never heard of it, but thanks for posting, I will checking this thread every day. If these are as good as your post sounds I will buy,beg, borrow or steal to get some.

Larry

Susan,

I don't spray my tomato plants with pesticides or fungicides so all my tomatoes are "sprayless".

I grew Peron for two years back in the years when I was trialing a lot of tomatoes (300-400 plants per year and about 150 varieties each year in those years, with most varieties getting 2 or 3 years to prove they were "worthy"). I grew it twice during those years and it wasn't anything special, and then I grew it again in a more recent year, and it did nothing to change my original impression of it.

In my garden, Peron was no more and no less disease tolerant in any way. It also was no more and no less pest tolerant in any way. Its' production was average, and the flavor of the fruits was average. Since I am interested in the best-tasting tomatoes, a plant has to produce above-average flavored fruit in order to earn a permanent spot in my growing rotation, and it did not.

Adam Gleckler himself on another forum said he didn't know where the 'sprayless' part came from (my guess is from the breeder) but that his family did not add that word to the name when they introduced it....so clearly it already had that name when his grandfather (or great-grandfather) introduced it. On his own website, he states only that you "may not" have to spray it and it is likely, I think, that it was one of the earlier potato leaved varieties and the PL types do have a little better disease tolerance than most RL types. I'm betting that is where it got its sprayless name---merely from the PL foliage.

Carolyn Male has stated on the Tomato Forum that it turns out Peron Sprayless isn't that disease tolerant.

Nowadays, when I'm curious about a variety I haven't tried, I always visit Craig's and Daryl Jones' websites to see if it is on their grow lists, and if it isn't, I consider that a clue, particularly since both of them grow in the hot and often humid south. Of course, I always look at what folks on this forum grow here too.

When disease tolerance is discussed in relation to tomato varieties, what they're mostly talking about is systemic diseases like fusarium wilt, and I almost never have any systemic diseases in my garden. The diseases that give me trouble some years are Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot and those are common everywhere and very few, if any, tomato varieties have tolerance to them.

In my personal opinion, which is worth approximately 2 cents, the 'Sprayless' part of the name is hype that is repeatedly endlessly by folks whose main goal is to sell us seeds.

Dawn

Susan,

I've been pondering the fact that Peron is describes as an RL because I'm almost positive that when I grew it in 2003 and 2004 it was a PL or rugose leaved plant. So, maybe there is a crossed version floating around out there with PL foliage, or maybe I am remembering the wrong tomato from those years. Or, maybe I'm remembering the plant performance correctly but the foliage incorrectly. I guess I need to start taking notes because my memory gets worse every year.

If you're looking for disease tolerance for your container-grown tomatoes, I'd like to share the following with you.

The tomatoes I grow in containers rarely get diseases and probably that's because the soil in containers is easier to manage/control/keep disease free. It also is likely a result of my efforts to keep moisture off the foliage as much as possible and to mulch heavily (mulch in the pots and on the ground where the containers are placed) to reduce soil splash which carries soilborne diseases up onto the stems and foliage of the plants.

When my tomatoes in containers get diseases, it is usually stuff like bacterial speck, bacterial spot, early blight or septoria leaf spot. Those are not the diseases which commercial breeders are working to combat in their hybrid varieties---they are working on increasing tolerance of fusarium wilt, verticillium wilt, alternaria stem canker, tomato spotted wilt virus, tomato yellow leaf curl, etc.

So, I don't make disase resistance/tolerance a huge priority when choosing varieties because the disease resistance/tolerance that varieties are tested for are not the diseases I have to worry about. I hope that makes sense.

It is much the same with pests. The main pest resistance breeders are able to breed into tomatoes is resistance to root knot nematodes. For me, that's irrelevant because I don't have RKNs in my soil. They cannot breed resistance to other common tomato pests like tomato or tobacco hornworms, spider mites, stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, blister beetles, etc. So, we gardeners have to control those pests ourselves in other ways and since I don't use chemical pesticides, I rely on organic methods like hand picking or vacuuming the pests off the plants or the release of beneficial insects.

At our house, tomato plants in containers rarely have any sort of pest problem. I don't know why. I may be seeing stinkbugs on plants in the big garden, for example, but rarely see them on plants in containers. Maybe it is just that my containers are far from the big garden and the stink bugs don't find them. I sort of doubt that though, because I have had stink bugs near the container plants and even on the ground right by the containers, but not on them. My best guess is that the container-grown plants are less stressed (because it is easier to control their moisture and fertility), and pests always seem more drawn to stressed plants. For me, the tomato plants in the ground are always more stressed than the ones in containers because their soil mix isn't as good and it is harder to maintain an even moisture level.

The plant disease I can't speak to is Late Blight. We almost never have the weather conditions that late blight needs at my end of the state. We simply stay too hot for it most of the time, at least from April through October. I do know that folks in NE OK have more of an issue with it in some years, but think that those of you in the OKC area probably don't see late blight much more than I do. I've seen it on 2 or 3 plants in my entire lifetime, and I'm 51 years old and have been around home-grown tomato plants my entire life dating way back to my childhood.

Late blight resistance/tolerance of tomatoes is sort of the "Holy Grail" all the breeders are seeking to breed into their tomato varieties, and I don't know that anyone has managed to achieve it yet. I think there are a couple of the newest hybrids (some still in the testing stage and not yet released to the public) that may show some sort of tolerance, and some folks in the affected states found some varieties tolerated LB for a while during 2009's late blight epidemic here in the USA but those plants also eventually contracted it.

I think if you can find varieties with flavor and productivity you like, you can manage the diseases and pests we have here pretty easily in containers. That doesn't mean you'll never had disease or pest issues, but rather than even when you do have them, you will be able to get a good harvest anyway by using good management techniques.

About 7 or 8 years ago I finally gave up on the idea that I had to keep beautiful, picture-perfect tomato plants going in my garden all summer long. They start looking really stressed in July and if I don't pull them out and replace them with new plants for fall, they look like crap by August. However, they're still producing tomatoes which is why, after all, I grow them. So, I've arrived at the point where I don't care what they look like after June because I'm not growing them for their looks. I'm growing them for their fruit. I do care what they look like in March, April, May and June because if they show disease issues that early, they're not likely to produce much if I can't get those disease issues under control.

I choose varieties for flavor first and productivity second. The only way I know which varieties tolerate diseases that are an issue in our area is just to try them and see.

Hope this info helps.

Dawn

Very helpful as always. Actually, I wasn't looking at Peron Sprayless in terms of "not having to spray it" because as you know, I don't use pesticides of any kind under any circumstances, and don't intend to. I just thought that if it was "sprayless" it must have some "built in" tolerance to pests and diseases, and I can always go for that.

I, too, am looking for taste and productivity. Pretty equal importance on both counts. However, I'd rather have one tasty tomatoe than 10 spitters.

I'm particularly looking for these qualities: size (for container culture). Not trying to grow Jack's Beanstalk in a teacup, altho Rutgers did very well in a 5-gallon purely by accident since I thought I had the determinate. But I think about what it "could" have done in a larger one.

Second and third, in either order, is taste and productivity.

Fourth is variety: a good mix, albeit small number, of small-medium fruit, cherries, currant, drying. Of those, I want to include some bi-color, black, orange, pink. GWRs don't appeal to me visually and yellows and whites don't seem to have a lot of bold flavors that I like in tomatoes according to the descriptions I've read.

What kind of tomato do you grow for salsa and sphagetti/pizza/marinara sauces? I have the container post, but I'm not sure about whether that would require growing a paste or a canning tomato, and what the heck is the difference??? There are a lot of critics out there regarding Romas. I've also read that some of the pastes, especially Romas, don't have much flavor, true or not? In that light, someone wrote that it's not tasty enough to eat fresh, then it's not good enough to eat canned or sauced. Not planning on canning after I thought about it, since I probably can't grow enough tomatos to warrant it. Even a couple of plants wouldn't be enough to make it worthwhile. But I would like to make some fresh sauces and salsa like I mentioned.

Thanks again!

Susan

Susan,

We use different tomatoes for pico de gallo, salsa and spaghetti sauce.

For fresh pico de gallo, we prefer the flavor of our favorite black tomatoes like Black Krim, Indian Stripe or True Black Brandywine.

For cooked/canned salsa, we use a combination of whatever paste types we have handy, which means this year it was Heinz 1439, Heidi and Santa Clara Canner. I didn't always have enough of them on any given day, so sometimes I purchased plain old Roma tomatoes at Wal-mart to add to the home-grown ones I had to give me the number of pounds needed for a big batch of salsa. I canned about 100 jars of salsa....at some point I stopped counting.

For pasta sauce, we prefer to use a blend of regular (not paste) O-P types, usually blacks, purples and pinks. Sometimes I'll mix in some paste tomatoes with the regular O-Ps, but usually I save the paste toms for salsa. The flavor of a pasta sauce made from a blend of regular O-P tomatoes can be just superb. When using regular tomatoes instead of the meatier paste types, you do have to cook down the sauce a bit longer to get it to the right consistency.

Back when I grew only hybrids, we liked Viva Italia and after I started growing O-Ps, we found Polish Linguisa and Opalka to have better flavor than the average Roma type. However, then I started mixing in Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Pruden's Purple, Stump of the World, Traveler, Caspian Pink and other OPs with the paste types, and discovered that was what we liked best of all. We also have grown San Marzano types a lot and like San Marzano Redorta best of all the SM types we've grown. For 2011, we're going to grow Franchi-Simenti's "Scatalone", which is described as a San Marzano type, for the first time, along with the Heinz, Heidi and Santa Clara Canner varieties I mentioned previously. Franchi-Sementi does have a determinate San Marzano type called "Astro" that might work well in containers, but I haven't tried it. I have it and F-S's Red Pear (a piriform type) on my tentative list to grow for 2012.

Some paste types taste good to me, but others taste sort of bland. I think a lot depends on the spaghetti sauce recipe you use. Some folks like a very tomatoey sauce with only a little garlic or maybe onion added. Others like for their pasta sauce to have the strong flavor of other ingredients like onions, garlic, celery and bell peppers so the tomato flavor isn't as much of an issue. You may have to experiment to see what you like best.

Regardless of which tomatoes you use, I bet you'll like your own fresh, home-made pasta sauce better than anything you can buy at the store.

I experiment a lot with various combination of O-P varieties when making sauce, and we like them all. The only time a batch of homemade pasta sauce disappointed me was when I made a pure yellow sauce from yellow tomatoes. It sounds pretty, doesn't it? Well, it tasted fine but by the time it cooked down enough to reach the right consistency, the clear yellow color had turned a very unappetizing brownish-yellow. I don't think I'll bother making a yellow pasta sauce again for that reason.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Processing Tomato Types at Seeds From Italy

Susan when I get time I will add my thoughts to this. Seems right now I can't catch up. Jay

Cool - thanks, Jay.

Oh, yeah, Dawn, Astro F1 does look good and so does Fiaschette di manduria, which is also a determinate. Appreciate the info.

Today is the 16th - the day Remy is going to post her 2011 list.

Susan

Susan, I know! I've been waiting for today to get here! I hope she has her list up.

Other places that already have their updates on the web include Renee's Garden Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds (though many of the seeds haven't arrived, so they're listed as 'backordered'), and HPS. (Jay and I always get the HPS catalog in August, I think, so that one's been updated a long time.) Southern Exposure has their website updated in terms of it having a new layout and graphics, but the last time I looked at it, they didn't actually have the 2011 seeds listed yet. I received the 2011 Twilley Seed catalog for commercial growers/farmers yesterday, but their website still shows 2010 stuff.

Now, I'm going to go hop over to Remy's and see if her update has posted.

Dawn

I read at another forum that Pinetree and Park's are out; Baker Creek is at the printer's so soon. Don't know about Gleckler's, but apparently they have about 80 new varieties to add to what is currently available on their website,

Susan

I got my 6th and 7th catalogs out of the mail today. It won't be long before I quit counting. Seems some sites are waiting longer to update. I read where supposedly Linda at TGS said mid Dec maybe before her site was updated. I have ordered the 1st week of Dec in the past. I'm hearing some are having trouble getting some hybrid varieties especially. Jay

I received the Pinetree catalog today, but their website was updated a while back, I think.

I'm getting about a catalog a day, even though I always order online and not by mail. That's OK, though, because it always is fun to look at the paper copy of the catalogs. Some of them, like Johnny's are virtual "How To" guides, so I enjoy having them around. Baker Creek's photos are as pretty as any "coffee table book" and my copy of it usually is sitting right here on the coffee table. Victory Seeds no longer sends out a paper catalog, and I do think that's a smart business move. They usually get their website updated in late Dec. or early Jan. and I think it is worth waiting for because their variety descriptions are top-notch. Lisa has updated the Amishland website, and I spent a while this morning drooling over her varieties.

I don't need to be looking at anyone's websites or catalogs because I have all the seeds I want, and more than I need. Y'all know I'll be looking at them and ordering some more seeds anyway though.

Dawn

Nawwwww, not you, Dawn! I order everything online, too, but just love looking over the print product, too. There's something about looking at all those beautiful, color photos in the dead of winter when it's virtually colorless outside that's heartening to the spirit of a gardener.

Can't wait for my "other" catalogs. But they come a bit later. If you like all the tips and other information in catalogs, Dawn, you should request a Prairie Moon catalog for native plant seeds. It is always gorgeous, and the Cultural Guide in the catalog is really in-depth and comprehensive with tons of info on site preparation, culture, seed germination, for native plants under various conditions. The catalog is free.

Susan