How are your tomatoes doing? I’m getting mine out later than normal. I put out celebrity and roma this year. Both are fairly hardy and productive. I won’t have a lot of time this year. What varities did you plant?
Vusarium , verticulum wilt resistance
Tomato , tobacco mosaic resistance
I got in a few Early Girl and a few Oregon Spring. Last year my tomatoes all got blight and I’ve got them in a different spot this year. Fingers crossed.
I started 8 Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes inside the beginning of March (same time as last year). All 8 sprouted and started growing. 1 never got taller than 2”. When I went to put them into bigger pots, I noticed there were very few roots on all of them. I went ahead and put them in bigger pots hoping they would grow more roots. 2 died right away. The others continued to grow but got very leggy despite being under grow lights and then outside. 1more died after a few weeks. So I put the remaining into 5 gallon buckets (same as previous years) and still not much root mass. Slowly over the course of 2 weeks they all died. None of them ever grew roots longer than 3”. No idea what happened.
So I was at Home Depot last week and picked up 2 Sweet 100’s on clearance for $2 and stuck them in my wife’s parents garden.
I plant better boy every year, they hold the record for both largest tomato and record yield per plant. They taste great and are very productive for me. It’s a nice looking tomato too. I’ve never had a disease problem with them.
Just got done planting all my tomatoes and peppers yesterday. I am later than normal getting them out, but we had a very cool and quite rainy spring.
I put out 19 tomato plants and 9 peppers.
Tomatoes included Celebrity, Rutgers, Early Girl, Kentucky Beefsteak (orange), sun sugar cherry tomato, and Mountain something or other, can’t remember. Peppers were California Wonder, Big Bertha (my favorite and huge and productive) and 2 unnamed jalapeños. Since I didn’t get my own seeds started this year, I had to go with what I could find in local stores or the Amish greenhouse down the road.
I am hoping to get enough tomatoes for fresh eating and also to make sauce and can it.
A lot of people use only paste tomatoes for sauce, but I just wash and core my tomatoes and throw all kinds together into a huge roasting pan and cook them down into a thick sauce in the oven. Then I use an immersion blender to blend everything, skins, seeds and all. Can’t even tell the skins were on them, and the seeds are unnoticeable to us, although some people don’t like them. This is the quickest and easiest way I have found to get sauce made.
Sometimes I just wash, core and freeze them whole in large freezer bags, and then cook them down in winter and can them. If you hate the skins, just let the bags partially defrost and grab each tomato and give a squeeze and they will mostly pop right out of their skins after being frozen. A lot of the water will pour off too after freezing. Then cook them down.
Sandra
I put in tomato starts a bit early this year. They made it through some 35 degree nights and are looking good now. I’ve finally learned to fertilize frequently when using pots.
Better Boy
Cherokee Purple. Love the huge flowers on these.
These two are Super Sweet 100 and Black Cherry, not sure which is which.
I started tomato plants for my mom early, and my own late. From the local Home Depot, she bought a Sweet 100, Big Beef, Beafsteak, Brandywine, and I sprouted Box Car Willie, Stump of The World, Marianna’s Peace, and Arkansas Traveler from seed for her in February while she started planting the storebought ones. About five days ago, she began harvesting cherry tomatoes and the slicers are well on their way
My own tomato bed is running pretty late, but I went big this year. I just got all my slicers and cherry tomatoes in but still need to plant 9 more paste tomatoes.
And bought plants of:
Big Beef (1)
Grafted Early Girl (1)
Sungold (1)
Super Sweet 100 (1)
Bloody Butcher (2)
Neves Azorean Red (1)
And the paste tomatoes:
Costoluto Genovese (5)
Sunrise Sauce (4) - these were a quick fix replacement for my Heidi seeds not showing up.
This totals me at 45 plants for the year? Normally I plant about 12 and don’t do anything fancy with their holes.
There are some amazing tomato growers here! I’m impressed you guys!
with it just being my wife and myself now I only put in a couple plants.
2 big beef
1 sweet 100 cherry
1 pink oxheart
1 carbon copy (from Drew)
1 roma style (also from Drew)
and one other I cannot remember the name of. some large fruited yellow tomato
I also get “volunteer” yellow pear tomatoes every year due to having grown them for so long
My goal is always getting fruit before the 4th of July (and I’ve lucked out and gotten a couple by then) but it is rare. This spring seems too cold to get the growth I want on them.
We put in just 3 different varieties. Improved Big Beef, Pink Girl, and Box Car Willie.
This is the first year we’ve grown Box Car Willie. Planted it on recommendations from @Fusion_power. Darrell recommended Big Beef too, which has been a successful variety for us for several years. Large tomatoes, lots of production. Doesn’t crack horribly.
I tried to do a tomato trial last year, and I ended up with a bunch of green tomatoes because I have a short season and large temperature dips in Spring. We get snow in Spring.
This year I got a grow tent and some lights and tried to get an earlier start so I’m hoping to have better luck.
Most I just have one of, for a trial, although I have more heidi in hopes of canning.
Heidi
Not Bloody butcher mystery tomato
Black from Tula regular leaf
Aunt Ruby’s German green
Azoycha
Matina
Kelloggs breakfast
Galina’s yellow cherry
Eva purple ball
Abe Lincoln
Box car Willie
Oregon Spring
Stump of the world
Bonnie best
Bobcat hybrid
Opalka
Big rainbow
Hawaiian pineapple
Principe borghese
New big dwarf
Glacier
Super sweet 100s
Last year stump was the winner because it actually gave us ripe tomatoes before the freeze came and then Bonnie best was in second.
Where I am, it is safe to put tomatoes out June 1.
Some of the earlier tomatoes that I got done have flowers on them and are quite large for a start.
So I feel hopeful that this season will be better.
Yeah, last year was a cool one for us as well. Our tomatoes made it through by the skin of their teeth, but the 2-3 inches of rain we got in August gave everything significant cracking and BER.
Usually, we consider mid May to be ok for planting, but even still, our nighttime temps usually remain at or below the ideal min planting temps for the entire summer. I think May 6th is the latest that we’ve gotten snow, though snow is a rare occurrence for us in general.
I’m PNW, so don’t have really hot weather here. Because of that I only plant cherry tomatoes which ripens faster. I have planted about 10 or so Sungold tomatoes.
Maybe next year, I’ll try to add little bigger ones like Roma.
I’m growing Romeo this year. It’s a large paste tomato. Easy to grow. I like dark or black tomatoes. They have dark red flesh. Harder to grow. Sweeter than regular reds. I found carbon copy a medium to small dark and Black Seaman a larger dark easier to grow than other dark tomatoes. I have grown these on and off the last ten years. I use my own seed. I buy hybrids once in a while. I mostly grow heirlooms. Keep my own seed.
Romeo
Nice size!
I have one Black from Tula regular leaf growing. Have you tried that one, any input?
I considered black seaman, glad to see it recommended, maybe I will try it next season. 
I have been planting tomatoes in their final pots this weekend, lots more to do but I am beyond pleased with these tomato cages.
I put netting around them to deter deer and rabbits from chewing on leaves, and they don’t even snag the netting.
I have them in 15 gallon squat containers from Haviland, but it takes some coaxing. A little wider pot would be even better.
It’s a fine tomato. Worth trying.
I started seeds early under lights but then moved them outside during the day and inside at night. They have been growing very slow this year with cool temperatures and clouds. Finally put them in the ground last week which is a few weeks later then usual. Not much can be done about the clouds.
mine have been out 3 week or so. have got 3 San marz, 2 Japanese black trifele, yellow double rich, Amish paste, tasmanian chocolate, 2 reisetomate, 2 black krim, hogheart, 2 edelrot, a Brandywine, Red Ceylon, Baylor paste, glory of Moldova, Mamie pink, and an Oregon spring I was given.
all are about a foot tall to 18" tall now, the cold nights slowed them down a hell of a lot but it’s getting really warm now.
I’ve got one of each unless it says otherwise. it’s a testing year to see if I like any of the new ones the pastes are doing better than the slicers. a few of those are only like 6 inches tall still. but I buried them pretty deep to start. I have “tomato road” set up where they grow up on each side and I can walk between.
a few of the short ones want to flower already. there’s maybe 6 inches or so of stem under the dirt.
My favorite paste now. Was lucky enough to get some Romeo seeds last season and that was one of the finest tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. I’ve grown hundreds of tomatoes too. Not sure how easy it is to obtain Romeo seed.
