Cold Set Tomato - Anyone have any experience with it?

[rnewste]

I am going to try to grow 3 'Tainers of a tomato called "Cold Set" over the Winter. We usually get a few days of evening frost here in January, but never hard freezes. Does anyone have experience with this variety?



Cold Set Tomato
Sow Seed Directly into Your Garden

Gurney's Choice Cold Set Open-Pollinated Tomato is the easiest tomato you can grow. Tolerates light frost (withstood 18 degree temperatures in Canadian trials.) Direct seed it, then sit back and wait--but you won't wait for long! Ripens 2 weeks earlier than most. Firm 3- to 4-inch fruits are big on flavor. You won't find a better salad tomato. Determinate vines. 65 DAYS.


Ray

[eyolf]

I haven't been around here much lately, but hey, my log-in is still god, so here goes...

No, Cold-set won't do any better in a frost than any other tomato. As you might know, most tomatoes won't blossom and set fruit in cold temps, but some will tolerate a little cooler temps than others. Cold-set is among those that will tolerate those cooler temps, but we really are talking the difference between overnights around 52-56, or overnights at 57-60 deg F.

Past that, Cold-set is a fairly early determinant, round, red, globose, about the size of tennis ball. Flavor is "OK", but not great, and the flesh is a little soft and mushy.

Pretty typical for a determinant.

They will certainly be better than most grocery-store tomatoes. They are a great choice for less-experienced gardeners, especially in northern-tier states because they are trouble-free and predictable

[rnewste]

eyolf,

Thanks for the information on Cold Set. The Gurney's wording is a bit of "hype", but I am going to give it a try (just put seeds in 8 starter cups this afternoon). While my Stupice produced fruit in early Spring this year and I had my first one on May 27, I was a bit disappointed by their taste. We'll see how this Cold Set variety compares. Anyway, it will give me something "tomato" to focus on during the wintertime.

Ray

[MikeInCypress]

Ray,
Have you tried Kimberly? From Canada. Always the first non-cherry for me. Taste is way above average in my opinion.

MikeInCypress

[AZRuss]

I have discovered, quite by accident, that Cold Set is also apparently an extremely heat tolerant variety. I planted out a couple of seedlings in May, and to my surprise they started setting fruit a few weeks ago in our intense desert heat. Each plant now has at least 12 tomatoes that are growing well, but obviously several weeks away from ripening. Go figure!!

[mdvpc]

Az-there is also an op variety called Hotset, that is supposedly the foundation for some of the real heat resistant varieties. I am in Tucson and Phoenix frequently, so am very familiar with your heat (Its 114 in Phoenix officially right now). You might try and get some hotset to try also.

[montanamato]

I have noted over the years, that the varieties that set at colder nights usually do best in the extreme heat too...
Almost any variety out of Russia or Eastern Europe does well with the cold nights we get....So far this year we have only had a few nights above 50...

Jeanne

[pbud]

Another vote for Kimberly -- that tomato rules! First to set, last to drop and great taste. If only it was bigger. I'm gonna cross it with JD's Special C-Tex this year or Brandywine.

[Nightshade]

deleted. duplicate post

[Nightshade]

I have been very impressed by Kimberly.

It has been a dreadful tomato season here. I replanted twice because of late frosts and this pushed a lot of the tomatoes into the hot weather before they had a chance to set fruit My beautiful Alicante stood up to daily hundred degree weather, but it died a scorched death when the temperature hit 115.

On top of the weather problem, the ground squirrels are worse than they have ever been. After their springtime supply of food dried up, they took to raiding the garden, stripping some of the healthiest plants down to the stem, and stealing green tomatoes off the rest of them..

So back tp why I am impressed by Kimberly: My lone plant got killed back in the last frost. Since I didn't have a replacement , I nurtured it along and hoped it would come back, which it did, putting out a healthy crop of tasty tomatoes out of it before the ground squirrels stripped it of its leaves.

But I have continued watering and feeding it and although the foliage returned, with daytime highs now hitting 110 F, I figured that I had seen the end of Kimberly's production. . Amazingly, that has not turned out to be the case. It has just set a whole 'nother crop of tomatoes during this recent heatwave.

But, Ray, I think Danko might be an outstanding cool-weather performer. My test plant breezed through some very chilly high-desert spring nights, with lows in the forties, AND it survived the killing frost that took many other plants out. Admittedly, I covered all of the plants the night before the frost hit, but even so, only a few of them made it through and Danko was one of them .. It had the most, earliest, and biggest tomatoes of the 50 varieities I started with. Unfortunately, the entire plant turned out to be catnip for ground squirrels, so I can't tell you how they would have tasted.

Jan

[tessa]

ray...i think i have a similar climate to you...only at opposite times. i'm in the depth of winter at the moment...and here's a pick of my kimberleys from a few days ago:

[cardshooter]

Our last frost date is supposed to be May 15 but one time years ago I lost a lot of tomato plants when the temperature hit a low of 27 degrees on May 27th. I had covered all of the plants with brown paper bags and still lost all of them except about six. They were named "Coldset" and I had ordered the seeds from a seed company, Gurneys I think, and they claimed that they could stand even a frost. As I remember they surprisingly were a pretty good tomato. I just checked and Reimer's Seeds still sells the seeds. I will make sure I have some of them for next year!

[rnewste]

Cardshooter,

Thanks for your feedback. I will try Coldset again next Winter/Spring timeframe. I still have an old pack from Gurneys.

Raybo

[b54red]

I grew an indeterminate hybrid that was the fastest tomato to set in colder temperatures that I have ever seen called Jetsetter. It had decent taste not quite as good as Big Beef and the fruit might have been slightly smaller but it was almost as productive. The weird thing about it and the reason I stopped using it was that it wouldn't ripen well when it got really hot. They would just sit there and take forever to ripen in the heat yet would ripen rather quickly in the cool of early spring or late fall.

Bill

[rnewste]

Thanks Bill,

Last Season, Jetsetter was the earliest in production for me. Growing it again this year (May 1 photos):



It is now flowering:




My "early" this year will be Bloody Butcher. Getting nice fruit development as of today:



Planted this one out Feb. 15 while all of the others went in April 8.

Raybo