PNW crew: Anyone have ripe toms yet?

[velikipop]

Last night's harvest. African Queen, Lilac Giant, Mom's, Purple Haze, Crnkovic Yugoslavian, Amish Paste, Norcarolina Pink,Vorlon, Spears Tennessee Green, Arbuzny and Dr. Neal.

[PNW_D]

Wow, absolutely beautiful - thanks in part to our record breaking temperatures of late - all time high ever yesterday at 34 C

Are these greenhouse grown or open field? Any standouts?

[jwr6404]

So far I've had KBX,Brandywine and Costoluto Genovese,However,there is a large Soldacki that is about to join some Toast and Swiss cheese for lunch. MINE

[velikipop]

D.

They are grown outside in the ground but under a makeshift hoophouse. Almost all of the plants are doing great and the taste of all is much better than I can recall in the past. I think our warm dry season has a lot to do with it. The only curiosity is that my plants are not as large as in the past, but then I did not fertilize as I have in the past years, but did apply mycorrhize at planting.

There are are few monsters that have yet to ripen. Michael's Portuguese is full of huge 1 to 2 lb fruit.

Alex

[dice]

The first one here bigger than a saladette turned out to be
Grub's Mystery Green (a bit of a surprise, an Azoychka has
been way ahead of it for weeks). I had a ripe fruit from an odd
one, too, a "Grub's Mystery Green RL". I was expecting it to
be a chance cross, so I planted it in a small 4-5 gallon nursery
container, and the plant is still fairly small, even for GMG. But
the fruit turned out to be green-when-ripe, looking exactly
like the normal PL GMG fruit when ripe. Mutation maybe.
Taste was pretty close to the authentic GMG, too.

Edit:
I also ate the first ripe Bloody Butcher: excellent flavor. It has
a lot more zing than last year. Probably the hot weather
is responsible.

[Bubba]

I picked a brandywine today. I will let it set on the counter overnight as it still has a pretty good sized green lobe on it. Two other Brandywines are also blushing as well as some Mortgage lifters and Beauty Heirlooms. Looks like things are about to turn on.

[barkeater]

I'm very happy for you PNW'erners. You're getting to experience the full flavor of tomatoes with your sunny, hot summer this year. Unfortunately it has come at our expense in the NE, but we've gotten 80+ and more sun for a week straight now, and everything seems to be making up for lost time!

[DoubleJ]

I'm ticked!!! I have had 2 black cherries and 2 galinas yellow cherries AND THAT'S IT!!! I have a blush on one Anna Russian abut, everything else is green as can be. What is my problem?

[PNW_D]

DoubleJ – I believe not enough GDD could be your problem I predict that if this weather keeps up you should start seeing larger ripe toms in just over a week …… Black Cherry and Galina are usually first ripe in my past experience.

So far, here in Vancouver with 1198 GDD, I’ve had a few Kimberly, Ben Gantz and Galina x GMG ripen. I also grow all my tomatoes in 5 gallon pots, which I find usually makes about a two week difference in ripening times, so ….. However not sure of jwr6404’s growing conditions – they do seem to be coming in early for open ground??

Anyhoo, here is the GDD information taken from my old 2001 Territorial Seed Catalog (based on Corn culture – lower 50, upper 85 degrees), the link to the GDD site, and GDD recorded for three posters in this thread, including Shelton (Sanderson Field?) for comparison:

1100: Ultra Early (Northern Delight, Stupice, etc.)
1300: Extra Early (Siletz, Early Cascade, etc.)
1500: Early (Willamette, Early Girl, etc.)

http://ippc2.orst.edu/cgi-bin/ddmodel.pl

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON WA Lat:47.6500 Long:-122.3100 Elev:190
7 31 1472.0
Shelton Sanderson Field WA Lat:47.2381 Long:-123.1408 Elev:269
7 31 1270.9
Vancouver International Air-Port B. C. BC Lat:49.1833 Long:-123.1667 Elev:10
7 31 1198.4

[DoubleJ]

That site is awesome!! Thanks

Do you have the GDD for later varieties or where I could find them?

[jwr6404]

jj
Don't get ticked. if you ever cross the Narrows bridge drop by and I'll give you a couple of what i may happen to have. I've got my first ever ripe Beefsteak and as silly as it sounds it's beautiful.

D
I'm growing mostly in the ground for the 1st and last year. I have 5 in very large pot's. They are (Black Krim,Cherokee Purple,SRH/Rostova,Break O Day and Costoluto Genovese. Only the Costoluto Genovese is producing ripe ones as of today and was the first to bear fruit this year.

[Bubba]

JJ

I don't think that I had mentioned it earlier but I am growing mine in a 4' X 14' X 20" geep raised bed which helped speed things along. I golf about 3 times a week and look at all of the gardens people are growing and their beefsteak tomatoes look to be a little while out yet also. Just a little more time and probably have more tomatoes than you know what to do with.

Bubba

[PNW_D]

JJ, my Territorial catalog doesn't provide details on later maturing varieties of tomatoes - but their 2001 catalog has GDD stats on all different varieties of corn offered.

Just checked their website - and found this best tasting tomato contest for those in the area

http://www.territorialseed.com/TTO_info

but they no longer seem to note GDD for corn - at least on their website.

[DoubleJ]

Originally Posted by Bubba

JJ

I don't think that I had mentioned it earlier but I am growing mine in a 4' X 14' X 20" geep raised bed which helped speed things along. I golf about 3 times a week and look at all of the gardens people are growing and their beefsteak tomatoes look to be a little while out yet also. Just a little more time and probably have more tomatoes than you know what to do with.

Bubba

Mine are in 8'x16'x12" deep raised bed. I covered the ground in clear plastic and I think it made all the difference in the world as far as getting them off to a good start. My plants are well over 6' tall and I would conservatively estimate 300 lbs of fruit on my 25 plants. Problem is, all of the fruit is green. Even on Cherokee Purple. I'm guessing that I have them too crowded and they are shading each other and keeping each other cool.

[dice]

My plants are well over 6' tall

Sounds like they may be getting a little more nitrogen
than they need. That can delay ripening some. If you do
any more fertilizing, I would stick to phosphorus and
potassium only, with the emphasis on potassium (particularly
needed during fruit development).

It would be good to give them a soil drench with molasses
about now (potassium).

I have a few that tall, but those are mostly reacting to extra
fish emulsion that they got because they were looking
a little wimpy in June. Now they are demonstrating that
lack of nitrogen was not the issue.