This year — so far! — I’ve managed to keep my pledge to only buy tomato plants of varieties we find exceptional. No more ‘they’re very reliable, just in case’ plants — much as I appreciate old friends like Carmello and Gardener’s Delight. Not to mention favorites that have consistently failed for me in the last several years (Paul Robeson, Kelloggs Breakfast, Isis Candy… )
My theory is that random heirloom and bred-for-taste tomatoes are now available all summer at a garden / grocery store I enjoy patronizing (Volante Farm), *probably* the coronavirus rate will be low enough that we’ll feel safe shopping masked (& boosted), and if I have fewer plants I might be able to able to give each one more attention.
Yesterday, I transferred the first half-dozen of the 15 plants I ordered in February and March, a beautiful healthy batch from Laurel’s Heirlooms in Southern California, into their rootpouches. Chocolate Amazon (I bless the tomato developers for this one every year, because Paul Robeson, alas, just won’t grow for me), Chocolate Stripes (ditto), Tati’s Wedding (a tasty, prolific, almost seedless, all-purpose red variety), and Ruby Gold (aka Gold Medal, deep orange striped with red) are all on my ‘must have’ list (I missed out on my beloved Bearclaw, because it was sold out by the time I got around to making my reservations!)
Because I have a vivid imagination, Laurel’s online descriptions lured me into swapping Momotaro Gold for my usual Momotaro (reputedly Dolly Parton’s favorite tomato), and Wee Tang Shebang for Blondkopfchen. (If I ever come into a fortune sufficient for a large sunny yard & the hire of several strong assistants to do the heavy lifting for me, more Laurel heirlooms will be one of my first splurges!)
I’ve got another batch of plants coming in from White Flower Farm, including Cherokee Purple (my top ‘recommended for all growers’ variety — one of the first to ripen, the last to stop setting fruit in the fall, and the most resistant to various blights), Ramapo, and multiple Chocolate Sprinkles cherry tomatoes (because those are the only variety Spousal Unit consistently asks for by name). And a couple more from Burpee, since I was ordering a specific begonia from them anyways, and Spousal Unit likes their Steak Sandwich because one slice can be just the right size & consistency to top his burgers.
And maybe, depending on what shows up at my local Mahoneys / Volante greenhouses, there may be just one or two more plants we can’t resist. This may be the *best* time of the year for me, when it comes to tomato gardening — all of the dreams, none of the exhaustion / disillusionment!
Picking “The Best Tomato Plants” is so very much a personal choice — not only do everyone’s tastes differ, but some varieties just don’t ‘translate’ from their native lands. (The Midwestern favorite Brandywines, for instance; I’ve tried and failed / been less than impressed by at least half a dozen different Brandywine types over the past 25 years. Even the local professionals are apologetic about their Brandywines — excuses are made about ‘special soil microbes’ and ‘day length’.)
Which tomato types do *you* all choose to expend your time & effort on, this year and every year?
(Photo at top is from one of my earlier, most successful seasons — maybe 2014? Pretty sure that’s an unusually ugly twinned Chocolate Amazon on the left, a small Kelloggs Breakfast in the center, oblong Juliets on the right and Sun Gold cherry tomatoes right above them. No idea about the others, sorry.)
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
Baud
I seem to have new species of weeds this year. They look different than the weeds of the past.
mrmoshpotato
I’ve never had tomatoes with sprinkles on top. ??
MomSense
I’d settle for whatever will actually produce tomatoes. It’s been a rough couple years for tomatoes.
MomSense
Has anyone seen immanetize? Just wondering how he is doing after his shoulder surgery.
Anne Laurie
They’re actually small, plum-shaped versions of the Chocolate Amazon in the photo. Sweet, but also very rich; the Spousal Unit is a super-taster, and picky, but he loves the Chocolate Sprinkles enough that he’ll go out & pick his own!
If you’re dubious about ‘funny-colored tomatoes’, I think they’d be a good trial variety. Easier to grow from seed & to find room for than some of the classic ‘brown’ types (Black Krim or Carbon, for instance), and distinctive enough to reward your efforts…
Betsy
Cherokee Purple is delicious, but I’m tired of hacking away the rotted parts and the pale green core to get a usable 50% of a tomato. I used to only grow heirlooms, but after years of laboring over plants that sprawl and grow and flourish and produce one giant lobed, split, tomato toward the end of a long summer, I have adjusted my standards and will be growing a couple of hybrids this year just so that I can get some tomatoes.
The only exception is some cherry heirlooms such as Super Snow White and Black Cherry, and one slicer variety called green giant. Those are very productive.
Green Giant is a delicious large lime-green slicer tomato with exceptional spice-like flavor – productive, tender, nearly seedless and without the hard pith or gel of many varieties but tender and toothsome. I can’t get enough of them. They make the best tomato sandwiches.
Anne Laurie
No kidding! Last year was actually discouraging enough to get me to cut back by almost half — even reading the catalogs in February didn’t soften those memories enough to break my resolve, for once.
Anne Laurie
Interesting! I’ve never had that problem with Cherokee Purples, but that may reinforce what I say about local conditions. Do you mind giving a general geographic location?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
rikyrah
@MomSense: .??????for Imma
JPL
@MomSense: He had shoulder surgery? Last I saw, he was still in Houston with little imma
geez
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I’m tempted this year to just skip tomatoes and buy them at the farmers market.
MomSense
@JPL:
Maybe that means the shoulder is healing because he had surgery a while ago – after falling on the ice.
Anne Laurie
@MomSense: I did consider skipping a year myself, but the Spousal Unit was persuasive about how much I’d regret it come July…
(Since I don’t have a job, other than this blog, gardening is about the only reason I have to spend time outside during daylight hours. So there’s that.)
mainmati
After years of growing them on our western VA farm, which gets lots of sun, well-drained soils and somewhat drier weather during the summer, our two most successful non-cherry tomatoes are Rutgers and the American version of San Marzano tomatoes.
Rutgers, in particular, are not watery giants but rather more compact, very juicy and slightly tart. Also pretty resistant to pests. San Marzanos have been tasty and are very good for sauces (we usually raise some Romas for this purpose too).
I don’t have much to say about cherry tomatoes; they are basically fillers for salads in my opinion.
mainmati
@Betsy: Good to know. I didn’t know this one existed.
Jeffery
I have been growing ox hearts the last few years. Last summer I found a tomato plant coming up in a sidewalk crack out front on the street walk. I assume it fell out of someone’s sandwich or got carried there by a bird or squirrel. Pulled it out and stuck it in the garden next to the ox heart.
The street tomato had dark blue green perfect leaves. The fruit was also perfect. Size of a baseball, deep red, hard as a rock. It was designed to transport well and not bruise. Took about two weeks to soften after picking. Actually tasted good.
Saved seeds from it. Grew it this year. The leaves are not the blue green as last year. Think it crossed with the ox hearts. Am curious to see what it is like this year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We went to Keukenhof Gardens today, which is the central tulip display in Holland. The gardens are only open 8 weeks a year and the display was dazzling. We hit the timing right.
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I’m really struggling with my vegetable and perennial beds. Something burrowed under one bed and there are mounds of dirt and sand – which means they went really deep. I don’t even know where to start right now.
satby
Morning all! Hoping things are going well for the family Imm!
I love oddly colored tomatoes AL, and normally that’s all I grow. I’ve also cut way back on the plants I ordered and started no seeds this year, so my efforts will be restricted to six plants. Two will be red for the first time in years: a super sauce Roma hybrid and a “Veranda” specifically developed for containers. Got Kelloggs Breakfast, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Big Rainbow for the heirlooms, and one eggplant, all from Burpee. I’m going to miss growing the always reliable Gurney’s Orange Whopper, but it was already out of stock by the time I decided to order. No purples this year either, I’ve had very mixed luck with those so I skipped them.
Kay
Early Girl and Rutgers.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: @JPL:
No shoulder surgery. Imm’s surgery after his fall isn’t on the schedule yet, but it’s not for his shoulder. Maybe you are thinking of another jackal who had shoulder surgery?
Imm and I texted on Friday. Maybe he’ll pop in this morning and give us an update.
Mirona
I love home grown tomatoes but south Florida is not kind unless you spray with all kinds of pesticides and fungicides. Whenever I tried growing tomatoes they almost immediately succumbed to fungus and wilted away. However this year I have two “Everglades” plants, one in the ground one in a self watering planter: the planter one is doing better. The drawback? The tomatoes are tiny, as in the size of my little fingernail. But very tasty!
Starfish
@Betsy: I grew an heirloom tomato once, and you know my frustration well.
satby
@MomSense: I feel you! I started clearing out my badly neglected back beds only to discover a wild cherry sapling that I thought had been eradicated came back strong in the middle of a bunch of Tahiti daffodils. They’re blooming now, and as soon as the flowers fade I’m digging the bulbs (and the ones not getting smothered by weeds) out and moving them. Chipmunks or moles are digging around in that bed too, plus all around the lawn. I’m already tired thinking of all the work it will take to get rid of them. And big, deep piles sound like woodchuck ?
Anne Laurie
I like the challenge, frankly — it’s about my only risk-taking, these days. And since all my tomatoes have to be grown in pouches on an asphalt driveway, on sturdy trellises, there’s only so much sprawl / infestation possible. (Although one reason I got frustrated last year is that *some* kind of varmint kept eating my tomatoes just before they were ripe enough to pick!)
MomSense
@satby:
I’ve also got to redo the shade bed behind the house because the new heating /cooling system meant installing the external pumps in it. Ugh. So much work to do and I need to find the motivation. I keep threatening to just make all the beds stones with driftwood.
TerryC
My local squirrels discovered tomatoes several years ago and now I can’t have any, anymore. Today is a scheduled volunteer work day on my disc golf course/farm. We are clearing brush, planting wildflower seeds, and putting in mulberry, Norway Spruce, White Spruce, paw paw, sycamore, buartnut, northern pecan, and more. This spring we bring our total of planted trees in 8 years to 12,500+.
OzarkHillbilly
My favorite tomato is Green Zebra with it’s citrusy overtones. Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that for whatever reason they just don’t thrive here. Still, once again I started 4 plants, 2 for my step daughter and her husband, and 2 for me because hope springs eternal.
I first raised Isis Candy 2 years ago and loved them, but last year’s crop was a complete bust, so I have gone back to my old faithful Purple Bumblebee. Always flavorful and productive to the first frost.
I am very fond of Brandywines but this year instead of Pink I’ve gone with Yellow. We’ll see if I like them as much or not.
Once again I have Woods Brimmer and Mushroom Basket going in. WBs are very productive. While MBs aren’t so much, they are a particularly beautiful slicer that with a sprinkling of basil or feta are the picture of delectable perfection. Arkansas Travelers are on the menu again. So productive, it’s like they were bred for the Ozarks.
Lastly, Amish Paste are my go to for canning maters. Very productive, large, and tasty. I started 8 of these. Mostly 2 of each of the others with a couple at 4 to give away to my favorite people.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I love green zebra tomatoes. They are the tastiest. They don’t grow here either.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Last year the squirrels got what few GZs I had on the vine. One even taunted me by leaving the half eaten husk on top of the garden gate. Broke my heart.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Damn. That’s cold.
burnspbesq
I’m a Jersey Guy, so of course I’m loyal to the ultimate Jersey Tomato, the Ramapo.
Scout211
Our soil is very alkaline so vegetables can only be grown in raised beds that are filled with soil that is purchased for that purpose. With limited space (I have 13 beds in varying sizes) I need plants with good production. We eat a lot of tomatoes and I make and freeze tomato sauce and marinara sauce every year. I plant resistant hybrids like ACE and Celebrity every year. They both are big producers and are better at resisting all the pests and other nastiness that can hurt tomato plants. I am happy with both for table eating and also for my sauces. They aren’t super sexy or even very interesting but they are big producers and last through the fall.
I used to try one heirloom a year and have found some that I really like (Cherokee Purple and a local variety, Brandywine) but they don’t produce enough tomatoes and they never seem that healthy. Brandywine are really tasty but take up too much space in the raised bed, sprawling all over the place, mostly leaves and greenery.
I now plant only 6 tomato plants every year. This year I have 4 ACE and 2 Celebrity.
satby
@MomSense: No motivation over by here either ?!
It’s going to take multiple days and I have no consecutive free days. I know from experience that means each day I accomplish something it will be half or more undone by the time I get back to it, and that erodes my will to start. I will dig out and save my daffodils bulbs though, because I can do that in a couple of hours.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I too love colorful maters. Try to grow a variety every year. The best part is I get to keep them all to myself because my wife insists maters have to be red.
Starfish
@Anne Laurie: I am growing three bean plants this year. They are in small pots on the windowsill. I forgot to label them, so I have no clue what they are. One is an adzuki bean, probably. They may go outside when it is time (probably after Memorial Day), but we do not have much outside. I am not sure if they will have much success there.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Yep, so is the little bastard who did it.
Butch
Amish Paste and San Marzano, because I do a lot of canning and they work really well; also you don’t have to pick a gabillion of them like you do with the plum tomatoes to make a batch of whatever you’re cooking up.
oldgold
Favorite variety? Heinz!
Has many wonderful attributes: clear tough skin; disease resistant; does well in all zones; and, long shelf life. Not to mention, sparing the gardener exposure to mosquitoes, ticks and chiropractors.
Anyway
I go to the orange apron store (Hi BillinG) and pick up whatever tomato plants look good.
Last year I got a good crop of cherry tomatoes and may try something else this year.
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: I am not finding “chocolate sprinkles” on Laurel’s list of tomatoes. ??
There is a new “blue chocolate” this year.
Anyway
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, Joisey tomatoes!
OzarkHillbilly
@oldgold: Which one? There are 57 varieties.
Anne Laurie
Yeah, they’re hybrids… which is why I ordered mine from White Flower Farm. (But they’re also available, maybe, at cheaper outlets, including Burpee, Gurney, maybe even Home Depot.
Geminid
@Anne Laurie:
@Betsy: Some soil amendments could help. Gypsum is a good prospect. It is a ph-neutral compound of sulfer and calcium, both important plant nutrients.
There are specialized tomato fertilizers like Espoma’s “Tomato Tone.” I’ve also seen a tomato fertilizer at a local Walmart called “Mater Magic.” I cannot say if it works, but I give high marks to it’s packaging. The pelletized product comes in an oblong, tomato-shaped jug somewhat bigger than a softball.
artem1s
@Betsy:
there are a lot of heirlooms that have great yield. you just have to find the right ones for your climate. I experimented with starting my own seedlings with seeds from Tomato Bob and kept buying the seeds that produced good yield and stopped growing the ones that didn’t.Their stock seems to be pretty depleted this year though.
Buying plants locally can be tricky because so many greenhouses are shipping product to other climates and growing based on demand. So it’s not guaranteed that a local grower selling a popular variety will do well where they are grown. I too love the taste of Cherokees and Black Krim but decided it wasn’t worth the space given the yield is so low.
Beefsteaks are the trickiest to get good yield. I’ve had success with mostly orange beefsteaks rather than the red or darker varieties. Azoycha and Hawaiian Pineapple have excellent yield in my climate. But the best yield is with the mid size tomato. Delicious, candy stripe, Kellogg all have excellent yield. Some will even get in a second wave if fall is warm enough.
I’ve found lots of small plums that have amazing yield. Black Plum and the old standby Amish Paste can’t be beat. I grew a white variety called white sausage one year, but haven’t been able to find seeds for that on in a while. They were amazing.
the trick is experimenting with starting with lots of varieties of seeds to find out what really works in your climate.
debbie
@MomSense:
The tomatoes at my farmer’s market have been awesome. There have been summers where every dinner was tomato, basil, and mayo on toasted sourdough. Tough on the roof of my mouth, but so delicious!
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Jeffery: @Anne Laurie: Im only growing our heirloom oxhearts this year. We’ve been saving the seeds and growing them for 37 years they do have some disease problems here in SC/SE PA, but all tomatoes do any more with the wet summers we’ve been having. They originally came from a neighbor’s coworker at a local pie bakery. They started out as pink* but some are now red* from crossing with other tomatoes in the garden. They are so meaty and flavorful I think Ill only grow they from now on and buy from local roadside stands earlier and later.
* I learned from reading a book on heirloom tomatoes a few years ago that he difference between pink and red tomatoes is just the color of the thin translucent skin the flesh is the same color. If the skin is orange it make the tomato appear red, if it’s colorless/white then the tomato looks pinkish.
JeanneT
My repeat tomato varieties are Chef’s Choice Orange and Chef’s Choice Black – hybrids with some of the flavor of heirlooms which have grown well in my Michigan garden. I’m trying a grape type called Fantastico which has a high Brix rating. Then for an all around cooking tomato I’m trying La Roma III. Hoping to not get more tomatoes than I can deal with!!
R-Jud
Sigh. I wish I could reliably produce tomatoes, but while an English Midlands summer will usually cause them to set fruit, getting them to ripen requires a greenhouse. Which I don’t have space/budget for, at least not while I’m renting.
I was able to get a ton of dahlias and bearded iris planted over the past two weeks, though. Lots of happy-looking sunflower seedlings, too. Hopefully I’ll have some photos for you come July, Anne Laurie.
oldgold
@OzarkHillbilly:
Using heinz-sight, I would recommend the 20-20 variety. Although, other varieties are slowly ketching-up.
WaterGirl
April 21, 2022
IDNR recommends halt to use of bird feeders, bird baths in the Midwest through May 31 until spread of avian influenza subsides
Betsy
@Anne Laurie: I’m smack in the middle of where they grow best. I usually get one large delicious tomato And then a dwindling supply of smaller ones with varying degrees of ripeness. The good thing is even though apparently I’m not the one to be growing them, since I do live in the heart of Cherokee Purple territory, they’re readily available at farmers markets and produce stands.
sacrablue
Last year was an awful tomato year. I usually go with anything from Wild Boar Farms that I can find at my local garden center. They get two or three deliveries each spring. You have to be quick or you miss out. I missed both deliveries last year and only got odds and ends.
Betsy
@Anne Laurie: Sormtimes birds, squirrels and other critters will go after tomatoes just to get water during a dry spell of weather. If you keep some dishes of water available around the yard, I’ve found it can reduce pecking and eating by our “yard friends” – not always, but it costs nothing, so there’s that.
another thing that helps is if you have a sacrifice crop of some kind. I had a mulberry tree once in the backyard, and although I found the berries watery, tasteless, and worthless for human consumption, the birds and the squirrels loved them all day long, and they stayed completely away from the blueberries and blackberries, which I considered a small miracle
stinger
For flavor, my must-haves are Black Krim, Pink Brandywine-Sudduth Strain, and Kellogg’s Breakfast. The first two do have the splitting, cat-facing, conjoining, low productivity issues others have mentioned, but to my mind the taste can’t be beat. For consistent good looks and no splitting, but still good flavor, Eva Purple Ball. For early, full-flavor but salad-sized tomatoes, Stupice (red). I like colorful salads, so I also grow Jaune Flamme (orange) and Azoychka (yellow). I grew Cherokee Purple for years with little to no production, and the flavor was meh, so I stopped. But last year I gave it another go, and it was fine, so I’m growing it again this year. New for me last year, and will be repeating this year, are German Pink, Gold Medal, Big Rainbow, and Ananas Noir (Black Pineapple). New this year are Yellow Brandywine, Cherokee Green, and Thorburn’s Terra-Cotta. Valencia seeds came as a free sample, and the only cherry tomato that I eat after the salads and slicers come in is Sun Gold.
One summer when I was laid off, I grew a dozen plants each of Black Krim and Sudduth, and canned sauce and juice from each. THAT was some good eating, throughout the winter!
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Dorothy, how lucky! I’m envious. Although I’ve always wondered what those parks and gardens look like the rest of the year.
frosty
I’m a little envious of all of you. For one reason or another we’ve been traveling in the spring for the last couple of years so my square foot gardens have been bare – no tomatoes or anything else. It going to make an effort to plant some Fall harvest veggies this year.
in any case my tomato varieties are very boring. Hybrids from the local nurseries. I’ve had the best luck with cherries but I don’t recall the name right now. Super 100 or something like that?
Betsy
@artem1s: Thanks for the tips. Believe me, I’m an old hand at this and even start plants from seeds I got direct from Craig LeHouillier and the local master gardeners. Years and years under my belt and notebooks full of monitoring and results.
I think the real issue now though, is that I am just too busy to look after the plants properly in high summer, and I’ve developed more allergies in the garden which discourages me from spending more time on their maintenance. Also, I often go away in summer these days. So my “skill” at heirlooms has declined.
Heirloom tomatoes are a crop for the diligent and steady, which I evidently no longer am! I will do my Green Giant since it’s the lowest-maintenance and most reliable + tasty one I love. Plus cherry heirlooms for their productivity and lower level of “need”
Betsy
@stinger: Jaune Flammee and Kellogg’s Breakfast are two of my faves, also. Doing Sungold this year, as I’m right sick of my traditional Super Snow White (a great pale yellow cherry tomato, but my taste buds just crave a new flavor) and I love reliable and super-tasty sungolds.
MazeDancer
@Starfish: May you have luck with your bean plants.
But my experience the effort and space is not worth it.
Takes bushels of beans to get a cup of dried ones. They taste no better than organic or heirloom ones you can get locally, or from heirloom suppliers.
Betsy
@debbie: OH, YUM. I love those kinds of summer suppers.
Another cold supper favorite of mine is tomatoes and peaches sliced, and sprinkled with feta cheese crumbles, or cotija cheese crumbles (aka the salty Mexican cheese that is served on refried beans in typical American Mex restaurants).
Can also add a few ribbons of fresh thai or purple basil to the plate.
Or vary it up by using peaches, cucumbers, and feta. Oh, summer.
Betsy
@Geminid: I like Tomato Tone.
debbie
@Betsy:
Thanks for those suggestions!
Betsy
@Anne Laurie: I was gonna add, a Celeste fig tree will have so much fruit on it in late summer that squirrels and bluejays leave your tomatoes alone.
The bluejays are real cute when they fly away with a whole fig in their beak held by the stem, looking just like a cartoon bank robber making off with a bag of cash.
JAM
This year I’m only growing 4 plants, Cherokee Purple, Sioux, San Marzano and Sungold. I’ve never grown San Marzano before, but I wanted a good chopping tomato, so I hope it works out. Sioux is an old-fashioned orangey red slicing tomato that does well in hot climates. We only eat them fresh, so I don’t need a lot of tomatoes. I buy them from a local grower inTulsa, Lisa Merrell (Tomato Man’s Daughter)–she raises them herself and they always do well here. This is the first year I am using raised beds, I usually just put them in the ground.
Betsy
@debbie: You’re welcome. Got the idea from a friend in desert produce-growing country that I visited. We’d come in to the cool house all tired and hot and and thirsty from desert adventures, and the salty-juicy combination just hit our cravings on the mark.
Betsy
I just realized I have been sort of a cranky wet blanket all over your heirloom tomato thread. Yikes. Bad manners. Sorry. It’s a dispiriting time for everyone, and I struggle with tiredness and feeling jaded. But oh, these descriptions of everyone’s favorites — it does make me want to pretend I have the energy. I wish we could have a tomato-tasting picnic from all over the country!
frosty
Aha! So that’s why I haven’t had a lot of success with them!
stinger
@Betsy: Not at all! I certainly have less energy even as I now have more time for the garden. But tomato hope springs eternal!
I haven’t had much luck with the farmers’ market sellers knowing the varieties of tomatoes (and other produce) they’re selling! Maybe my timing is just poor and I’m being waited on by relatives/friends who didn’t participate in the growing. But to me that’s the whole point of farmers’ markets, is food produced by people who know and care about what they’re doing.
Jude
Late to the thread from sleeping in. Yes to that! I’m especially proud to announce I managed to fill four 5 gallon buckets of decayed compost yesterday. Black gold!
San Marzanos grow like weeds in my pocket of WI. One year a weeping willow branch fell on their row. They couldn’t have cared less. I do tons of dried tomatoes with them.
Green zebra, Early Girl for insurance and lack of patience, and Mr Stripey which is another TOUGH tomato. Every year a random yellow pear cherry pops up. I love that plant.
J R in WV
Our big spring deal is watching the tadpole population in our tiny pond y the front door. We’ve had at least 3 species of frogs lay various shapes of egg masses, and some sort of mystery amphibians laid 3 opaque white egg masses a little larger than a fuzzy ping-pong ball — probably a large woodland salamander.
Hearing them splishing and frolicking in the tiny pond this time of year gives us both the best feelings that spring has sprung.
I’ve been planting ramps on the hillside out past the tiny pond and now we have enough to actually dig a few without harming the general population. They spread with underground runners as well as setting seeds in the fall, so will become thicker as the years pass.
The trout lillies are doing well in 3 big patches, and the bluebells are in a naturally reproducing patch behind the house beside the wet weather waterfall. I really LOVE spring, cool nights and warm afternoons.
Thanks everyone for participating in B-J threads, you guys are a large part of my social network, and disease free also too!
kindness
The last two years my best flavored tomatoes were Purple Cherokee and Black Cherokee. Delicious
I grow Yellow Italian Bell tomatoes for my salads.
Scout211
After about 10 years, I needed to add more soil to my raised beds. They lose soil eventually. I had 3 cubic yards of soil enriched with all kinds of organic material and compost delivered to my property. My neighbor came over to study the soil and remarked that this mix would be very popular with our local weed growers.
Oh! So that’s why that soil mixture is called “Happy Hippie.”
Cool. I have been very happy with it. ?
JAM
@Jude: A few years ago, a tornado on Memorial Day knocked down a big old tree right on my tomato row. The cages were destroyed so badly that I had to cut them away, but the plants bounced back– luckily they were still fairly small. Tomatoes are tougher than most people think.
Jude
Going back over comments I’m realizing I’ve been kind of hard on myself with my yields. That, or some of you are even more self-deprecating than I.
I do have an incredible technique that has been a profound game-changer. I mentioned in my other post those San Marzanos that got hit with the top of a massive willow branch. The mess and efforts to deal with that had me truly neglecting these plants. At harvest, I had to hack through tangles of tomatoes, with half the yield ruined on the ground. I still got, gosh, at least three 5 gallon buckets to use out of about 6-7 plants.
This is what I do: Mounded rows, not too disturbed, but ready to receive plants. Lay out a couple layers of brown builders paper. (newspaper works too, but I no longer have any. Besides the long sheets are easier to hold down with rocks). Cut an X into the spot where the transplant goes. Dig a hole through the X and add the tomato and a scoop of compost. The tomato cages hold the paper down. I also weigh them down with grass clipping mulch.
This is labor intensive, but cuts down on loads of labor later. Less watering, less weeding, less blight
@JAM Right! Tough bastards!
StringOnAStick
I’ve only got a 90 day growing season here, so cherry tomatoes are the reasonable choice. I have grown Matt’s Wild Cherry before and loved the flavour so I’m trying that here at the new home, plus a greenhouse tomato called Sakura, which I didn’t realize was a greenhouse tomato when I bought the seeds, so we’ll see. It’s a large cherry. I guess I’ll try to make a tunnel System for it for better production.
Luckily being just east of the Cascades and in a town big on locavore foods means lots of heirlooms at the farmers markets and organic grocery stores.
Starfish
@MazeDancer: Yeah, last year, I had maybe three or four bean pods total. It was useless for anything.
frosty
@Starfish: Last time I planted pole beans they shot up, lots of leaves, very healthy, not a single bean pod. I think too much nitrogen in the soil.
Even in the best of times I get maybe two servings out of 16 plants. Definitely not worth it.
opiejeanne
Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes and several other things because of the Heat Dome event in June. We watered 3 times a day, moved everything from the greenhouse into the shade, but we lost most of the crop.
This year we have 6 varieties of tomatoes, none with their true leaves yet: Brandywine, Early Girl, Super Fantastic, Juliet, San Marzano, and Sungold. So far, 15 have sprouted, and Early Girl was the last. Mr opiejeanne picked up an Early Girl plant at the permanent open-air market because we were starting to despair of getting a seedling to sprout. Here in the PNW, Super Fantastic is the best tomato I’ve found. My husband insists on growing Early Girl because it did so well in Anaheim, where everything did so well, and Brandywine is my own favorite bugaboo. It does so-so here, but the few tomatoes we get are divine. This year I’m going to grow one in the greenhouse.
opiejeanne
@frosty: I grew two pole bean types last year, Rolas de Papas and Annie Jackson, and two bush varieties: Marfax and Rosso di Lucca. The two pole types produce very beautiful dried beans, the Rolas De Papas make delicious soups and soften easily. Annie Jackson is a bit tougher to cook with. Marfax is a smallish golden bean that makes brilliant baked beans, but I had to rescue the pods from the mud and spent too much time bending over. Rosso di Lucca was the most prolific of the bunch, and another tough bean. Altogether, I got more than four pints of dried beans from about sixteen plants. This year I’m growing them where I’ve grown corn in the past, to improve the soil. No sweet corn or potatoes this year, I think.
docNC
The only two things that money can’t buy
What are true love and homegrown tomatoes, Alex?
Comrade Colette
@opiejeanne: Juliet! Thanks! That’s the variety I was trying to remember – it’s done great in my San Francisco yard the past two years, but I stupidly didn’t write down the name and my old brain lost it. I need to find one of those. I just planted Sun Gold, my old standby and the only one that always does well here. I try one new variety each year and this year it’s New Girl – supposedly with all the virtues of Early Girl, which I dislike, but better flavor. We’ll see.
SF is notorious for its microclimates and I swear my backyard is in a different zone than my front yard. We also have a short growing season and highly variable weather from summer to summer, so the variety that flourished one year can be a total dud the next. Low expectations are the only way I can keep gardening.
way2blue
Sweet 100s and Sun Golds. I don’t have the patience to wait for larger tomatoes to ripen. And they’re great in salads. But I do love BIG red ones for slicing—with a dusting of salt & splash of balsamic vinegar…
opiejeanne
@Comrade Colette: We believe that our front yard and back yard have different climate zones too. I’ll swear that it rains harder in back than in front, same with snow.
Anne Laurie
@Betsy: Yes, since I got that good advice from a gardening friend many years ago, I’ve always had a ‘squirrel watering’ dish near my tomato plants that I can refill when I water them. And usually, it works! But last year, instead of the one-small-bite-ruining-each-tomato squirrel / chipmunk damage, something was chomping whole near-ripe tomatoes, leaving nothing but a shred or two at the end of each stem. Possum, rat, raccoon, fox… or, my worst fear, a coyote, since we’ve still got one small elderly dog…
As for a ‘sacrifice crop’, my tomato driveway is right next to a full-sized multi-graft cherry tree. The Spousal Unit, who grew up in The Cherry Tree Capital of the World, loves to watch our two trees blossom every spring… but we are never organized enough to gather more than the handful of ripe fruit we can reach without ladders before the birds, squirrels & etc. beat us to it. My gift to the local wildlife!
Scout211
@Anne Laurie:
Do you have deer in your area? Around my area, high fencing or deer netting is required to protect your tomatoes or they will have a feast.
ETA. .Here are a few suggestions if you suspect that the deer are eating your tomatoes.
Anne Laurie
We always bought a Matt’s Wild Cherry to trail over the side yard fence for our late, beloved dog Zevon to ‘steal’ the ripe fruit. He just loved those tomatoes, not to mention the idea he was getting away with larceny.
Zevon died in the autumn before the pandemic, and neither I nor the Spousal Unit are quite ready to look at the ripe trusses of little scarlet fruit again…
Anne Laurie
Our house is one of a (grandfathered) handful in a commercial / industrial area — there’s a busy freeway offramp behind us, a strip mall down the block, and a big storage facility next door. We did have a moose sighting one year (beast was filmed by the local news in the National Tire & Battery parking lot), but it’s a little too urban for even the suburban ‘horned rats’ some of our friends in leafier suburbs complain about!
Betsy
@Comrade Colette: I love that you have different micro climates in your back and front yard! Sounds entirely plausible to me. Shade and slopes and exposure to even slight prevailing winds can influence temperature and humidity a lot. That sounds like a great adventure in gardening.
Betsy
@Anne Laurie: You’re so generous to all the critters, wild and kept. That was one lucky doggy. Sorry you’re grieving.
Betsy
@J R in WV: That all sounds like paradise.