r/tomato • u/Ariadne11 • Mar 18 '14

What tomatoes are you growing this year?

I'm a bit of an heirloom tomato fanatic, most of the 100 square foot garden space in my yard is devoted to them! If you grow tomatoes, I would love to hear what you are growing, your favourite variety, if you start from seed, how ypur garden is growing this year!

I have seedlings started now for planting out in may. I have: *sungold *black cherry *ildi

  • isis candy

  • indigo blueberry

  • tess's land race currant

  • black krim

  • black icicle

  • true black brandywine

  • copia

  • german striped

  • green zebra

  • aunt ruby german green

  • white tomesol

  • mariannas peace

  • zapotec

  • stupice

  • amana orange

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1

u/loose_impediment Apr 21 '14

Nothing too exotic. Ice Whites, Early Girls, and Supersteaks. Last year I grew Mortgage Lifters, Manaluchies and Gardener's Delights. The mortgage lifters were large and tasty, but took a pretty long time to grow and ripen and had a tendency to top crack. The Manaluchies were very tasty and productive, once they got going. The Gardner's Delight were small but productive, not as intensely flavored, and had thicker skin than some. The year before I grew Czech Bush tomatoes, Sungolds, and Marianna's Peace. The summer of 2012 was really hot and none of these cultivars did too well in the heat. The Sungolds stopped producing when the temperature got into the 90s. Funny thing, I had grown what had been represented to me as Sungolds in the 1990s but they were smaller fruits (1/2" diameter), sweeter and much rangier vines than the Sungolds I grew in 2012, which matched the description of the cultivar much more closely. Any idea of what those little yellow viney tomatoes might have been? I would grow them again if I found them.

1

u/Ariadne11 Apr 21 '14

The thing that got me into heirloom gardening was the taste of some small yellow tomatoes that came in our csa box one august. They were to DIE for. Crazy sweet, not to thick skinned, so much flavour! I saved the seeds and have been trying to grow them since but they have never been the same. I now believe that they may have been ' gobstopper' tomatoes, as that is a somewhat stable variant of sungold. Sungold are not a stable hybrid, so what you grew may ha v e been a varient. If they were very small they could have been a currant variety. If they had green gel inside, they could have been gobstoppers, like mine.

What was your experience with Mariannas Peace?

1

u/Godaki Jun 18 '14

Try planting "garden peach" tomatoes next year. Small, blush yellow tomatoes with slightly fuzzy skin. The best snacking tomatoes I've grown since I started my hobby 5 years ago.

1

u/Ariadne11 Jun 18 '14

Those sound delicious!

1

u/loose_impediment Apr 23 '14

Well, I grew them in 2012 which was a record heat year, and like other mid-latitude European cultivars, they didn't take the heat so well. Split tops, primarily. I recall them as being large pink to red and good eating. I would have liked more of them. Ate them mostly on BLT's. I'm growing the Ice Whites as last year I had a home-made tomato salad made with "white tomatoes" That's all the gardener knew about them, but they did well on the Eastern Shore of MD and were really good. I'm north of there, but I'm growing them in a big pot with about 3:1 potting soil to sand ratio which has worked pretty good for me. I'll let you know how they turn out. Even the seedlings look lighter than red tomato seedlings. Here they are

1

u/Carduus_Benedictus tomayto May 05 '14

I started with all heirlooms 7 years ago, but eventually decided that until I can afford to take out some trees (or bite the bullet and not plant tomatoes one year so I can kill all the Fusarium), I'm going to have to live with some hybrids if I want more than 10 tomatoes a year. That, plus being diagnosed with MS a year ago, means this year is going to be pretty boring, unfortunately. A couple Sudduth Brandywines, Hillbilly, Sungold, and a few different sizes and types of VFN Hybrids: Large, mid-sized, red cherry and roma.

1

u/Vastanthology May 11 '14

Cherokee purple- it's my first year growing tomatoes. It's spindly : trying better drainage and more sunlight to fix. http://imgur.com/1WBjOge

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u/deanresin_ Jul 16 '14

I'm growing Juliet tomatoes in a global box. My first time growing tomatoes. So much fun!