Yes, sounds good! I may need Goose Creek seeds, if mine fail. They are very old. If I can find them! Hopefully my seeds will come through.
I went over Chills house yesterday, picked up some items from him. Nice to meet him in person too!
I may have started a thread like. I tried to introduce the Dwarfs to growers here. I have others too, like Dwarf Mr Snow.
I’m very interested in them, as I have to grow most of mine in containers, and the dwarfs tend to like those conditions. In June the founder of the Dwarf project is supposed to be on tv on the “Growing a Greener World” TV show. Looking forward to catching that episode.
Thanks for all the recommendations. There are some that sound pretty good and plan to try if I can buy them as starts (I’m terrible at starting tomatoes. I either give them too much water or not enough.)
For my own preferences, I really don’t have favorites too much, as much as varieties or types I don’t plant anymore. To wit:
I don’t plant determinates because of the obvious shorter window to harvest.
I don’t plant early tomatoes anymore because, like peaches, I’ve found it somewhat difficult to find a really outstanding tasting early tomato.
I don’t plant heirloom tomatoes anymore because they don’t produce much.
I don’t plant cherry or grape type tomatoes because they are too hard to pick and sell.
And finally, I don’t plant beefsteak type tomatoes because the one’s I’ve tried have quite a bit more pith than slicers. By the time I cut the pith out, it basically cuts out the whole center of the tomato, and one is left with a donut.
I do sometimes allow volunteers to come up in between the cages. I’ve found if you pull the cherry type volunteers immediately when you notice them, most of the volunteers will be slicer type tomatoes that taste fairly decent.
I’ve just started seedlings for everything I grew last year, including regular indeterminates:
Opalka
Druzba
Prudence Purple
Stump of the World
Fish Lake Oxheart
Black Cherry
Sun Gold (F1)
Striped Mystery Beast (see below)
And from the dwarf project:
Dwarf Orange Cream
Dwarf Purple Heart
Rosella Purple dwarf
Then I’m also adding:
Damsel (F1) - a beefsteak that is supposed to have heirloom quality flavor. I’m hoping this one keeps me in toms if we have another tough disease year and it should be more productive.
Tennessee Suited - a dwarf that I’ve seen a lot of good reviews for
And then I’m trialing some new cherries. I don’t like really sweet cherries (except for Sun Gold) like Sweet100, Matts WIld, etc. so I’m trying some others that aren’t supposed to be as sweet that will hopefully give me some nice variety with my Black Cherries that are always great. I’d like to drop Sun Gold from future years and grow a few more that are OP, but if Sun Gold is better I’ll keep growing it.
Cherries I’m trying include:
Gajo de Melon
Lemon Drop
Chadwick Cherry
Red Star
Hahms Gelbe Topftomate - a tiny dwarf yellow/gold cherry that I thought I’d try in a row along the front of a flower bed and maybe a few in pots to give away as gifts
And here is the info on the Striped Mystery Beast. Basically it was a seedling that came from a packet of normal Prudence Purple from Sampleseeds.com. I could see it was different and decided to grow it out. Instead of Potato leaf, it is regular leaf it is regular leaf and as you can see from the image below it is very different looking than PP (which is actually pink). It wasn’t like anything the owner of Sample Seeds, Remy, said she had been growing so it was probably just from a chance cross. It is a really great tasting beefsteak tomato and I go back and forth from liking this one the best and Stump of the World. Stump is sweeter and this one has a nice strong acid bite along with the sweet. Growing it the second year from saved seeds it was stable, making the same type of tomatoes. We’ll see what happens with the plants from the most recent batch of seed I’ve saved.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned this tomato here before, but just thought I’d mention it again with people talking about possible crosses from saving seeds. If you see something interesting and different in a batch of seedings, grow it out and see what you get.
There are some mail order companies that sell plants, but it would be expensive.
Also on heirlooms all hybrids are a cross between two or three heirlooms, the companies must maintain the heirlooms for pollen and ovaries each year. We have to maintain them or so much for high producing hybrids. Obviously some heirlooms must be producing, as that trait must be from an heirloom. I know like Rutgers does, and many others produce like crazy.
It’s funny as when I go to my cottage and I’m on the passenger ferry, I often offer up my tomatoes to the island people taking the commute to the island. Everybody asks which are heirlooms? They don’t want anything else. Of course my answer is always the same, All of them!
If stable share the wealth! I much rather would grow these unique types that pop up in people’s garden.
On cherry tomatoes. Mexico Midget, I heard it was good, OP type. I still have not tried it. This year I want to compare Black Cherry to Carbon Copy a cherry developed from Carbon, which is supposed to be one of the best dark tomatoes around. I’ll report on it,
I have grown Blue Berries, and it was pretty good, disease resistant, and prolific. It is not very sweet, more like a little big tomato. [quote=“thepodpiper, post:62, topic:9320”]
m me your addy i will send them out.
[/quote]
Pm will be sent, I’m not confident on my supply being good.
Thanks for the suggestion. I considered that one, but it seems like the “true” version is actually closer to a currant tomato than a cherry. I understand there is a lot of mistaken versions floating around which are more cherry tomato sized but not as good, so wasn’t sure I could find the actual correct one. I might give it a try next year.
I got mine from Seed Savers exchange. Yet to grow, no way this year. I have high hopes for Carbon Copy. I’ll report on it at the end of the year. Growing Black Cherry to compare.
From my understanding that is one of the sources of incorrect seed, although it might be fixed by now if you just got the seeds. Please report back on Carbon Copy. I had considered that, but since I already grow and love Black Cherry I thought I’d experiment with the other colors first.
It might be why I didn’t grow it out, I remember hearing about the bad seed.[quote=“zendog, post:68, topic:9320”]
since I already grow and love Black Cherry I thought I’d experiment with the other colors first.
[/quote]
Makes sense. I never grew either of the purples/darks. Also I myself like Sungold, so that is a keeper for me, and i also like Jasper a red tomato, as much as Sungold, so all I need is a black, and a green. I’m trying Sun Green next year.
I have planted Sungold, Brandywine, Cupid, because they are favorites with us. Also Rutgers, Beefsteak, and Early Girl, because they are well-known varieties, so must be okay. Hope I am not too early with them.
Partial list here as my mail order came in today. Big Zac, San Marzano Redorta, Black Krim, Costoluto Genovese, Homestead 24. There are quite a few others but they are currently planted outside so I will complete this list tomorrow.
I planted my tomatoes in the ground yesterday (Mar 8th); planted seeds three months ago (Dec 5th). The total is 30 bushes, two each of Anna Russian, Arbuznyi, Bear Claw, Black from Tula, Black Krim, Black Prince, Earl’s Faux, Hungarian Heart, Kellogg’s Breakfast, Orange Strawberry, Paul Robeson, Pruden’s Purple, Stump of the World, Yellow Brandywine; one each of Black Giant and Stupice.
Hi. Although I have been reading threads here for a while, tonight I finally signed up and this is my first post. I figure I have been driving my facebook friends batty for years with all my tomato posts, so this year I should join other tomato growing fiends.
I’m currently picking out the tomatoes to grow this year, so this list is a work in progress.
Sungold *
Supersweet 100 *
Chocolate Cherry *
Purple Russian *
Striped Roman *
Jersey Giant *
Long Tom *
Cream Sausage *
Corleone
Siberian Pink Honey
Chuck’s Yellow *
Big Brandy
Pineapple *
Azoychka
Tatjana *
Japanese Black Trifele *
Jubilee
Tiny Tim *
Red Robin *
Mega Bite
Firecracker
Little Napoli
denotes tomatoes I have grown before.
I grow everything in containers, and have a limited number of containers large enough for full sized tomato plants, so I will have to remove four or five of these from my list this year. The last five varieties are dwarf plants, and I have plenty of smaller pots, so they will all stay. I’m very interested in dwarf varieties for the future because they would be a lot easier to grow to their full potential in containers.
Looking forward to seeing how this growing season works out for all of us!
Hi Holly and welcome to the forum, and us other tomato “fiends”! I grew about 30 varieties last year, including some on your list: Siberian Pink Honey, JBT, Cream Sausage, Striped Roman, Choc Cherry, and Purple Russian.
All of these I’m growing again this year except the JBT and Purple Russian, I had bad blossom end rot with those, even tho I had that with a lot of my toms. It was prob because of a calcium deficiency in our plot revealed in a recent soil report.
I can tell you that the Siberian Pink was very good for us, good flavor, productive, and pretty good disease resistance. Choc Cherry is maybe our favorite over the last 3 years, prolific, a smoky tart cherry tom flavor, and hardy. Plus a yuuge plant, usually gets to 6ft every year.
Where are you checking in from? Good luck to your plantings this year. I have bad luck growing toms in containers, I start them from seed indoors, put the sprouts under lights, transfer to cups, back under the lights, and then into garden in May or so. I still consider myself a tom growing newbie, but there are others on here who have way more experience than I. Again, welcome.
I am too, I too grow mostly in containers. I don’t have the room in the ground. I do grow some in ground. I think I’m growing only one dwarf this year, I need to grow some older seeds out this year. The Dwarf Tomato Project cultivars are worth checking out.
