Dawn,

I thought you chose to freeze instead of canning tomatoes?

I am going to have all of my fall tomatoes in the ground by the first week of June this year. Last year my fall tomatoes that I planted in the first week of July, didn't get ripe before the freeze. I am going to order some from tomatobabycompany.com and then I have the seedling from the Brandyboy, Prudence Purple and Bakers Family Heirloom. Sheri

Thats a big list Dawn

I was in on a late trade for seeds. I started them Just over a month ago.

Delicious Beef Steak

Gold Current

Garden Peach

Fuzzy Peach

GoldenJubilee

Ferris Wheel

Green Zebra.

Kellogs Breakfast

I think i will wait another two weeks then put them in the ground.

I bought a 7 quart canner. I am going to give it a go this year. Can some sliced some whole and some spagetti sauce.

Do you think I could do it outside with a turkey fryer? I sure don't want to get the house to hot.

I pulled a sucker off my Arkansas traveler and stuck it in the ground. It is a couple of weeks old now.

Sheri,

I freeze, can and dry. Some years I do more of one than the other. Some days I do all three in the same day. (sigh) You can even make tomato preserves, you know. Sometimes, after a long, hot day in the kitchen, I swear I am never going to do any of them again. But, then, I think about how good dried cherry tomatoes taste in salad in the winter.....yum! I've been trying really hard to space my plantings so I won't be trying to put up tomatoes, onions, beans, corn, peppers and pickles all at the same time. I like preserving food for future use, but at times it wears me out, esp. in June when it seems like we have a family member's birthday (and party) every week.

At least this year (because all the fruit got blown off the trees by those awful winds), I won't be trying to put up peaches, plums and apricots at the same time. LOL Well, I might, if I visit the Farmer's Market!

You seem a lot more prepared to get the fall tomatoes off to a good start this year.....of course, it helps that we aren't getting 2" or 3" of rain per week every week.!

Terrence,

A lot of people do their canning outside using a turkey fryer. I bet if you asked about it on the Harvest Forum, someone could tell you how they do it.

You've got some nice tomatoes on that list. I've grown all of them except Ferris Wheel.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Harvest Forum

I would like to try my luck at drying some this year. I have a small dehydrator with several trays. Is that how you do it? Which tomato varity dries best?

Carol,

I think Dawn said the Prince Borgese dries the best.

Dawn,

Did you say they taste better froze than canned? For some reason I thought freezing was the best way to go. Not that ever actually froze any of mine, but this I am going to do something. I don't want to go 6 months without anymore.

I am getting ready to order tomato plants.

Which Giant Tomato did you say has a giant taste? You told me last year, I can't find it. Omar's Lebanese, Big Zac, Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red?????? or maybe it was a different one. ..Coustralee....

Which of these did you like best,(best tasting, I don't care about yield) could you rate them in order please: Lillian's Yellow, Yellow Brandywine, Dr. Wyches Yellow, Kellogs Breakfast.

Have you ever tried Country Taste, Beleive it or Not, Eernies Plump, and Richardson, Vintage Wine? Sheri

Carol,

Principe' Borghese is THE classic tomato grown for sun-dried tomatoes. I have dried them by pulling up the entire plant and hanging it upside down in my tornado shelter. (I don't know if that will work in parts of the state that have high humidity.) You can dry any of them, though. The more water/juice they have (in general), though, the longer it takes to dry them.

If you dry the little cherry, currant or grape tomatoes, they all dry pretty fast. You then can put them in zip-locks, jars or plastic containers and freeze them, or you can preserve your "sun-dried" tomatoes in olive oil, no matter how you dried them. In the winter, thaw and pop a handful of those little tomatoes into your salads and they are just so yummy.

I dry them in a food dehydrator, and if I have a lot to do at once, sometimes dry them in an oven set at "warm". It can heat up the kitchen though.

Sheri,

Different tomatoes taste better to me frozen than canned. When I freeze them it is with the intention of pulling them out of the freezer in the winter and using them in cooking, whether in sauce or soup or whatever. Sometimes I make spaghetti sauce and freeze it instead of canning it. (Canning makes my west-facing kitchen so hot! I wish the trees we planted 9 years ago would hurry up and get taller.)

Lots of large tomatoes have great flavor and it varies from year to year and even from plant to plant. Tomato taste is VERY subjective though, so one that tastes great to me might not taste to you, and vice versa.

Of course, the best is Brandywine, but it produces small crops in our heat. (Red Brandywine produces smaller fruit than the pink varieties, but it does produce a heavier crop.) Brandy Boy is outstanding, is a heavy producer and has great disease resistance. Cuostralee is yummy. I have grown Big Zac and it wasn't big for me (it was a horrible drought year, though) and it didn't taste good either. Omar's Lebanese was good but only average-good, if you know what I mean. Not outstandingly good. Mortgage Lifter is one of my favorites taste-wise. (But, Sheri, I have at least 50 favorites, and it is hard for me to pick just one or two!) I love the flavor of some of the large-fruited pink varieties, like German, German Queen, Valena Pink and Caspian Pink. I love the flavor of Dr. Wyche's Yellow, but they aren't really big. Nebraska Wedding (an orangey-gold) has wonderful, wonderful flavor and is a big producer for me. Cherokee Purple is outstanding.

Best tasting, in order from best to worst, as grown in our garden and our climate, were: Yellow Brandywine, Dr. Wyche's Yellow (and I love that it is an Oklahoma heirloom from the Hugo area too!), Kellogg's Breakfast (just doesn't grow well for me although lots of folks love it), and Lillian's Yellow.

I haven't grown Country Taste, Believe It Or Not, or Ernie's Plump. I have tasted Ernie's Plump grown by someone else and it was OK, but nothing outstanding. Richardson is pretty good, but I don't care for Vintage Wine. However, I grew it in a rainy year, so its' flavor might have been watered down by the excessive rainfall.

Usually my favorite tomato is the one I am eating at the moment. By that, I mean.....I'll slice up a Nebraska Wedding and we'll eat it on sandwiches, and I'll say to myself "This is the best ever. My favorite." Then, the next day, we'll have some Brandy Boys, and I'll say "Wait, this is the best ever!" Then, on the third day, we'll have Black Krim or Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe, and I'll say "Oh, wow, the best ever!" So, it isn't that there is one single best-flavored one (other than Brandywine which simply is the best, no matter what), but rather that there are many outstanding ones. If I could grow only 10 tomatoes for flavor, I'd grow: Brandywine Sudduth's, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Nebraska Wedding, Big Rainbow, Brandy Boy, Indian Stripe, Black Cherry, SunGold and Cuostralee. If I could add 5 more, I think I'd choose Snow White, Porterhouse, Pruden's Purple, Earl's Faux and Little Brandywine. If I could add another five, Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Green, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Pineapple (or Hawaaiian Pineapple or Black Pineapple) and San Marzano Redorta. (If I could only grow one paste, it would be San Marzano Redorta.) See, I could add to the list endlessly, and they all have good flavor. Almost every heirloom I've ever tasted has fairly superior flavor as long as it isn't one that is grow merely because it has giant-sized fruit. Some of the ones that make smaller fruit, like Arkansas Traveler, Bradley Pink, Mule Team, Boxcar Willie and Porter/Improved Porter are great too and often produce a larger yield per plant because they make so many small to medium-sized slicers.

I don't know if my answers helped, or just made it worse. One reason I grow so many varieties is because there are so many with outstanding flavor and, no, they don't all taste the same. Heirloom tomatoes (and a very limited number of hybrids) are like wine.....every different one has different flavor, different undertones, different texture. When someone tries to describe a tomato as "salty" or "smokey" flavor, they are just trying to capture/describe that special something in a particular variety that makes their taste buds purr like a kitten.

Good luck making your selections!

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, Principe' Borghese is what I planted for drying. I think I have two or three plants and I remember giving one away.

There are so many tomato varities to choose from, it would be hard to just choose a few. I think I planted about 14 kinds, so I have nothing like your selection. I do, however, have four from your top 10 list. I doubt that our taste results would be alike anyway since we grow in such a different climate.

Our rain has now stopped but the sky is still a little too yellow to suit me. I am leaving things as they are for a few hours. There is still another storm cell coming our direction but I don't think it will get us. I can see a few tomato plants on the ground (that should have already been woven or tied up in the garden) but no damage that I have found except the one tree limb. It is a black walnut limb so that is just one more that won't produce squirrel food or drop it on my car this fall. No real loss there.

Life as a gardener is tough this year....but it does tend to make us more prayful, doesn't it? You can do all in your power to protect those plants but you reach a point when it is out of your control. Sometimes He just says, "I'm the gardener here". Actually His earth looks pretty good up our way (except for the tornado damage) and everything is pretty and green.

We drove to Joplin this week and passed through another area that was hit by the tornado. There is a beautiful home that sits by a little pond that is always just beutiful. It had trees all around in a beutiful park like setting with a little arched bridge, etc. The storm got part of the roof, the bridge, and dozens of huge trees. They were luckier than the people on the other side of the road who lost a wedding shop and a feed store. Amazing what can happen to lives in a few minutes.

For now the secret to a good garden seems to be, keep planting and keep praying.

Carol,

Life as a gardener IS tough this year! (As it is most years!) And you're right. We humans can only do so much and the rest IS in His hands. I try, every day, to be mindful of that!!!

The sheer number of tornadoes, as well as the number of F-3s, F-4s and F-5s, is remarkably high and it seems they are hitting lots of different states. I bet we have a "record year" for tornadoes in the USA this year, and that's not a good thing.

Between floods and tornadoes, Missouri has had a double whammy this year and I sure feel for the folks there.

Dawn

P.S. Please send us some of your rain. It did rain here this week but we need more. (sigh) We ALWAYS need more.

Well, I guess I started my fall tomatoes this month since I just got them planted. The Early Girl's - one looks good, the other bad. The 'Arkansas Traveler' looks great. It has one little green tomatoe on it. I just did a lasagna type bed with newspapers, two 40 lb bags of top soil, and two 40 lb bags of that really good stuff that has manure and other things in it. Can't recall the name right now. Oh, Hu-more.

My peppers are still looking puny. I top dressed with chicken manure about 4 days ago, and I guess it will take awhile to show whether or not it helps. I hope I get some more yellow pear reseeding this year. I left a few on the ground last fall.

Susan

Dawn,

That is what I wanted to know, I like the top 10, then 5 more list. I know everything is subjective of course, but when ppl who grow alot of different varieties start listing their favs, I notice there are usually a lot of similarities. Most ppl have not grown as many as you have though, so I value your opinion. I'll let you know what I end up ordering. Sheri

Tornado watch until 1AM for us.

Susan,

Sometimes I have planted tomatoes as late as the first week of June and still had them producing ripe fruit by August, so you just never really know!

Sheri,

And I keep trying more new ones every year, in case you haven't noticed!

I do grow a lot, and in a fairly small garden considering how much I pack into it! I read an article about a guy in Colorado once who grew 1500 tomato plants on a 1/4 acre plot, and he had more varieties in any given year than I could ever imagine. Did he sell them? Nope. He ate all he could, gave away the rest, and let the ones he couldn't get picked just rot there on the vine. I can't even imagine one person trying to maintain 1500 plants! He makes me look like a slacker!

Carol,

We returned home from a wedding a short while ago and I turned on the TV.....switched to the Weather Channel to check on tomorrow's forecast and.....what did I see? Your tornado watch box. I couldn't believe it. I thought to myself, "Oh, man, Carol's gonna get hit again!" Where does it end???? Hope y'all are safe and that the garden survives.

Dawn

Just a little FYI for everyone, I decided to use the rabbit food for fertilizer this year, and oh wow!! My tomato plants are looking awesome, so far. Now that they are finally starting to grow, they are a very dark shade of green, and several are already forming tomatoes in clusters. Last year they were light green, yellowing leaves, and just single tomatoes, no clusters. The only thing I can think of, is it must be the rabbit pellets, because I haven't even added any tomato-tone yet. I also added some cheap EarthGro Humus, and Peat Moss, so surely it would be either one of those making the difference.

Dawn,

I was wondering if you have any idea about how much rabbit food should be applied, I want add some to the fall tomatoes, but I started thinking, I probably don't want to add to much, since it could draw bugs to the plants, if we overfertilize. Sheri

Sherri,

I don't know if it is possible to add too much alfalfa. If you are mixing it into the soil and using it as a soil amendment (and, of course, it feeds the soil as it breaks down), you probably could add a couple of inches of the stuff to a bed and till it in. A general rule of thumb is that, if you have soil that needs to be amended, you can add about 3" or 4" to 6" of amendments (shredded leaves, compost, manure, etc.) to the top 3" of soil and till it in well. This will give you very rich soil, but it still is a slower-releasing form of nitrogen. It's not the same as putting some high-nitrogen, fast-acting type fertilizer like ammonium sulfate or ammonium nitrate on a vegetable bed.

Or, you can use the alfalfa pellets as a "mulch"-- you could put a couple of inches down on top of the soil. Every time you water or every time it rains, a little nutrition from the decomposing alfalfa would wash into the soil. There are lots of ways to use alfalfa....rototilled into the soil, on top as a feeding-type mulch, as an ingredient in alfalfa tea (just like compost tea), in a compost pile, in a layered lasagna bed, etc. I don't really think there is a "wrong" way to do it. It is an excellent way to build great soil. I started using alfalfa about 10 years ago (it's a lot easier than keeping rabbits for the purpose of having your own "rabbit manure"). (Been there, done that.) : )

I wouldn't use ONLY alfalfa since compost and manure and other things contain some other nutrients and microbes that the soil needs.

I'm glad your tomatoes are doing so well and looking so good this year. You deserve a good year this year after all of last year's weather-induced misery.

Dawn

People who grow a lot of Clematis vines say that alfalfa pellets do wonders for them. What nutrients does it provide, Dawn? I'm thinking about getting some for my other plants around the house.

Susan

Dawn, thank you for this post. I was just about to ask when to plant tomatoes for fall! I've been in Oklahoma for five months now, and I've learned so much from you!

Jennifer

Susan,

I think alfalfa, whether in pellet form or in the form of alfalfa meal has an N-P-K ratio of roughly 2% to 3% N, 0.7% to 0.8% P, and 2 to 2.25% K. Both the N and P are in a form that the plants take up and use almost immediately. In addtion, alfalfa contains many micronutrients (also known as trace elements....similar to what you get in Espoma _____-Tone products) and has growth stimulants (I'm not sure if they are enzymes or plant hormones or what, though).

Hi Jennifer!

Welcome to Oklahoma. I'm glad you're here on the forum and am happy if anything I say has helped you adjust to out climate and, especially, our weird weather. Hope all is well for you in your new home. Keep us posted on how you're doing, and don't be afraid to ask questions!

Dawn

Just killing time drinking coffee before going out into the wind to mess around with the garden, and stumbled onto the rabbit feed info. awesome, thanks from me too!

I have ordered my tomato plants for the fall garden from www.tomatobabycompany.com. I also have the ones from the seed that I have started, here is what I have so far:

Anna Russian
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Big Zac
Brandywine Suddath
country Taste
coustralee
costulo genovese
druzba
german red strawberry
julia child
marriannas peace
mexico
omars lebanese
richardson
russian 117
sioux super
ugly
vintage wine
big rainbow
chocolate stripes
black
carbon
choc. amazon
noir de cremee
paul robeson
sara black
purple clabash
aunt rubys green german
hawaiian pineapple
matts wild cherry
big rainbow
2 Ugly
Black Ethiopian
Black Prince
Blue

I have seed started for
Super Beefsteak
Sprite
Brandyboy
Brandywine red
Brandywine pink (walmart)
Bakers Family Heirloom
Prudence Purple

Seedlings from Atwoods/Walmart/Ace/Under the Sun:
Jet Star
Rutgers
Beefmaster
Marglobe
Fourth of July
Amish Paste
LaRoma
BoxCarWillie

In the Spring plot I have:
Black Pear
Jap. Black Trifle
Alamo
Prudens Purple
Black Krim
Indian Stripe (2nd with tomatoes)
Black Zebra
Sungold
Cherokee Chocolate
Persimmon
Sweet Million
Black Pearl
Brandywine red
Black Pineaple (small plant, kind of struggling)
2 Dr. Wyche Yellow
2 Cherokee Purple
Isis Candy
Ugly
Early Girl (first one with tomatoes)
Caspian Pink

Sheri,

What an awesome selection you have. I am glad you are having fun trying so many varieties.

Last year my Black Pineapple struggled too. At the time I thought it might be the excessive rainfall, but I sort of think that it might be a genetic thing with all the Pineapple varieties. The fruit, though late, were pretty tasty, considering how rainy it was. My Hawaaiian Pineapple tomato plants just will not grow. They just sit there, about 10 or 12" tall, with plants beside them that are 5' or 6' tall, and they don't do anything...don't grow, don't bloom, etc. My Pineapple tomato plants are doing a little better--about 3' tall, but still thin and weak-looking compared to other plants that were started from seed and transplanted at the same time.

The most impressive plants so far that are new to me are True Black Brandywine, which is covered in fruit and blossoms, unlike most other Brandywines, and Tess's Land Race Currant, which is growing out hortizontally like a ground cover AND vertically within its' cage. It is going to be a monster of a plant I think, and has hundreds of tiny blossoms and fruit (but most currant types do that).

Last year I noticed that Coyote spread out horizontally a lot early in the season, and then went more vertical as the season went on.

I hope your get some ripe ones soon, and have a long, successful tomato season. You'll have fun trying all the ones that are new to you!

Dawn

Dawn,

Yeah, it is going to be a great year, I am really excited about the new varieties. Well remember, last year, of all of the fall tomatoes I only got sample like 2 out of 30, because the frost got them. I can't figure out that guy planted 1500 plants on 1/4 an acre, they must have been packed!

It seems like my Prudens Purple and Black Pear are spreading out more than up too. Does the Caspian Pink usually end up being a GIGANTIC plant. Mine hasn't been in the ground as long as the others, but it doesn't seem like it is growing very fast. Last year it took off really fast and was huge. Also last year the Orange Oxheart, which was sitting right next to it, was huge too. The reason I am asking is because in that "spot" this year is the Prudens Purple, which is the largest plant so far. My son brought to attention that the duckies that didn't make it, where buried in that exact spot, probably 4 years ago. Makes me wonder if that has something to with plants in that spot thriving? I'll let you know how my Pineapple grows when I get it planted. I noticed the sweet Million is getting alot of tomatoes on it. The Cherokee Chocolate, and Black Pineapple and a few others have no blooms yet.

Sheri,

I'm sure they were packed in. When I read the book, I was amazed at how many plants he had in a small space....and he was doing it in a colder zone than ours (Colorado). Tomato mania makes people do crazy things.

Caspian Pink usually makes 5 or 6 feet in height easily before the killer summer heat slows it down and it really spreads OUT a lot too. After a while, it has grown so far beyond the cage that you cannot tell it even has a cage. By contrast, Cherokee Purple gets as tall in my garden, but not as wide and bushy.

I think the duckies probably did greatly enrich the soil as they decomposed, so maybe that is why the spot seems to be a prime spot for growing tomatoes.

I've had lots of blooms and fruitset, but the heat did slow everything down some I think. Now that the wind has backed off some (although I think it returns here either today or tomorrow), the plants are looking a lot better, and yesterday's inch of rain helped. One thing I have noticed this year that seems peculiar (maybe it is the weather) is that a lot of my plants have had more megablooms than usual. I know megablooms are common early in the growing season, but so far they continue to pop up here and there. (I guess if I was trying to grow giant competition/exhibition tomatoes, I'd be thrilled to have all the megablooms.)

I have 5 paste tomatoes that have looked bad the last few days, and I finally realized they must have been hit by some Round-up drift when I was spraying the garden fenceline near them with Round-up to kill the bermuda grass that was trying to creep through the fence and into the garden. This week I am going to lay down cardboard and cover it with mulch along that fenceline, because I have a persistent bermuda grass problem there, and don't want to use Round-up again. I think the plants will recover as only the top few inches were affected.

For some reason, all my Roma tomato plants are much larger than usual this year and I can't imagine why. They are in some of the worst soil in the garden, they were shaded by a willow tree that was growing on the banks of the retention pond at the northeast edge of the garden (DH cut that tree down Sunday), and they haven't gotten any special attention. I guess they thrive on neglect.

In any season, I have found that tomato plant varieties can behave completely differently from what they did the year before, and can even behave differently from another plant of the same variety planted right next to them. When I comment on that, my DH reminds me that plants are like children--each one is a unique living creature, and that each sibling in a human family is different from the others, just like the plants. He has a good point!

Dawn