The early tomato thread

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Tormato

Jennifer,

It came to me labeled as a "full flavored" early tomato.

Hmm...
maybe the full flavor of a refrigerated store bought x rotten cherry.

Gary

If you want full flavor from an early tomato, try The Miracle BPF. I posted it above with a pic, but I can't emphasize enough, I tried The Miracle BPF and it actually is a VERY good early tomato.

What I can't figure out is why Tatianas has the size listed as 2 oz in one place and average 3 oz another. One tomato is not enough to know what the average size will be. But early indications are at somewhat larger, and with a similar flavor to a full sized beefsteak. It is not sweet. But it is very good. I got the seed from a swap. So no telling what could have happened. However, every other part of what is listed is the same. Early, determinate, small plant with tomatoes having the old Italian heirloom flavor.

[ChilliJez]

Thanks Eirik and everyone for contributions and suggestions. It's certainly fuelling my list for next year.

Just over a week ago I was looking at a buch of grey green long-to-maturity toms whilst others here were discussing all the first fruits they were enjoying. Then, suddenly, well over about 5 days, My greenhouse Latah plant ripened 3 fruits.

Get in there!

Smallish ( 1 1/2 inches across) fruits, oblate, rippled rather than ridged. I ate the first Saturday on the day it was picked, slightly before it's peak. Very good to eat a real tomato again. Like a isit from an old friend. The other two found their way into a sandwich this lunchtime. The extra 2 days definitely increased the flavour. Very tasty, though I'll be cautious as anything is so much better than store bought as we all know...

I haven't heard Latah mentioned here so thought that should be rectified.

And Jennifer28 thankyou for that link to Davis/genes. That will keep me amused for many an hour.

Jeremy

[Redbaron]

I picked my first Native sun. It is also a productive early small determinate. The fruit from this one is very mild though. It has that mild "low acid" taste associated with yellow tomatoes. Personally I like the stronger types, but some people like it. Better than what is available at the grocery stores.

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

If you want full flavor from an early tomato, try The Miracle BPF. I posted it above with a pic, but I can't emphasize enough, I tried The Miracle BPF and it actually is a VERY good early tomato.

What I can't figure out is why Tatianas has the size listed as 2 oz in one place and average 3 oz another. One tomato is not enough to know what the average size will be. But early indications are at somewhat larger, and with a similar flavor to a full sized beefsteak. It is not sweet. But it is very good. I got the seed from a swap. So no telling what could have happened. However, every other part of what is listed is the same. Early, determinate, small plant with tomatoes having the old Italian heirloom flavor.

Scott,

Reading the listing from Tennessee, not everything is the same. Part of the listing says early and determinate, another part says 73 DTM and 5 feet.

Some day, maybe I'll read all of the material I can find under PI339927.

Gary

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Tormato

Scott,

Reading the listing from Tennessee, not everything is the same. Part of the listing says early and determinate, another part says 73 DTM and 5 feet.

Some day, maybe I'll read all of the material I can find under PI339927.

Gary

I would be interested to know. My plants are not even close to 5'. In fact they are the exact height as my Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarfs ~2-3', but somewhat bushier and a lot more productive. The fruit set on them appears almost impossible for such small plants.

That could possibly be partly due to the harsh conditions they were subject to this spring. All my plants were somewhat stunted and a month behind schedule this spring. Further they are in my "Red Baron Project" year 1. So planted in virgin sod without any ground preparation, fertilizers etc. In my experience it takes at least 3-5 years for that type of method to show full benefits. The first year usually worse than tilling. (although the unusual weather killed any neighbors planted the same time in tilled soil near me, so it may have saved me this time)

[bower]

Scott,
The Miracle BPF sounds wonderful, but I wonder if the DTM would be sooner than say, Napoli a Fiaschetto which I grew last year, set heavy crop with that full rich Italian tomato taste, but I wouldn't consider early at DTM roughly equal to Black Cherry. I'd like to try it anyway, but Tania lists it as 'midseason' so in my climate, I can only wonder. Are you growing Black Cherry or Stupice or something else common you'd compare the DTM to?

I tasted two more first fruits today:

Yaponskiy Krab is a large flattened beefsteak shown below. Very nice fruit set on the plant for a large variety, which don't often do well in my conditions. The plant is also decently cold tolerant and tolerant of UV stress conditions as well cw others, a very vigorous and sturdy vine with no obvious disease susceptibilities at this stage. First blush at 127 days from germination, ripe at 130. It wasn't a proper taste test since I wanted to save seed from this first fruit, so I nibbled on bits without much gel or seeds. I expected an excellent taste but found it mild and a bit disappointing, this fruit was not as sweet and rich as the first Pervaya Lyubov. The texture was good but I suspect the cold growth time as the reason and hope later fruits are more delicious.

I also tasted ripe Cold Set this evening, three shown below. This plant is very compact, appeared to suffer a bit in the cold and to be susceptible to foliage disease or deficiencies in that context although it's doing well with a little coddling not a disaster by any means. Nice fruit set for the small plant and pretty, as the fruits are practically white so a nice play of colour as the blush comes in. Again my taste was a nibble since I wanted to save the seed. In this case I expected a bland fruit but was pleasantly surprised. It was really sweet and juicy with a nice tangy gel. It does not have the 'assertive' tomato taste of Kimberley nor the rich Italian taste, but had a strong enough tomato flavour to be very enjoyable, given the sweetness and tang.

I guess this really underscores how different a fruit can taste in different conditions. Last year the early Stupice were really disappointing, but improved as it warmed up. They've been as good as the Kimberley from the get go this year. Well, thumbs up for Cold Set, I'll have to see what my other tasters think.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by bower

Scott,
The Miracle BPF sounds wonderful, but I wonder if the DTM would be sooner than say, Napoli a Fiaschetto which I grew last year, set heavy crop with that full rich Italian tomato taste, but I wouldn't consider early at DTM roughly equal to Black Cherry. I'd like to try it anyway, but Tania lists it as 'midseason' so in my climate, I can only wonder. Are you growing Black Cherry or Stupice or something else common you'd compare the DTM to?

The USDA description:
Dwarf, bushy. Fruit medium, globe, very early.

This seems to be what I have. It beat everything I tried this year (~70 varieties) except a single Sungold F1 I picked 3 days earlier and even beat native sun by 5 days, so very early fits. It also fits the description of medium globe better, since mine are certainly larger than 2 or 3 oz. The plants are the same height as my dwarf tasmainian chocolate but bushier, which fits the description of dwarf. (although the foliage isn't really "rugose", just normal)

PS Napoli Fiaschetto is also listed at Tatianas as midseason. I haven't grown it, so I could maybe next year. My earliest paste looks like it will be snickers. None ripe yet though.

[bower]

Please save a couple of seeds for me Scott. Whatever you like in return.

[SharonRossy]

Bower, I'm in montreal and have yet to have a tomato ripen! Can't believe you've already tried some! Bloody butcher I'm hoping will be ready by next week. Black Cherry took a beating in the storm we had yesterday, so I'm hoping it will recover enough to keep producing, although nothing is ripe yet. Actually mst of my tomatoes took a hit and its still gloomy outside. Hoping this season won't be a washout.

[SharonRossy]

Hi just saw a site from Northern Quebec, and Sub Arctic was one of her varieties 42 days. I know Erik mentioned it in the first post, I think. Anyone have any experience with it.

[bower]

Hi Sharon,
I was reading about that horrible storm this morning. Sorry to hear your tomatoes took a beating. I have family in Montreal, and I know the heat and humidity have been really bad as well.

I have early tomatoes only because I have an unheated greenhouse, and I've been trying to push the season back by trying varieties that are tolerant enough of the cold to start them early. I have grown a few extras outdoors sometimes, but they can't be started early and the ripe fruit are also much later, due to lower temperatures and slower growth.

Just to put the temperatures in perspective, July is our warmest month, and the 'normals' for the period are listed as high of 70 F and low of 52 F. Anything above 20C (68F) is considered a hot summer day here; a week of temperatures reaching 23C (74 F) would be considered a good summer overall. The last two summers have been unusually warm with highs of 24, 26 and 28C and more sun than usual, but even so the highest temperature ever recorded here was only 31.5 C (88.7 F). So even at the best of times, we only reach the low end of the 'goldilocks' temperatures for tomatoes. It gets much hotter in the greenhouse with a little sunshine, if we get it.

[Eirik]

Its so great to see descriptions and pictures of all your tomatoes! You are all doing a great job.

Hope this years storms, rain and late spring hasnt taken a toll on your tomatoes!

Here there are nothing more than small small green peas on every plant, this years most vigerous plant is def. Early annie! Im looking at one gigantic harvest in october, lets hope the plants overthrow the garden!

Tried some soilmix experiments that went very bad, had to transplant almost all into peatmix and now lots of the bush varieties will become small microtom monsters

So many tomatoes, too many experiments and too little time!

[bower]

A couple more have ripened here:

Oaxacan Jewel PL, first fruit is pretty small at < 3 oz this year but much earlier than last year, blushed at 135 days from germination and fully ripe at 140. This fruit was milder and not as sweet as last year's, following the trend that early fruit this year are a bit disappointing and not the best to judge by. By past and present experience this is a very cold tolerant and disease resistant plant which also manages to keep setting when extreme heat is causing blossom drops in the others. It has set a lot of fruit this year but they are small so far. Last year my outdoor OJewel plant had much larger fruit and more and larger seeds as well than the ones grown in the greenhouse conditions. Very few seeds in the first fruit sliced today.

Danko first two fruit: the large one (around 5 oz) blushed at 135 days and both ripe today at 141 from germination. The smaller fruit was pretty mild but the large one very juicy with lots of gel and a great taste. This is a compact, wispy leafed plant, which outgrew some leaf spot susceptibility at the seedling stage and since then, no foliage disease problems. A true determinate with fewer than 3 leaves between clusters, and ripening the first fruit after flowering has finished (afaict at present).

[Medbury Gardens]

For me i find that Scotland Yellow is a fantastic tomato to start early,its mid winter here and i started one plant just before winter and have had it going inside the house in a sunny window,its now a meter and half tall and has seven trusses with loads of green fruit,this plant will be planted out in my tunnelhouse mid Aug and should have the first fruit around the start of spring.
So tomatoes for ten months of the year.

[SharonRossy]

I'm hoping Bloody Butcher will give me a couple of ripe ones by next week. We had such a weird spring, lots of cold, heat and rain. I didn't realize how short summer was in Newfoundland. Montreal tends to have three months where temps can fluctuate from 50 degrees to 80 and extreme humidity. Lets just say a storm swept through here in 2006 that changed life as I once knew it, so for me, it's only tomatoes. That being said, I have tied, staked my plants, and did some pruning, which always bugs me. I'm still debating about growing tomatoes indoors.
So many types, it's driving me crazy.
Sharon