Zone 5'rs quite contrary how does your garden grow.

[HoosierDaddy]

Here in zone 5 SE Michigan I am growing:

Brandywine - Sudduths: Picked two with more starting to blush.
Stupice: Been picking ripe ones for two weeks now.
Dona: Lots of fruit, none ripe yet
Purple Passion: Picked two with many more starting to blush.
Big Beef: Lots of fruit set, none ripe yet
Camp Joy cherry: Hugh Hugh plant. Loaded with green cherrys.
Sun Gold cherry: Been producing samll amounts for two weeks. Lots of green cherries to go.
Marmande: Lots of green fruit set. Waiting to ripen.
Aunt Lucy's Italian Paste: Smaller fruit than I anticipated. Just picked the first ripe ones this morning.
Italian Heirloom: Picked the first two this week. Haven't tasted them yet. Should be Saturday lunch taste test.
Mrs. Maxwell's Big Italian: Planted later than the above and lots of fruit set but nothing ripe.
Russian Big Roma: About 8 fruit set early, then two weeks of nothing setting and now getting some more flowers to set. This is the smallest and thinnest tomato plant in my gardens.
Black Crimson (aka Black Krim): Starting to ripen and hopefully only a few days away.

Not sure how this week is going to go for healthy growth. It's been hot and lots of rain this week with more hot and rain expected this weekend. 2" of rain Tuesday and another 1-1/2" of rain last night. Its already 80 f and 91% humidity and it is only 10:00 am. Sooo diferent from last year's cool wet summer (what summer?).

[Timmah!]

Yup, it's already 88 here with a dewpoint of 75, & it's only 10:24 in the a.m.
http://www.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KFTK.html

[MrTudball]

Family of four shared our first ripe super souix tonight. If the taste on the rest of the souix's match tonight, it has found a home in our garden. Texture was a good 6.5 on a scale of 1-10, but the taste was a 8 to a 8.5. Had a very good balance of sweet and that tomato bite that we love. Only problem was each of us only got a small bite, but oh what a bite it was. Now have to wait a couple of days for the next one. Anyone else have experience (good or bad) with the super souix?

[MrTudball]

LOL, forgot to add, you can tell my daughters were brought up on fests and tomato tasting. After tasting they imediately gave me their ratings on a 1-10 scale on taste and texture. Daughter one texture 6 taste 8.5, daughter two texture 7 taste 8.5.

[bughunter99]

I'm just west of Chicago, also in zone five. I completely ignored our last frost date this year and put plants out three weeks early.

Harvesting already:
Brave General<--big and yum
Vorlon<--Big and yum
Amerikanskiy Sladkiy,<--tasty but smaller than expected
Striped Roman
Galo De Melon
Stupice
San Marzano
Violet Jasper<-very productive but taste is meh
Cosmonaut Volkov
Chocolate Stripes
Black from Tula

Should be ready this week:
Illini Star
Big Rainbow

Struggling to Set Fruit
Kelloggs Breakfast
Crnkovic Yugoslavian

Harvested, but not what I expected:
Black Cherry-looks like a seed mix-up here
Big Zac-smaller than expected.

[matereater]

HoosierDaddy, when did you plant out? I planted 2nd week of May and I'm at least 2 weeks away from any large variety ripe toms.

[HoosierDaddy]

Originally Posted by matereater

HoosierDaddy, when did you plant out? I planted 2nd week of May and I'm at least 2 weeks away from any large variety ripe toms.

Hi Matereater,

I started my seeds indoors around March 15. I started hardening off April 16th and transplanted to my garden on April 23. I used Kozy Coats * (Gardener's Supply calls them Red Tomato Teepees) to protect my transplants from frosts.
Camp Joy grew so fast that about 8" of that plant was higher than the top of the Kozy Coat. Our May 9th and 10th frosts killed the top of Camp Joy but you would never know that today. The rest of my transplants were perfectly fine with the Kozy Coats.

Now I am wondering if I even needed to harden off at all. Perhaps directly into the protection of the Kozy Coat would have been adaquate? Anybody with experience skipping on hardening off and transplanting directly to "water wall" type protection?

* Warning about the Kozy Coats. The individual cells are easy to puncture. Bonadea Gardens have repair "Kozy Coat Repair Sleeves" that are not very costly. I have about 8 cells from 12 Kozy Coats that will need repair sleeves next spring.

[bughunter99]

Hoosier I move mine all out into a coldframe (with a lightbulb in it for additional warmth) March 10th and they are hardened off in there. Once the soil was warmed up in the garden a bit (using black landscape fabric), I put them out under a bit of floating row cover. They sailed thru the couple of light frosts we had, but did not have to deal with any hard frosts this year. Only loss was one plant that got broken by the neighbor's cat that also liked to hang under the row cover.

I'd be worried about weak stems if you went from straight inside into a wall of water.

[salix]

HoosierDaddy (gotta say - love that screen name!) Thanks for the info re: repair sleeves. Haven't had a problem with puncturing; tried them a few years ago, but couldn't stand the algae crud that grew inside. Tried cleaning them without much success, and tried a bit of bleach while filling the next year, but think it just overall weakened the plastic. Did you end up with grunge in the WOWs?

[ubergoober]

I was outside doing my evening inspection (minus the head lamp like some people we know....who shall remain nameless lol) and found a Costoluto Genovese blushing. Imagine my excitement...only for it to be squashed by noticing BER as well. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I must have pulled another 6 off of the Costoluto and my Paul Robeson.

[HoosierDaddy]

Originally Posted by salix

HoosierDaddy (gotta say - love that screen name!) Thanks for the info re: repair sleeves. Haven't had a problem with puncturing; tried them a few years ago, but couldn't stand the algae crud that grew inside. Tried cleaning them without much success, and tried a bit of bleach while filling the next year, but think it just overall weakened the plastic. Did you end up with grunge in the WOWs?

Oh yea, after four weeks of service there was some grunge in them. (Now I understand how why research is ongoing for growing alge as a bio fuel.) I just poured the water and grunge mix out, rinsed the cells out with a garden hose sprayer, let the Kozy Coats dry in the sun, and then put them away for next year.

[FILMNET]

Last year as was finihing the garden in October any fruit that had BER i just cut it out and froze them in a food saver vacuum bag. they were fine in the winter.

[bmerryman]

My zone 5 plants are doing well by my standards. I have had to pick and discard the first "round" of fruits on my 2 Chocolate Stripes, 2Brandywine and 2San Marzano Redorta plants do to BER. Much hotter than average here and then went 3 weeks with virtually no rain. The week ahead looks really good with mostly mid to high 80s forecasted. Interesting in that my heart-shaped Homer Fike tomatoes haven't exhibited any BER.

[MrTudball]

Update for me.

Brandywine, tomato set is continuing, and have 9 or more on each plant that are just wating to blush.

Mortgage Lifter, Like brandywine still setting, and just picked my first one today. Should be ready in three days or so.

Super Sioux, Have had 4 or 5 already and taste has maintained at an above average rating. Unfortunately I will be mostly finished with the super sioux for the most part after the next 30 or so ripen. Not alot of additional set on these.

Brandy Boy, disapointing on the quantity that have set and are currently set esp compared to Brandywine. But looking forward to trying the ones that are about to blush.

Super Tasty, just waiting on these to blush and unless they are great tasting doubt I will plant these again due to the small numbers on both plants.

Cherokee Purple, Setting ok, and have a bunch to harvest in the next couple of weeks. have the first to blush sitting on the counter wating to be eaten tommorow.

Kellogs breakfast, still setting great and I am prob a few weeks off from getting one to blush.


So overall, have three varietys to try in the next couple of days, Sioux, CP and Mortgage Lifter. And getting ready for the masive onslaught of Tomatoes that we are going to be getting in the next couple of weeks.

[Timmah!]

After a 30 day string of days with the temperature not falling below 70 degrees, we've had 3 days below 68 & I can already see the difference with more fruit set. ***Happy***