Siberian Tomatoes

I remember someone talking about Siberian tomatoes last year. Where is a good place to order the plants???

Siberian tomatoes can be determinate ( bush type) or indetermnate ( vining type) and there are scads of different varieties.

Siberian just indicates the presumed original source but there are big ones and little ones and awful ones and good ones and some are short season varieties and some are long season varieties.

So without knowing which specific varieties you're interested in it's hard to tell you what the next move might be.

What I mean by that is that few mail plant places offer Siberians and a lot of mail order plant places are no longer taking orders at this time of the year.

One place you might check, because in the past they usually have offered a few Siberain varieties, although I didn't check for this year, is Territorial Seeds, which you can find at Google.com if you don't have the catalog.

Hope that helps a bit.

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn. We have a short growing season here and wanted something that can take some cold. Oh, I don't want the awful ones. LOL

lizh, is your growing season really that short down there in NC? Even in NJ I can direct-sow tomatos and be picking them by August. Lots of people grow 'Siberia' and 'Siberian' in an effort to have extra early tomatoes. John

Anyone know if "Moskvich" is considered Siberian? If so, I have some plants I can send you lizh.

lizh,

My closest tomato buddy lives near Raleigh and he started just last week selling tomato plants at the Farmers Market so I know folks will be planting out plants within the next two weeks since he prefers to sell 4-5 inch plants.

I agree with John that in a 6b area you don't have a short growing season. I should be so lucky as to be in a 6b gardening zone. (smile)

But if it's plants of the short season Siberians you want I still suggest going to the Territorial Seeds website and looking for same in the plants that they offer. I think Siletz was one of them.

And a Siberian origin, in general, does not always indicate cold tolerance although some of them will set fruits at a somewhat lower temperature.

I think you have to balance setting fruits at a lower temp and a somewhat lessened taste experience against growing varieties that maybe set fruits a week or two later with much better taste.

I gave up growing early varieties years ago becasue I'd rather wait for some great tasting varieties to enjoy. But then, I'm not the kind of person who has to have the first ripe tomatoes in the area. Just me.

Carolyn

One of the finest reasons for growing 'Siberian' tomatoes in my area, zone 8, is that the wretched things - if planted just after our last frost date, 1st June - actually fruit before mid-August.

In these parts, Siberian usually means 'early' tomatoes.

That's very important because... the whole of the UK (plus, it seems, central Europe) comes down with tomato blight in mid-August.

So we can get at least some fruit out before they turn to mush.

Other early cultivars I swear by are 'Alaskan Fancy' and 'Sashai's Altai' (whereof I have had much goodly correspondence in this Forum with Carolyn 'ere now).

They fruit early enough to be harvested before the dreaded Beaumont Point hits. And blight is inevitable.

That said... I'm also growing Snow White Cherry - and other cherry cultivars - this year. Because, even with blighted plants touching them, they seem totally resistant to blight.

Methinks, there's a doctoral thesis to be had in all this, somewhere...

Hey you guys, there is a BIG differnce between Raliegh and up here in the mountains. We almost always have a frost the last week of May and before September is over, we will have another one. Belive me, I have lost too many plants so I don't set them out till June 1st. When I say short growing season, I'm comparing here and when we lived on the coast.
Shoe, thank you so much but I'll check with the green houses up here. maybe they will have some this year.

Lizh,

If you can get your last frost the end of May and you don't plant out until the begining of June then you and I have about the same growing season because I do the same.

And our first Fall frost can be as early as the first week in September. Last Fall it was later, but the two years before that it was Sept 7 and Sept 9, not that I remember such dates or anything. LOL

And I still don't consider that I have a short growing season and I can mature all of the late season varieties except for a few of the verryyyy long season large bicolors.

Carolyn

Carolyn, I just found this thread, and I want to say Thank You! I'm now not going to worry so much about the length of my growing season. I can adapt, just as I have done for years with the plants I bought at walmart before.

I only started worrying about the length of my growing season when I got interested in heirloom tomatoes and starting them from seed, then planting them outside in the garden. (Still a newbie at all this :))

Now I'm wondering why I was stressing out about it so much. No need. I already know how to cover plants for the first few weeks in spring and the last few weeks in fall.

Opps, sorry to highjack this thread. I just had to tell Carolyn Thank You!