New Variety - Ben Gantz - Seed for Trial

[tomatoguy]

My mom has a single Ben Gantz plant, 30 miles away from me. I checked on it and took it a cage today. It is twice the size of mine at about 16 inches tall. It is also beginning to form buds. It looks very healthy. It is in natural ground and gets full sun from sunrise until about 3PM.

mater

[akgardengirl]

Ben Gantz is nice and bushy, about 7" tall with buds that are about ready to open. Both plants have been in the greenhouse since May 2nd which was a bit early as the temps still were getting down to the high 30's. I was using remay to cover them at night. Now our overnight temps are in the mid 40's but I am still worried about a sneaky frost that could pop up unexpectedly so I still am covering all plants at night. I have high hopes for the Ben Gantz.
Sue

[akgardengirl]

Latest photos of Ben Gantz, 2 plants each. Very healthy and one plant has a huge open flower that for sure will produce the big one!
Sue

[lumierefrere]

I planted my 1st Ben Gantz today, lovely blossoms on it already open. Nice and stocky while others got leggy. I'm afraid I'm getting my hopes up with this one it's been so good so far.

Barb

[PNW_D]

These suffered from a wee bit of wind damage on first day of plant out but have recovered nicely - and weather has been most cooperative since then.

And we have blossoms - at this point competing with Kimberly, Dwarf Rosella Giant and maybe Persey Pink for first fruit set

[nctomatoman]

Incredibly huge blossom clusters on Ben.....just setting fruit now, one of the new indeterminates the deer didn't get to, so I suspect I will get fruit from this amongst the first (probably just after the cherries). Can't wait to see/try it!

[Tania]

I have fruit set on 5 out of 8 Ben Gantz plants. A couple of plants look like determinate to me (=end with a fruit cluster, but it is probably too early to tell for sure. The plants are quite small/compact compared to other tomato plants planted at the same time, but I had them outside during a rough weather back in early April, so they could have been affected by that.

Stupice that was planted in a container about 3 weeks earlier now has full size green fruits, no blushing yet. It was started ~3 weeks earlier than Ben Gantz.

Tania

[tomatoguy]

Mom has a couple of little greenies on her plant. Just open blossoms so far here.

mater

[paul2101]

Thanks all, I'm glad to hear the reports.

My plants are a little slower than usual this year. I think it may be due to the excessive rain we are having.

And another note. You can push the ripening date by pruning the plant and thinning the blossoms. I've never kept data on how much this advances the ripening, but it does seem to help get earlier fruit.

[Tania]

Here are some pictures of the baby fruits - sorry for the bad quality (bad lighting to blame)

Tania

[tomatoguy]

I now have four little green tomatoes on my Ben Gantz plant, keeping pace with my mom's plant, 30 miles away.

mater

[tomatoguy]

Here is the small plot next to my driveway. It is in natural ground and gets full sun. Plants 2,3,4 and 6 are early varieties. Ben Gantz is the smallest but it has as many green tomatoes on it as do any of the others except Black Krim, which oddly enough, is not an early variety.

mater

[nctomatoman]

Finally a pic of Ben the plant, and the fruit that are developing. Looks to be a tomato machine!

[Lee]

Here's one that's finally showing some color. Mine is also
looking to be a very productive plant.

Lee

[PNW_D]

Fruit starting here as well - amazing for mid June in my garden - just a few days behind Kimberly