Opalkas Rule!

[frdmfrc]

It seems the tantrum I threw last week worked. Finally we have a couple that have ripened. The taste was well worth the wait. I'm regretting only growing 2 plants this year. Next year we'll definitely have more of these growing.

[pete]

I always grow 5-7 Opalka plants every year. They really hold up in the heat for me. I also love to cook and BBQ and the sweet (almost too sweet??nah) and tangy flavor of Opalka is superb!!

I put this tomato in my top 5 and I have grown 300+ varieties:

Cherokee Purple
Brandywine Suddith
Sungold
Opalka
La Roma

I have some new varieties that did great this year:


KBX
NAR
Cowlicks

I suspect these three will be multiple plant permanent listers also.

[where_with_all]

Last time I gre opalka- they died miserably from wilt. The year before i got very low yields of crappy tasting tomatoes.

I wish my garden grew opalka well. I have yet to find a great paste. Sarnoski's paste is what I am using now. great yaste- low yield and I had total crop failure this year because of the heat wave during my week on vacation

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by where_with_all

Last time I gre opalka- they died miserably from wilt. The year before i got very low yields of crappy tasting tomatoes.

I wish my garden grew opalka well. I have yet to find a great paste. Sarnoski's paste is what I am using now. great yaste- low yield and I had total crop failure this year because of the heat wave during my week on vacation

Did all you other varieties die of a wilt disease as well? It's possible that some of the common wilt diseases such as Fusarium and Verticillium could be present on LI but being soil borne they would affect mroe than just one variety.

The last three years have not been good for us here in the East so I'm not surprised that you didn't get the results you exptected.

YOu can see by reading through here that Opalka works well for many and I can tell you that Sarnowski Polish Plum is normally a high yielding, great tasting paste as well. I'm not saying that b'c both are two of my tomato kids, as in I first introducerd them to others quite a few years ago, I'm saying it b'c many have had good luck with both of them.

You might want to also trial Heidi and Mama Leone to see how they do for you in a good year. If a variety comes to me highly praised by others and I know the seeds for the variety are true I don't judge it with just a eyar or so of growing. But that's just me.

And this summer my tomatoes are almost non-existant for the same reason you mentioned and that's the high sustained heat and humidity we had at the start of the summer and all the blossom drop that occurred.

Well, there's always next year.

[where_with_all]

Carolyn,

LoL, as you can probably remember I have been searching fo rth emost perfect paste tomato for quite some time. I almost ready to give up and try Roma again!! maybe i'll give opalka another try.