Too Soon?

[D.J. Wolf]

Ok, I don't even have most of my plants in the garden yet, and I'm already thinking/planning for next year! Is it too soon???

Been looking at various sights thinking about what I want to do tomato wise next year. This year all my varieties were from Burpee, and bought at my local Walmart. Well, to put it mildly, I'm not impressed with the results. 1 of 3 porterhouse beefsteaks grew, replanted 4 more, 1 made it and doesn't look that great. Sugar Baby cherry did ok, think 5 of the 6 plants survived. Was really excited about Early Treat...1 out of 7 survived. Only one's that really look good are the superbeefsteaks.

So I'm thinking next year, it's going to be some heirlooms, maybe even mostly heirlooms. Not saying I'm going to totally give up on hybrids, but I want to try something new.

So this probably means more tomato plants next year, which means less room for other stuff. But as long as I get my bell peppers, zucchini, and sweet corn, I'm good with that.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? I want to grow interesting looking (different) tomatoes that produce a lot of tomatoes. Definitely want to have a couple different blue/black varieties. Maybe some hearts, never grown them. Stipes are cool too. Ijust need ideas for varieties that produce well, taste great, and are different from what most people consider a "tomato" (ie. round and red )

[tryno12]

i'm in indy and will not plant outside till 5/17. just curious how you had failures already?

[dshreter]

It’s definitely worth the effort to learn how to start from seed, and provides a great opportunity to grow whatever tomatoes you would like. But there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the plans from burpee, and many should be very vigorous disease resistant plants. There are certainly great heirlooms, but they aren’t necessarily easier to grow than what you currently have.

I’m curious what went wrong this season so you can plan for success next season or save this one as it’s still very early.

[D.J. Wolf]

Ok, these were all started from seeds, not plants bought from Burpee first. I guess I didn't make that clear, my mistake.

I don't know what happened to be honest. I planted them on 2/28 into Jiffy pods as I have done for the last few years. Planted 2 seeds (roughly, some got 3 or 4) per pod. There were 7 pods of Early Treat, 5 pods of Sugar Baby, 3 of Porterhouse, and 3 of Super Beefsteak. Also planted enough pods at 2 seeds per pod to get 20+ broccoli and 20+ cauliflower. And planted peppers at the same time 7 California Wonder Bells and 5 Jalapenos.

Everything had emerged by 3/3, even the jalapenos and bell pepper, and looked good. Around a week or so later, I noticed I had seedling that were NOT looking good. No true leaves yet, starting to look wilty and not happy. On 3/11 I transplanted all the broccoli and cauliflower into 3" peat pots. Did the same for the tomatoes and peppers about a week after that. At that point, I had already had several tomatoes just wilt up and die, so replanted all the Early Treat seed I had left. ALL of these came up, wilted down, and died within a week or two. By this point I had already got busy and repotted all the tomatoes and peppers into 3" pots as well. Still was losing tomatoes. Replanted what seed I had for others left trying to salvage something. The last planting seemed to do the best, but still terrible results.

Out of everything I initially planted, I have 1 Early Treat, 2 Porterhouse (1 looks terrible), 3 Super Beefsteak, 4 Sugar Baby's, 16 Broccoli, 9 Cauliflower, 5 Jalapenos, and 7 Bells.

So honestly, the only things that have really done good are peppers and Broccoli. All the plants that have died have basically suddenly just wilted down to nothing. I don't know why, but as you can imagine, I'm not the happiest camper.

PS. Tyno12, I won't put tomatoes or peppers out until around 5/10-5/15, depending on what the forecast looks like. They'll do just like i have been doing, if it's over 50 outside they go out for the day in almost full shade. If it's below that they're inside under the grow light. Broccoli and cauliflower are hardier, I hope to get them in the ground this weekend. We technically should be past the hard freezes here now, and I know they'll do better out there.

[Labradors2]

Maybe you over-watered and they got damping off. It's so hard to keep peat evenly moist and is really a lot easier to start with plastic pots and seedling mix.

In the meantime, tell us what you like in size and sweetness for tomatoes, and we can help you to choose some varieties to grow .

Linda

[D.J. Wolf]

I could have Linda. Between the netting on the things that never seems to rot away and the problems this year, I've decided next year I'm using starter mix and 72 cell plastic trays next year.

Ok, what do I like in a tomato. Well, depends on the tomato. I will put in at least 5 or 6 cherry tomato plants. Love nice sweet cherry tomatoes, but I want a bit of that tomato bite to them still.

Other than cherry's, I'm not impressed with the little red round tomatoes like whatever I had last year. I didn't label stuff properly last year and can't tell you what variety they were. I guess you'd call them a saladette, only slightly bigger than the cherry's, and didn't have a great taste to them. One thing I want in my tomatoes is size. BIG tomatoes. I had a lot of beefsteaks last year go a pound or more, and the rest were almost a pound. I'll probably try to find some hearts to try next year, as I'm intrigued by the shape. I want to try different colors as well, not just red. I have no problems with red tomatoes, don't get me wrong. But I'm in love with the black/purple/blue colors on some of them, and the neat stripes on others.

I guess maybe that's why I'm starting to think about it now, better to have plenty of time to think about things than to have to rush next year when I need to be planting!

[Labradors2]

I'll speak for some cherry-sized versions that I love.

You HAVE to grow Sungold F1. Everybody loves this golden beauty! It is early and very tasty AND it's not too late to pick up a plant at a store now. I agree that many cherry varieties are lacking in flavour. I've tried all the usual (red) ones and I want something more than just sweetness.

Rosella is a lovely dark cherry and many people love Black Cherry.

I really love some of the varieties from Artisan Seeds: Blush is a yellow/red 2" bullet-shape and Lucky Tiger is green/yellow. For early harvests, I like to grow at least two Maglia Rosa (mottled pink bullet shape) in 3 gallon tubs. I start them in mid-Feb for a harvest in mid-June.

Linda

[D.J. Wolf]

Thanks Linda! I've got some unknown variety yellow pears I'm trying to get going here to fill in this year, but if they don't go good, I think I'll try to find a sungold or 2. I've heard a lot of good about them! I am guilty of liking good sweet cherry tomatoes too though lol. I guess the one's I don't like are the 2" or so round red balls that don't taste much like anything. They aren't big enough to do anything with other than make sauce or put on a salad, and I like cherry's on my salads. Big beefsteaks at least if I want a couple slices of tomato, I get a slice that I know is a slice lol. And love making my BLCT's and only having to use one nice thick slice of tomato to completely cover the bread!

[dshreter]

I agree that you can't go wrong with Sungold.

If you want to grow some interesting looking "different" tomatoes, then it's time to explore the rest of the color palette.

For Yellow tomatoes, KBX and Kellogg's Breakfast are the consensus performers

For Black tomatoes, Paul Robeson, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple

For Green tomatoes, Aunt Ruby's German and Green Zebra

There are so many great varieties, but any of those should be a nice place to start!

[biscuitridge]

And love making my BLCT's and only having to use one nice thick slice of tomato to completely cover the bread!


You mean like this size? Maybe this will cover your whole loaf of bread!

[D.J. Wolf]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

You mean like this size? Maybe this will cover your whole loaf of bread!

Ok WOW, that's a big mater! How much did that one weigh? I figure I could use that for BLT's, just not sure where I'd start slicing

[biscuitridge]

10.80 lbs. It's the current world record.

[D.J. Wolf]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

10.80 lbs. It's the current world record.

Ok, I want to grow big, but maybe not that big! I'd just like to get 1-2 (maybe 3 now and then) pound single blossom tomatoes that taste good!

Speaking of which, how did that taste?

[biscuitridge]

All of my giants taste really good ,lots of flavor but I wouldn't say sweet,but not acidic .

[dshreter]

You grew the world record!?
I'm humbled to be exchanging info with you!