tomato garden-2014

[camochef]

Hey guys,

Tomato season is all but over here in my garden and all cages and tomato plants removed...except for a couple Mountain Fresh which are still producing.
I ended the season with 41 tomato plants after having lost about 20 plants earlier in the season to the horrific storms we had come through.

I had brought back Cherokee Purple this year after having eliminated it from my favorites for quite a few years. It was leading in taste for quite awhile until I finally got to taste my first German Johnson- Benton strain crossed with an unknown tomato. Its a black tomato on a P.L. plant. It is delicious! Production is good but not as great as the original R.L. German Johnson-Benton Strain.

I had lost my few Brandywine Glick's in the mentioned storms, so I only had Cowlicks Brandywines and Brandywine -Sudduth's to compare and there was no comparison to be made in taste as they are similar. the difference is in production...where Cowlicks out-produced Sudduths by what seems to be 10-1.

Earl's Faux plants did extremely well and were very tasty.
Purple Dog Creek regained its position as a favorite and produced some huge tomatoes.
Bear Creek not only produced plenty of great tasting tomatoes but they were about the prettiest ones in the garden. I also suspect them to be the other parent with the aforementioned Black German Johnson Benton Strain.
DDR was its usual great tasting and heavy producing Black tomato but they were much larger this year compared to previous years.
Terhune gave me some nice-sized tomatoes with great taste but not overly productive this year.
The production leader was a Red Brandywine plant from Homegrown Harvest via Agway. It was a P.L. plant and it gave me an enormous amount of good-sized red tomatoes with great taste.
Liz Birt was a bit of a disappointment this season as most fruits suffered with "BER" on all 3 plants. Those I managed to harvest in good condition tasted good but there weren't too many.
Sandul Moldovan was an early producer, right behind Cowlick's, but it seemed to have a much thicker skin than other years, still great tasting though.
My own DDRxBW-C was damaged early in the season and late in producing ripe fruit. The fruits were not as large as usual but tasted fine.
Pink Sweet was another that I brought back this year and a pleasant surprise in taste and not bad in production once it got going.
Barlow Jap was its usual outstanding tomato in both size and production and maintains its usual position as a great tasting tomato.
Mountain Fresh is a hybrid, determinate. Two things I usually shy away from. Which may have been a mistake on my part. I had 3 plants of this with 2 still remaining in my garden. The last two tomato plants still producing. It is a red tomato, meaty, thin skinned, very little core and great taste!
I had been buying them from a local farm stand where they were averaging about a pound and a half each. I got an opportunity to buy a few plants and decided to give them a try. Though they claim to be determinate...they produced through-out the entire season and are still producing!
Amazon Chocolate had a somewhat off year this season. Both plants were damaged and though they survived they didn't do well. Did get some huge dark tomatoes but not the usual.
Taresenko6 was a huge plant with huge tomatoes. It had been my favorite red tomato for a few years now. This year, the Red Brandywine knocked it out of that place. It also had some issues with "BER". Could have been plant placement as it was in an area that stays wetter and this was a fairly wet year here.

On a whole...this was a late season getting started with abnormal cold weather early in the spring. Once things finally began to ripen, everything seemed to ripen at once and I was eyeball deep in tomatoes. I couldn't give them away fast enough. Season also ended abruptly with a colder August than normal as well as the end of July. Our hottest weather was the 1st week of September.
That's all behind me now and although I didn't get to save as much seed as I like...I did get some from every variety, to allow me to continue next year. Also received a good amount from a close friend, varieties I've been wanting to try, such as Rebel Yell, Margaret Curtain, Dester and Not Purple Strawberry. Also Dixiewine, Texwine, Pink Berkley Tie Dye, Mckinley, Weisnicht's Ukrainian and a few others. I had also received seed from her earlier in the season for Mountain Fresh F1 along with other veggies.

Gonna make it very difficult to select only 10 tomato plants for next season. Did I mention that's my goal...10 tomato plants next year!
Enjoy!
Camo