It's time to start those fall seeds...what are YOU growing?

My Spring season is ending very soon, and I've had my best year EVER! We've devoured, canned, frozen and pureed over 300lbs worth of maters! I have to say I'll miss eating fresh for a few months but I'll be soooo happy for the break in the processing and canning.

I grow my own as well as several neighbors seeds so I'll have well over 150-200 seedlings to raise again this season.

My question is this, my neighbor has Amish as well as Jersey Giant, both paste she'd like to grow in the ground. Since I've started canning I would love to have a paste but I've never had luck with any in my climate in the EB's does anyone have experience with paste in this area growing in an EB?

So far the list are:

Neighbors

Jersey Giant
Bonny Best
Beefsteak
Amish


Mine
Vorlon (mid season) not the most productive but very good flavor

Pruden's Purple (mid season & meatier) plus I like PL plants

Southern Night (mid season another PL)

Bella Rosa (Mid season) I grew this the first year and it was great for a hybrid..this last season I had to pull due to EXCESSIVE BER. So I"ll give it another shot before it's out of the rotation.

Uncle Mark Bagby ( mid) grew this season and while not super prolific it's a pretty plant with a very nicely flavored fruit. Again it's a PL

Black Early (early to mid) Grew this season and while the taste is good without being great it was wildly prolific, compact and super early! Beat my cherry tomatoes which never happens.

Pierce's Pride (mid) prolific with good (not great) taste

Black Giant - (mid) good taste and good production

Black Oxheart (a.k.a. Brad's Black Heart) Mid season, meaty and good flavor

Royal Hillbilly - (mid- late)

Black Bear - (mid season) good tasting and productive

Spudatula (mid) a cross of a BFT and PL..really do I need to say more?

Gary'O Sena - (mid) great plant but grows large

Spudakee Purple (mid) CP with PL

Roger's Best Black (mid) Very similar to Black Krim IMHO but with a little more cracking. Due to our lack of rain this season did well


Would love feedback

I have never considered Amish Paste to be a paste variety b'c it has far too many seeds IMO. Some varieties were named pastes just b'c of the shapes they have and another example is Lillian's Red Kansas Paste which isn't a paste either.

I know lots of TX growers who grow pastes with no problems but to tell you the truth most of my tomato friends long ago gave up on pastes and use great tasting other varieties. And that's b'c most pastes are NOT known for great taste, are more susceptible to BER and same for Early Blight ( A. solani).

Have you considered the following pastes which I do think have pretty good tastes?

Mama Leone
Heidi
Opalka
Martino's Roma
Kenosha
Tony's Italian
.......just to name a few.

Do you also want feedback on the other varieties you listed? I mean I could for some, but I grow OP varieties for taste and so what I think is tasty may not be that way for others.

And I see you're growing several PL versions of original RL's and in another thread here we've been discussing that and I still have to come back and discuss the genetics of that b'c the fact is that very few PL versions are the same as the original RL's b'c more than one gene, the leaf gene, has been involved in that change.

Carolyn, whose plants just arrived onThursday from Craig L from Raleigh so it looks like, with some luck, that they'll be MY FALL tomatoes, no need to sow seeds for Fall tomatoes where I am. LOL For several years now I send seeds to Craig and he raises them and then three others do seed production for me. No can do being chained to this walker.

would love feedback of any kind. This was a strange year for me as far as seeds. I normally order in large amounts in Nov or Dec depending on when I get my catalog and sit down and pour over it like a kid with the Sears Catalog. This year we had family in from Chile for the month of December as well as I had a charity event in the first week of Jan that took me months to plan..sooo my seed picking/ordering was rushed and due to that I now find myself with only a select few to grow out. Some of these might not reflect my favorites more what Ihave on hand.

I do like PL plants, I don't tend to grow them because they are PL versions of fav's more that they are tomatoes I like who also happen to be PL.

You know I love blacks...the same tomatoes I grow here are spitters for others, not sure if it's the weather, the EB's or something in the water *G* but I do love my blacks and purples and always on the look out for new ones to try.

I won't be picking ripe tomatoes for at least four weeks, but so far they are looking good!

Honeybee I hope you have as good a year as I did..I have several new choices (veggie wise) for this years cole crop and I'm very excited.

Carolyn, I agree taste is subjective heck it's even different year to year individually!

*G* I'd kill to have 15 minutes alone with Craig's seed stash...Add a side trip in Brad Gates stash and I'd be in heaven.

araness - now that my hubby has cleared away some of the running bamboo from the south end of our garden, I am planning an extensive winter vegetable garden of broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and beets. I also have lots of "old seed" that I plan to scatter to see what happens. LOL

I sowed some old pea seeds this spring and to my delight they grew!

araness, I'm with ya about Craig's seed stash.... drooling here... Who is Brad Gates??? not heard of him. Please enlighten...LOL

thanks
Jan

ok, I just googled Brad Gates, so I now know about him, wow.........

thanks

This message was edited Jun 3, 2012 9:28 AM

So none of you want access to my total seed bank which is far greater than Craig's since I've grown so many more varieties than him? LOL

When you mention Brad Gates he hasn't grown that many either so are you talking about access just to the ones he offers which came about b'c, as I tell him, he grows atop f a nuclear waste dump. LOL

And you want to get to just the dwarf varieties that Craig has that were not done by him, but others in the dwarf project? He's the coordinator, the facilitator and the one who sends seeds to participants for growouts and gets seed back, and on an on. A HUGE job.

So are you after folks who breed tomatoes, and hopefully offer them or are you interested in folks who have grown thousands such as Neil Lockhart and Bill Minkey and myself?

Just curious about this.(smile)

As for me I'm not that interested in Brad's varieties based on the tastes that folks have reported for many of them so kind of look them being something like Ananas Noir, with multiple colors inside and out or like Captain Lucky for same.

Thank heavens we all pretty much like different kinds of tomatoes or it would be a dull tomato world indeed. (smile)

Carolyn, who is always suggesting that folks BUY a certain number of the seeds they think they need, notice I said THINK they need, and there are plenty of places selling seeds for the dwarf Tville ones and while Brad sells his off his own website there are others who sell them as well.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Category:Brad_Gates

Above is the current list of his varieties but I didn't check Tania's list of varieties she sells to see how many of them she sells seeds for.

Panic, I'm sitting back here and hear this loud noise form the LV and I know what happened. My new Dish receiver box has an enersaving feature, which I hate which means if you don't switch channels at least once it turns off after about 4 hours, but the screen stays on, like snow, as does the volume, so I jsut had to go out and lower the volume, turn it off and then turn it back on again. If that's the worst of what I have to deal with today, that's fine, but now it's time to get back out there and watch the tennis from the French Open in Paris.

Carolyn, who didn't bother to edit. Just change the spelling of anything you think is wrong. LOL

ROFLMAO...Caroyln I'll nab all I can!

I buy most of mine, I have this mental issue with trade seeds. I always plant WAY to many of them, taking the pessimistic view that they probably won't germinate then I end up with either to few or waaay to many.

And yes if we all didn't like different kinds it would be a very dull world. It also amazes me that the same plant can taste so different from one plant to the next with different conditions such as soil, water etc. I'm lucky to be able to test this since just a few feet away from my 25+ earthboxes is a neighbor who does everything in the ground. We are as different as night and day in our methods. She's a very nervous new gardener, all organic, who spends hours inspecting, journals, inspecting for bugs etc. Waters with straight city water and compost.

I on the other hand toss my plants into a EB, spray with Ortho and have the boxes on a filtered automatic watering system. I try to keep the bugs and disease away but I've been doing this for about 9 years now so I know some season I win some I don't and as long as I have enough to eat I'm happy. I'm a horrible journal keeper and unless a bug introduces itself formally I let it live and let live... all of that said we can have the same plants and they don't taste the same...heck in some cases they don't even LOOK that much alike.

I love this hobby, it never gets old and I can never have enough seeds...and I can NEVER have to many EB's. Don't ask my husband these same questions or you will get a much different answer

and just why woud you think I've left you out....Carolyn,,,,LOL

Do you have a site where you have your varieties listed and what your costs are? I'm more of an eastern anyway.... Although, I did live in SanDiego, then Santa Anna. Loved how you never missed out on anythig due to rain, but didn't much care for the earthquake that I went through nor the santa anna winds....filled my house up with sand in 3 hours time through open windows... But as I grew older and really started to garden, I began a love afair with Mr. Rain and Mrs. Sunshine.

or might you have a thread that lists your varieties? I'm all came.

I mainly am interested in the dwarfs due to limited growing space here at the rental house.

I love growing, just plain and simple. It is being outside and watching something grow that you can eat yourself, and not have to worry about what was done to it before it reached you. I love the challenges that gardening brings to my life, some I win and some I don't but I learn a lot and meet some pretty amazing folks along the way.

Jan