Advice on my grow list

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by tnkrer

I am late to obtaining seeds, but I think I am not too late for planting in MA. Right? When should I start planting indoors?

I have decided that I have space for 6 tomato plants, 3 pepper plants and 6 cucumber plants. (also lots of lettuce and chard, some basil and mint)

I have black cherry seeds from last year. (This is my first year of preserving seeds, so I will know soon enough if that worked).

Tomatoes:

black cherry - have it
prudens purple
tasmanian chocolate (heard great things about this)
an early tomato to be named later - any dwarf tomatoes early? how about dwarf sweet sue?
sunsugar - kids loved this
sungold - I am sure they will love this

Cucumbers
pickling cuke from a local nursery - no idea of the name of the variety. have seeds
Diva
poona kheera

peppers
red, yellow and orange - one of each, still need to find out varieties. I don't want anything hot. My last attempt at growing peppers was a bust. So I want to get varieties that are known to produce.


If I can buy all the seeds I need from one vendor that would be great! I don't have enough varieties of seeds to trade with anybody. (Also don't know for sure that the seeds I preserved will work )

Thanks for any suggestions, arguments for or against any of these varieties, Hope to have a better season this year than last. (It wasn't bad, but life intervened and I lost a lot of crop due to not being able to attend to the garden)

For your early variety consider Siletz, Stupice or Matina which will all give you good tasting tomatoes early, in your climate and keep producing for the entire season. They are not dwarf varieties but solid early varieties. Siletz produces much bigger fruit than Stupice or Matina. Siletz is supposedly determinate but for me, seems to produce all season.

Sungold is tasty but if your area gets a lot of rain, it splits....a lot. Galinas does much better for me in this regard and the plant is loaded with sweet fruity tomatoes all season on a ginormous plant .

For the red sweet pepper, consider Lipstick. This is a great, easy, productive pepper. I've also had decent luck with Belgium Red and King of the North for the green. I'm in zone 5 so some sweet peppers definitely work better than others here in the north.

I would consider starting your pepper seeds when you get them. They can be finicky and can sometimes take a long time. Consider using bottom heat to get them going.

Stacy

[troad]

tnkrer,

If you still need some Prudens Purple seeds I can send you some. No trade needed just send me a SASE. PM me for an address.

Len

[Alpinejs]

FWIW...it seems to me that with your limited space for tomatoes, you are heavy on the
cherry tomato side and sungold and sunsugar are quite similar. I think I would substitute one
cherry for an orange (KBX?), a green when ripe (Cherokee Green?), blacks, oxhearts or
virtually any that sound appealing to your curiosity. To me, half the fun is discovering new
favorites and now, gardening in So. Cal., Canada and in a greenhouse, I totally agree with
so many others that a favorite in their garden may not prove to be a favorite in yours, so
as someone else posted, keep trying different ones to make up your own favorite list.

BTW, my wife's hands down favorite cuke is Persian Baby Green Fingers.

My own favorites list has changed drastically over my few years of gardening.
I equate it to a basketball coach that gets a new kid from the junior varsity that
is better than one of his starters. That starter is relegated to the bench but is
not a worse player than he was. I have few survivors from my original top ten
list.

[tnkrer]

Thanks All for your great advice, suggestions and encouragement! I grow in containers. (Containers designed along the lines of Raybo's earthtainers)

Kath, Ella, Fathersdaugher, dpurdy, Stacy - I will start pepper seeds earlier than tomatoes. I have had decent success with growing from seed with cucumber and chard. I will be doing tomatoes and pepper from seed for the first time this year.

Ella, Alpinejs - Thanks for the cuke suggestions, I will look at those

FarmerShawn, thanks for suggesting that I should try a few of my preserved seeds early, so I know if they will work when my actual seeding time arrives.

Len - thanks for the offer for pruden's purple and I will take you up on it. Watch for my PM. I do have yellow pear and black cherry seeds if those interest you.

Worth, thanks for your suggestion, I will request on trades forum for whatever I cannot finally find.

FarmerShawn - I only had those pickling cucumbers and no other cucurbits, so there should not be any cross pollination for those. I will check out Fedco. I remember that they were the most cost effective when I had checked out seed stores last year. (Though ended up buying from Ocean State job lot burpee seed rack)

Alpinejs - sungold will be replaced by Selbo's red ribbed if Carolyn finds seeds. If not, I like your suggestions. I had thought of green when ripe tomatoes, but have not really looked at those to decide which .. Is Cherokee green good producer? and good taste?

Stacy: Thanks for your suggestions. I will look at Siletz. I was thinking about Stupice or Matina as replacement for early girl (which I grew last year), but then thought to add something from the dwarf project. I hadn't seen Galinas as an alternative to sungold. I will look that up. Is that OP?
I will look for Lipstick or Belgian Red (I am not planning to grow green pepper). Any suggestions for orange and yellow pepper?

Dpurdy - Thanks for your offer of seeds. I will pm you once I decide what I want on pepper and cukes. I will look at big dipper and California Wonder. My last failure with pepper was when I bought 3 different plants from local nursery. I don't remember the exact variety. I had just started gardening. I got may be one pepper fruit on each plant. So I want to try varieties that are known to produce and if I cannot grow from seed, I can always go to the nursery to buy whatever they have when the planting time comes around ..

Marc, Fathersdaughter, Worth, Dpurdy - I have planted out tomatoes on Mothers day weekend for last two years (around May 10). Its a little early and we do get one or two frosty days after that. However, because I plant in containers and cover my containers on frosty days, I think I have been able to increase my growing season. I have also transplanted cukes and did not see any ill effects of that. (again may be due to container environment). All the cukes planted outside in May however did not grow until June arrived. So this year, I won't be planting those out until mem day weekend. So I will calculate 8 weeks before May 10 for tomatoes, 6 weeks before May 28 for cukes and 10 weeks before May 17 for peppers. I think chard can go out earlier and actually likes colder weather, right?

Also any suggestions for lettuce? We tried black simpson last year and didn't really like it. The leaves were too delicate.

[Alpinejs]

As to GWR, Cherokee Green is not only my favorite green but currently heads
the overall favorites list. As to production, it has varied by year, location and
weather from very good to moderate production. The way I look at it is that
I deserve at least one Cherokee Green to reward me for all my gardening
efforts!!

BTW, they are fun to serve to guests in that they slice with the same color as
kiwis and the "ill-informed" think you are serving them an unripe tomato.....that
is until they taste it!! Then they think you are a farming genius.

[FarmerShawn]

Originally Posted by luigiwu

I'm learning about soil blocks and perhaps you guys can explain this to me. Soil blocks are made from compacting soil into tight blocks, I mean that's how they maintain their shape instead of failing apart, correct? well, everything else about germination seems to imply that the soil should be "fluffy" and "loose" - the two are sort of at opposites, no?

Well, I guess the explanation is that the compressed soil that the blocks are made of is largely organic material - peat and compost, with some ground rock and other minor additives. It is not like clay that turns to a brick; although compressed into a block, it stays pretty spongy, especially when kept moist as you would when growing something in it. My blocks hold their shape quite well with careful handling, but I don't think they would if I was rough with them. Of course, when they are filled with roots, that helps to bind things together. I put the blocks into web-bottomed flat inserts I got from Johnny's; they have wide webs and are made specifically for holding soil blocks. That makes bottom watering of the whole tray full of blocks quick and easy - just drop it into a water-filled regular flat for a few seconds and the water wicks nicely into the blocs. As the block top stays relatively dry, I get no damping off. I use Vermont Compost Company's Fort Vee for blocks - check here for a rundown of this mix's composition:
http://vermontcompost.com/products/fort-vee/

[kath]

Originally Posted by tnkrer

Also any suggestions for lettuce? We tried black simpson last year and didn't really like it. The leaves were too delicate.

Jericho does well in the heat and Winter Density does well in all but the worst summer heat- both are sweet, delicious, dependable and have sturdier leaves being a Romaine or Romaine/Bibb cross. I try lots of new lettuces every year in addition to these, but they've become staples for us.

kath

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by tnkrer

Stacy: Thanks for your suggestions. I will look at Siletz. I was thinking about Stupice or Matina as replacement for early girl (which I grew last year), but then thought to add something from the dwarf project. I hadn't seen Galinas as an alternative to sungold. I will look that up. Is that OP?
I will look for Lipstick or Belgian Red (I am not planning to grow green pepper). Any suggestions for orange and yellow pepper?
.

Yes Galinas is OP. It is not remotely dwarf though. It is typically among my biggest plants.

I don't have any suggestions for orange peppers. I've tried a few and all have been busts for me here.

For green lettuce I love Romulus or Jericho and for red lettuce Vulcan.


Stacy

[habitat_gardener]

Cucumbers: I always start my seeds in containers and then don't disturb the roots when I plant them out. I pop them out of the container and settle them into the soil. We never have warm nights, and I can't get to the community garden plots every day, so it's more efficient to start the seeds all in one place and then plant them out at various locations when they're ready.

Last year I got 1 pot of Diva transplants (2-3 plants) from the nursery. I've never had such a productive cucumber! I was getting at least 3 cukes a day over a long season. I didn't get to that garden every day, so some days I picked 10 of them. The problem was finding them all before they got fat. It took time to search through all the wide-ranging vines to pick them at their best. I love cucumbers and have almost never grown enough, but last year I had so many I had a bunch to share with the food bank.

I was growing different varieties at other gardens, but none of them came close to Diva in production.

[JamesL]

Originally Posted by FarmerShawn

The exception to Worth's advise that cukes don't like being transplanted is if you use soil blocks. I find I can start them (and squash and pumpkins and watermelon) at least two weeks before plant out, and from the soil blocks (properly hardened off) they seem to suffer no setback, but get a great head start. In fact, the only crops I have not had luck with using soil blocks are, logically enough, carrots and other long root crops. But even beets do wonderfully started from blocks. I think blocks work better in transplanting because when setting them out the roots are completely undisturbed - you just set the block in a hole and press them in, and the air-pruned roots are poised at the edge and ready to take off.

I wholeheartedly agree with FarmerShawn on potting blocks. Love'em. Cukes, tomatoes, peas, all do well. You can do carrots successfully, but it isn't really worth it and I consider mine more of a novelty.

Luigiwu,
The seed is lightly covered or loosely packed in a preformed depression or hole in the densely packed block. Make sense? As Shawn wrote the blocks can still be spongy and fragile even though compressed, but the seed itself isn't really in the compressed part at the start. Jason Beam has a website I would recommend, pottingblocks.com he also has a bunch of videos on the subject as does Elliot Coleman. Fire up the google engine!

[venturabananas]

On the cucumber front, in my yard and for my tastes, Tasty Jade (F1) has been superior to Poona Kheera and Diva, though those two are good, and Poona Kheera has the novelty factor.

[tnkrer]

So I spent some quality time with Tatiana's tomatobase.
and I think here is my tomato list: (decided to go with 7 or 8)
Pruden's Purple
Amazon chocolate or Indian Stripe (heritage seeds says that tasmanian chocolate was not one of the best flavored dwarfs)
Cherokee Green
Stupice
sunsugar
black cherry
Sungold - (alpinejs, I cannot convince the kids/family to let go of their cherry tomatoes. I am required to plant half of the total tomato plants cherries or grapes. so if not sungold, it will have to be another cherry)
Selbo's red ribbed (if I can get seed)

Thanks for all the suggestions. Siletz looks very interesting, but its determinate, so not sure how it will behave for me. Also, galinas will be good, but I do want to grow sungold once. So galinas will be next year.

For pepper these look good. If they have failed you, do let me know
Lipstick - looks really nice - Didnt see anything about this on Tatiana's site
Golden California wonder or vanity yellow
salsa orange

Still need to figure out cukes, lettuce and decided to add one eggplant. we want slender, long purple eggplant with as few seeds as possible. Any recommendations?

Also, I am going with whatever chard burpees puts out in their packets. Are there better varieties of chard that I should look into?

Thanks!

[dpurdy]

tnkrer,
A suggestion for an eggplant to grow would be Hansel Hybrid. I grow these every year. They take about 55 to 60 days. If you grow only one of these, you'll have plenty of eggplant for your needs. I've seen as many as 50 on a single plant. They are a dark purple or almost black in color. They contain fewer seeds than others and are more sweeter and more tender than others that I've grown in the past. You can harvest the fruit when they reach 6 to 8 inches in length, or you can even let them get a little bigger. My eggplant customers prefer this variety over others that I've grown in the past. One other variety is called Fairy Tale which is a purple and white in color. They are similar to the the Hansel except for the color and their production is a little less. Either one of these will provide you with many eggplants.
dpurdy

[efisakov]

dpurdy,
do you grow eggplants in containers?

[kath]

Originally Posted by tnkrer

For pepper these look good. If they have failed you, do let me know
Lipstick - looks really nice - Didnt see anything about this on Tatiana's site
Golden California wonder or vanity yellow
salsa orange

Still need to figure out cukes, lettuce and decided to add one eggplant. we want slender, long purple eggplant with as few seeds as possible. Any recommendations?

Also, I am going with whatever chard burpees puts out in their packets. Are there better varieties of chard that I should look into?

Thanks!

peppers: Lipstick is the only one on your list that I've grown, and I did grow it for several years with varying luck. Palanacko Cudo and Slonovo Uvo were both more robust plants and produced lots of huge, sweet red peppers. This year I'm trying Kevin's Early Orange and Super Shepherd, too, and I'd be happy to share seeds if you're interested.

cukes: My favorite so far for production, sweet taste, small seed cavity, smooth fruits and resistance to the common leaf diseases here is Burpfree. I ran out of seeds, hadn't saved any, and realized it wasn't being sold any longer:

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...pfree+cucumber

So I took a chance and grew out 2 seeds that were loose in my large metal seed container in hopes that they were Burpfree. I was lucky and they were and I saved seed from several fruits. Also giving Picolino a try just in case. Ditto about seed sharing.

kath