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Post by macmex on Apr 5, 2024 6:50:55 GMT -6
Well, last Saturday (March 30, 2024) I put out a record number of Baker Family Heirloom tomato plants. That's a record number for me. I put out ten, holding back 3, in case of loss.
One of the ten plants, on April 2
Yesterday, April 4, our temps dropped down to 30 f. in the early morning. Though I had covered these plants, I lost at least half of them. They froze under their cover. I'll have start a few more seed to fill in the ranks. I sure hope that we're done with frost!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 5, 2024 7:46:27 GMT -6
I’m sorry about your tomato plants, macmex . We’re probably still a month out from putting plants out. Our heat lovers haven’t even been able to go outside this week due to cool and stormy weather. @rdback, i had a long talk with my mom this morning about what her favorite tomatoes are. Her choices aren’t quite so “exotic” as yours are, but here’s what I got from her. For slicers and canning: Better Boy or Best Boy For Paste: Roma or Rio Grande For cherries: Madera or a little variety that just comes up in her garden and goes on and on. It has no name as it just volunteered. I’ll put down the list of what we’ve started this year. It’s a combination of my mom’s seeds and my seeds, and our numbers range from six of each to just one. My mom has a definite preference for determinate plants, but she is letting me having some of the “crazy” ones, too. Best Boy Hungarian Heart Maglia Rosa Sunrise Bumblebee Riesentraube Heidi Juliet [German] Orange Strawberry Taste Patio Taiga Lynn’s Pink Madera Rio Grande Porter’s Pride Super Beefsteak Homestead Wuhib Some of these my mom has never grown in Virginia, but I brought some tomatoes with me in the van last summer when we came from Texas, and she liked them and wanted to give them a try. I’ll try to give reports on how things do. Right now we just discovered some aphids inside, so once the temperatures warm up, we’ll get the plants outside and see what we can do about knocking those back. I’ve heard of many of the tomatoes on your list, @rdback , and some of them have been intriguing to me for a while, but the one I’d definitely not heard of [or I’d have remembered] was “Ms. Scarlet in the kitchen with the knife.]. I love that name. It made me laugh out loud when I read it, and my husband was really wondering what was so funny about a list of tomatoes. He appreciated the name as well. We play “Clue” with our kids. I played when I was little, too, and I most always chose to be Ms. Scarlet or Professor Plum. Can you tell me about the tomato, please?
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Post by rdback on Apr 9, 2024 8:09:54 GMT -6
Wow! How many of each variety do you expect to put in the garden?
One of each, two of some. We'll have somewhere between 36 (3 rows) or 48 (4 rows) plants total, depending on germination. Going over 48 will get me in trouble, lol.
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Post by rdback on Apr 9, 2024 9:10:07 GMT -6
I’m sorry about your tomato plants, macmex . We’re probably still a month out from putting plants out. Our heat lovers haven’t even been able to go outside this week due to cool and stormy weather. @rdback, i had a long talk with my mom this morning about what her favorite tomatoes are. Her choices aren’t quite so “exotic” as yours are, but here’s what I got from her. For slicers and canning: Better Boy or Best Boy For Paste: Roma or Rio Grande For cherries: Madera or a little variety that just comes up in her garden and goes on and on. It has no name as it just volunteered. I’ll put down the list of what we’ve started this year. It’s a combination of my mom’s seeds and my seeds, and our numbers range from six of each to just one. My mom has a definite preference for determinate plants, but she is letting me having some of the “crazy” ones, too. Best Boy Hungarian Heart Maglia Rosa Sunrise Bumblebee Riesentraube Heidi Juliet [German] Orange Strawberry Taste Patio Taiga Lynn’s Pink Madera Rio Grande Porter’s Pride Super Beefsteak Homestead Wuhib Some of these my mom has never grown in Virginia, but I brought some tomatoes with me in the van last summer when we came from Texas, and she liked them and wanted to give them a try. I’ll try to give reports on how things do. Right now we just discovered some aphids inside, so once the temperatures warm up, we’ll get the plants outside and see what we can do about knocking those back. I’ve heard of many of the tomatoes on your list, @rdback , and some of them have been intriguing to me for a while, but the one I’d definitely not heard of [or I’d have remembered] was “Ms. Scarlet in the kitchen with the knife.]. I love that name. It made me laugh out loud when I read it, and my husband was really wondering what was so funny about a list of tomatoes. He appreciated the name as well. We play “Clue” with our kids. I played when I was little, too, and I most always chose to be Ms. Scarlet or Professor Plum. Can you tell me about the tomato, please?
Sorry to hear about your early plants, George. You've got time to start some more seeds, hopefully?
Chrys, your Mom's choices are solid ones. Since she likes determinant plants, my guess is she's a canner, lol. The 'boys have always been great producers and taste very good, as well as most Roma varieties.
I have seeds for some of the varieties you're growing, and have grown a few of them as well. I started growing Maglia Rosa three years ago, and it's on our "repeat" list. Homestead kinda slipped through the cracks, as they say. I try to grow at least some new-to-us tomatoes every year, and sometimes some good ones get left behind. I'm trying to replenish seed stock on this one. I have also grown Riesentraube unfortunately, and it is not on the "repeat" list, lol.
Now on to Miss Scarlet in the Kitchen with the Knife. I don't know a lot about it. This is the first year growing it, so I have no personal opinions of it...yet, lol. This tomato was developed and released by Gary Fitzgerald up in MA iirc, about ten years ago. It is a pink (red?) heart, and the people that have grown it love it. Consequently, seeds are always in demand. He also has a few others in this "family" including Colonel Mustard. I don't have those seeds...yet. Another tomato developed by Gary is Bacon, Lettuce, and This. Also very popular. Not sure what it is...yet, but probably another heart. I'll provide an update later in the season, assuming I'm successful growing them out, lol.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 9, 2024 15:13:46 GMT -6
Thanks for the information, rdback. My mom is definitely a canner. She cans whole tomatoes, juice, soup, and sauce. It’s probably time for me to make pasta sauce again soon, as everybody loves it, and there are still cans of tomatoes in the basement.
Riesentraube is an experiment for us, but we only have one seedling for it. I got it for growing in Texas since cherry tomatoes do well there, but I had read that this one wasn’t so sweet. I tended to have more cherries than I needed there, but not enough sauce or salsa tomatoes, so I got it to see if I could make salsa out of it. Other cherry tomato salsa I made was too sweet because of the sweetness of the tomatoes themselves, and it wasn’t a hit with the kids. I don’t know if we’ll like this one or not.
I’ve grown Maglia Rosa a few times, and I really enjoy that little tomato. We’ll only have one plant this year, mostly to introduce my mom to it. My mom’s garden is quite large, but she has it full of a number of berries and asparagus and rhubarb and daylilies and numerous other plants, so we’re going to be pushing it to find space for all the tomatoes, especially if we try to keep them out of areas where solanaceae grew recently. I like how productive Maglia Rosa is for its small size, and I really enjoy the flavor? Have you ever grown Taste Patio, also from Fred Hempel? It’s bigger, more egg shaped, but it may well be my daughter’s favorite tomato.
I’ve heard of “Tormato’s” Bacon, Lettuce, and This, so I suspected that the Miss Scarlet in the Kitchen with the Knife might be his because of the creativity of the name and the proximity in your list. I’ll look forward to updates, especially as it is a heart tomato. I’ve become quite a fan of those and hope to have a good crop of Hungarian Hearts this year. I also just recently acquired Karen Olivier’s Midnight Sun seeds but don’t have any started this year. I was so impressed with her Taiga that I wanted to add to my collection.
When do you set your tomatoes out?
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Apr 10, 2024 0:35:26 GMT -6
I’m going with the volunteer tomatoes growing in the rabbit poo compost pile. Betcha they’re Heidi!
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Post by macmex on Apr 10, 2024 8:01:18 GMT -6
Frosty, I believe the odds are in your favor about Heidi!
Chrysanthemum, I too love most oxhearts. Unfortunately, they usually don't like our hot Oklahoma summers. Tomato Rocky is actually an oxheart. I only get a crop if I grow it for the fall. Bet where you're at, you can grow oxhearts... to your heart's content
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 10, 2024 19:44:05 GMT -6
Bet where you're at, you can grow oxhearts... to your heart's content I sure hope so.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 11, 2024 20:43:52 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum,
Somehow, I missed this post until tonight. As a 'rule of thumb' I usually hold off on setting my tomatoes out into the garden until sometime after April 15th. There have been a few years when even May 1st was not a safe planting date in this part of Oklahoma.
One year, I got overly ambitious and set all of my tomatoes out during unusually warm weather before April 15th, only to catch a freak Winter's last hurrah that saw nighttime low temperatures drop down to 18°. Though I had covered my plants with wire cages wrapped with quilts and shipping blankets, every last one of them got killed that year. We've had outlandishly late frosts here over the past decade, as late as May 16th.
I don't remember Mother Nature having such consistently crazy mood swings before 2006. The weather here over the past 18 years has set all sorts of weird records, from the hottest summer, to the coldest winter, to the most rain, to the longest drought. I think last year's record was probably set for the most grasshoppers.
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Post by rdback on Apr 16, 2024 7:01:18 GMT -6
... Have you ever grown Taste Patio, also from Fred Hempel? ...When do you set your tomatoes out? I have not grown Taste Patio. I did a quick search, and it looks like an interesting tomato. Perhaps I'll give it a try next year.
Historically, I usually plant tomatoes out during the last two weeks of May. However, looking at this year's long range forecast through May, there's nothing predicted to be close to a frost/freeze. I may get "overly ambitious" like Ron did, and plant out earlier this year. Depends on the ground temp though.
Given the forecast, I'm going to plant some beans early, probably today/tomorrow. I usually don't get beans in the ground until the first week in June. Hopefully this year, I'll be picking beans in June, lol.
Because of climate change (I guess), our Planting Zone was changed from 6b to 7a this year. I think this changes our LFD to two weeks earlier, and our FFD to two weeks later, increasing our growing time by 30 days, give or take. That's pretty significant. I'll see if it turns out to be true.
When are you folks thinking about planting out?
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Post by macmex on Apr 16, 2024 7:25:42 GMT -6
Well, I believe I'll be putting out most of the rest of my tomatoes in the coming week. I'll hold off on a few replacement Baker Family Heirloom plants, as they are still very tiny. I'm pretty confident I could put out beans now. Just need to decide on where to put them. My wife and I planned out the garden and I tend to forget where we agreed to put things!
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Post by rdback on Apr 20, 2024 7:08:40 GMT -6
Historically, I usually plant tomatoes out during the last two weeks of May. However, looking at this year's long range forecast through May, there's nothing predicted to be close to a frost/freeze. I may get "overly ambitious" like Ron did, and plant out earlier this year...
Funny how things change, just in four days. Now our forecast predicts lows in the mid-thirties for the next week. And, since the garden is down in the floodplain, it's 3-4 degrees colder and may see a frost/freeze. Glad I didn't get overly ambitious, lol. I think I'll stick with history.
EDIT: To say, 24 hrs later now, they have issued a Frost Advisory for the next two days, lol.
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