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Post by macmex on Aug 29, 2013 8:33:18 GMT -6
So, chime in. What varieties of tomatoes do you grow in your garden? Especially, what works well for you in our climate and conditions? When we first came to this area I remember trying Porter because of its fame for production in heat and drought. I had grown it near McAllen, Texas, and it DID do well. That was back around 1988. What I had forgotten was that I don't like its flavor! Still, Porter produced well here. It has potential for our area. There are some who like its flavor. Plus, I'm sure that it cooks down just fine. Roma VF: has been a champ for me. I don't like to eat it fresh, not one bit. But it is a cooking tomato, and we cook a lot more with tomatoes than eating them fresh. Roma VF (and I'm sure there are several strains of Roma) only grows to about 4' tall. It's determinate, in that it produces quite a flush of tomatoes and then basically quits. It benefits from caging. But it does relatively well if left to sprawl. The fruit are fairly good sized and extremely easy to process. It's hard to improve on this variety if one wants a lot of tomatoes for canning. Black Cherry: davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/88786/After doing some research on cherry tomatoes, I settled on this one. Tastes on tomatoes vary. But I often say that this is the only tomato I've ever eaten which actually tells my taste buds, "This is fruit!" It's not black, but rather, kind of brownish. Some years this one is a little sparse on setting fruit for me. But it's always worth it. This year our plants are large, lush and covered in fruit and flowers. Sioux: developed in Minnesota, this variety is, nevertheless, quite heat tolerant. The fruit are medium sized, like what I generally see on Early Girl Tomatoes. The plant is also rather bushy, benefiting much from a good sized cage. Flavor of Sioux is WONDERFUL. I hear that Sioux was the most popular tomato in Oklahoma (and in much of the USA) during the 50s. With the advent of hybrids it nearly disappeared. www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Tomato_Mans_Daughter_opens_lists_top_10_tomato_plants/20130410_39_D1_CUTLIN124566?subj=4&nf=HomePageIf I remember correctly, Sioux' seed stock eventually dropped down to only one seed saver, a Mr. Merrell (the tomato man), who popularized it again. I could be wrong. Anyway, this is a favorite for me. If I could only grow one tomato variety, and I really wanted taste, this would be in the final runner up list. How does Sioux compare to Super Sioux? I don't know. Super Sioux is supposed to be an improved selection out of Sioux. I understand that it is more uniform. Sioux' only weakness, in my book, is that it has thin skin and easily splits and spoils. The way around this is to pick the fruit at first blush and let it ripen on the counter. I have more varieties to mention. But will have to get back to this another time. Feel free to tell us what varieties you like.
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Post by duckcreekfarms on Aug 30, 2013 11:33:11 GMT -6
I haven't had time or space to grow much for the past couple of years. I need to grow out more seed stock so will be plantng out a lot of varieties next year. here is a link to a trial we did a few years back.. duckcreekfarms.com/pdfs/TomatoResults2011.pdfonly grew Dana's Dusky Rose this year and she was wonderful. And diddo on the "I have more varieties to mention". But will get back later as well gary www.duckcreekfarms.com
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Post by macmex on Sept 18, 2013 10:08:47 GMT -6
Another tomato, new to me this year, but regarding which, I've heard many good reports, is Heidi. Heidi is a plum shaped tomato brought from Camaroon, Africa and presented to Dr. Carolyn Male by one of her students. I've heard that Heidi is heat resistant. This year I tried it. My seed apparently had been crossed, because I got both the plum shaped fruit, plus one plant of marble sized cherry tomatoes and another plant of egg sized, round tomatoes, which were still very similar to Heidi's when cut. My only real complaint with having these off types crop up is that my wife, now wants me to keep seed of the cherry tomato. It was a PRODIGIOUS producer! One friend from the Oklahoma Gardening (Gardenweb, who lives down in Love County, commented that she can't help planting Heidi because the variety just keeps cranking out fruit, even in the hottest part of the summer. That's saying a lot, coming from Love County! My little patch of Heidi has produced exceedingly well in 2013, and that, in spite of not staking the plants and letting weeds get out of hand. The fruit are not particularly large. But they are easy to process the way we do it. We just nip off the part where the stem was connected and drop the entire fruit into a food processor. After blending, we cook it down to a fairly thick consistency for canning. I have tasted Heidi, sliced fresh, and was surprised just how tasty it was. It was much better than Roma, which is pretty much my standard for bland tomatoes. Heidi's plants have a "weedy" character to them, which I like. They seem tough and resilient. They are still, even now, flowering, though they have slowed in production. I will definitely grow this one again. "Heat resistant" and "Oklahoma" go very well together when it comes to garden cultivars!
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Post by macmex on Sept 25, 2013 8:29:55 GMT -6
Still another variety which I have been trialing is Rio Grande, which is a paste tomato. I suspect that "paste" and "plum" are not entirely synonymous. Heidi, for instance, is a plum. But a cross section of the fruit shows that it is not truly a paste tomato. The walls are not all that thick. I bet there are paste tomatoes (really thick meaty walled tomatoes) which are not plum shaped. Anyway. Roi Grande is both a plum and a paste variety, as is Roma. Rio Grande has larger fruit, on the average, than either Heidi or Roma. Many fruit have only two locules (seed cavities). The rest is meat. The fruit of this variety does have remarkably good compared to Roma. But that is not to say that I'd grow it in place of a good slicing tomato like Sioux or Prudence Purple. The plants are robust and stocky, being indeterminate in growth habit. In two growing seasons I believe I've seen them attain a height of about 4'. They are prolific producers. Comments I've read, from other growers of this variety, indicate that it can be extremely productive. Last year my plants looked wonderful... until hordes of blister beetles decided to concentrate on them. They were wiped out before I could get much of a harvest. This year, I got mine in very late, transplanting them into the garden on June 2. This year, they have done MUCH better, though, I neglected to stake some of the plants. Staking truly improves the growth and production of almost any tomato.
Rio Grande is attractive to me as a potential variety for high production for canning. Besides being highly productive, the fruit are fairly large, often just under baseball size. And, they hold well on the counter. I fully intend to grow this one again, in 2014, to get them in earlier, and to be sure they are caged.
Here's a picture of some fruit in front of the plant from which I picked them:
One point with which I'd like to leave you. To properly evaluate a variety takes a couple of years. Sometimes a variety will bomb for a couple of years and do great afterwards. Sometimes it may do sensationally well, for a year or two, and then never really measure up. So evaluations I do, based on only a year or two are tentative. I do have a bit more confidence on a variety like this one, based on the testimony of others.
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Post by duckcreekfarms on Jun 17, 2014 21:03:42 GMT -6
This year I planted mostly to refresh my seed supply and have some fresh seed to sell on my website. Planted 2014 Gary O'Sena Indian Stripe JD's Special C-Tex Bear Creek Dark Brandy Randy's Brandy Grandma Suzy's Beefsteak 1884 Yellow Pinkheart Dana's Dusky Rose Royal Hillbilly West Virginia Straw Black Krim Sioux Cherokee Purple Arkansas Traveler
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2015 17:41:27 GMT -6
im going with rutgers..my mom seems to enjoy the taste/flavor of them..i did pretty good with them last year.but not very many tomatoes..so hopefully i'll do better this year...
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Post by macmex on Sept 2, 2015 8:00:01 GMT -6
Rutgers is an amazing tomato. One of my mentors, when I was a teen, grew about 100 of them each year. He would only plant Rutgers, Marglobe and Roma. All three were already time tested in the 70s. They still are!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2016 19:11:47 GMT -6
well i did all the good today..first,i went to town to get gas for the mower.in which i saw a tree trimming crew,trimming back the branches and all away from the power lines.so i stopped n talked with them about bringing a load of it to me.then i came home and got the yard mowed.got my first load today.and i'll get another load monday or Tuesday.in which it'll be going in my garden once my crops start coming up..
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Post by macmex on Apr 24, 2016 5:31:34 GMT -6
Sounds like you're on top of things. I went to the Green Country Seed Saver tomato cage building activity. Turnout was fairly low, though I always enjoy meeting people and talking about gardening. I was, however, thinking about how far behind my own garden is, and wishing, if it was going to be so slow, that I could work on my own. Anyway, that afternoon Ron Cook (HeavyHitterOkra) came by with is TRACTOR and broke up a good part of my garden! This afternoon I plan on putting tomatoes in!
George
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Post by philagardener on Apr 25, 2016 18:22:08 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 18:40:52 GMT -6
interesting..i got my seeds from my patriot supply..so im now wondering how original they are now
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 6, 2016 8:55:42 GMT -6
I've found Early Girls to be a good fit For our region (Northeast Oklahoma). They put on fruit from Late June to mid July. Though they are kind of a "flash in the pan" as far as longevity of the production cycle goes, they certainly fill a niche by coming on long before the heirlooms. I've got over 100 of them planted out already.
I sell a lot of tomatoes to restaurants; they really like the Early Girls, because of the uniform size, and the round shape; those two qualities lend well to the requirements of their automatic slicers.
Most restaurant managers couldn't care less about the taste of a tomato, which seems entirely odd to me, but Early Girls also taste good. When the heirlooms come on, the restaurants will buy them too, but are not happy with the larger cores, thicker skins, or odd shapes. They kind of buy heirlooms as a novelty, because of the larger size, and better taste, but really prefer the Early Girls, because they are much easier to process.
The size and shape of the Early Girls also makes them a favorite of the home processor. They blanch well, having no folds or wrinkles in the skin that might cause uneven release, and have very small cores, so there is little waste. We use them almost exclusively in our home canning, though I always make sure to plant plenty of heirlooms for late season production.
Though Early Girl has been a long time favorite of mine, mostly because of the early harvest date, George McLaughlin has got me wondering if maybe Baker Family Heirloom might be be a better choice over all, because of the vigor, and longer production cycle. I grow a lot of tomato plants from seeds, and can say that Baker Family Heirloom is definitely one of the easiest tomatoes to germinate and raise in hotbeds. Baker Family Heirloom also has a good taste, uniform shape, and decent size. Each year, I find myself planting more and more of them.
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Post by john on May 6, 2016 17:47:30 GMT -6
I really like 'Better Boy', in my garden it will outyield all others by a considerable margin. I have been growing it for many, many years, they don't split, they are a large attractive tomato and they taste good too. I know it is a hybrid, but you can save seed from it and it will be hard to tell you didn't purchase it. Sometimes I wonder if the seeds they are selling to you as a "hybrid" are actually true hybrids, especially with tomatoes. I grow a polish linguisa for canning, they are large and meaty and have a dark red flesh that make them attractive in the jar. They are much lower yielding than the Roma types, but they make up for it with size. It takes half as many tomatoes to fill a quart jar. This year I am trying a new canning type called 'Krasnodor Titans', it is supposed to keep for quite some time on the vine. That is a really good trait to have as tomatoes seem to go by so fast and it is hard to get to them all.
For variety I will also be growing 'Carbon' which is good to eat, but tends to be low yielding and will split after a rain.
Triple crop is another one I grow. They are a nice eating pink colored tomato with potato leaves.
'Golden queen' I don't think these are the true golden queen variety. These ones are round and yellow about the size of a small plum and they are early and high yielding. They are good to snack on in the garden while you work. (I got the seeds from Comstock Ferre Co. Which is owned by Baker Creek)
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Post by macmex on May 7, 2016 5:57:54 GMT -6
Because of our heat in Northeastern Oklahoma, I had to basically stop growing a lot of the old varieties I brought with me. They were mainly from the Northeast of the USA, and tend not to produce well in our summer heat. Even Cherokee Purple, which is so very popular in this region, is hardly worth the space it takes to grow, as it usually produces under a dozen tomatoes in a season, per plant.
Some hybrids, as mentioned above, do pretty well here. But I like to grow open pollinated, so I can reproduce the seed. Remember, if one saves seed from a hybrid, the following generations will shuffle genes and be very irregular. You'll get tomatoes, all right. But not many plants will resemble the original variety. For non-hybrid, my main stays are able to produce in our heat and I demand productivity.
Baker Family Heirloom is my absolute favorite. It's plants are really large, requiring a sturdy support. But the leaf cover is outstanding (preventing sun scald) and this plant cranks out the tomatoes. Baker Family Heirloom would please those "finicky" restaurant owners, yet it also has excellent flavor (says me). Keep in mind that flavor is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. But to give you an idea of my tastes, I think Rutgers is hard to improve upon, even in flavor. BFH is like Rutgers on steroids. BFH is probably a later variety, coming in around 70 days from transplant. But it produces until frost from 10' vines. I just realized that Sandhill Preservation Center now carries seed for BFH! They are the first company to do so!
sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/tomato.html
Here's a picture of Baker Family Heirloom. Normally I walk up on a plant and think, "Oh my! Look at that impressive yield!" Then I snap a picture and when I look at the picture and think, "Yield? What yield? I don't see it!" This is on account of the leaf cover. It fools cameras. But this picture was taken of a plant close to the garden fence. A goat reached through and stripped the leaves from one side of the plant!
Sioux - Was the #1 most popular tomato in Oklahoma in the 1950s, and with good reason. Productive, large/medium red fruit with that old time tomato flavor (like Rutgers). Sioux doesn't get as tall as BFH. But it does produce a good many side shoots, right at the base of the plant. So it is pretty bushy and very productive. It handles our heat very well. I love the flavor. Might even be better than Rutgers. Sioux has a thin skin and does crack sometimes, if left to mature completely on the plant. I pick mine when the color starts to break and let them ripen on the kitchen counter. This eliminates any problem with cracking and the flavor is still wonderful. Sioux has a thin skin, which though a challenge if left on the plant too long, makes for very good eating. This too, is an indeterminate which is usually still chugging out tomatoes in early October.
Roma VF - There is nothing glamorous about this variety. Though some people claim they love its flavor, my question is usually "What flavor?" But that's when eaten raw. When cooked, there is nothing wrong about Roma's flavor. It's fine. Roma has vines which can reach about 3 1/2' tall, It can be grown without a cage, though it will spread out a bit. The really good thing about Roma is that it PRODUCES TONS of tomatoes for canning.. Roma is determinate. It will produce a fairly quick and heavy harvest, for canning. Later if left to itself, it will produce a smattering of an after crop. But for our tough growing conditions, and for the fact that we actually depend on our garden for food, there is no denying that Roma is really good.
Heidi - medium/small fruit oval in shape. Not really a paste tomato, but it might be classified as a plum tomato. Flavor is much much better than Roma VF. Water content is higher. Heidi is originally from Camaroon Africa. It has indeterminate vines which simply laugh at Oklahoma heat. Better yet, this one sets fruit in our heat! It's good for cooking and I don't mind the smaller size, as I juice my tomatoes, skin and all, before making sauce or paste.
I am growing BFH, Sioux and Heidi this year. I might start some Roma VF seed soon, for a fall crop. Mainly to renew seed.
There are other good varieties out there, no doubt. I encourage everyone to experiment. But in experimenting, when you find something really good, save seed and share it. By doing so we can actually improve our seed stock. I am growing more of each variety and fewer varieties at a time, as I want to do a better job selecting.
George
Attachments:rutgers_history.doc (13.5 KB)
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 11, 2016 15:14:30 GMT -6
I'm growing a variety I've never heard of before, called 'Early Treat.' They were a gift from my Brother-in-Law who lives in Norman, Oklahoma where he's studying to be an Architect.
I also have Early Girls, Prudence Purple, German Johnson Pink, Baker Family Heirloom, Yellow Pear, One Inch Cherry, Big Zac, and few plants that came up volunteer?
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