Purple Haze, Ed's Millennium, N.A.R.X., and other Tomato "Porn" - (pics)

[remy]

They are all looking very yummy!
Remy

[Moonglow]

Ray, is your house a short drive from mine?

Great looking tomatoes!

[rnewste]

Annapet,

Come on down to Campbell anytime - - and bring an empty basket!!!

Ray

[Moonglow]

Thanks, Ray. That would be a fun field trip. I have to make arrangements .

BTW, when is our Tomato Party? NORCATT?

[rnewste]

Annapet,

I won't be attending something identified as "NORCATT" in 2009.

Last year, I drove 85 miles each way, and unlike SETFEST, CHOPTAG, and all of the other taste-testing events, NORCATT 2008 turned out to be nothing more than a "Farmer's Market":





Sorry, just not something of interest to me to spend 3 hours in a car to attend.

Ray

[Moonglow]

Oh, wow, I had no idea Ray. I thought it was more like a gathering of friends sharing ideas, bounties, FOOD, swapping plants and stories. Then it's not for me either. I was too excited about it, too, not knowing...

Anyhow, always a pleasure to see your tomatoes. I really have to copycat when you're starting your seeds. I may have started too early, then my first attempt died.

It's mid-July and I'm getting one (1) Sungold a day. Yesterday none. Argh! It has just started to warm-up here in Marin two weeks ago, so there's my hope.

[veggie babe]

Barry your first pic looks like an Opalka.

Ray get those tomatoes off of that pretty quilt I can't believe your wife lets you use if for your background. Oh yeah, those are beautiful tomatoes. I hope they taste as good as they look. You have the tomato growing down to a science, pictures don't lie. GREAT JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


neva

[recruiterg]

Funny, I tried to look at this thread on my computer at work and the pictures didn't show up. Must have been the word "porn" that triggered my company's internet filter to block the pictures. If I get fired for looking at "porn," Ray...just kidding.

Great looking pictures. PH F3 plant is looking excellent. Very prolific. Large sized fruits. Still a ways away from tasting it yet.

[zopi]

Impressive! They all look good!

[Barryblushes]

Ive never grown those Veggie,but heard good things about them.Actually I have no paste tomatoes this year growing ,which is rare for me.The plant is alot taller then paste tomato plants also.Just thinking that it was a freak of nature maybe

[rnewste]

Barry,

I agree with veggie_babe that your fruit look amazingly like a paste tomato. As I didn't grow any paste tomatoes last year, I couldn't have mixed up seeds that I sent you. My guess is that their shape is weather related (hopefully), and you will be getting those round, red, balls of honey-delight very shortly.

Ray

[liannenc]

Barry and Ray,
The first two pics below are of some recently set fruit on my Goose Creek... they are definitely not round, at least not at this point!

The rest of the pics are of my very first ripe fruit this season, and it just happened to be Goose Creek (and was round)! There was a small spot of what may have almost been BER but since it never "progressed" I let it go. It's pretty small, so I think the BER may have had something to do with the accelerated ripening.

I didn't take any pics after I cut it because I was in too much of a hurry to taste the thing! There were some weird dry, gray areas in the seed gel toward the bottom of the fruit, so we didn't try about 1/3 of it. The rest of it was actually fairly green inside. However, my 15 year old daughter and I scarfed up the unblemished parts and enjoyed every bit of it... if it tastes that good mostly green and not at its prettiest, I can only imagine how absolutely delicious a fully grown, unblemished one will be! Ray is raving about these for good reason, and my daughter and I are already dreaming about the sandwiches we will enjoy!

[rnewste]

lian,

I see a tremendous amount of leaf curl / roll on your plant. Have you had an exceptionally amount or rain recently?

Ideally, your Goose Creek plants should be looking something like this:



I know a lot of folks back East have had a lot of rain this season, and that *may* be what is causing mal-formed fruit early in the season. Hopefully, it will dry out a bit for you folks this Summer.

Ray

[liannenc]

Ray,
I've had a lot of leaf roll on all of my plants. We did have a lot of rain early in the season, but it's dried up considerably lately. My Goose Creek actually did better than the other plants re: leaf roll until recently, when I actually increased watering all of them. I've had a lot of difficulty finding a happy medium for water for these plants, and I think that there are a couple of factors for that-- I'm growing in 18 gallon grow-bags instead of self-watering containers, and I'm using pure coir. I'm not going to do either of those things with tomatoes again! The coir holds moisture okay at the top of the bag, but unless I soak them well at least a few times a week, the bottom of the bag dries out and the bag can topple over quite easily. I also noted poor fruit set and a fair amount of BER on the fruit that did set until I started watering more. The leaf roll makes me uneasy, but I know that it can't really hurt the plant so I'm going to keep doing what brings more and healthy fruit!

Next year, though, I'm going to use only self-watering containers and I'm going to make several like yours over the winter. I'm also going to mix the coir with potting mix; I've heard that gives much better results overall. I would definitely prefer my plants to look like yours, and I'm hoping that will happen next year!

By the way, do you grow your Goose Creek from seed, or do you purchase seedlings?

[rnewste]

lian,

My seeds were sent to me from someone who had purchased plants at Laurel's.

While several of my other varieties have blight and wilt, the Goose Creek seem to be more disease tolerant than just about anything else that I am growing this year. Both Paul Robeson and my Bloody Butcher have gone down, but Celebrity and Goose Creek still look quite robust.

I have started cuttings for my Fall crop, and will be doing some additional experiments re: fertilizer placement in the 'Tainers. I'll be mainly using Celebrity plants for those trials as they are the more consistent plant to use as a reference.

Ray