My 2018 Tomatoes and Garden

[oakley]

Your variegated bean is beautiful. Had no idea that could happen but makes sense that
it could.

The ugly fella, I agree, is almost a beauty in the mixed shades of green.
Shocking I have no uglies this year so far.

[jmsieglaff]

First one below is Teensy Orange/Yellow minibeefsteak. As you can most are nice looking tomatoes. Other picture are some tomatoes in the garden, clockwise from UL: Orange Russian 117, Brandywine Sudduth’s, Noire de Crimmee, and Black Krim. Had the first NdC today—very tasty! Will have a BK ready soon. I’m pleased with fruit set on Brandywine and the OR117 is ridiculously loaded.

[jmsieglaff]

Some early flavor thoughts on various tomatoes in the garden.

KARMA pink: wow!
My F1 of Crnkovic Yugoslavian x Jaune Flammee: so dang tasty, I might grow the F1 again next year just because I love the flavor and production bordering on insane.
Sungold F1: Never a bad year
1st Waltingers Fleisch aus Indien has me excited to taste more, seemed quite tasty.
Noire de Crimmee and Black Krim is not the same tomato. This is my second seed source for NdC. First BK will be tasted soon, so far NdC hasn't wowed.
Tried Magila Rosa this year--my son and I both seem to like Blush a bit more.
Excited to try a Brandywine Sudduth's in the coming days.
Jaune Flammee is absolutely terrific yet again.

Dwarf project thoughts:
Teensy Pink: tasty tomato!
Teensy Yellow: tastes like last year--perfectly balanced ample tang and sweetness
Teensy Chocolate: first tastes are very nice
Teensy GWR: meh, not saving seed of this one.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Some early flavor thoughts on various tomatoes in the garden.

KARMA pink: wow!
My F1 of Crnkovic Yugoslavian x Jaune Flammee: so dang tasty, I might grow the F1 again next year just because I love the flavor and production bordering on insane.
Sungold F1: Never a bad year
1st Waltingers Fleisch aus Indien has me excited to taste more, seemed quite tasty.
Noire de Crimmee and Black Krim is not the same tomato. This is my second seed source for NdC. First BK will be tasted soon, so far NdC hasn't wowed.
Tried Magila Rosa this year--my son and I both seem to like Blush a bit more.
Excited to try a Brandywine Sudduth's in the coming days.
Jaune Flammee is absolutely terrific yet again.

Dwarf project thoughts:
Teensy Pink: tasty tomato!
Teensy Yellow: tastes like last year--perfectly balanced ample tang and sweetness
Teensy Chocolate: first tastes are very nice
Teensy GWR: meh, not saving seed of this one.

And you know very well how much and WHY I am looking forward to tasting your JF X CY cross when it is stabilized.

Correct, Black Krim and N d'Crimme are not the same and I discussed that a lot in my heirloom tomato book on page 174. If you don't have that book I can come back with a short version if you want me to.

All for now,

Carolyn

[jmsieglaff]

In what seemingly has become an annual cycle of my Tomatoville activity, mine amps up as we head into winter until garden chores start becoming daily in July. I’ll post some notes on my 2018 tomatoes in hopes someone might find my reports useful. Fall was extremely wet which brought an early end to my 2018 tomatoes.

[jmsieglaff]

Some observations of mainly new to me tomatoes in 2018. Overall 2018 was a very wet year for me and had heavy foliage disease pressure, especially in August and September, which brought an early end to most tomatoes in the garden. Only 6-7 plants made it to October out of nearly 30.

Brandywine Sudduth-An amazing tasting tomato, tremendously intense sweet, rich tomato and ample tang. Great texture, meaty and juicy. Production wasn't bad either, good second flush of fruit. Middle of the pack WRT foliage issues. I'm growing it again in 2019.

Waltingers Fleisch aus Indien-Vigorous plant with very high production. Very tasty dark tomato, rich and earthy, nice tang with enough sweetness. Good texture--nice and juicy. BUT these things split at the mention of rain, splitting was so bad I would have to pick completely green to avoid having useless fruits. Might do better in a dry year or a controlled soil moisture setup.

Maglia Rosa - Tasty, meaty tomato, yet juicy enough. Very productive and heathy. Sweet, rich tomato, medium tang. This was trialed as an alternative to Blush, but for our palates we lean Blush.

Orange Russian 117-Meaty, yet juicy. Extremely productive. Healthy and VERY vigorous plant. Rich tomato, sweet, enough supporting acid--I was concerned about it being kind of bland or lacking enough acid, but those concerns were unfounded. Beautiful--good texture for pico de gallo. Definitely would grow again at some point.

KARMA pink-Vigorous plant, manageable foliage issues. Medium-high production of golf ball sized pink fruits. Delicious! Sweet and tangy--intensely so. Definitely grow again. Splitting was an issue with wet summer, but picking at blush was usually sufficient.

Dwarf Metallica - Very stout, dark green dense foliage dwarf. Gray mold doesn't bother it much unlike most other dwarfs I grow. Productive and beautiful metallic striped purple and green fruit. Sweet with medium tang, rich tomato, texture is just a touch mealy.

German Pink - Planted late so hard to determine yield--seemed moderate. Susceptible to SLS. Tasty pink-- intense sweet and tangy. Late planting makes it tough to give it full year review.

Malachite Box - Tasty GWR. Good texture. Plant suffered from SLS. Production medium-low; but in a poor location. In fact, I'm not growing tomatoes in one corner of the garden from this point forward, morning shade cast by a neighbor's tree clearly impacts tomatoes in that spot every year.

Noire de Crimmee - Productive, medium-high vigor. Balanced tomato, sweet and earthy with some tangyness. I liked it but didn't love it. Black Krim tasted better.

Jaune Flammee, Sungold were as good as ever. I have a separate thread on it, but loved my F1 cross of Crnkovic Yugoslavian and Jaune Flammee. Black Krim always does well in my garden, but this year it struggled to produce a lot and struggled with foliage issues.

I'm giving a shout-out to Solar Flare XL. I had a pretty tough growing year; relentlessly hot and humid, more rain than usual, battled diseases from August on. This tomato did surprisingly well, set some fruit during the worst of the heat, and looks/tastes fantastic. I've grown regular Solar Flare every year but the XL selection is much better.

I’ve been wondering about Orange Russian 117 so I’m glad for your input. I like Black Brandywine over Sudduth’s and BB has been more disease resistant, in my garden anyway.
I’ve also been on the fence about trying Malachite Box, mainly for disease fears. This year I grew Emerald Evergreen; it was so-so.
Are you growing lots of dwarfs? Frankly, so far I’ve experienced more disease symptoms, and flavor that’s not quite ‘knock your socks off’. Can you name any you think exceptional?
Thanks!

[Fred Hempel]

Since parents want their children to be more successful than them -- Maglia Rosa is happy....

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Some observations of mainly new to me tomatoes in 2018. Overall 2018 was a very wet year for me and had heavy foliage disease pressure, especially in August and September, which brought an early end to most tomatoes in the garden. Only 6-7 plants made it to October out of nearly 30.

Brandywine Sudduth-An amazing tasting tomato, tremendously intense sweet, rich tomato and ample tang. Great texture, meaty and juicy. Production wasn't bad either, good second flush of fruit. Middle of the pack WRT foliage issues. I'm growing it again in 2019.

Waltingers Fleisch aus Indien-Vigorous plant with very high production. Very tasty dark tomato, rich and earthy, nice tang with enough sweetness. Good texture--nice and juicy. BUT these things split at the mention of rain, splitting was so bad I would have to pick completely green to avoid having useless fruits. Might do better in a dry year or a controlled soil moisture setup.

Maglia Rosa - Tasty, meaty tomato, yet juicy enough. Very productive and heathy. Sweet, rich tomato, medium tang. This was trialed as an alternative to Blush, but for our palates we lean Blush.

Orange Russian 117-Meaty, yet juicy. Extremely productive. Healthy and VERY vigorous plant. Rich tomato, sweet, enough supporting acid--I was concerned about it being kind of bland or lacking enough acid, but those concerns were unfounded. Beautiful--good texture for pico de gallo. Definitely would grow again at some point.

KARMA pink-Vigorous plant, manageable foliage issues. Medium-high production of golf ball sized pink fruits. Delicious! Sweet and tangy--intensely so. Definitely grow again. Splitting was an issue with wet summer, but picking at blush was usually sufficient.

[jtjmartin]

Originally Posted by PlainJane

Frankly, so far I’ve experienced more disease symptoms, and flavor that’s not quite ‘knock your socks off’. Can you name any you think exceptional?
Thanks!

Jane:

I had so-so results with dwarfs in 2017 but they were amazing this year. If you like purple/black tomatoes, I loved Tasmanian Chocolate, Wild Fred, Rosella Purple, and Wild Spudleaf. All had very good production and great taste.

Jeff

Interesting. The only one I’ve grown in that group is Tasmanian Chocolate. It was so-so.
I do love blacks ... we’ll see what space I can free up but I’m already planning for 30 tomatoes this spring.

[jmsieglaff]

I've been growing many dwarf cherries as part of development efforts on those.

I have grown a small number of larger fruited dwarf varieties, maybe 10-15 over the past few years. Two dwarf project released favorites for both flavor and production have been dwarf Beauty King and Rosella Purple.