple threads I decided to order some Brandywine Sudduth & NAR seeds in to give a try. Both sounded like something we’d like and we were shy on bigger toms last year. And I grabbed a packet of Beefsteak from someplace to try those as well.

That’s why I went from Roma to San Marzano, just trying to get a paste tomato that wouldn’t be so prone to issues. I just could never get Roma’s to do well here so I stopped planting them and went to SM. Overall they’ve been pretty good, though I do usually suffer BER on a few of the early fruit. The plants seem to out grow it, and it wasn’t as bad last year so maybe the extra calcium was actually working…

Not this year anyway, just too much on the agenda that will probably not get attended to as it is. Maybe down the line though.

Looks like we’re in for some summer-like weather this next week so hopefully we can get planted and see some things start to grow!

#13

My best would be Romeo, massive beasts too. Produce well and seem to resist many diseases. Hard to find seed.

#14

Wow… I just looked this up on the Michigan Heirlooms site - they say they can get up to one and a half pounds!! THAT’s a whopper of a paste tomato now.

#15

Yes impressive, I can look for my saved seeds for you. I have not grown it since 2015. I have been trying others. I have limited room. I will grow more next year.

003.JPG4608×2592 3.93 MB

What’s funny these are not heavy, they are very dry, meant for sauce for sure. I make sauce, I did not taste any as in my opinion fresh taste tells you little about cooked taste. I thought they were excellent as sauce.

2 Likes
Best sauce or paste tomato?
#16

Thanks Drew, If you did save some and happen to run across them that’d be very cool, but don’t make a project out of it for sure. I mean I doubt I’d get 'em planted until next year anyway.

BTW, unless that’s like a 2-year old grandchild holding the three toms, THOSE ARE AWESOME!

The San Marzano are rather bland to me fresh, but the wife is all about the taste in cooking. I had only planted two plants last year, and although they each were over 6’ tall and loaded, that simply was not enough for her. She gave me the directive this year: PLANT MORE SAN MARZANO’S!!!

As an aside; my daughter works at an Italian restaurant in Omaha, we were in there to eat one evening and she brings the owner over to introduce him, commenting that she’d told him her dad grows San Marzano tomatoes (Their menu mentions San Marzano in about every meal description)

The owner grows his own in a little garden outside his establishment. So we’re jaw-jacking about that, and I told him that I’d read a Wikipedia article on them and that they’re a real big deal over in “the old country” and that there have been mega-dollar lawsuits, etc. He leans in nodding his head a with kind of a down-turn smile and says “There have been people KILLED because of them…” all the while nodding as he’s talking. (Really fed my preconceived notion about some things…:slight_smile:)

Anyway, that Wiki article is very interesting reading I think.

1 Like
#17

I was not getting the gist of the restaurateur’s conversation, then I figured he was talking about SM’s back in Italy? Wow, that’s some interesting stuff. Guess they take their 'mater’s pretty seriously!

#18

Exactly!

I tried to put the Wikipedia link here, but it just would show the first paragraph. Anyway, here’s one excerpt from the article I found pretty interesting:

Because of San Marzano’s premium pricing, there is an ongoing battle against fraudulent product. On November 22, 2010,[citation needed] the Italian carabinieri confiscated 1,470 tons of canned tomatoes worth €1.2 million of improperly labeled product.

San Marzano tomatoes have been designated as the only tomatoes that can be used for Vera Pizza Napoletana (True Neapolitan Pizza)

#19

In Italy, Spain, and Basque region, food is everything, and it is some of the best in the world. France too! Check out that last episode of Anthony Bourdan in Basque on CNN if you have on Demand cable. Fascinating!

Back to tomatoes, one woman on Tomatoville goes all over the world and collects seed. She has introduced many new varieties to members.
Another common sauce tomato are the Costoluto tomatoes. These are not past tomatoes, but have a rigid structure, are the pleated tomatoes.
I have seed to these, I tried them, and they are very good, but I don’t like all the seeds. Sauce only tomatoes, as they are rather bland fresh.
I have the following

Costoluto Di Parma - One of our all time favourites. This stunning old
fashioned heirloom variety from ITALY produces lots of large flat round
shaped bright red tomatoes. The sweet taste and meaty flesh with few
seeds an all round delicious tomato. Tomatoes are flattened globe shaped
and slightly ribbed and can grow to a weight of 10 - 12 oz. Great for
stuffed tomatoes. Very productive for an heirloom variety. good old
fashioned tomato taste either in a salad or perfect for cooking in sauces.
Indeterminate. A large squashed ribbed tomato from Parma in the region of
Emilia -Romagna.A mid-early vigourous plant producing meaty fruits with
few seeds and “old fashioned” flavour. This particular variety has been
around for a long time and highly revered in this food producing region
Purchased from biotom49 on EBay (owns 50 acre certified organic farm)

Costoluto Fiorentino -
Maturity midseason
Growth habit indet.
Leaf type regular
Fruit color red
Fruit shape irregular, ribbed, beefsteak
Fruit size medium
Fruit type slicer
Variety type heirloom
Country Italy
Tomato Costoluto Fiorintino. Large heirloom beefsteak type from Florence.
Red, 12-16 ounces slightly flattened fruit. Outstanding taste. 75-80 days.
Large vigorous Indeterminate plant with good production. This makes a
really nice sauce also, especially the quick cooked type.
Purchashed from Seeds From Italy

Costoluto Genovese -
Maturity midseason
Growth habit indet.
Leaf type regular
Fruit color red
Fruit shape irregular, ribbed, beefsteak
Fruit size medium
Fruit type slicer
Variety type open-pollinated, heirloom
Country Italy
Italian, heat-loving, heirloom tomato that has been enjoyed for many
generations along the Mediterranean. Large, deep-red fruits have a
singularly fluted profile, are deeply ridged, and heavily lobed. Meaty,
full-flavored, slightly tart, and delicious. Because of its scalloped
edges, perfect for use in an arrangement of different colored sliced
tomatoes. Makes a rich and pungent pasta sauce. Thomas Jefferson grew these
and mentions them in 1782 in his State of Virgina Address.
obtained from Nancyruhl at TomatoVille - This is brokenbar strain
brought back from Italy. No germination
Fresh source from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds

Costoluto Genovese sel Valente
Maturity midseason
Growth habit indet.
Leaf type regular
Fruit color red
Fruit shape irregular, ribbed, beefsteak
Fruit size medium
Fruit type slicer
Variety type open-pollinated, heirloom
Country Italy
VF Indeterminate. A vigorous, high producing plant with brilliant red
fruit of 8-10 ounces. Fruit are somewhat flattened and have pronounced
ribs and excellent taste. This selection has resistance to fusarium &
vert. wilts. Also makes a very good sauce. A good mid-season tomato
(75-80 days).
Purchashed from Seeds From Italy

Also one I bought, I forgot about is Cow’s Tit, I have yet to grow out. My wife asked me this year to limit sauce making this year. It takes all day, and I have to do this three or 4 times. Instead she wants me to concentrate on my Honey Do list.

#20

We tried a couple Costoluto Fiorentino plants last year. They didn’t grow as big as the other plants, and didn’t produce a lot. The taste was OK, but all that fluting is a pain if you’re canning. The fruit is medium sized and the plant seemed to be pretty disease resistant. So, it didn’t make the cut this year. It is a very interesting fruit to look at tho.

#21

I’ve read about those NAR tom’s, they are huge fruits, but have a good flavor too. Please keep us updated on how they and the BW Sudduth do. Is that strain a more productive BW, and is it a red fruit?

I understand your frustration about not being able to get stuff planted in the garden. I guess you guys have been hit by both lots of rain and cold weather?

We had horrible BER last year on a lot of our tom’s, especially the Roma types. The bigger beefsteak types didn’t seem to have that problem as much. I imagine it was because our plot was very low in calcium, according to the soil test we had done this year. Plus, the fruit just tasted kinda blech. So, we’ve thrown down lots of lime on a lot of our plots. Something like 200lb on our 2000 sqft plot! Our soil pH is very low, about 5.0 on the plots higher up on our hill. Good for blueberries, not so much for veggies.

#22

I agree Bob, I prefer the pastes especially these bigger ones. Prepping medium sized fruit is a pain. The pastes were the easiest to process, and also had the largest yields.
I still need to evaluate Striped Roman, and Cows Tit.
Keepers for me were
Romeo
Polish Linguisa - late season. These came into production when the others were winding down.

4608×2592 2.16 MB

Opalka - Some have reported problems with BER, but I didn’t see any

4608×2592 1.59 MB

3 Likes
Best sauce or paste tomato?
#23

Ditto on the Romeo tom’s. If you have any extra seeds, I’d like to try some, if you don’t mind. But, it will have to wait until next year.

I’ll check to see if I have any any extra Striped Roman seeds, if you might wanna do a swap.

#24

Yeah, I have to dig through all my saved seeds, buried from 2 years ago, they are seeds harvested from 2015, but should be fine in 2018. No problem!
I saved plenty of them if I recall correctly.

1 Like
#25

LOL, my hand. most are like the smaller ones. I think the big one might be a fused tomato, two tomatoes fused. It produced 2 that big.

1 Like
#26

I am growing Polish Linguisa and Romeo from your seeds Drew this year. I’ll make pictures of them as they go along. I also will save seeds in case if somebody wants to grow them.

2 Likes
#27

Yes, that would be cool. Since I killed many of my plants, at least I can look at some tomatoes!

#28

I’m growing this one based on the Seed Savers Exchange description. Hoping it’s a good one as I’ve had BER issues on other paste tomatoes, especially striped roman – Yeesh!

#29

I’m not sure on the productivity, if I recall from the reading I’d done (and that was last year during the tomato growing season so…) it’s my understanding that the strain was essentially developed by some gal who their family just kept saving the seeds of only the biggest and healthiest Brandwine tomatoes and I think after reading it came clear that a lot of folks felt like it had maybe a slightly better flavor than some other Brandywine’s (?) But it’s classified as a pink, and I’m pretty interested in seeing what it’s all about.