Going to try my apparent green thumb at this...

[KimchiMonger]

4/22/17 - It's Saturday morning and spent a little time checking on my plants. Pinched off a few suckers and checked on fasteners holding tomato stems to bamboo stakes. Don't want them cutting into stems so I keep them a little loose. Noticed a few were creeping up chest level though. These have come such a long way from day 1 seeds dropped into a little solo cup of dirt.

Pictured below is my Costoluto Genovese coming in at 40 inches! Amazed at nature's symetrical growing patterns. All that DNA know how wrapped up in that original tiny seed.

Second Photo is the unknown possible Mountain Gold vs. Chocolate Stripe tomato. Perhaps in near future it'll offer some tell tale signs one of you can spot.

Third Photo is a couple of our community feral cats that visit my other patio. They live in harmony with our pond goldfish, believe it or not, but then again they're well fed!

[dmforcier]

Interesting facial shape. I project Siamese or similar in the recent past.





Huh? There was tomatoes in the picture? Didn't notice.

[KimchiMonger]

5/05/17

It's workin' YA'LL !!! It's workin' !!!

First week of May and interesting growth on these tomato plants! Amazing how they've come such a long way from that day that I hopefully thumbed through the seed packets. Some of the envelopes had a photo of the promised fruit and I wondered. Had no guarantee I could get them to that point but was determined to try. That was all back in the first week of January.

Stepped up watering to twice a week with soil drying out enough to do so. Added heavy spritz of Epsom Salt water every other week. Fertilized again last week.

Recent fruit pictured below.

[dmforcier]

Oh, you're hooked now!

I got my first ripe tomato off an Utyonok 3 days ago. I was shooting for April and nearly made it. Yours look really good. But can you stand the wait !?!

[KimchiMonger]

Howdy dmforcier,

Hooked for sure! Pretty exciting stage for this first time grower. You know, those gnarly shaped Costoluto's I swear grow noticeably by the day! I had to look up your Utyonok variety and loved that yellow/orange fruit! This one I'll add to my grow list for next year. Very nice. Heritageseeds says of the magic fruit: "Very early at about 60 days. A Russian commercial variety, the name means “Duckling.” Thanks for sharing.

[KimchiMonger]

Couple of days ago we had ourselves a fantastic chicken and greens dinner with my home grown freckles lettuce and our first two harvested Black Tomatoes! Fascinating flavor with a very low acidity and sweet plum like texture and flavor. Never had a tomato like that!

To date, all varieties have fruited except my Virginia Sweets and Giant Belgium! They've successfully grown to almost 6 ft tall but appear to be flowering again now. We'll see how that bloom does. The latest to fruit is my Carbon Cherokee which has some five tomatoes over two plants. Looks like the next variety in line for ripening and first taste ever will be Costoluto Genovese. Really looking forward to that one which has done better than any other type. Personally happy about that and will focus on growing out next year as part of my initial growing test.

[KimchiMonger]

Below a photo of my first fruiting super hot pepper plant. Have several varieties flowering now but this little Scotch Bonnet only 10" tall has several pods going.

[oakley]

Great looking plants and toms. !

And nice pics. Since you've got the photographer touch, make sure to get a pic of the
ripe slice around the belly. And even the leaf shape.

Descriptive tasting notes can be fun when you have a few varieties to sample
side-by-side. Some toms change throughout the season, texture and taste.

[BigVanVader]

Not to dampen your mood but Costolutos are not good tasting to my tastebuds. Everything looks great and nice photography. Welcome to tomato wonderland Alice. This rabbit hole goes deeeeep.

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Not to dampen your mood but Costolutos are not good tasting to my tastebuds. Everything looks great and nice photography. Welcome to tomato wonderland Alice. This rabbit hole goes deeeeep.

If you ask me, Costolutos only serve one purpose -- making sauce. And they are very good at it.

[BigVanVader]

Agree 100%

[KimchiMonger]

Well we had our first Costoluto and agreed, while it doesn't taste bad, I understand how it serves best in tomato sauces. Had to pick this one as it had a soft spot on back that I was unaware of. I had every intention of letting it ripen a couple more days and glad I caught it. It grew so well and trouble free but won't be growing this one next year with our limited space. Nothing lost and a great overall experience with it!

[KimchiMonger]

Below is my Cherokee Carbon and most prolific grower. Trouble free and seems to enjoy this N. Texas climate just fine. Looking forward to trying this one out. If it's a winner flavor wise, we'll do it again next year.

[KimchiMonger]

Does anyone know which tomato this is? I'm able to back track this one to a black stripe or zebra stripe variety which I mislabeled when re potting.

[KimchiMonger]

Finally, this is supposed to be Scotch Bonnet Yellow Super Hot Pepper. One has turned from green to orange. Anyone know if they keep going from orange to yellow? Just wondering if it's still cookin'....