What tomato varieties do well in Colorado? - Page 2

Keen101 · January 4, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by shule1

EDIT: Some of these are large, and a few are cherries. Sorry.

Looking back on my old post in this thread, I would quite change that list of tomatoes that I suggested! Several of those I mentioned didn't do particularly well for me in my area that I might describe kind of like you described yours (except my area probably has lower elevation). Nevertheless, I do recommend those that follow for production (some of which I mentioned earlier):

* Matina (I highly recommend Matina)
* Thessaloniki (I highly recommend Thessaloniki)
* Early Girl F1 (is suitable for containers and ground)
* Yellow Pear
* Red Pear
* Chapman (more for size than numbers, but I got a fair amount of fruits; most were about 2lbs)
* Maglia Rosa
* Pink Cheeks (midseason)
* Black Giant (midseason)
* Mexican Yellow (midseason)
* Sweet Ozark Orange (not early, but it produces just fine)
* Zapotec Pink Pleated (late, but produces fine)
* Roma (if you get it from the right place; plants from The Home Depot did well for us in 2014)
* Husky Cherry Red F1 (there are more productive cherries, but it is a dwarf and produces well for its size)
* Celebrity F1 (not my favorite for flavor or earliness, but it produces)
* My Galapagos Island produced all season and was super early, but I would want it in a container if I grew it again (since it doesn't have much protection from cats since it's low to the ground with small foliage)

I've grown all of the above.

You might also investigate these (I've grown most of them): Aussie, Creole, Ambrosia Red, Sweet Orange Cherry, Pruden's Purple, Amana Orange (if started early; this variety, though late, is great because it grows foliage really super fast; I'm not sure how well it produces, as I transplanted mine late), Yellow Trifele, Seek-No-Further Love Apple, Giant Belgian, Burgundy Traveler, Grosse Lisse (haven't tried, but a local friend liked it as a Celebrity F1 replacement), Tatura (haven't tried it, but it sounds good), Sub-Arctic Plenty (haven't tried it) and Early Wonder (haven't tried it).

I'm not saying those I mentioned above are the perfect tomatoes for you, but out of the ones I've tried and investigated, I might recommend them.

I don't particularly recommend Punta Banda anymore, but some people love it. I didn't like the texture when I tried it (it was kind of like the gelatin at the bottom of a container of Jello, except it was crunchy and tasted like a tomato). Overwatering Punta Banda could be really bad for it, too (if you water all your tomatoes at once, that might be a concern, unless you dry farm).

Thanks Shule,

of the ones you mentioned i've grown Yellow Pear and Red Pear before. They grew fine and produced well but they are kinda small and not super exciting with flavor, though i do particularly remember eating a few sunripened red pears while they were still warm and they were really good.

Zapotec Pink Pleated, grew this this year. I think i got 4 fruits. They were barely bigger than a cherry tomato. I thought i took a picture. I'll have to try and track down my late season tomato photos apparently. But anyway, yeah pretty small and they were acidic. (though i think i saved some seed to grow again!). The ribbing was super cool though, very distinct. I would love to have a yellow ribbed tomato. Perhaps a ribbed version of Fantom Du Laos! I did grow another red ribbed variety, Sicilian? i think. Not sure, but i think it produced one large hand sized fruit. So that was cool. But again, this comes back to the whole reason i opened the thread. Just because a tomato variety CAN grow here and CAN produce A fruit does not mean it is well adapted to my unmulched clayish soil, or my unmulched garden bed soil (which is better soil but still looses water easily). Maybe i should look into mulching, but what i really want are lazy varieties that do decently well without major babying. A tall order, i know, but i'll get there eventually even if i have to breed my own.

Mexican Yellow looks like it might do well. I have seeds for one that looks similar that i think was bought in a store. The label i gave it is Canada Yellow, though i think that's just the name i gave it since it was yellow and grown in Canada according to the sticker. I think i'll try that this year.

Amana Orange was one i planted this year. I think it produced some fruits. If i have more seed i might try it again. There was one orange tomato that was still producing a fair amount of tomatoes late in the season. There is a 50% chance it was Amana Orange.

But anyway, thanks. I'll look into the others that have been mentioned. I really want to actually grow that potato leaf Magnus this year. Here's hoping i don't kill it off in the seedling stage again. It looked like a hardy one if it had survived.

January 4, 2017

In that case, I'd recommend these and drop the others I mentioned unless you have acclimatized seed, or want the cherries I mentioned: Matina, Thessaloniki, Early Girl F1, and maybe the Australian tomatoes.

I grew a yellow ribbed tomato last year (Yellow Ruffled). It was decent, but late (and orange—not yellow). Mexican Yellow is orange, too, by the way. Yellow Trifele eventually turns orange.

I'm surprised Zapotec gave you small, few and acidic fruit. How are your potassium levels? Low potassium could account for the small and acidic fruit. We added wood ash and peat moss in 2016 (wood ash adds potassium and calcium, which raises the pH; peat moss adds organic matter and helps to lower the pH), and we didn't have issues with fruit size on most of our 100 or so varieties, even with overcrowded plants (except with Marianna's Peace and Super Sioux—and maybe some others). As to the few fruit, I might suspect low nitrogen and phosphorus, but I'd guess you probably fertilize with something sometimes, like maybe compost (so my guess could well be wrong). Do you rotate crops? Growing the same crop in the same spot every year may affect fruit size and production. What's your soil pH? Is it high or low in calcium, or normal? I think dry air seems to inhibit production for tomatoes that aren't used to it. This is different than dry soil or infrequent rain.

If you're not into acidic tomatoes, especially if you have low potassium, I would drop Early Girl F1 from the list.

I'm guessing there are many kinds of clay soil. The clay and clay loam soil in our yard is often gray (probably due to the wet springs and winters). The summer and early fall are super dry, though.

Some Yellow and Red Pears are bigger than others, I've found. The ones I grew up with were bigger and probably tastier than the common ones now. I should have saved seeds (except they were cross-pollinated when they reseeded). My neighbor tried Yellow Pear in 2015, and it just wasn't the same. It was small, mealy and didn't have as clearly defined a pear shape. It didn't have the astringent tomato oil type taste I remembered, either.

You might like Green Pear. It's the size and shape of the Yellow Pear I remember (two or three times as big as the common Yellow Pear), and it tastes like a good sandwich tomato (mild but good flavor, meaty and good texture). My Green Pears were productive later on, but not earlier on. it can be hard to tell when they're ripe, though.

Chocolate Pear has great taste, but small tomatoes. Mine wasn't productive, but it was very early. I think mine may have been a fluke, since it's normally reported to be about 70 days and very productive (not 50-60 days, with a polite plant producing only a third of the season).

Medovaya Kaplya is a pear with great sweet flavor, but it waited until the end of the season to be productive, probably due to acclimatization. It's small, too. I plan to try it again next year with saved seed. The leaves are potato leaf; they're a nice shade of green, too.

Cherokee Green Pear is much larger than Green Pear. Out of the largest pears I tried, I liked it and Yellow Trifele the most. I think some acclimatization could do them well. Cherokee Green Pear took a while to ripen.

I'm experimenting with saving seeds every year to see how well acclimatizing varieties helps them. I know at least two or three other people here who are doing that, too. So, I saved a *lot* of seeds in 2016. I think acclimatizing them to the soil is at least as important as the climate.

I'm not sure how well acclimatization helps tomatoes within a few years, yet, but it seems to help watermelons get bigger, and tomato seeds I get from more similar areas often do well. It certainly does help all-season tomatoes within the same season, at least, no matter whether that sticks for the next season. The tomatoes I've grown from saved seed so far haven't been ideal for the experiment (e.g. F2+ hybrids, or planted in different conditions), but next year should be more suited for it.

Canehdian · January 5, 2017

I probably have a shorter season here and maybe cooler nights than your area but otherwise have similar conditions, including clayish soil and its pretty dry usually from all the wind. I have tried mostly heirloom indeterminates and the occasional hybrid . This year I will try more Russian determinates, but I previously have had good luck with:

- for production, Lemon Boy and Juliet are basically bullet proof here.
- Azoychka (natch)
- Black Prince
- Black Plum
- Black Pear
- Black Aisberg
- Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
- Ludmilla's Red Plum
- Sakharnyi Pudovichok
- Sakharnyi Zheltyi
- Cosmonaut Volkov
- Orange Roma
- Big Beef

I am in the vicinity of Casey's Heirlooms and his catalogue usually has a list of what grows well outside here.

January 5, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canehdian

I probably have a shorter season here and maybe cooler nights than your area but otherwise have similar conditions, including clayish soil and its pretty dry usually from all the wind. I have tried mostly heirloom indeterminates and the occasional hybrid . This year I will try more Russian determinates, but I previously have had good luck with:

- for production, Lemon Boy and Juliet are basically bullet proof here.
- Azoychka (natch)
- Black Prince
- Black Plum
- Black Pear
- Black Aisberg
- Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
- Ludmilla's Red Plum
- Sakharnyi Pudovichok
- Sakharnyi Zheltyi
- Cosmonaut Volkov
- Orange Roma
- Big Beef

I am in the vicinity of Casey's Heirlooms and his catalogue usually has a list of what grows well outside here.

I've tried some of those. For me (I can't say for anyone else), this is how the ones I've tried have done (on each's first year in our garden; first year as in its ancestors didn't grow in our garden; I think we grew Lemon Boy F1 at least once before this):

* Lemon Boy F1 (2014): It's reasonably heat/drought-tolerant. It produces fair-sized, yellow (not orange) fruit about as acidic as Early Girl F1. The fruits were a fair bit larger than Early Girl, but later and less productive (due to slower maturity). It does produce all season. It grew *very* long vines.
* Black Prince (2016): No fruit. Determinates tend to struggle in my garden for some odd reason. I tend to think the reason is that people tend to grow them in containers (so, they're perhaps more used to a soil mix that's a whole lot different than our garden soil; I grew it in the ground).
* Black Plum (2015): Heat-tolerant. It wasn't as productive as say, Yellow Pear, for me, but it produced in adverse conditions. Small fruit, not much bigger than a cherry. Maybe 1.3 to 1.6 inches long. It tasted better in the late season than when it was really super hot. The only thing preventing it from being early as opposed to 70 days is that it takes a little time to start flowering (but the time from flowering to ripe fruit isn't bad, although there are faster tomatoes in this regard). It does fine in raised beds and the ground alike.
* Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (2016): This was my second-to-last tomato to ripen (I covered it up several times during frosts/freezes to prolong its life). It was kind of smothered, but it still got about 4-7 fruits that set (I think I only got to harvest three or four, though). Only one of them started to ripen before I picked them all to save seeds. I don't know why it took so long to ripen (unless it set the fruit late due to having foliage competition: that's quite possible). It's supposed to be a lot earlier than that. My other guess is that it's an acclimatization issue. Nevertheless, I'm wanting to grow my saved seeds next year to see how it does, because if it can perform how it's supposed to, it should be a pretty nice tomato. I haven't had much success with tomatoes from near the west coast (including Green Zebra, Napa Giant, Oroma, Siletz, Legend, Indigo Rose and perhaps some traded varieties). Girl Girl's Weird Thing (Marsha's seed) did considerably better than Green Zebra for me, though (it's probably descended from Green Zebra; I wouldn't be surprised if Pink Berkeley Tie Dye were descended from it, too, by the stripes). Siletz probably would have done better if it weren't determinate (and it was probably the earliest of those I listed).
* Azoychka (2016): This didn't get a fair trial since it was late to germinate. Crop failure.

I haven't tried the others. I've been interested in trying Cosmonaut Volkov. I don't know about Orange Roma, but I do like regular Roma for productivity if the year isn't too hot and dry (it did very well in 2014, but not so well in 2015 when we had record temperatures in late June: like 116° F.)

I would look at the varieties they tend to sell in your area as plants. I would guess at least 50% of them should do pretty well for you.

Oh, I just remembered a hybrid you might like. I haven't tried it, but it sounds great: Jetsetter F1. Has anyone in your area tried it?

Joseph Lofthouse's tomatoes might interest you. I'm guessing they might do quite well. He liked Jagodka quite a bit, too.

January 4, 2017	#17
shule1 Guest Posts: n/a	In that case, I'd recommend these and drop the others I mentioned unless you have acclimatized seed, or want the cherries I mentioned: Matina, Thessaloniki, Early Girl F1, and maybe the Australian tomatoes. I grew a yellow ribbed tomato last year (Yellow Ruffled). It was decent, but late (and orange—not yellow). Mexican Yellow is orange, too, by the way. Yellow Trifele eventually turns orange. I'm surprised Zapotec gave you small, few and acidic fruit. How are your potassium levels? Low potassium could account for the small and acidic fruit. We added wood ash and peat moss in 2016 (wood ash adds potassium and calcium, which raises the pH; peat moss adds organic matter and helps to lower the pH), and we didn't have issues with fruit size on most of our 100 or so varieties, even with overcrowded plants (except with Marianna's Peace and Super Sioux—and maybe some others). As to the few fruit, I might suspect low nitrogen and phosphorus, but I'd guess you probably fertilize with something sometimes, like maybe compost (so my guess could well be wrong). Do you rotate crops? Growing the same crop in the same spot every year may affect fruit size and production. What's your soil pH? Is it high or low in calcium, or normal? I think dry air seems to inhibit production for tomatoes that aren't used to it. This is different than dry soil or infrequent rain. If you're not into acidic tomatoes, especially if you have low potassium, I would drop Early Girl F1 from the list. I'm guessing there are many kinds of clay soil. The clay and clay loam soil in our yard is often gray (probably due to the wet springs and winters). The summer and early fall are super dry, though. Some Yellow and Red Pears are bigger than others, I've found. The ones I grew up with were bigger and probably tastier than the common ones now. I should have saved seeds (except they were cross-pollinated when they reseeded). My neighbor tried Yellow Pear in 2015, and it just wasn't the same. It was small, mealy and didn't have as clearly defined a pear shape. It didn't have the astringent tomato oil type taste I remembered, either. You might like Green Pear. It's the size and shape of the Yellow Pear I remember (two or three times as big as the common Yellow Pear), and it tastes like a good sandwich tomato (mild but good flavor, meaty and good texture). My Green Pears were productive later on, but not earlier on. it can be hard to tell when they're ripe, though. Chocolate Pear has great taste, but small tomatoes. Mine wasn't productive, but it was very early. I think mine may have been a fluke, since it's normally reported to be about 70 days and very productive (not 50-60 days, with a polite plant producing only a third of the season). Medovaya Kaplya is a pear with great sweet flavor, but it waited until the end of the season to be productive, probably due to acclimatization. It's small, too. I plan to try it again next year with saved seed. The leaves are potato leaf; they're a nice shade of green, too. Cherokee Green Pear is much larger than Green Pear. Out of the largest pears I tried, I liked it and Yellow Trifele the most. I think some acclimatization could do them well. Cherokee Green Pear took a while to ripen. I'm experimenting with saving seeds every year to see how well acclimatizing varieties helps them. I know at least two or three other people here who are doing that, too. So, I saved a lot of seeds in 2016. I think acclimatizing them to the soil is at least as important as the climate. I'm not sure how well acclimatization helps tomatoes within a few years, yet, but it seems to help watermelons get bigger, and tomato seeds I get from more similar areas often do well. It certainly does help all-season tomatoes within the same season, at least, no matter whether that sticks for the next season. The tomatoes I've grown from saved seed so far haven't been ideal for the experiment (e.g. F2+ hybrids, or planted in different conditions), but next year should be more suited for it. Last edited by shule1; January 4, 2017 at 02:14 PM.

January 5, 2017	#18
Canehdian Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Calgary, Alberta Canada Posts: 94	I probably have a shorter season here and maybe cooler nights than your area but otherwise have similar conditions, including clayish soil and its pretty dry usually from all the wind. I have tried mostly heirloom indeterminates and the occasional hybrid . This year I will try more Russian determinates, but I previously have had good luck with: - for production, Lemon Boy and Juliet are basically bullet proof here. - Azoychka (natch) - Black Prince - Black Plum - Black Pear - Black Aisberg - Pink Berkeley Tie Dye - Ludmilla's Red Plum - Sakharnyi Pudovichok - Sakharnyi Zheltyi - Cosmonaut Volkov - Orange Roma - Big Beef I am in the vicinity of Casey's Heirlooms and his catalogue usually has a list of what grows well outside here.