Main crop ??

[daylilydude]

Ok now we are always talking about heirlooms now i was just wondering what you use as a main crop in case some of your heirlooms don't produce like you thought they would . I know it sounds like a dumb question but i'm gonna start growing heirlooms next season and i want to make sure i have a back-up because i ALWAYS screw up something on my first go around. Now i'm not talking about 100 plants i mean one that can keep my family in a good tasting tomato in case my heirlooms don't come thru like i want them to.

P.S.
And i was told by a very smart man (my dad) along time ago that a dumb question is a question that is not asked !

[Lee]

Actually, you can probably have both with careful selection.
Heirlooms like Rutgers or the Livingston varieties (I like
Stone myself) make really good main croppers.


Of course if you are concerned more with disease tolerance
you could go with something like Big Beef which is productive,
tasty, and quite disease tolerant.

Lee

[tjg911]

Well Richard usually the only hybrid I grow is Sun Gold and all the rest are op varieties. I don't feel I need backups but I do grow 7-10 varieties, just 1 plant per variety. This is for fresh eating only.

Just for perspective, I grew Big Beef 3 years ago, I had 2 plants. It was good, very productive and healthy plants. This year it is my worst looking plant - 90% of the leaves are dead. It has just 2 flowers left and has zero tomatoes. This plant is finished and it is not even the end of August! It yielded about 15 - 18 tomatoes that were very so so tasting, several were rather small. Without a doubt I will not grow BB again.

My point is growing hybrids, tho probably more predictable than op tomatoes, is no guarantee. The 8 op varieties and Sun Gold this year are far better tasting and yielding than that one Big Beef. I'm stunned but it is true.

Tom

[cottonpicker]

Hybrids that I've grown in the past , but not recently, as main crops were Better Boy, Supersonic, and Jet Star.
They did well for me & had good taste. I'm still growing SunGold, hybrid every year (since 1989) as my cherry-type.

Good luck!
LarryD

[sliphorn]

I'd suggest an open pollinated variety called Sioux. It really pumps out baseball size firm, red, tasty maters that do well in the heat.

[spyfferoni]

What do you use your tomatoes for? If you are looking for a good paste type for salsa, sauce and canning I have had good results with SanMarzano. It is open-pollinated, but it out produced everything in mine and my neihbors gardens last year. This year my biggest producer so far is a hybrid type called Early Goliath. I like it better than Early Girl or Better Boy, which I used to grow. I have some neihbors that are having really good luck with Park's Beefy Boy this year, so I may try it next year (Mine died). Kimberly, Red Brandywine, and Nepal aren't far behind the Early Goliath, in fact Kimberly has more fruit, just smaller. I am sure that if you plant a variety of Heirlooms you will get a good crop of tomatoes. For a good cherry I'll also add that Sungold has been excellent this year. This is only my second year growing Heirloom types, and while there have been a few disappointments, their have been far more triumphs, and a great sense of satisfaction!

Tyffanie

[daylilydude]

Ok spyfferoni and all i have heard alot of good things about kimberlys i think thats the one i am going with along with silvery fir tree as the main crop do i get a big WHO-HA or am i going the wrong way and should i try one of the other op's, heirloom or hybrids?

[sliphorn]

I'd re-think the SFT as a main cropper.

[CLa]

Sliphorn.. Ever been to Louisiana? You may want to be careful.. your defintion of 'heat' could be misleading;-g Rutgers for example, known to be a good cropper, reliable plant, has only set fruit on 1/4th of the blooms or less for me. Just too hot. Brandywine? Not a chance, but I'm stilla newb, have not tried all the brandywines, maybe there is one that would, however, I'm going to try the brandyboy for next year, I hear it is more reliable in heat being a hybrid. *we shall see*.

[MikeH]

I would also re-think the issue of SFT as a main cropper,Richard.It is a variety that does pretty good at pumping them out early in the season,but it soon slows down when the heat starts in.I think the taste is good for an early(others have disagreed in the past),but in my opinion I wouldn't call it a "main cropper".Just a variety to get you through till the real tasty ones start in

[spyfferoni]

Your heat is different from mine---while we have temps in the 100s during the summer, we don't have the humidity I imagine you have. I would ask around to see what has done good locally, or atleast in a climate that is similar. For the South I have heard Arkansas Traveler is good, along with Creole, and Sioux and a few others. I think many southerners have mentioned Eva's Purple Ball as a good one too. I would consider Kimberly as more of an early variety than a main crop because the fruits are small, about the size of a golf ball, a few a little bigger than that. I was thinking the other day though, that they are the perfect size to can whole, or just grab and eat straight from the garden. I haven't tried Silvery Fir tree yet. I have heard good and bad about it. I gather it is for people who like their tomatoes more tart than sweet, but I will have to try it for myself before I can make any judgements.
Some of my best information I have gotten is by e-mailing people I found over on GW and then here that live in my area. They are familiar with my growing season and challenges, and have been very helpful. Also I found out some good information at my State fair last year by asking a lot of questions in the vegetable exibit area, and that led me to a man that has been growing tomatoes for more than 20 years.
Just plant a couple of extra plants if you can to see what does good for you.

Tyffanie

[sliphorn]

CLa, I believe it's pretty well documented that Sioux does quite well in the heat, which is one of the reasons I mentioned it seein' as daylilydude resides in Mississippi! Louisiana or Chicago, 92 degrees with high humidity is 92 degrees with high humidity. Not what we've had this year in Chicago but it's what we had last year day after day after day for weeks on end with very little rain, yet the humidity was high and Sioux pumped 'em out like a real champ.

[CLa]

Yeah your right there is nothing 'cool' about that. So how does Sioux taste on a scale from 1-10? Maybe 1 being store bought, and 10 being brandywine or the like..

[michael johnson]

If you want a realy reliable cropper- and I mean reliable! try the good old english variety ( Moneymaker ) its only average flavour, but you can chuck it in any soil in the garden, or any pot, with the worst kind of compost imaginable, treat them as badly as you like, fail to water them on occasion, etc, etc, and they always come up trumps and produce a viable crop from top to bottom of the plant, they can stand all sorts of temp variation from very hot to quite cold, but as I said already they are only average flavour and about salad size- with some slightly bigger. 8)

[montanamato]

I grew Sioux years ago and the flavor is very good. I would give it a 8, but then I would give Brandywine a 7. Tastes and conditions vary, but I would call Sioux a main cropper.
My humidity is about 6-12% , but lots of heat and wind. There were many years I grew my trilogy of tomaotes from Shepherds seeds, Caramello, Dona, and Costoluto Genovese. No matter what the year was like I had enough canned tomatoes for the year, plus I usually grew a few others with that mix. I like to cook and I like to cook with tomatoes. I like a strong tomato for sauces and most of the tasty slicers don't cut it for what I like. My time and canning space has gotten too valuable to cook with tomatoes that aren't suitable for my recipes.
If you need a main crop for only fresh eating, many should be adequate. This is a gross generalization, but in my climate a red tomato is usually more heat hardy than a pink...I still grow many pinks too, but they are my "bonus" and I don't bank on them.
Victoria and Three Sisters are doing well this summer and Three Sisters is actually a pretty, sweet, good tasting tomato, though production is only fair. I would try Sioux and any other local standouts.

Jeanne