So I take it these will all be from seeds? I am not as well prepared my thought is to do cuttings from Early Girl for a hopeful jump start. Nothing so exotic as your choices.Good luck,look foeward to progress reports.

I haven't even decided yet, but I'll post the list here when I make up my mind.

I might get to stay inside and "think" tomorrow instead of working outside, because my garden is now extremely muddy....not that I am complaining because we really need the rain.

I'll probably start the seed that I just ordered from baker creek-
Kelloggs breakfast
Thessaloniki
Pantano romanesco
Break o day
Mama leone
And maybe restate the ones from my list that didn't germinate yet. Plus Im going to try to pick up a few from sunrise acres if u can make it to the farmers market in June.

When do you plant the seeds to have your tomatoes ready to plant for a fall garden? Will the spring tomato plants be all used up by then?

Rita

Rita, You need to plant fall tomatoes in our Oklahoma gardens between July 1st and July 15th, with the earlier date being for more northern parts of OK and the later date for more southern parts of the state, so you could start your fall tomatoes from seed anytime between now and June 1st.

We plant new tomatoes for fall because the heat and pests are very hard on the plants and you'll get a better yield if you put in new plants for fall. I plant fall tomatoes in beds where I grew potatoes, cabbage, sugar snap peas, lettuce, etc. in the spring, so often I am holding my fall tomato plants just waiting to finish up the harvest of the spring cool-season veggies so I can put the fall tomatoes in the bed. For a while, I have an overlap where the beds of spring-planted tomatoes are still producing while the new plants for fall and just starting to grow and enlarge.

The same tomato plants that are simply beautiful and heavily covered in fruit and foliage in June can be exhausted, worn out and looking pretty shabby by August 1st. You can keep the spring plants producing into fall but you'll get much better harvests most years from fresh plants.

Kelly, I am still working on my list but am getting closer to having it finalized. I've narrowed it down to about 40 varieties, so I'm making progress.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Garden Planning Guide

40! Oh wow Dawn! I'm looking forward to hearing what you've chosen. Summer tomato update: 1 Red Brandywine is putting out flowers; freckled child's flowers just bloomed, Black Cherry also has flowers on it; ditto Jellybean hybrid. In sad tomato news, my crazy dog killed my Nebraska Wedding plant. I think I'm going to replace it with a Roma, or similar determinate, and build an anti-dog fence.

Kelly

Kelly,

I'm trying to narrow it down from 40 to a more reasonable number like 20 or 30. lol It is always so hard for me to restrict myself to a normal number of varieties. I think I'll end up with a mix of determinates, pastes/plums for salsa/sauce, a few long-keepers and quite a few in containers because I can carry them into the greenhouse and keep them going a little bit longer in fall.

When I get the final list, I'll post it here. I hope to start seeds no later than June 1st.

I do think you need an anti-dog fence. All my dogs are big and rowdy and are not allowed in the garden because they trample everything. My two very old dogs (one was 16 and one was 13) who were great garden companions and careful to stay only in the pathways and not in the beds both passed way in the last few months and I miss having a garden dog with me, but the other dogs aren't old enough and settled down enough yet to be allowed in the garden.

I do think that Sam, who is about 10 years old and starting to settle down and get kind of mellow and calm, has the potential to be a good garden dog. The problem with Sam is that if he sees a fox or bobcat or coon, he is going to catch it and kill it and I don't need a wild animal chase running through my garden.

You'd be surprised how often a wild animal wanders in through the garden gate while I am in the garden. It makes for some heart-stopping moments every now and then, and it is the reason a large garden needs two gates with each on opposite sides of the garden....so you can make a hasty retreat if necessary.

Dawn

These are the tomato varieties I started from seed today for fall plants. The DTMs, if known, are shown in parentheses;

Early Doll F-1 (59)
Danko (61)
Black Cherry (65)
Pruden's Purple (70)
Aplatieva 905A (65)
Tasmanian Chocolate (mid-season type)
Phoenix F-1 (72)
Celebration F-1 (72)
Fioletovyi Kruglyi (75)
Rosella Purple (mid-season type)
Cherokee Purple (80)
Black Krim (80)

I still need to start seeds of paste tomatoes for salsa and canning, and when I get those started, I'll list them. My target transplanting date is mid-July.

Dawn

Dawn,
If I wanted to try taking some cuttings for fall tomatoes, is it too early to start them now? I have 3 of these varieties that you're starting seed for today. They are Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and Black Cherry.

Suzie

Suzie,

No, I don't think it is too early to take cuttings. As far north as you are, yoc can start putting your fall plants into the ground (or containers, if that's how you're going to grow them) around July 1st.

Dawn

What are the pros/cons of doing cuttings of existing plants versus starting over with seeds for the Fall garden? I've never started a tomato plant from a cutting, but it sounds interesting!

Cal - see the linked thread below; there's even a link within that link! Dawn goes into great detail, and that should get you started.

I have a cherokee purple and a mr. stripey that have some good shoots ready for cutting. Gonna work on that tomorrow.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato cuttings

Calshep, I followed the instructions in the link that Carol re-posted above and successfully rooted 2 suckers from an Early Goliath plant last month. The plant had grown pretty large before I had a chance to get it in the ground, so I cut 3 suckers off and only lost 1 of the 3. I used the method of cutting off the sucker and placing it in moist potting soil and placing it in the shade. They were all very "wilty" for the first few days, but eventually the 2 came out of it and they look great now. I kept them constantly moist. I'm going to give it a try with Black Cherry, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple now and see how it goes.

Thanks, Dawn!

Suzie

Calshep,

In a nutshell, the big advantage of starting cuttings from current plants is that it gives you a larger plant earlier and it is a faster process. From the time you take the cutting until you can put the cutting-raised plants in the ground can take only a couple of weeks depending on how long you hold the cutting in the shade so it can make roots without fighting the heat and sunlight at the same time. The disadvantage is that if the plant has any disease or pest issues, they may develop on/in the cutting raised plant too.

With seed-raised plants, the advantage is that there are not any pre-existing diseases on the plants (assuming the seed is not infected). At this time of year, you can go from seed to transplant size in 4 or 5 weeks quite easily if you raise the seedlings outdoors so they are exposed to the heat. Otherwise, if raised indoors, you need another week to harden them off when it is time to move them outdoors.

I usually start from seed because I am planting different varieties for fall. I did start a couple of varieties for fall from seed even though I have those same varieties in the ground right now and could have used cuttings instead of seed. My plan is to take cuttings from those varieties a couple of weeks from now, root them, and then plant the seed-raised plants right beside cutting-grown plants of the same variety so I can see if there is a difference in the way they grow and perform.

Another reason I tend to start from seed for fall tomatoes is that most of my spring-planted tomato plants are mid-season or late-season varieties that take 70-90 days to produce ripe fruit. For fall, in order to get a good harvest from the fall plants, I choose varieties with shorter estimated days-to-maturity (59 to about 75 or 80). There's nothing worse in fall than having half-ripe green tomatoes all over the plants when the cold weather arrives, so plants with shorter DTMs can help you avoid that.

Dawn

Thank you ever so much everyone! This forum is priceless!

My fall tomatoes are the same plants I started in spring. Some of the tomatoes become bonsai in the little cups with lack of nutrients. Now I chapped top of the plants and panted them in new media, they started sprouting like new plants. I also thinking to plant few cuttings from the spring planting if I left some space.

It looks I nhave already fall tomatoes...Gary's Tomato Trials plants are going to produce for the fall. They are just started blooming, but not sure they will set any fruits in this heat.

-Chandra

Black Cherry
Cherokee Purple- man am I loving this tomato!!
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Brandywine Cowlick
Something black, can't read the label (Black from Tula?)
Purple Price
Black Zebra
I think there are one or two others I might be missing.

Tracy,

If you like Cherokee Purple, you might like Indian Stripe as well. It may or may not be related to Cherokee Purple, and in our garden they are very similar except IS has the obvious striping, but for us Indian Stripe produces earlier, produces heavier, and is less prone to cracking during wet spells. When I'm eating CPs and ISs, their flavor is so similar I cannot tell which is which.

There is a Black From Tula, so if your label seems like that's what it says, I bet that's what you have. The only other black I can think of that might be close in terms of label confusion would be Black Trifele.

Dawn

My Indian Stripe hasn't done a darn thing. Not even a single flower. It's a big plant. I haven't over fertilized, so I have no clue as to it's problem. Ditto for my Boxcar Willie. But the tomatoes NOT meant to do well in our climate (Brandywine, Tigerella) have set tons of fruit. Strange.

Kelly

Dawn, IS is on my wish list for the spring.
I believe the Black is Black from Tula although it could be Black Krim. I don't think I had Black Krim seeds from Baker Creek so probably Black from Tula, which I also planted this spring and is almost ripe.
I just remembered I planted Break O Day from traded seeds but they haven't germinated.
I might try green grape. I have the seeds, like greens and it would be nice to have something early.