Tracy I will add my 2 cents. I tried Rio Grande at least one and maybe two years. It doesn't like my climate here. A very low producer. My conditions are very severe. So many varieties don't do well here on a regular basis. I would say it was an average canner/saucer type. The plant did well but very low production. I've been tempted to give it another try but have found some others in that class that seem to perform better in my hot/dry/windy conditions. The problem I've experience the last four years during the drought is I go from having freezing nights to upper 90's and low 100 degree days in a 7-10 day span or less. I will post my initial grow list for 2013 soon and you will see some of the varieties I grow. Jay

Pam, We have chaos here on the highways this morning. Snow mixed with sleet or ice pellets and 23 degrees at our house. It isn't much snow and doesn't look impressive at all, but the bridge over the Red River between Texas and OK has had multiple accidents, and there have been several others on I-35 bridges just a couple of miles from my house. Being a smart woman, I only went outside long enough to feed the deer and wild birds while Tim was feeding the chickens, and I did check the greenhouse. Unheated (but with a lot of solar water collectors in it) it went only to 32 degrees and the tomato and pepper plants in there live to see another day. Tonight they'll likely freeze. Our forecast low is 18, and early this morning our forecast low was 28 but we went to 23, so I expect we'll be colder than forecast tomorrow morning too. I guess it is winter time. I won't check the garden plants until after the temperature gets back up to 32 degrees because cold-hardy plants that are frozen often will look fine for a few hours, and then the cells begin to rupture and they blacken and droop.

You hit the nail right on the head when you said we have to assume the worst. That's exactly how I plan my tomato plantings, i.e. how many plants do I need to give me enough for canning in the first month of harvest because after that the heat may shut them down. I have the tomato planning down to an art. It is harder with corn and beans. I find it harder to predict exactly when the heat will shut them down. The last two years, it shut them down too early. I need to plant more corn and beans earlier, or use shorter DTM types or something.

I picked the last tomatoes from the greenhouse plants yesterday and brought in 70 or 80 cherry type toms, so we'll have fresh fruit to eat for another week or two.

It is wonderful that your garden recovered so well after Sandy. In fact, it is downright amazing!

I feel the same way that you do this year, that it is so odd we're planning the seeding of next year's tomatoes while still eating this year's fresh tomatoes.

Trialing is hard. We never seem to get the same weather two years in a row and I never feel like trialed plants get a fair shake because inevitably they are fighting intolerable conditions and I hate to judge them on the basis of their performance in an extreme summer. They might do better in a milder summer. Unfortunately, our milder summers are becoming increasingly rare. At my end of OK, the summer of 2010 was pretty good, and so was 2007 and 2004. Going by that, I'm due for a mild summer in 2013 but not counting on one.

Our fall crops have performed in a phenomenal manner, considering some of them were seeded outdoors (in the shade!) into paper cups when the temperatures were 108-112 and were transplanted into the ground when the high temps were still around 100 degrees. It has been a fairly warm, mild autumn with many days in the 70s-80s instead of the 50s-60s. I think that's all over now with the arrival of this cool spell.

The fall beans and purplehull peas produced heavily, making up for the summer plants that produced well only until the heat shut them down. Fall broccoli was phenomenal. We got big main heads harvested over a month ago, and I harvested the last of the side shoots on Thursday or Friday. Fall cabbage was great, and all the other fall crops of kale, collards, mustard, chard, beets, turnips, etc. produced quite heavily. I have no complaints. The brussels sprouts didn't make sprouts and they should have, and I am not sure why they didn't. They had plenty of time, but just didn't do it. Brussels sprouts are always iffy here. I have more luck with them in fall than spring, but many years they never make sprouts before it gets too hot in spring or too cold in winter. I guess you can't have everything. I'm the only one in the family who likes brussels sprouts....and I rarely get to eat them, but I keep trying to grow them.

Your comment that this was not a normal year is so true. The problem is that we aren't seeing normal years hardly at all any more, and I am trying to figure out if what we've seen here the last 3 to 5 years is the new normal or just a temporarily blip.

Jay, Since Tracy is in Arizona, I think that you there in Kansas and Leslie in SW OK have growing conditions that are much more like hers than my growing conditions are. I don't know how y'all get any tomatoes at all with your extreme heat, wind exposure and lack of moisture.

Dawn

Dawn one reason I hesitate to recommend something is I'll find a variety that does well here for several years in a row and then it seems to just quit. Can't figure it out. Goliath used to be a must grow and very reliable. Hasn't been the last few years. The two best producers for me the last 2 years have been Grandma Suzy's and Randy's Brandy both op varieties. I have had a few hybrids that have done reasonably well and fairly reliable. When I finally post my list you will notice some changes to it. I'm going to concentrate more on what I think will produce the best. I'm going to quit growing some of my favorites till this drought cycle recedes some. Of course several of the cherry types have produced well. Will be trying a couple of new to me varieties this year. I said I wouldn't grown anymore of Brad's varieties but guess I'll grow 1-2 assuming I'm still growing in my garden here. I have put my place up for sale. Jay

I can't believe I bought Rio Grande tomato seeds at Home Depot today, plus Ace 55!
I also picked up 5 huge Celebrity tomatoes, already with quite a few large fruit set. Figured it would be nice to have some extra early tomatoes this winter/spring. I can easily protect 5-10 determinates and dwarfs from freezing every once in awhile.

Jay,

I am sorry to hear you have put your place up for sale because I know how very hard you have worked to turn that soil into wonderful garden soil. I hope that whoever buys your place appreciates all the improvements you've made. Now for my suggestion (said only partly tongue-in-cheek): move someplace that gets more rain!

Like you, I sometimes find that varieties that once produced well seem like they just stop producing after a few years. It is very frustrating. Porterhouse is an example of one that has done that here at our place, and NAR is another one. I don't understand why it happens, but I blame it on our climate.

I love Brad's varieties. They are beautiful and have decent flavor. I just wish they produced better for me in the bad years. Last year Brown and Black Boar (or maybe it is Black and Brown Boar) produced a huge yield, and Michael Pollan did too. Both of them were among the last plants to stop setting fruit in the brutal July heat, which surprised me. Normally my heat slaps them into submission pretty fast and they give up and stop producing.

Tracy, That is funny. I told you that I was pretty sure I'd seen Rio Grande on a Ferry-Morse seed rack, so I'm not surprised you found it on a seed rack at Home Depot. I am jealous you have seed racks in the stores. We won't see them popping up in stores here until early January.

Dawn

Well, it finally happened. My self control has disappeared.
I went online to order 2,just 2, early tomatoes to start the seedlings to move in and out of the garge to try and get April tomatoes. (That alone sounds like I have lost my mind). I think it wasTomatoe Fest. DO NOT GO THERE, they have something that makes you order way too many tomotes!!!!!! Maybe its the pictures, the awesome descriptions, or maybe an alien application that makes u loose your mind. I don't know. I even went ot another tomaote site and ordered more. I was attacked by the "Oh, I really need to try THAT one" virus. I don't know when I will recover. I sat by the mailbox like waiting ont hose seeds like I was waiting on a secret decoder ring. And now that they are arriving, I am suddenly overwhelmed.
So here's the question, how many plants of a singe variety should you plant to discover if they truely are worthwile.
When I was a horticulture major, we would plant 50 of each variety, 100 feet from a different variety. Clearly I can't do that unless I dig up all our acreage. Hubs would be a bit miffed.
What do you guys do for toamtoe trials?

How many do uguys plant of a trial variety.

I usually don't plant more than one or two of an unproven plant, but I try to plant them for more than one year. I tend to plant lots of different varieties but my space is limited to a normal size home garden.....well normal for me. LOL

The plants that do well for me are not necessarily the same ones that do well for others in Oklahoma. I noticed that Jay said in another thread that Goliath did well for him for several years and then that changed. I have only planted it once in this garden and it was a total waste of space, however Cluster Goliath, which is a smaller tomato was a very good producer. Last year my best vine was Carbon and after several years of planting it, I find it to be very consistent here. My best cherry tomato producer is always Sungold, and the only currant I plant is Tess's Land Race. I am still searching for a paste tomato that works for me, but I would probably let them produce in Spring and early summer, then just rip them out for something else to grow in the space. I just don't have enough space to wait and see if determinates will make a second crop.

I think it is always best to have several cherry tomato plants because they keep producing even if we have a bad summer. I can't imagine having a garden without Sungold and Black Cherry, but I also like Yellow Jellybean, Ildi, and several more. Even after I have satisfied my annual craving for tomatoes and I slow down on my consumption, I still find that I snack on cherry tomatoes during every trip to the garden, and they go into every salad.

Dawn, Do you like the taste of Cherry Falls? I would love to find a small tomato that grows like that and has a good taste. Most of the small plant cherry types I have tried taste like a tomato plant smells, and not like I want a tomato to taste.

lol lol lol

We are not very good at self-control, but we excel at helping other people lose their self-control and we definitely spread a contagious disease called "I want to grow it all".

Tomatofest is one of my favorite tomato seed companies. I find varieties there that I just don't see anywhere else. Last year's big winner from Tomatofest was Greek Rose, which produced oodles of huge fruit with great flavor in our very tough climate in one of the hottest summers we've had in recent years. It is such a happy occasion when a trial plant performs like that. I've bought seeds from Gary's company for years.

If you really want to lose your mind, go to Tatiana's Tomatobase, which is a multi-function website. She has listings, descriptions and history (if known) of thousands of tomato varieties and, if she is aware of a current source for the seed, she lists it. She also sells some of those varieties herself through her website. When someone asks about an obscure variety I've never heard of, I often go to Tatiana's website to see if it is listed there and, if so, to read what is known about that variety.

When I am trialing, I do it on a very small scale. It depends on whether it is a big tomato year where I want and need to grow a lot for canning, or a lesser tomato year (like 2013 will be) in which I don't need a whole lot for canning purposes. In a big tomato year, I'll usually plant 2 to 6 plants of each variety that is new to me. Last year, with Schiavone's Italian Paste, I planted 10, which is not a decision I regretted either. I also don't plant in isolation, but I also don't do a lot of seed-saving (partly because I don't plant in isolation). You can grow tomatoes close together and save seed and still have a relatively low chance of cross-pollination and, if you want to grow them that way and be sure that you do not have crossed seeds to save for future years, just bag the blossoms before they open.

When I am trialing a variety that is new to me, I try to plant it in a row with others of its own type. So, with the paste tomatoes, I plant a row of my usual varieties, then a row of the new trial variety, than a row of my usual varieties. In that way, when you stand outside the garden looking at the rows, if the new row has significantly more or fewer fruit than the similar varieties I already grow, it is easily apparent, or if the fruit are earlier vs.later, you can see that at a glance too. If I am trialing bite-sized varieties, I put them next to the other bite-sized varieties, etc. If I am trialing varieties solely for containers, I only put them in containers.

I've been growing tomatoes long enough that I have a pretty long list of varieties that perform well here in different circumstances: hot years, cooler years, cold wet springs, etc. When I am trialing a variety, I try to plant it in a year that matches its attibutes. For example if we are having a long, cold spring, that's a great time to be trialing the "early" varieties that have DTMs in the 50s or very low 60s. If, on the other hand, it is a hot winter, I generally am trialing varieties that I think will produce well in heat. Most years it isn't too hard to predict the weather and choose trial varieties accordingly. Because I've trialed for so long now--14 years in this location--my trialing for flavor and production are fairly complete. Now I am trialing just an occasional new-to-the-market variety or a variety chosen for a specific attribute. My last huge trial year was 2006 when I planted about 150 varieties. Nowadays I try to restrict it to just a handful a year, although last year I did trial a couple dozen of varieties---a great many of them were new to the market in the last year or two, but some were OP varieties that I'd been wanting to try for some time. One other thing I do most years is plant by color, so that all my red tomatoes are in a row together, followed by individual rows of black, pink, yellow, orange, etc. Careful labeling is required so you'll know which is which. I label each plant twice with one label stuck so far down in the ground that just the tip of it sticks up out of the ground. That way, if the permanent marking pens are not so permanent, the label with the plant name under the soil still has the name on it. I also make a map of my garden showing the location of each tomato plant and its' name so that if armadillos get in the garden (rare but it happens if I forget to close the gate very securely) and dig up all the labels, I still know which is which.

This year I haven't even chosen my trial varieties, but likely one of them will be the new AAS 2013 winner from Johnny's Selected Seeds called "Jasper", and then I'll trial 2 to 4 paste types. One paste type I trialed last year that was incredibly good was Schiavone Italian Paste, which is very rare and hard to find (partly because the meaty fruit barely produce any seeds at all). It became an instant favorite along with Greek Rose. Some years, none of the trial varieties are impressive enough to earn a permanent place in the garden. Because our weather is so difficult, I try to give each trial variety at least 2 years of trial before I write it off because of poor performance or poor flavor or poor disease resistance. I don't necessarily trial the variety 2 years in a row. If I trialed it in a hot dry year and I think the next year will be exceptionally hot and dry as well, I'll often save the seed for a cooler, more moderate year for the second trial year. This explains why I have hundreds of varieties of tomato seeds in my seed storage boxes. How much is enough? I don't have an answer to that, but from looking at my seed boxes I'd say I definitely have "enough" seeds and, in fact, have stockpiled too many. Still, I order more every year. There is no cure for tomato fever, by the way.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

I am continually updating my tomato list after reading the Oklahoma garden forum. Thanks for the information. 2012 was our first year with growing tomatos in a hoop house. The ones that did well were black Krim, Early girl, Tigerella, and Mountain Pride, Ones that did not produce well were Cherokee purple, oregon spring, We had proplems with catfacing, brown soft spots on bottom of tomato, thrips. The one tomato that continued to produce until November when a freeze shut it down was Early Girl. In the field we planted a Big Beef (produced hugh tomatoes, but had large green core, Homestead 24 did fairly well. We are located in north central Oklahoma. We are growing for the Stillwater Farmers MKT and found a resistance to tomatoes that did not look like the tipical grocery store tomato . Tomato list for this year: Bradley, Homestead 24, Mortgage Lifter, Nebraska Wedding Pruden's purple,Vintage Wine, Abe Lincoln. If you have experience and have the time to reply, much appreciation.

We are a grape grower, wine maker, and are also making jelly from orchard fruits, Breads, and other products here at the winery and at the market. I have been collecting succulents for a number of years. Now is the process of ID and photos for each one. Now over a hundred varieties. Anyone out there also growing? Can we post photos on the forum? Jeanette

Jay, I'll have to do a bit more research before actually starting Rio Grande. I thought it sounded so good.
I bought these 6-7 plants, all large, and now we've had nights near freezing every night. I don't have large enough covers and broke one of the smaller one's main stems when it was covered last night. I'm glad it wasn't one of the huge Celebrities! Hopefully, it was Early Girl and not a determinate variety.
I need to get them in the ground, get some good cages so that I can use some blankets or sheets instead of hard covers like I'm using now.

Hi folks, first I'm sorry to hear about the freeze. I guess the only semi-positive part is that it didn't take you by surprise.

Jay, I am sorry to hear about your move. I hope it's your idea and that you are at peace about it.

All this talk about trials caused me to go back through my tomato seeds. I'm looking at four varieties with strange names - I received seed for them from Trudi with Wintersown.org last year. Have never grown them, seen or tasted them. I believe a couple were on one of Dawn's famous tomato lists.

What can you tell me about these?

* Flathead Monster Pink

* Black & Brown Boar

* Pink Berkeley Tie Die

* Stump of the World

Take care and stay warm!
Pam

Carol, The OP Goliath always has done well for me, and the Totally Tomatoes' hybrid ones have been highly variable. Some of them (Cluster Goliath and Early Goliath) produced nice harvests in 2011 and 2012, but I don't really like their texture, which it too hard/firm like a grocery store tomato, and their flavor is nothing special. I always find myself either giving away the hybrid Goliath fruit or canning it in mixed batches of heirloom OPs, so why grow it?

Cherry Falls has a really great flavor in hot weather, but in the fall it drops off a lot (as does the flavor of most tomatoes). My Cherry Falls plants were the last ones I harvested fruit from earlier this week. I picked about 70 fruit off them the day before the greenhouse plants froze, and we are still eating them, although I managed to consume quite a few of them in the greenhouse before I ever made it indoors. I'd say that those Cherry Falls plants produced almost nonstop all summer, although they slowed down a little bit in August when the highs were around 110 degrees. Only SunGold kept pace with them in terms of setting fruit in heat. Principe Borghese would have, but I had stopped watering those and was yanking them out to make room for fall cole crops. My favorite cherry tomato for true tomato flavor (you know, it tastes like a big slicer, not like a sweet cherry type) is Riesentraube. It is not a small plant, but it produces well even in containers and it produces tons of fruit per plant. Its flowering is a sight to see. I've never seen as many blooms per plant as what I've had on Risentraube.

Jeanette, It always is going to be hard to get people to try non-traditional tomatoes. The first time I gave Black Krim tomatoes to some of my old farmer/old rancher neighbors here, they got offended because they thought I was trying to give them old, rotten tomatoes. : ) After they tasted them, though, they changed their tune. My old farmer friend, Fred, even started scolding me after he heard I gave some black tomatoes to another neighbor, telling me not to give anyone else my extra Black Krim's but to save all of them for him. It was a hysterically funny moment. Another said his children and grandchildren wouldn't even try the black tomatoes until he said "okay, fine, that's more for me" which made them feel like they had to try them to see why it made him so happy that they weren't eating them. The hard part is getting them to try them, and once they try them they tend to like them. I've had pretty good luck getting people to try pink varieties first, and then it gets easier for them to try the other colors. For some reason, people seem more willing to try bite-sized tomatoes in various colors rather than the large tomatoes in various colors. I'll give them zip-lock bags of mixed bite-sized fruits in red, pink, black, orange, yellow and bicolors, and they'll discover they like them all. I haven't had the same success with green-with-ripe types. Nobody wants to eat them. Bradley always has produced well for me here and has good flavor, but is really late compared to a lot of the other ones I grow. It is about as late as Mortgage Lifter and Traveler 76 and Burgundy Traveler, all of which I grow as late-season tomatoes for harvest in July and August. Nebraska Wedding has been my favorite orange tomato forever, until I started growing Orange Minsk. I think I first started growing Nebraska Wedding around 2003 or 2004. Pruden's Purple is about as close to the excellent flavor of Brandywine as you can get, and it produces many more fruit per plant in our heat. I grow it fairly regularly, although not necessarily every year. I haven't grown Vintage Wine and Abe Lincoln, but love Big Beef. It has such good flavor and produces so very well in the heat that I overlook the core issues. Other red-fruited varieties that have produced very well here include Ramapo, Jetstar, Moreton and Supersonic. All the tomatoes like them that I've grown from Harris Seeds (I got the Ramapo seeds directly from NJAES) have had great flavor and great production, but for just our family's use, we prefer OP varieties even though they produce lower numbers of fruit per plant. I've also had wonderful production from some of the old Livingston varieties carried by Victory Seeds, including Stone, Dwarf Stone and Paragon.

Homestead 24 produced very well for me for quite a few years, until suddenly it just didn't. I don't grow it any more.

As far as I know, you can post photos on the forum as long as they are not set up like advertising, if you know what I mean. You cannot cross the line between general chat and selling/advertising because GW frowns on that.

Pam, I've grown three of the four. I've never heard of Flathead Monster Pink, but pink fruited tomatoes are my favorites, along with blacks.

Black and Brown Boar was one of my best producers this year. The fruit got smaller and smaller as the summer went on, but the plants produced lots of them under incredible heat and drought. Pink Berkeley Tie Dye is a gorgeous fruit and it is very tasty. It produces well for me early in the season, but then productivity drops a great deal as it heats up. I suspect it would do well here in a milder summer, but all we've had lately are wickedly hot ones. Stump of the World is one of my most favorite tomatoes in the world. Some people compare its flavor to Brandywine. I don't. It is really good though. I just happen to think that nothing else is exactly and precisely the same as the flavor of a great Brandywine tomato, although Stump of the World, Pruden's Purple and Marianna's Peace all are reasonably close in a hot, dry year, but not in an extremely wet year. All of them produce better than Brandywine in our heat, which is why I grow them instead of Brandywine. If Brandywine would produce well here, I'd plant two dozen Brandywine plants every year, but even in a good year, I feel lucky to get only six fruit per plant. Stump of the World produces oodles of fruit per plant.

I got my seed of Stump of the World (and many of the other varieties I grow) from Gleckler's Seedmen in recent years, after feeling like the commercially-purchased seed from a couple of other companies was changing and those fruit were not the same as they used to be. Jay brought that to my attention once by mentioning that he had seed from a specific person who has long been involved in saving heirloom varieties and felt it was true to type while commercially-purchased seed wasn't. That made me start thinking about how I was seeing the same thing with certain varieties. The Gleckers' seed were the Stump of the World I remembered from a few years back, and so was the Cherokee Purple, so now I order first from them. Then, for varieties they don't have, I usually buy from Victory Seeds, Sample Seed Shop or Tomatofest. Last year, the Gleckler's seed of Dr. Wyche's Yellow produced plants with fruit more true to type than any DWY I've grown from any other seed company. I feel like Gleckler's has the most true-to-type OP/heirlooms I've ever grown. They are maintaining the varieties properly and I think that is not necessarily true with larger wholesale seed suppliers. That is why, increasingly, more and more of my business is going to Glecker's, Sample Seed Shop, Victory Seeds, etc. instead of to some of the larger commercial seed retailers. When I select a tomato variety, I want the real thing, not a reasonable facsimile thereof. I feel like some of the widely-available O-P varieties you buy from some of the big retailers are not "the real thing" any more. I think they have crossed over the years or something, and the fruit I get from some of those varieties now definitely is different from fruit from the same varieties 10 or 15 years ago. With Glecker's, the O-Ps are true to what they've always been, and I am so relieved they are back in business again.

Dawn

Luvabasil-I sure know about that self control thing when it comes to seeds! I can go online to buy one or two seeds and end up with a $100 order!

Luvabasil-I sure know about that self control thing when it comes to seeds! I can go online to buy one or two seeds and end up with a $100 order!

Thanks for the help with those varieties. I thought you grew a couple, but didn't know if they were keepers.

I was surprised - then not surprised -when I read the part of your post about changes in commercial seed. I've had a sense that some varieties are not growing like they used to. I put this down to something I was doing differently without realizing it and/or changing growing conditions. This is a big factor to consider when deciding where to place orders for seeds.

Do you think the changes affect OP varieties of other vegetables? Peppers? Beans? Everything?

Thanks for the introduction to Glecker's - I had never heard of them. I checked the site - they have a good selection. I knew a little about Remy's site from wintersowing but haven't ordered from her yet.

Before I order, I need to prune very long lists of tomatoes AND peppers. I'm afraid to start on beans ...

Take care,
Pam

Pam, I haven't noticed the changes in OPs with other veggies, and I was slow to catch on to the changes in tomatoes because it was so gradual. The big clue wasn't just that the plants weren't producing as well and the fruit didn't taste the same because both of those could be blamed on the erratic weather---it was that the shapes seemed to be getting more and more round on fruit that previously had a more oblate shape. When I grew the seeds from Gleckler's and got the correct shape of fruit I was so relieved, and then once I harvested fruit and knew they had the taste I remembered, I was so happy.

I am trying to buy all my tomato seeds from companies that either grow their own seed (increasingly rare to almost non-existent, at least with the big companies) or who use contract growers that grow on a smaller scale. Most the companies that I buy from do have at least some contract seed growers who grow some of their seed for them, but we're talking about people who are active in the heirloom vegetable world and often these are people who post here at GW and at other gardening forums. I know they take great care to make sure their seeds are true to type.

Increasingly, my heirloom seed orders are going to an-ever smaller handful of trustworthy companies, including Victory Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (their catalog always features photos/info about some of their contract seed growers), Gleckler's Seedmen, Pinetree, Bountiful Gardens, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply Tomatofest, Sample Seed Shop and, sometimes, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange.

With hybrids, I tend to look for the best price or the lowest shipping for fairly common hybrid seed available from multiple growers. My go-to companies for hybrid (and some OP) seeds include Renee's Garden Seeds, Territorial Seed, Willhite Seed, Nichols Garden Nursery and Harris Seeds. Less and less of my money is going to the huge retail giants, and partly that is because at least one of them is charging 5.95 and even 6.95 per pack for their newest introductions each year. I don't buy anything from that company any more unless it is an exclusive variety only available through them or through a company they own. When I do order from them, I order enough of their exclusive varieties to last several years so that I don't have to order from them annually and pay their ever-increasing shipping costs as well.

Two companies that are fairly new to me and that have a great variety of seeds are Swallowtail Garden Seeds and Summerhill Seeds. I usually buy flower seeds from them, especially for my chocolate garden, but sometimes I buy tomato seeds from them---last year I got lots of the trial tomato hybrid container type varieties from one or both of these companies.

My bean list this year is ridiculously long, and I don't care. With less space devoted to tomatoes this year, I am going to plant all the beans I want. I'll be growing a lot of corn too, because last year I only got a harvest (and not even a good one) from the early corn. The midseason and late corn didn't produce much at all because the heat impeded pollination/fertilization.

Increasingly, as we battle tougher dry and heat seemingly every year, I sure am weeding out varieties that cannot cut it in the heat and, at the same time, I am weeding out seed companies whose seeds, prices or shipping costs no longer please me.

With most vegetables, I am not an OP/heirloom-only person and will grow some OP and some F-1 types, but with tomatoes I'd much rather grow only the heirloom types, and when I do, I expect to get true-to-type OP varieties.

Dawn

Hi Dawn:

Swallowtail is one of my favorite seed companies. I found them when I got into wintersowing perennials. I'm always impressed by the quality of their seeds. They have excellent deals on bulk orders of seeds too. I checked their site - they don't have as many varieties of vegetable seeds but I remember their selection was thin in early winter, they added new varieties often.

I like Harris seeds. After I ordered a couple of large packets (maybe 250 seeds) of echinacea, someone from Harris called to ask if I was growing professionally - like for a market. When I said "no", the person said to let them know if this changed. I am impressed by their customer service and attention to detail.

Everwilde is a good source, at least for wildflower seeds. I haven't ordered vegetable seeds from them yet but they have a good selection and their prices are reasonable.

I've used Hazzards for bulk orders of seeds. When you first go to their website, it's a challenge to find what you want but you figure it out in time. I searched for quinoa since Carol mentioned it and I was curious. They sell Cherry Vanilla, 500 seeds for $7.43, 1,000 seeds for $12.65. I don't think I want to grow it but it's gorgeous.
http://www.hazzardsgreenhouse.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Hazwho&Product_Code=C3884&Category_Code=#.UNIfto4Zz6E

Anyone very interested in growing a large crop of Numex peppers? Hazzards has Big Jim, Joe E. Parker, Sandia and others - 500 seeds for 5.23.

Renee's Garden and Diane's seeds are good. I use Seed Savers Exchange a lot, also SESE.

I'm going to mosey over to the Bean forum, see if I can fine-tune my bean list. I've read some great threads there. So many cool varieties so little time.

Take care,
Pam

This pic taken yesterday afternoon of a Heatwave plant. Yes, I have the use of a greenhouse

Dawn, did you ever get your early tomato seeds started? I finally started mine and they've germinated. If I start taking them outside at the beginning of March, they'll be 9 weeks old. I was hoping to start them earlier, but that's okay.

Leslie

Leslie, Nope. I failed at that. I almost knew I would. We have so many VFD activities (fund raisers, the chili cookoff, toy run, Christmas parade, the VFD Christmas party and all the gift bags I put together for that, etc.) in the fall that I barely get my own family's Christmas stuff done, and starting seeds for the extra-early tomato plants is always on my To Do list and I never, ever get it done. So, I guess I'll be buying my early plants again. There's no way that any I plant now would be the same size as the ones I can find in Dallas around Feb 10-14th. I should start some seeds right now so I can compare them the ones that hit the stores in mid-Feb. Those plants will have main stems as big around as my little finger, and anything I start from seed now cannot catch up with that!

I hope to start my seeds next week for my regular plants that will hopefully go into the ground in March if the weather allows. This constant procession of cold fronts from the Northwest is making me think that winter will be colder this year than last and I may not get my plants in the ground beginning the first week in March like I did last year.

Do you warm up earlier there than I do here? Or is it just that y'all heat up much more quickly once spring kicks in? My average last frost date in March 28th.

Dawn

I'll definitely be looking at the plants that are in the stores to compare mine to those. I'll say now that I'm not going to buy them, but I probably will give in and buy one. Maybe just to compare the difference.

Our average last frost date is April 5, so your last frost is about a week earlier than ours. We just heat up really quickly here. I've learned that it's pretty much a waste of time to plant cool season plants in the spring. I have to plant potatoes and carrots, but I leave the rest off my list. It gets too hot for them and I need the space so I can plant the warm season stuff as early as possible.

I'd be surprised if we warm up as early as we did last year. Our last freeze was March 4 which is a whole month earlier than normal. I don't think that's going to happen this year. Of course, it could be all the snow on the ground that's making me think that. We'll see how I feel next week when it's back into the 50s every day.

Our last freeze was the same date as yours last year, and as soon as it passed, I was throwing plants into the ground. I just had that good early-spring-warm-up vibe, and had had it for weeks.

Like you, I don't think we'll be that lucky two years in a row.

It is hard to be unhappy about the snow because we need all the moisture we can get. I'd sure like to get an early warm up and good (but not so much it floods) moisture too.

I got my light garden delivered today, and will begin putting it together soon. It will probably take me a few days because I am old and decrepit......lol! At least it does take me awhile to get things done, especially when they are large and unwieldy. That's okay because I am not quite ready to start sowing seeds yet. Well, maybe a few ornamentals that will stay small and compact (flowers) until spring setting out.

I doubt we have an early spring warm up like last year's. That was an aberration really. Since Oklahoma is a state in which extremes are the norm, I wouldn't doubt if spring this year is later and marked by short bursts of freezing temps until it actually settles into consistent periods of warmth. Dawn, has anyone heard any predictions about what the spring trend may bring us?

When Dawn mentioned checking Tatiana's database regarding information on certain tomatos, I like to do this, too. They often have growers from different regions grow a particular variety and report on their growing experience. There is one grower, or more, in Texas, that I always like to see reports from, that is helpful to me because their experiences are likely similar to what mine may be.

It seems I am always in a quandary about what type of seed pot to use. Last year, I used the paper cups. I used the small ones, about 3 oz. These virtually "melted" before I could get the seedlings transplanted, so that I ended up sitting them inside a small plastic pot just to keep them from falling apart on the seed trays. This year, I am going to either use a larger size paper cup, or a different biodegradable container to grow the seedlings in. Tomatos don't actually present any transplanting issues, so I might actually just go with the plastic pots this year. I have a few things, though, that dislike transplanting enough that I will plant the seeds in a paper/biodegradable pot, so I am thinking about getting some small to larger size cups in a range of sizes to accommodate varying root system sizes.

I look at the yard and cannot help but think about how much work I have ahead of me. I don't do clean up until spring because there may be chrysalises out there that won't eclose until spring and the dead stems and branches give some added protection to borderline plants as well. There are arguments on both sides for waiting to do clean up or cleaning up early in late fall. But spring clean up has always worked the best for me and how and what I grow.

That Greek Rose tomato sounds so scrumptious, Dawn. I may have to give that a try.

Susan

Susan,

That's terrific news about your light shelf. I was wondering if it had arrived yet. One thing we found helpful when assembling the greenhouse was to go back to the Gardener's Supply website and read the reviews of it to see if anyone who reviewed it had any tips about assembly that we'd find useful. As a matter of act, they had.

Last year's early warm-up was an aberration, but we used to routinely have that happen here in southern OK in the early 2000s. I often was able to start putting tomato plants in the ground in the first week of March, often around the 7th or 8th. Did I still have to cover them up on a few cold nights after that? Yes, but it was only a few. Last year was the first year like that since around 2006 or 2007 for me, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we have another early spring. I'm not necessarily expecting one, but I always hope for one! Looking out at our frozen ground this morning, it is hard to think spring, but I definitely am ready to start thinking about wintersowing some seeds that need cold stratification and also am almost ready to start sowing cool-season crop season inside sometime in the next couple of weeks. Gotta get over the flu first because it just saps my energy.

Before the recent cold fronts starting arriving and hitting us one after another, the long-term forecast was trending warm and dry over the next couple of months, and the drought of 2012 is expected to continue into 2013. I expect that has not changed. Dr. Jeff Masters over at the Weather Underground website had an excellent post a couple of days ago about the continuation of the drought. I'll link it below. It takes us months to go into drought and then months to come back out of it almost always (not withstanding the rare and almost miraculous 12.89" of rain in April 2009 that ended my drought in one day), so the prospect of continuing drought is daunting to a lot of us. Of course, drought does not mean a total absence of rain and I guess about the best we can hope for is that the fronts keep bringing us moisture and keep chipping away at the drought. The good news is that eventually all droughts end.

I sometimes have trouble with paper cups starting to disintegrate too (haven't looked at it carefully enough to see if it is a specific brand that does better or if it is my watering practices or what), so for plants I know that I will have to hold inside substantially longer, I often use 7-9 oz. clear plastic cups I fine either on the paper goods row at Wal-Mart or at Sam's or CostCo in large packages. Sometimes I have used styrofoam. Of course, they aren't plantable like the paper cups are, but most of the things I transplant don't mind being transplanted. In some past years I have used peat pellets and peat pots but haven't been happy overall with their performance. The peat pellets are okay for sprouting, but then either hold too much moisture which contributes to damping off or dry out too quickly outdoors leading to wilting of the precious baby plants. Peat pots are okay, but in a very dry year they don't biodegrade very quickly in my soil and in a very wet year, if I put them in the ground they hold too much moisture around plants that are already getting too much moisture from the sky. I don't think there is a perfect answer, so I just keep using a mix of items for seed starting. I like Carol's soil blocks, but worry that with the hundreds of seedlings I start I'd have a hard time keeping everything labeled. My cats tend to sneak around and pull tags out of plants once they're outside hardening off. Usually my first clue that they are doing this is when a cat runs past me carrying a plant tag in its mouth. Occasionally they'll even do it when the plants are still indoors on the light shelf, so for me it is important to have a container I can firmly attach a label to. Usually I have the container labeled and a plant tag stuck into the soil as well. Two labels are better than one. If not for the label issue, I'd buy a soil block maker in a heartbeat and use it for everything. I think maybe the cats think the plant tags are either cat toys or little mice or something.

I did a lot of fall cleanup, but never finished it all. I cleaned out most all the summer beds that didn't have fall plants, but now I have all those fall/winter beds to clean out eventually. I think one very long day in the garden would allow me to finish it up within the fenced garden proper. Like you, I leave the ornamental beds until spring because all sorts of little wild things winter over in them and I don't want to mess things up for them. FYI--on December 23 and 24, we had butterflies and moths all over the yard. Then the cold arrived and I haven't seen any since. They'd been having a pretty good winter before that. While we had the occasional very cold night, there were plenty of warm days. About ten days ago we were in the mid-70s. I miss the mid-70s now.

I always look for Suze's reviews at Tatiana's tomato base because I feel like plants that have time to produce well as far south as she is in Texas ought to have time to produce well before the heat sets in here too. That's how I originally found JD's Special C Tex, among others.

I am so looking forward to the flavor of a fresh, sun-ripened tomato in April or early May. We had winter tomatoes as late as just a couple of weeks ago, but their flavor never matches the flavor of tomatoes that ripen in much hotter weather. While preserved tomatoes are good in their own way, nothing matches standing in the garden eating a tomato warm from the sun with its juice dribbling down your chin. That April or May day seems a hundred light-years away right now.

Dawn

I said I would like Dr. Masters' recent blog about the continuation of the 2012 Drought into 2013 and then forgot to do so.

It is linked below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Drought's Continuation Into 2013

I also think I could finish my garden clean-up with one nice day, but it needs to be a little warmer for me to tackle that. Once clean-up is completed, we need to build a raised bed in the area that was once in the shade. It is now sunny enough to garden but I still have the tree roots to deal with.

We didn't get any of the recent moisture that a lot of the State got but we were not as dry either. Rain is in our forecast for tonight and tomorrow although I don't think much is expected. My few hens have the run of the garden now and of course they dig in the soil everyday. I am always surprised at how damp the soil looks where they have dug.

My yard got rather neglected this year so there is a lot of work to do. I would like to do some wintersowing also, but not until we have a nice enough day to be outside and not freeze. LOL

I am going to wait for a nice day to work on garden cleanup. I'm hoping for a sunny day with highs in the 60s and sunshine, with low wind. I don't know how long I'll have to wait for that day so I can do the rest of the garden clean-up in pretty weather. Of course, it is more likely we'll be wet, cold and cloudy for a while and that when the next half-warm sunny day comes and it is 45 degrees I'll be out in the garden working. Around here, we take what we can get.

We have had about a half-inch of rain since it started falling last night. Added to what had previously fallen, we'll end up with our actual December rainfall being pretty close to our average December rainfall. It is nice to end the year with some moisture. The rain that has fallen hasn't had much impact on the big drought issues like empty ponds (still empty) or big, wide cracks in the ground away from the house (those cracks are still there) but we are happy to have it nevertheless.

Our chickens have decided they don't like wet ground. Maybe it has been so long that they've forgotten what wet ground is, so they tend to stay inside their coop almost all day when it is snowing, sleeting or raining. I had been letting them free-range every day so they could dig and scratch in the soil, but last week hawks came down just a bit higher than the top of my head---so roughly five and a half feet above the ground and almost got some hens while I was standing right there. At one point I thought a hawk was going to land on my head. Then, it realized I was human, apparently, and quickly turned and flew back up higher in the sky. So, the poultry's free-ranging and digging and scratching may be over for a while. The wildlife, in terms of anything that is small enough for the hawks, is really scarce and the hawks are really hungry. They even were trying to get birds that were coming here in the snow to eat, but since I feed cracked corn to the crows, the crows were swooping in and chasing away the hawks every single time they showed up. In general, crows are not garden-friendly, but if you feed them and they become territorial about your place, they'll work relentlessly to chase away hawks, owls and even the blue herons that like to hunt for fish in the lily pond.

It isn't really raining heavily right now but the clouds are hanging very low to the ground, making it look very dark outside. After all the hot, dry, sunny days we have roasted in the sun these last two drought-plagued years, it can stay dark and gloomy-looking all it wants as long as it is raining.

The enriched soil in the raised beds is in pretty good shape, and I know it is in much better shape than the soil in general outside the garden because I watered it in fall when I had vegetables, herbs and flowers in it. When the chickens dig in it, it is beautiful soil. Otherwise, everything is far too dry still, but every bit of moisture that hits the ground helps and we sure need a lot of moisture to fall slowly and lightly and soak into the ground.

Since this is a year in which I'm growing fewer tomatoes, I'm adding the following paste-type tomatoes for trial purposes:

Carol Chyko Big Paste
Carol Chyko Big Paste Black
Jersey Giant
Russo Sicilian Toggeta

I might trial 4 more paste types in the fall.

Dawn last year you said you were tempted to plant Estler's Mortgage Lifter. A woman on another forum said she couldn't find it. Where did you find yours and do you prefer it to Radiator Charlie's M L which is very easy to find. I see you like Stump of the World. What do you like about it. Forgive me if I could have found this by doing a search. There is so much useful information on this forum; it beats a gardening book.

Helen, I bought my Estler's Mortgage Lifter seed from Chuck Wyatt's old website, which his friend, Donna, has kept in operation since his death in 2002. I bought the seed around 2008 and I looked through my seed box for it this past fall so I could put it on my 2013 Grow List, but apparently I no longer have the seed. Donna no longer has it, so I think it will be impossible to find it commercially in this country.

I do prefer Estler's to Radiator Charlie's because for me it produces ripe fruit earlier, produces more fruit per plant and the fruit in general are larger than Radiator Charlie's, has fewer disease issues and the fruit are tastier. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, RCML caught on with the seed companies and Estler's did not. It is unfortunate because Estler's is a great tomato. This is not meant as disrespect of RCML either because it is another great tomato. It is just that I liked Estler's more.

Stump of the World, known at our house as Stumpy for short, is one of the best-flavored tomatoes I've ever grown. It is almost in a class of its own. For me, Stump of the World produces much earlier than you'd expect from the estimated DTMs. It produces medium-large fruit in an odd shape--not really oblate but not entirely globe-shaped either. They are pink with a very small core, smallish seed locules and lots of meaty flesh. The flavor is superb---about as close to the flavor of Brandywine as you can get, though definitely not exactly the same as Brandywine. I consider the flavor of Brandywine to be the ultimate tomato flavor, so if I rate Brandywine a 10, I'd rate Stump of the World a 9.5 or maybe a 9. Estler's ML would be about an 8.5 and RCML an 8. That is if I grew them all in the same year and could compare them to one another when grown under identical conditions, which I haven't done for some time now.

I suspect seed of Estler's still might be available from someone who is a listed member of SESE and who offers it there, but a person has to be a member of SESE to obtain seed that way. I was a member of SESE in the past, but dropped my membership a few years back so I don't have access to the yearbook data to see if any listed members are offering it this year. It also is available from at least one Canadian company but that company no longer ships to the USA.

One year I went on a pink tomato binge and grew 22 pink tomato plants in one big raised bed together. I doubt I can remember now every plant that I grew, but I remember for sure that I grew Estler's Mortgage Lifter, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, Stump of the World, Brandywine Sudduth's, Tennessee Heirloom, Tennessee Britches, Valena Pink and Marianna's Peace. All of them performed great except for Sudduth's which never produces many fruit per plant in our climate, although the fruit it produces have very fine flavor. Maybe the other pink varieties that I do not remember did not perform well and that's why I don't remember them. That must have been a non-drought year. Our kitchen was overflowing with big pink luscious tomatoes. Of that bunch, I liked Stump of the World the best, and have grown it at least every other year since then. Estler's was also very good and I like it. It just sort of fell by the wayside as I continued trying more pinks, purples and blacks. Dana's Dusky Rose is another really good one that produces well here. It sets large fruit really early. I remember that I tried it and JD's Special C Tex both for the first time in the same year, and I loved them both so much. I was in tomato hog heaven.

Dawn

I should try Stump of the World instead. The person who was looking for the Estler's ML was a member of that family. It reminded me to keep a supply of the tomatoes I like - Pale Perfect Purple is one I like that is not found everywhere. I have saved seeds but I usually plant seeds that I have purchased because I have lots of little bees or wasps and flies around. Also I always plant too close and in summer the whole mess grows together. I am sure there may be some cross pollination happening.

What a shame that a member of the Estler family cannot find seeds of Estler's M/L. It is a reminder that we should maintain our own seed supply of varieties we like.. I'm not good about that either. My garden is too big and I can and preserve too much which keeps me in the kitchen up to 18 hours a day, often for days on end, during the heavy harvest period in summer and I never get around to doing much seed saving. I did save a few seeds last year, but not of tomatoes. I am going to try to do a better job of that this year. I'm only going to save seed from bagged blossoms. I grow all my tomatoes together in a huge jungle and I worry about insect-induced cross pollination. I need to save seed of Schiavone Italian Paste tomato this year whether I bag all those blossoms or not. This tomato produces barely any seed at all so it is hard to get. When I process them this year, I need to keep them separate from the other pastes, and save every tomato seed that comes through the tomato press.

In past years when the garden was smaller, I pretty much saved seeds of everything I grew, especially the flowers, and then as the garden grew, something had to go....and in most cases it was the seed-saving that fell by the wayside. It wasn't a deliberate choice, but rather that as I got busier and busier, I only had time to do what absolutely, positively had to be done that day...and seed saving slipped further and further down the list.

Someone on that forum promised to seed her seeds so I think she is OK. I did plant some seeds I saved last year and they turned out to be very small tomatoes. They were supposed to be Eva Purple Ball. It could have been the hot weather and not enough water but they looked more like big cherries. I wouldn't mind crossing Cherokee Purple with Pale Perfect Purple or something like that but I don't need nondescript big cherry tomatoes.

Hey Dawn

I was doing some searching for info on Bushsteak and noticed it was on your 2012 list but not this years. I have been wanting to try a bush type in our greenhouse and was wondering what you think of this one. I found some seeds at Homedepot and started some last night.

Mike

Mike,

I will preface this by saying that given the choice between hybrids and open-pollinated heirloom tomatoes, I always will go with the open-pollinated heirlooms for flavor every time. In a good year when we have oodles of tomatoes, we eat the heirlooms fresh and either give away or can the hybrids so you know that I have an inherent preference for the heirlooms because of their superior texture and flavor.

I do grow Bushsteak once every few years so I'll have red tomatoes on a compact plant that grows well in containers, produces relatively early and is a heavy producer. It is fine for a hybrid, and I have no complaints about it. It just has the typical flavor and texture of a red hybrid tomato and I think it will do well for you. It did really well for me last year. It does produce larger fruit than some of the other red determinate hybrids.

I have grown some red determinates that produced larger fruit than what you'll get from Bushsteak, but they were varieties developed for commercial growers, so their fruit was hard as a rock even when ripe and we didn't care much for their texture, though their flavor was good. I think Bushsteak overall was better quality than those varieties that produced larger fruit.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn

Ill let you know how they work out for us. I prefer heirlooms as well. My luck with them hasnt been to great though.

Mike

Currently, it looks as:

Amos Coli (From Brad Gates)
Ashleigh
Berkshire Polish Beefsteak
Big Ben
Big Cheef F6
Black and Brown Boar
Black Bear
Black Cherry
Blue Beauty (From Brad Gates)
Box Car Willie
Brad's Black Heart
Captain Lucky (From Millard Murdock)
Charles Herring's Porter
Cherokee Green
Cherokee Purple
County Agent
Earl of Edgecombe
Eckert Polish
Giant Red Pear - Gransasso (From Remy)
Great Divide
Hazelfield Farm
Indigo Apple (From Brad)
Jaune Flamme
Lemon Boy
Livingston's Paragon
Maiden's Gold (From Ted)
Malakhitovaya Shkatulka
Manalucie
Muddy Waters (From Mark Tutt)
Mule Team
Noir de Crimee
Orange Minsk
Sungold Hybrid
Super Sioux
White Tomesol
Zagadka Prirody

I am planting Super Bowl Sunday so I'm sure it will change by then.

Reed, That's a lot of tomato varieties. How many plants do you grow? Carol

Dawn,

I will only have one of each of these but hey, I've got seeds on over 1000 varieties and only space for around 40 plants at home right now so I've got to maximize the varieties grown at the cost of number of plants.

Next year I'll be planting in-ground so I'll probably have around 100 plants.

I am still deciding what to grow and this list was too far down. Mulberry Knob has been a bad influence because she is already planting tomatoes and she lives fairly close to me I think. I do not however have a greenhouse which might justify her starting this early. I am thinking of planting these first:

Fruhe Liebe which means early love
Siberian
Moskovich

Would it be better to start early tomatoes first or get a head start on mid-seasons? I will put a few out early under walls of water but it is way too early here for anything outside.

Helen,

The answer to your question hinges on what you want. If you want the earliest possible tomatoes, I'd start the Early ones first. If you start your mid-season tomatoes early, they'll likely begin producing about the same time as your earlies, which would be okay too.

I kind of do it backwards. When I am choosing tomato plants at the store for containers, like I did yesterday, I get mid-season or late ones. Those are the types that need an early start here to beat the heat. The only way I ever get good harvests from Brandywine, for example, is if I find it early in a store in February, buy it and bring it home and immediately plant it into movable pots that can go inside on cold nights.

I generally get good harvests from early and mid-season types no matter when I plant them as long as I have them in the ground before late April, but with late-season types, the earlier I plant them the better the harvest. It may not be an early harvest compared to actual early or midseason varieties, but it will be an early harvest for those late-season types.

Dawn

That makes sense. The small tomatoes kept producing in the heat last year. Siberian is not my favorite tomato but I had them all summer. The big hearts did not do well at all. Did you get tired of Nebraska Wedding? I see you have replaced it with another yellow- Dr. Wyche's Yellow.

I still love Nebraska Wedding and have alternated planting it and Dr. Wyche's Yellow since the early 2000s. I just have found that NW has not produced as well the last couple of years, so took a break from it. I'm sure it will be back at some point, but I love Orange Minsk so much that NW might not be back for a while.

I like to grow Dr. Wyche's Yellow partly because it is an Oklahoma heirloom. He grew it just a couple of counties east of me.

The best year ever with Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Nebraska Wedding was in 2004 when we had a lot of rain and perfect summer weather. I suppose it is not fair to compare subsequent production to that perfect year since we seldom have such ideal weather here. I also used to grow Dixie Golden Giant a lot and haven't in recent years. I need to bring it back next year.

i have a question are my tomato plants late ones because they grow very well tall and fat stems no cracks or anything they make beefsteak tomato's and a few will turn red but after i pick those the others take a very long time to turn red by the time the green ones are red its fall time and beginning to get cold out,
so i've stopped growing tomato's and they just pop up every year and they do the same thing as last year take long to turn red till its cold outside they get planted in the ground i use horse poop on my tomato's.

all my other stuff grows fine if the deer doesn't eat it or the snails like the cantaloups cucumbers squash peanuts and watermelons and the loose leaf lettuce and corn grows good.

so i guess im just wondering am i not doing something right with the tomato plants that come up every year or ? are they not getting the right kind of food or something i was thinking maybe if topped one of the tomato plants then the tomato's would have time to turn red.

You would probably do better with a cherry or a small tomato if you live where the summers get hot. Large tomatoes don't normally set fruit when the temp is high, so if they reach maturity in heat, they may not set fruit until Fall. I would try to find large transplants of small tomatoes and set them out after you last frost date.

Mike, Most beefsteak types are late to set fruit and to mature fruit. Since yours are from volunteer seedlings, you have no idea what is normal for them if you don't remember what variety they are, but it sounds like they are setting fruit late and, thus, it ripens late.

Too much horse poop also could mean they are getting too much nitrogen which makes the plants stay vegetative for a long time before they flower and set fruit.

If you want fruit earlier, your best bet is to start out with purchased transplants and to choose varieties that mature more quickly than the average beefsteak type.

You could plant Early Girl, Bush Early Girl or Better Bush and get fairly early fruit...a couple of months after you put 6-8 week old transplants into the ground. Jetsetter or JetStar would give you fruit a couple of weeks later than those, and most standard hybrids that produce red, roundish tomatoes would give you tomatoes 75-80 days after the transplants are put into the ground. Many beefsteak types, although they produce big, luscious tomatoes, do not produce fruit well in heat and they have DTMs of 80-90 days or more so they always are going to be fairly late.

It may just be that in your climate, you still won't get many ripe fruit until fall. It depends on how early you can transplant tomato plants into the ground there. When's your average last freeze date?

One problem is that tomato plants mostly stop setting fruit once daytime highs are above 92 and nighttime lows are in the 70s. You have to get your plants into the ground early enough that they set fruit before that happens. They won't start setting many fruit again until the temperatures cool down. That is an issue we face a lot here in OK.

Cherry tomatoes or the varieties that produce smallish slicer or salad types like Jaune Flammee' or Fourth of July will set fruit more or less all summer, except in the hottest weather, so they might be a good variety for you. I like Early Girl because not only does she set fruit early, but unlike many other early types that shut down after producing early, Early Girl will go right on setting fruit almost all summer long. Some years it still is setting fruit for me in August when it is ridiculously hot here.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

My tomatoes for 2013 consists of the following

Purple Cherokee, yellow brandywine, Japanese purple trifle, Dutchman, bread & salt, purple Russian, orange & green stripe Tom, Creme brulee��"�
Cassidy's folly, black early, Isis candy.
Check out Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

being in the garden is wonderful love every minute of it

Enjoys ours

All- I see many brandywine varieties around. Is there one you all like better. This is my first year trying heirlooms and second year with garden here in OKC.
Thanks,
Denweave

I like Brandywine Sudduth the best. If it produced well in our hot climate, I'd grow 10-20 BW-Sudduth plants every year. However, Brandywine doesn't like our hot weather, and often the heat shuts down production of fruit almost before it even begins. Around here, in all but the coolest and wettest springs and summers, I am happy if I get a total of 6-8 BW-Sudduth fruit per plant, and they tend to be from plants that went into the ground ridiculously early and, therefore, had a chance to set a few fruit before the heat arrives.

So, for a tomato with Brandywine-like flavor but significantly higher production, I like Gary 'O Sena, which is a Keith Mueller cross from Brandywine x Cherokee Purple. Gary 'O Sena produces in about 65-70 days in my garden, whereas the first Sudduth fruit takes about 85-90 days to ripen.

Brandy Boy, from Burpee Seed, also has flavor that is somewhat similar to Brandywine but with higher productivity and better disease tolerance.

If your space is limited, Brandywine might not be the best choice of a tomato variety for you since its production is so highly variable and weather-dependent. I have a very large garden and lots of space, so even if I plant 6 or 8 Brandywine plants and they don't produce a single thing, I'll still have plenty of tomatoes. If my garden space was limited and I needed heavy production from every tomato plant I planted, I wouldn't plant Brandywine at all.

I also like the yellow Brandywine variety called 'Platfoot', though I haven't grown it in a while.

This year I am growing TexWine and DixieWine, both of which are new to me this year, and hoping maybe they'll produce better in our hot climate than the older Brandywine varieties do.

Thank you okiedawn! I have 18x30 garden and will probably plant about 12-15 tomatoes this year. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks for being so open and helpful.