Longkeeper type Tomatoes

[EPawlick]

I tried Burpees Tomato Longkeepers from seed about 30 years ago and mine didn't have any taste.

Any recommendations?

[Nematode]

There are some spanish hanging types around.
de colgar I think. Maybe 6 months storage under right conditions.
Good for pan con tomate which everyone on this board should try, its that good.
Thats all I got good luck.

[EPawlick]

Thanks. I will check out 'de colgar'.

I also found one called "mystery longkeeper" from heritageharvestseed that I'm thinking of trying.
https://www.heritageharvestseed.com/...sm.html#slogan

"Mystery Keeper

A long keeping storage tomato that can last several months. Medium size fruit ripen from the inside out and are slightly more acidic than other tomatoes. When picked in the yellow to light green stage in the fall (before frost), the tomatoes continue to ripen indoors over the winter months. Determinate, regular leaf foliage. (80- 90 days from transplant)."

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Nematode

There are some spanish hanging types around.
de colgar I think. Maybe 6 months storage under right conditions.
Good for pan con tomate which everyone on this board should try, its that good.
Thats all I got good luck.

Absolutely, and in both Spain and Italy. Back in the day there was no refrigeration and these de Colgar ones work out just fine.

Here's a link that I know will help, and yes,many de colgar ones in the next seed offer.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...inter+tomatoes

I get all my Spanish ones from Ilex in Spain, I had no idea of the biological diversity of ones found there. Cheste, a huge pink beefsteak,to many others. I sent some to Gerardo who is one of my seed producers,and my other seed producers did many more.

What's great is that there are many multifloras, and those I love.

Here's a bit more to read if interested

http://www.tomatoville.com/search.php?searchid=2550001



Carolyn

[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Absolutely, and in both Spain and Italy. Back in the day there was no refrigeration and these de Colgar ones work out just fine.

Here's a link that I know will help, and yes,many de colgar ones in the next seed offer.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...inter+tomatoes

I get all my Spanish ones from Ilex in Spain, I had no idea of the biological diversity of ones found there. Cheste, a huge pink beefsteak,to many others. I sent some to Gerardo who is one of my seed producers,and my other seed producers did many more.

What's great is that there are many multifloras, and those I love.

Here's a bit more to read if interested

http://www.tomatoville.com/search.php?searchid=2550001


Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn for the links on 'colgar' tomatoes. I'll check them out.

I haven't tasted it yet, but Graham's Good Keeper might taste better off the bat in Canada, since I think it may have been grown a lot there (granted, Canada is huge and probably has many different kinds of northern climates). It's on my to-grow list, but I'm not in Canada. Since I'm in the USA, I got my seeds from here instead.

I hear Grot is also a long keeper. I haven't tried it.

[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by shule1

I haven't tasted it yet, but Graham's Good Keeper might taste better off the bat in Canada, since I think it may have been grown a lot there (granted, Canada is huge and probably has many different kinds of northern climates). It's on my to-grow list, but I'm not in Canada. Since I'm in the USA, I got my seeds from here instead.

I hear Grot is also a long keeper. I haven't tried it.

Thanks for your suggestions. I still haven't decided if I'll try a 'long/good keeper' tomato this year. I'm planning on ordering a few seeds from Halifax Seed (because they carry Kalette seeds) and I didn't see a long/good keeper on their site. Always trying to keep shipping costs down so I'll probably only order from one site. Please let me know if you do grow any of the 'good keepers' and how they taste and keep.

--

My tomato season was so good last year that I still had garden tomatoes until the last week of November. I brought in around 20 tomatoes before we had a hard frost on October 26 but unfortunately I didn't bring them all in.

This season, I'm thinking of trying for a few late season tomatoes by:
1) not topping all of my tomato plants at the same time
2) growing in addition to my regulars, a later variety of tomato
3) cutting off one or more of my plants with green almost ripe tomatoes and bringing them inside before our hard frost
4) protecting at least one plant against frost (usually around October 15 for me)
5) instead of just buying seedlings, I may start a couple of tomatoes from seed in March for a later ripening tomato in a clay pot that I can bring inside or move to the front garden where we have more sun in the fall.

Any other suggestions?

Honestly, I've never grown a tomato advertised as a keeping tomato (yet; I plan to in 2017). However, I've found that many regular tomatoes work just fine for storage tomatoes, if you pick them green. The vendor you mentioned has Brandywine, which it says can take a while to ripen. You might try it and see how it goes.

I've had some tomatoes that I believe were Brandywine, which were picked green and ripened indoors. They tasted pretty great.

I would be more concerned about how long tomatoes keep after ripening, though (because if they don't keep long, you have to be extra vigilant in finding the ripe ones promptly).

You may also try highly disease-resistant varieties (which might keep better as a result, compared to similar tomatoes that aren't disease resistant). Healthy tomatoes tend to store longer.

Regular Roma keeps well (that's probably one reason the grocery stores sell it so often). I haven't tried Roma VF yet, but I hear it tastes great (the vendor you mentioned sells it, too).

Tomatillos tend to keep very well (at least if you don't pile them up high). They keep *very* well refrigerated, too (husked and washed). Your vendor has Toma Verde tomatillos. Tomatillos are great for salsa and such. I believe Martha Stewart has cooked with them a fair amount on her show, too.

Anthocyanin tomatoes and tomatillos are supposed to have a storage advantage. I guess the anthocyanin may deter some rotting pathogens.

It seems to me like fruits sometimes keep better the second year, from saved seeds (as long as the seeds are disease-free).

I don't know what your area is like, but in mine, the end of the season is when disease seems most likely (due to it no longer being hot, dry and semi-arid). Keeping your plants healthy should help a lot. Making sure they have enough silica, potassium and calcium should help to keep them strong (but depending, it may or may not also impact the flavor or texture in undesirable ways).

It would be great if you could get microbes that compete with fruit rot pathogens in order to prevent fruits from spoiling. We usually just have anthracnose to rot our fruit after it ripens and sits too long inside, but in 2016, another pathogen was indoors (probably spread from old storage potatoes). The funny thing was that it competed with the anthracnose (no tomato got spoiled by both pathogens, and anthracnose almost disappeared completely after it arrived).

One thing I highly recommend is if you have fruit trees, don't let any fruit fall on the ground and rot. Pick it, and if it falls off the tree, pick it up. I personally believe that rotting fruit contributes to more rotting fruit (and more fruit rot pathogens).

[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by shule1

Honestly, I've never grown a tomato advertised as a keeping tomato (yet; I plan to in 2017). However, I've found that many regular tomatoes work just fine for storage tomatoes, if you pick them green. The vendor you mentioned has Brandywine, which it says can take a while to ripen. You might try it and see how it goes.
I've had some tomatoes that I believe were Brandywine, which were picked green and ripened indoors. They tasted pretty great.

So far I'm going to order 2 pkg Kalettes, Brandywine, beetroot rainbow mix, golden burpees beets and rainbow blend carrot organic. Any other seeds that I need, I can get from our local William Dam Seeds.

Originally Posted by shule1

I would be more concerned about how long tomatoes keep after ripening, though (because if they don't keep long, you have to be extra vigilant in finding the ripe ones promptly).

In my case, I didn't have many tomatoes left on my plants in October but I made the mistake of only picking about 20 just before a hard frost hit. I'm not sure how long they would have lasted, since we ate them all by the last week in November. We ate the last one about six weeks after it was picked.

Originally Posted by shule1

You may also try highly disease-resistant varieties (which might keep better as a result, compared to similar tomatoes that aren't disease resistant). Healthy tomatoes tend to store longer.
Regular Roma keeps well (that's probably one reason the grocery stores sell it so often). I haven't tried Roma VF yet, but I hear it tastes great (the vendor you mentioned sells it, too).

I grew from seedling two Bonnie Roma tomatoes and they performed well but my daughter used all the tomatoes for canning as soon as they ripened so I don't know if they would have lasted well.

Originally Posted by shule1

Tomatillos tend to keep very well (at least if you don't pile them up high). They keep *very* well refrigerated, too (husked and washed). Your vendor has Toma Verde tomatillos. Tomatillos are great for salsa and such. I believe Martha Stewart has cooked with them a fair amount on her show, too.
Anthocyanin tomatoes and tomatillos are supposed to have a storage advantage. I guess the anthocyanin may deter some rotting pathogens.

I grew tomatillos last year and any tomatillos that we didn't use right away, I washed and froze so that we could use them for salsa during the winter. At the end of the season, I tried grilling them on the bbq and they were delicious. Unfortunately by that time I had pulled the tomatillos. I will definitely check out Martha Stewart's recipes. Thanks for the tipl

Originally Posted by shule1

It seems to me like fruits sometimes keep better the second year, from saved seeds (as long as the seeds are disease-free).

I'm not sure if I'm up to seed saving yet--maybe next year...

Originally Posted by shule1

I don't know what your area is like, but in mine, the end of the season is when disease seems most likely (due to it no longer being hot, dry and semi-arid). Keeping your plants healthy should help a lot. Making sure they have enough silica, potassium and calcium should help to keep them strong (but depending, it may or may not also impact the flavor or texture in undesirable ways).

Fall here usually brings colder temperatures and rain and sometimes more disease. Fertilizing, spraying, new raised beds, mulch and keeping the ground clean seemed to help. This past year I had problems with earwigs. I will be replacing all my bamboo stakes with metal this year after I noticed that earwigs were hiding in the bamboo poles. Next year I will put out water bowls with soap again and start spraying earlier to control cucumber beetles and earwigs.

Originally Posted by shule1

It would be great if you could get microbes that compete with fruit rot pathogens in order to prevent fruits from spoiling. We usually just have anthracnose to rot our fruit after it ripens and sits too long inside, but in 2016, another pathogen was indoors (probably spread from old storage potatoes). The funny thing was that it competed with the anthracnose (no tomato got spoiled by both pathogens, and anthracnose almost disappeared completely after it arrived).

Last season, we experienced an unusual drought. My beds are raised and the soil was augmented with promix premium. No problems with rotting, just the earwig problem I mentioned earlier. I used promix premium with mycoactive which contains viable spoors. That may have helped too.

Originally Posted by shule1

One thing I highly recommend is if you have fruit trees, don't let any fruit fall on the ground and rot. Pick it, and if it falls off the tree, pick it up. I personally believe that rotting fruit contributes to more rotting fruit (and more fruit rot pathogens).

No fruit trees but I did regularly pickup random fruit probably left by birds or squirrels.
Maybe in 2018, I'll try a long keeper/good keeper. Thanks for your help!

@EPawlick

You're welcome!

@EPawlick and Cole_Robbie

Cole_Robbie does have a point about juicy tomatoes. However, juicy tomatoes don't always spoil fast compared to non-juicy tomatoes—I haven't compared them to long-keeping tomatoes. If you give them more space, they should store longer than if they're packed touching other tomatoes (that could be particularly problematic for soft or juicy tomatoes). Large tomatoes are nice, because it's easier to want to display them (rather than just store them); so, it may be easier to be willing to allocate space for them as a result. Ventilation is good (even from below the tomato, if you can manage that). Plus, it's easy to tell when big tomatoes are ripening, because they're so big.

Whatever the case, most tomatoes, regardless of variety, should store without incident as long as they're green, for the most part. After ripening, regular tomatoes may keep anywhere from a day to a few weeks, or so, in my experience (while they may stay green for three or four months at the most, although many will likely ripen much sooner). However, some tomatoes can ferment if kept ripe in storage for a good while (without looking like they've gone bad).

Fruit flies do tend to lessen the storage life of tomatoes, and other fruits, if they're around in large numbers. They'll likely go for vulnerable ripe and overripe fruits first, but they're not overly picky with ripe fruits in my experience. Even unblemished tomatoes can go bad faster with them around. I definitely recommend keeping fruit flies at a minimum, if you can. Prevention is probably the best policy here, if possible.

Some tomato breeds will split or crack upon ripening. This is one of the main things to look out for when storing tomatoes, and in deciding which kinds you want for storage. However, some tomatoes will split or crack when vine-ripened, but if picked green they won't split or crack when ripened indoors as often. I think this is because the green fruit is firmer when picked (so picking it doesn't have as much potential to damage it). Some tomato breeds still reliably split on ripening even then, though.

Brandywine (if what I had was Brandywine) definitely isn't the worst tomato for storage, if picked green, and while it might not keep ages after ripening, I think it's a good choice out of the tomatoes offered by the vendor, particularly because of its size and delay in ripening (which I did notice at my friend's house). However, taste is also an important factor, and these taste pretty good, I think.

I went and read some reviews on it. It looks like it does split for some people. My friend who grew Brandywine didn't complain about splitting or cracking. I don't believe ones I grew that were probably Brandywine cracked or split. I'm guessing the growing conditions (soil, watering, and weather) are factors here.

Oh, another thing is if the stems are difficult to remove from the tomato, it's a good idea to use scissors to cut the stems (so you won't damage the fruit by pulling hard). Keeping the stems on can also help tomatoes to be tastier and in better condition after ripening, and if stems are difficult to remove, they might be easier to tie up and hang or something as can be seen in another thread that was recently active somewhere on the site. Keeping the stems on makes tomatoes less likely to dry up, too.

Your local climate, microbes, pests, and the place you store your tomatoes may have a lot of influence on how well which tomatoes store. The rules may be different in a humid area versus an arid area, also. I think soil plays a role, too (in the integrity of the tomato); how good a tomato is at using the specific soil and set of nutrients are also important factors, in my opinion.

[MissMoustache]

Originally Posted by shule1

Anthocyanin tomatoes and tomatillos are supposed to have a storage advantage. I guess the anthocyanin may deter some rotting pathogens.

I can cofirm this from last summer. No idea which varieties though since the husband planted them for me after I sprained both wrists. I do think at least one of the plants was Lucid Gem.

We had three kinds of blue tomatoes in September 2016 that were picked green, blushing, and fully ripe. All kept for quite a while. (Longer than other tomatoes picked at the same time) The ripe ones we even took on a ten day road trip. We ate the last one the day we came home and it was only just getting a little too soft. No refrigeration or cooler and they did get a little beat up from being in a box with our cutting board, knife, and salt/pepper shakers. I think we took twelve ripe or almost ripe beefsteaks on the trip? Plus green ones for frying/grilling.

Sungold when picked green lasted until after Thanksgiving. I had two trays of them slowly blushing for months (I froze them as they ripened fully). Last time I grew Brandywine greenies lasted that long (2 plus months) slowly ripening.

[ContainerTed]

Sandhill Preservation has several. Look down the page for the "longkeeper" category

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/tomato.html

[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Sandhill Preservation has several. Look down the page for the "longkeeper" category

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/tomato.html

Thank you for the link.

[Cole_Robbie]

My best shelf life has come from varieties that are firm and have a low water content. I thought all tomatoes like that tasted bad, but there are some that have good flavor. De Barao Orange, Grot, and Zarca were my shelf life winners of the year. I would be skeptical about the shelf life of anything as juicy as a Brandywine.

Given that storage tomatoes are usually grown in the late summer, bug pressure is at its maximum. Stink bugs are especially bad about making tiny punctures in the skin that can't easily be seen, but those bites are where the fruit will begin to decompose first. So bug control is going to be a priority for my storage tomato crop.

[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

My best shelf life has come from varieties that are firm and have a low water content. I thought all tomatoes like that tasted bad, but there are some that have good flavor. De Barao Orange, Grot, and Zarca were my shelf life winners of the year. I would be skeptical about the shelf life of anything as juicy as a Brandywine.

Given that storage tomatoes are usually grown in the late summer, bug pressure is at its maximum. Stink bugs are especially bad about making tiny punctures in the skin that can't easily be seen, but those bites are where the fruit will begin to decompose first. So bug control is going to be a priority for my storage tomato crop.

That makes sense. I plan to wait until 2018 before committing to a long/good keeper tomato. I still plan to try Brandywine.
thanks,