How do you decide what to grow?

[Tomaddict]

I appreciate the previous posts... and see myself in some ofthem! The madness to my methods includes several considerations: What varieties...
do I need to grow out for fresh seed?
do I want to have available to market?
do I want for this year's garden trials?
can I not live without having to eat this year?

Since I have also taken the approach of digging up the yard to have more garden (it was NOT a mistake, but is more work than mowing grass), I have more space to grow, but there is a limit. Knowing I can budget space for about 50 plants, I try to arrange it so that there are at least a few varieties each of yellow/oranges, pinks, reds (of course), bicolors, other colors, cherries, large-fruited varieties, potato leafs, early varieties, mid-season varieties, late varieties, etc. In my experience it pays to have a good mix, because you never know what the weather will have in store for you, and having a mix of varieties insures that there will be some successes.

If you have less space, instead of having several of each of these categories, you cut back to one or two of each.

And BTW, once you start trying to manage a lot of varieties, spreadsheets are the way to go, IMO. Makes it MUCH easier to find old data and keep track of notes and details. Just taking one instance, I had an unexpected cross, and was able to go back to the last time I grew the variety, identify what it grew close by, and make an educated guess about the unknown parent of the cross.

[mdvpc]

I live in the desert Southwest, on a mountain with rocky ground, so I plant in containers. Because of the intense heat here, I have really 3 growing seasons-Early Sping to Summer, Fall and Winter in the greenhouse. What I have to do is pick cherries and smaller varieties/earlies in the spring/summer-I have found anything over 1 lb just wont get it done. In the fall I plant earlies, and in the greenhouse, I plant dwarves and one or two other types-this winter I am growing Red Brandywine and Sicilian Plum.

[Oldseed]

Suze...trust me on this one...there are LOTS of "tomato nerds" out there who do the same thing with the spreadsheets. LOL It comes with the territory I think.

[carolyn137]

Here's how do I decide what to plant, and now this is partly theoretical based on past experience, due to the interference of my walker in my current tomato plans, but here are some cosiderations:

1.I want to keep going all the ones I featured in my book, so I check to see what the latest seeds are, as to age, and grow out those that need growing out. I do this b'c I get nervous when I find out that some of those varieties not only have had their names changed but that they no longer are what they are supposed to be.

2.I can't remember when I last bought seeds, so what I grow depends on what seeds I get sent. Now that could be brand new family heirlooms that are fresh "out of the family" as it were, and those get the highest priority, or it could be ones sent to me by Craig or some other good SSE friends, or folks from places where I post, or someone who got seeds from me in my two past large seed offers and included seeds when they sent their requests to me.

And then I have to sit down and decide how many I can grow and what my priorities are, as in PL's come first, always have, cherries low on the scale as well as blacks, green when ripes high on the scale, bicolors low on the scale, whites low on the scale, and so on.

3.Then there are the varieties that someone lauded highly, that just didn't cut it with me, and I owe them a second chance. And that was true of Green Giant and Burracker's Favorite last year, although I'm not a great devotee of gold/red bicolors and liked Virginia Sweets, a bicolor, very much from 2004.

4. I have to admit that years ago I might have selected some varieties b'c of the names. LOL I got Brianna b'c I'm an almost born again Druid, I got Visitation Valley, b'c it sounded peaceful, like a graveyard, I got some long sounding slavic named ones out of the USDA b'c the number of consonants in a row interested me, and now I can't even spell them without looking them up. Such an example is one I got from France in 1992, like Kornes________________, well you know what I mean.

5. And I have some absolute favorites that I feel I must grow every year.

6.When I was trading tomatoes for wine and food with chefs and selling fruits at a farm market stand my choices to grow were dictated by other factors such as demand, shelf life, choices the chefs made when I brought them samples, etc.

7.I've always given away about half the plants I raise and the folks to whom I give them have their favorites as well. So I keep a list of what I give to them and then double check to see what they want for the next year. And I always highly laud some new ones to keep them interested. Unfortunately not interested enough to start their own from seeds, and this year I think they're going to be out of luck b'c I don't think I'm going to be able to sow any seed at all.

Luckily a good friend has offered to start seeds and send me the plants for anything I want in return for fun and lore of tomato stuff over the many years I've known her, initially and still at AOL although she posts elsewhere as well. So Martha, if you're reading here, I don't know what the story is yet on whether I'll be sending you some seeds, or not.

Stay tuned.

Carolyn

[Suze]

Wow Suze
sounds like you have a busy winter!

Keith, I'm not obsessed, I'm focused. 8) And, I'm glad folks here can relate, because otherwise:


"I've got nowhere else to go"

It really doesn't take up much of my time. The spreadsheet saves me effort; much better than the notebook I used to keep -- it's pretty much (1) just quickly typing in the descriptions of seed as received from trades or purchases, (2) lots of 'cntl+c' and 'cntl + v' keystrokes from the master tab, if I've been keeping up with #1, and (3) reading back over my sometimes cryptic and laughably brief notes I've kept during the year -- stuff like "Va Sweet Carolyn grow it source", and "Germaid Red, book, Earl".

[Torquill]

This season was much easier for me than most -- even though I've cut my in-ground spots from 30 to 24, I had A Mission this year.

One variety I had to definitely grow: Yellow WI55, for seed. Beyond that, the empty shelves in my cellar cried to me, and I said, I will find eight very productive, tasty varieties that I can put into jars.

Vorlon was automatic. Hmm, tasty... in goes Sudduth Brandywine, which had very good production two years ago. High production? Box Car Willie. In heat? Black Krim. Good for canning... Picardy. NAR and Red Brandywine had been awaiting a chance, and I sorely missed Kellogg's Breakfast when I didn't have it last year. Besides, I like jars of bright orange tomatoes, no matter how soft they are.

So that was eight. YWI55 was nine. I had room for three more, if I did two of each... Olga's Round Yellow Chicken sounded fun, and I wanted to try out Woman's Name Starting With A, for namesake value and pure silliness. Then I caved and threw in Dr. Carolyn, even though I wasn't sure I'd do a cherry this year.

It didn't stay that neat, of course. I impulsively sowed Red Robin with the peppers, figuring I could stick it in a smallish pot. Then I sowed New Big Dwarf along with the rest -- I can use a pot, and people have said it's really good... :wink:

I've stuck with that, though. I want canning tomatoes that I can eat out of hand, and I want a smaller garden so that I can manage it all this season. I've got my four play varieties and a seed growout, so it's not all business.

Previous years have not been nearly so easy.

--Alison

[dokutaaguriin]

Tomato Nerds.....hmmm. Here is what I do in my spare time during the winter : (I hope this works)
My Tomato plan for Greenhouse#2

Jeff

[nctomatoman]

Wow...that is one incredible diagram! Looks like you have a few open spots, though!

[Torquill]

Oooh, Jeff, please tell me how Woodle Orange turns out! I keep seeing it in the SSE Yearbook and wondering whether it's any good. What a name.

--Alison

[carolyn137]

Alison,

I grew Woodle Orange in the summer of 2004 and in my last seed offer at GW I offered seeds of it as I recall, but I'd have to check that, the ole memory banks running a bit short on this one.

I don't think you were around at the time of that last seed offer but in addition to the many older seed varieties I also offered a nice selection of newer SSE varieties that had been sent to me by either Neil or Bill so that others would have a chance to grow them.

A nice orange, but not the best orange I've grown, if that ole memory serves me well again.

Carolyn

[dokutaaguriin]

Hi Craig,
Unfortunately there are no spots left because of the way I have set the path in the greenhouse. You step into the greenhouse on the right side into a small landing area before going down a narrow path. I still have some space at the top of the diagram where I will have some sort of shelving unit set up for growing peppers, eggplants, maybe a few dwarf tomatoes, and dare I say a few other leafy green vegetables.(lol)
Jeff

[lumierefrere]

Jeff--what are the differences in these Momotaros? You must really like these.

[dokutaaguriin]

Originally Posted by lumierefrere

Jeff--what are the differences in these Momotaros? You must really like these.

Lumierefrere,
Bonjour. Comment ca va?
Unfortunately, that is the extent of my French.
Two years ago while in Japan I wented in to the local Farmers' Association office looking for tomato seed in the middle of July. Needless to say they did no have any on the racks but looked around the back and found some that they were shipping back and gave me them to me free. These were the HOOMU version- a slightly more forgiving version meant for the backyard gardener. This one was the second or third introduction in the momotarou line (of 10 now).
Last summer, I picked up the orginal MOMOTAROU and the HAUSU version, too. The Hausu version was bred for greenhouse growing during times of lower light- late fall and winter.
MOMOTAROU 8 is another introduction with greater disease resistence, longer shelf life and slightly larger fruit..
I thought I would grow them all out and see if there are any noticeable differences given my growing conditions. I was planning on growing out about the number of momotarous because that is one of my wife's favourite tomatoes because that is the tomato she grew up eating in Japan. Second, economics. I know I can sell this tomato to other Japanese people living in the area so as to recoup a few of my input costs.
Jeff

[lumierefrere]

Coup l'air back at cha! That's the only French phrase I can come up with this evening. It's voodoo.

Good answer for the Momotaros. Thank you. I have seeds; I'm not too confident in them. I grew 1 out last season, had a hard time getting any to germinate. Got one. It was in a bucket and ignored so had only a couple fruit that were very unremarkable. I thought I'd give it and Odoriko another whirl this year.

It sounds like a potentially very good tomato otherwise I'd skip it. It also sounds manageable, not too large. It's good to know there's someone else growing it so we can compare notes.

Barb

[giardiniere]

I try to watch what others, in my zone or region, have to say about certain varieties. I also check with our extension service, even though they generally recommend hybrids, and this year I'm growing mostly OP varieties. What works well in Michigan, for instance, might not do as well here in Kansas.