Lil Rhody

[travis]

There is a topic in General Discussion entitled "Multiflora" where the Rose Quartz Multiflora from Little Rhody is discussed.
http://www.tomatoville.com/viewtopic...ghlight=#14587

Little Rhody (Carolyn) was kind enough to send me several seeds for RQ-Multiflora, but only one of the several plants I started has exhibited the huge blossom clusters. All of the plants are very healthy and I love'm. They're just showing some different characteristics from their multiflora mother.

Below are some pictures of the one I call "Lil Rhody" because it apparently isn't gonna be Multiflora, but it's really a great plant with good tomatoes.

Here's Lil Rhody, on the left, a couple of weeks ago standing side-by-side with Sun Gold, on the right. You can see Lil Rhody is keepin' up with Sun Gold who is about 7 feet tall at that point. Both plants are over 8 feet tall today, but Sun Gold is toppling over while Lil Rhody just keeps growing over the top of her stake and reachin' for the gutters.



Here's a picture of a Lil Rhody blossom.



Just kiddin' ... that's a volunteer pumpkin that's growing out from under Lil Rhody. Here are her blossoms up near the top of the plant.



You can see she's just about to the eaves of the house which are 9 feet off the ground ... you can see the soffet vents just to the left of top center. You can also see that Lil Rhody isn't multiflora.

Here is a typical fruit truss with about 8 tomatoes.



In this picture you can see that a Lil Rhody tomato is noticably bigger than a penny ... of course that's a penny from back when a penny was a penny and not a zinc alloy farthing.



Isn't Lil Rhody a pretty blush of pink? Here she is sliced two different ways.



And yes, she tastes as good as she looks ... and yes I saved those seeds.

So, now we have to wait and see what the other four RQs produce. The one in my seed garden out in the country is about four feet tall probably because it's in full sun from dawn to dusk and I planted it two weeks after the one in these pictures, and it has the same characteristics. The plant in these pictures only gets about 7 hours sun from 11:00 to 6:00 which seems to make it want to grow taller.

Two others are over in a friend's (Steve's) garden and one of them has thrown two huge clusters of about 40 - 60 blossoms per cluster ... now that's multiflora! I'll be gettin' my seeds for next year's RQ-Multiflora from that plant. The other one in Steve's garden is blooming about the same as the one in these pictures.

The last one is at my dad's house back on the East Coast, and his phone lines run through the basement and are still in need of repair following the flooding. I can't communicate much with him on his cell phone because his hearing aid squeels too loud when he uses the cell. So, reports will follow on his RQ if remarkable.

Anyway, I love this big, bushy Lil Rhody with the oversized pink cherries. She's a beauty.

Thanks, Carolyn, for the seeds. I hope you have good t'mayturs in your Rhode Island garden this summer and didn't get hurt by the flooding.

PV