Tigerdawn,
Questions are the way you learn. And here you will never be scolded for asking a question or making a post unlike some forums. The only bad question is the one never asked.

There are many reasons in my opinion for the many varieties. Climate, weather, use, maturity time, taste, size, color and many more. Some like to see if they can grow the perfect tomato. Whatever that is. And many are accidental crosses. There is a demand for many different types. Canners, slicers, pastes, cherries ect.

When you say orange my first thought is Kellogg's Breakfast. It is temperature and water sensitive. More so than most. It is in my top 3. And fits the bill taste wise for what you desire. My thoughts on growing it is you need well drained soil. Either good sand like I have or in a container that drains well. And after the real cool nights hits forget it. Nebraska Wedding is one Dawn really likes. I have never grown it. But will this year. I've seen mixed reviews on it. So will add mine after this year.
Sungold hybrid is probably the most popular cherry type. It cracks very easy if overwatered. I like Juane Flammee' ( a little larger type) and a Black Cherry cross I grew last year. I'm growing a green when ripe cherry this year I'm told is really good. I haven't been a big cherry grower in the past. Will grow a few more this year.

For what you want in size and taste a few of the pink beefsteaks come to mind. Brandyboy Hybrid is one, Hege's German Pink and Florida Pink are just a few. Many love the Brandywines but so far haven't found one that does well here. There are some bi colors I really like also. Flavor may have more zing than you desire. Texas Star is a favorite when it does wel and what I call mild. I like Pineapple but it has more of what I call a typical bi color flavor.

And then there is the blacks. Hard for me to limit the number here. Cherokee Purple, Indian Stripe, Black from Tula, True Black Brandywine, Amazon Chocolate and Carbon are just a few that pops in my mind. They do well here and most seem to have some disease resistance and a good flavor. I could name several more.

If you have room for containers that is another option. And works well.

Dawn our "Elite Gardener" will be along and will give you some good advice. These names were from the top of my head and like always later I think oh I forgot that one. Jay

Tigerdawn,

I had many of the same questions as you. This thread might be of some help to you. When you need answers, this is the place. The people here are very helpful.

Roger

Here is a link that might be useful: Heirlooms in Oklahoma

Thank you Jay! I just worry that over the internet my curious tone may come off wrong or something. Sometimes my questions come off as attacking to some people even though I don't mean it that way.

I should clarify that I love tomato flavor, just not as much acid. I have trouble with too much stomach acid and heartburn and really acidic tomatoes make it worse, even with a daily med. But I do love that old time tomato flavor.

I was thinking one of the pink beefsteaks would be good to try. I've grown an orange brandywine for several years and it has never done well. Amana Orange. If any of you would like some seeds to try I can send them to you. It sounds like the perfect tomato for me but I can't get it to produce.

I live in the middle of OKC near a creek. I have nice clay-loam with a fair amount of organic matter in the first foot or so, then it turns to typical Oklahoma red clay. I don't think a tomato that needs to be well drained would be a good pick.

The only tomato I've been able to do well with is yellow pear. It is nice and mild and good for eating off the vine. But I'd like some variety in the flavors I think. I'm sure since there are so many I can find a few that'll work for me!

I really appreciate all the free exchange of knowledge here. I could spend weeks researching on the internet and still not know what to do. You guys are the best!

I've resolved to be more vigilant with my garden this year. Last year I planted it and then my thyroid started to mess up and I didn't feel well for several months. This year I told my thyroid it needs to behave so I can actually pursue my hobbies! LOL!

Tigerdawn,

Oh, please never apologize for asking questions. How else are we all going to learn if we don't ask questions?

I grow specific tomatoes for very specific reasons, and in general there are several kinds of tomatoes used for different purposes. For example, paste or plum type tomatoes are great for making sauce or sun-dried (or dehydrator- or oven-dried) tomatoes because they have lower water content. Any of the bite-sized tomatoes (which come in grape, cherry, currant and small pear shapes) can be used for fresh eating in the garden (assuming you abstain from spraying them with chemicals), snacking, dehydrating or in salads. However, you probably wouldn't want to make sauce from the bite-sized tomatoes because it would take a gazillion of them. (I have made a yellow sauce from a bunch of yellow bite-sized tomatoes but I have a machine that removes the skin and seeds for me. It probably isn't an experiment I'll repeat.) Globe-shaped and beefsteak (flattened or oblate shapes) are primarily used for slicing tomatoes to eat as a side dish or on sandwiches or burgers. Those are generalities, but I think you get the idea.

For snacking in the garden, there are many wonderful possibilities and I'd suggest SunGold, Sweet Million or Sun Cherry (a red sungold type) and Black Cherry. Any or all of them would suit your purposes. My favorite way to eat them is to grab a handful off the plant while working in the garden and then to eat them while they are still sun-warmed. I also dry several thousand of them every summer to get me through the winter months.

For a great large orange type, I'd suggest Nebraska Wedding, Kellogg's Breakfast or KBX which is related to Kellogg's Breakfast. All have great flavor. For me, Nebraska Wedding is the clear choice since it grows well, resists diseases and produces tons of wonderfully-flavored tomatoes in our garden and they have outstanding flavor. Jay has had better luck with KB or KBX and I'm sure he'll come along here in a while and tell you what he likes and why.

There are many good sandwich/slicing tomatoes that are great for fresh eating and I'll list just a few here: Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Jetstar, Neves Azorean Red, Porterhouse, BrandyBoy, Goliath, Big Beef, Beefmaster, Estler's Mortgage Lifter, Mountain Princess (very early but not the largest of tomatoes), Aunt Ruby's German Green, Royal Hillbilly, Indian Stripe and True Black Brandywine. I probably could go on forever, but thought I'd leave a few thousand options for the other folks here to add to the list. LOL

I have grown tomatoes my entire life because I grew up in a gardening family, but until the 1990s, I pretty much thought a tomato was a tomato was a tomato. When I was a kid we grew mostly big red slicers (Big Set and Spring Giant long ago, and later on Homestead and Bingo, Carnival and Whirlaway, Big Boy and Better Boy, then still later Celebrity and Merced), red Roma tomatoes for canning and salsa and large red cherry and sweet 100s for cherries. The most 'exotic' tomatoes we grew were from the Gene Porter and Sons Seed Co. and were a small, pink oval tomato called Porter because they continued to produce large crops in the late July and August heat when all the larger tomatoes tended to stall out in the heat.

Imagine how amazed I was when I grew my first heirlooms in the 1990s----Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter and Big Rainbow. I did learn then that some types my dad had grown--like Sioux and Mule Team and Box Car Willie--were considered heirlooms in the tomato world. I quickly discovered heirlooms had unique flavors.....and colors and shapes and sizes.....and that a huge variety of different tomatoes existed: yellow pear-shaped tomatoes, black plum-shaped ones, types that remain mostly green when ripe, types that can be picked green and slowly ripened over a couple of months to prolong your harvest deeply into winter. So, is a tomato just a tomato just a tomato? Nope. They all have their own specific flavors just like different vintages of wine.

Those of us who grow many types do so, I think, partly because we enjoy the variety of flavors, shapes and sizes, and partly because we are always searching for the best tomato. Maybe it is a flavor we remember from our youth, or maybe we are just searching for that elusive "best flavor ever" that maybe we'll never really find. I cannot imagine a year without Black Krim or Cherokee Purple tomatoes for BLT sandwiches, and I'd miss having black cherries for my salads and snacks. So, I grow oodles of varieties every year, but have cut back a lot since my days of mega-experimentation in the early 2000s when I had as many as 100 varieties and 400 plants just in the spring planting. Nowadays I try to cut back to about 25 varieties every year, but usually fail at that and end up with 40-50 varieties and around 100 plants in the spring planting. The fall planting varies, depending on how the spring plants do (or don't) continue to perform.

Raising your own from seed is actually easy if you have the time and space to do it. Once you develop the ability to raise your own, you can grow any type you want and won't have to rely on the plants you can purchase. Getting plants at the swap is always an option too, but there isn't any guarantee which varieties will be at the swap in any given year, although I think it is safe to say that Black Cherry and Sungold probably will be brought by someone every year.

We do eat lots more vegetables because we grow our own. Fresh and fresh-frozen veggies are so much better than store-bought ones that I can hardly bring myself to buy any veggies at the store any more. There is no comparison between store potatoes and home-grown ones and that surprised me because I used to think a potato is a potato is a potato, and that's not true either! LOL

When people tell me they don't like vegetables, I immediately know that they haven't had a chance to eat fresh veggies right from a garden or farmer's market. Freshness makes such a difference. Canned or frozen green beans or black-eyed peas are "o.k." but fresh ones surpass them in flavor by a mile. So, growing your own likely will encourage y'all to eat more, and that's a good thing.

Dawn

Thank you for reminding me about that thread. I forgot all about it, and I even posted in it!

It is overwhelming to have so many choices in each category!

I have never had one of the black or dark tomatoes. How do they compare to an average red heirloom beefsteak in flavor?

I think the best tomato experience I remember is having a bologna and tomato sandwich with a huge thick red tomato slice that was still warm from the garden. I swoon just thinking about it! And my mouth is watering now!! Haha!

My husband is one of those that hates most veggies. He likes corn and potatoes. (eye roll) He grew up on fast food and restaraunt food and so anything that isn't loaded with fat and additives doesn't have enough flavor for him. He literally gags on things like steamed cauliflower, which I think has wonderful flavor but he can't taste anything; it's just texture to him. I haven't had a productive enough garden yet to convince him to like veggies.

If you aren't growing many, I would plant one or two early like Glacier or a similar early to get you started. Then come the better tasting tomatoes of summer. I had very good luck with Pale Perfect Purple and Eva Purple Ball which are very pretty perfect tomatoes. They had no flaws, were just the right size for one person and tasted great. Granny Cantrell was a mild pink beefsteak that I really liked. It is a larger tomato, mild and good. It produced well for me. The very large tomatoes are impressive but take longer to mature and for me a bug bites or something gets them before they are ripe. An 8 oz or so size that has a good taste can get ripe before something happens to it. When you get hooked, you will be trying new ones and growing more than you need.

Tigerdawn you have received many great suggestions and responses. I could of listed a lot more. In Hybrids my reliable has been the Goliath hybrid which failed for the fisrt time in around ten years I would say. Porterhouse and Old Fashioned Goliath are two more good ones. Jetsonic set good last year and my Lil Sis and her family really loved them. To me I had way better.

I will give my opinion on Kellogg's Breakfast and KBX. KB is a regular leaf (RL) plant and KBX has potato type leaves(PL). KB has done great here for me all but one year. My favorite orange right now. That could change this summer as I'm growing a few new ones this summer. Many say KBX is as good or better. So far after two years I've yet to taste one. Partly my fault. And may not like the harsh elements here as well. I hope to grow a few yet and start saving seeds. I believe in selective adaptation. Another controversial subject. An old grower on GW when I started browsing the garden forums believed in it. And why I started saving seeds. Even after 3 years I can tell an improvement. Then there are those who claim it is impossible for a tomato to adapt. And this last year a researcher said he felt it was what he called selective adaptation. And I agree with that. Although some say save seeds from a variety of different sizes and shapes of fruit. I save the biggest, prettiest, tastiest and most vigorous like many do. Just like I did when raising horses and cattle. I never saved and used the runt for breeding purposes. And even after only 3 years when I grow my selections against the original I find usually they do better. Better disease resistance ect. So till I get better results from KBX KB will be in my garden every year. This year during a difficult season my biggest was 13 ounces I think. Most of mine run in the 8-12 oz range here. And that is a nice sized tomato. One slice will cover a slice of bread and hang over the edges. About the biggest I grow are pounders. And that is a huge tomato. I weigh most of mine so can't tell the fish stories about them. LOL Another thing is the mid range tomatoes 4-10 ounces usually produce more total pounds. I have found a few larger ones that set well. Todebusch Pink did last year. But very few. Jay

Jay, Is "adapts" the new name for "evolution"? It seems to me that all plants and animals "adapt" or "evolve", but we are afraid to say it because of the negative thoughts that evolution brings. I think there is great wisdom in saving seed and planting your best from each year. I think the line would have to improve/adapt/evolve. It is part of the reason we have so many varieties of things. I don't think you could ever plant all of the available beans, or tomatoes (although Dawn and Jay are trying), and if you did, you likely would come up with a new one yourself because something would cross or mutate, or "be selected" by the grower until it became better for your climate.

Now before anyone gets excited, I don't think I came from an ape, and I do believe in the Christian creation totally, but when I look at suits of armor in Europe and the size would probably fit an American 12 year old, I do see change and I think it applies to plants, animals, and humans.

My husband says that during the Civil War, in order to qualify for the Cavalry you had to be 145 pounds or less. How many adult men do you know that would qualify today.

Do I believe in the Biblical creation? Without a doubt! Do I believe in evolution? Well yes, but I don't think they are mutally exclusive. We even do our own form of selection when we choose a mate, and tend to "select" the best one available. LOL Just my 2 cents.

Carol (who knows she is probably starting a war). LOL

Oh goody. My thread started an evolution debate. LOL!

Ok. So I'll probably have to get most of my tomatoes from the swap in the spring. I think I'll try my Amana Orange one more time, just to be sure it won't work for me. I'll do one each of the Black Cherry and Sungold for eating and salads and then one or two good producing slicers, hopefully beefsteaks if there are any. I don't have a problem starting my own seeds; I just don't have any of those varieties and I've got so many other seeds to start I'm ok with getting plants of those.

I went ahead and planted a couple seeds to grow in the greenhouse. They probably won't do very well but if I only get a couple of fruit off them it'll be worth it. I can't wait for good tomatoes!

I sincerely hope the evolution topic doesn't get out of hand. I would like to say about the seed saving thing: if you're trying to get the best tomato plant for you, save the seeds from the fruits you like best. If you're trying to preserve the genetic diversity of the heirloom variety, save seed from lots of different fruits and plants. Genetic makeup changes in a population over time. Select for traits you want, either specific or diverse and the next generation will reflect that.

Tigerdawn,

More tomato ramblings from a tomato nut....

See all the answers you're getting already? One of the 'problems' (and I use that word tongue-in-cheek) with a thread like this is that as soon as Jay or Carol or someone else mentions a favorite tomato of theirs, it reminds me of three more I forgot to mention.

You said you like mild flavor and Jay had mentioned a couple of pink ones and that reminded me of a couple of my favorite pinks that I forgot to mention earlier--Valena Pink and Tennessee Britches--they both produce very large, sweet pink tomatoes. In general, I avoid the plants that produce extra-large tomatoes for the most part because their DTM is later and the heat shuts them down before they've had time to make a lot of tomatoes. However, some of the pinks like those I mentioned and bicolors like Big Rainbow and Pineapple and Old German have a wonderful flavor that I think of as mild and they are well worth planting. The majority of my non-bite-sized plants produce tomatoes in the 8-16 oz. range because I want them to produce as long as possible and as many fruit per plant as possible. If I am expecting a very rainy spring, I tend to throw in a few more of the plants that produce really large tomatoes like Tennessee Britches and Old German because they do quite well in very wet springs, and I think that is partly because very wet springs tend to give us milder June weather (at least in my part of OK) and that allows the big tomatoes to set fruit and mature before the heat gets them.

I liked Helen's suggestion of Glacier. I almost always plant it and Sophie's Choice for very early tomatoes, along with Early Girl and Better Bush.

I am a tomato maniac and I go to very great lengths to do everything I can to have my first ripe tomatoes in April and my last ripe tomatoes in December. Most years it works out just fine. I don't have a greenhouse, so I don't try to grow winter tomatoes, but one of these days I will. If I had a greenhouse, I'd attempt to grow Trust, which was specifically developed for commercial greenhouses and which has a good reputation for being reliable. (The cost of the seeds for Trust are very expensive though--almost prohibitively so.)

Black tomatoes have a very complex flavor that I find hard to describe. Their flavor is sort of smokey and sort of salty and partly sweet and partly acidic (but not very) and just very, very unique. I have the hardest time in the world convincing someone to try a black tomato the first time, but after that they beg for more. One of my old farmer friends actually 'scolded' me for giving black tomatoes to someone besides him. He was afraid that once our other neighbors tasted the black ones, he'd have to share my excess black tomatoes with them. That was sort of funny.

One way to grow more tomatoes is to plant them in containers. You can grow any tomato plant in a really large container that holds 15 or 20 gallons or soil, but there also are many that grow in smaller 5 to 10 or 12 gallon containers. Containers don't have to be big, fancy and elaborate. I have perfectly wonderful success with 10-gallon Sun Leaves grow bags, which are more or less square plastic bags with drainage holes punched in the bottom. They are black on the inside and white on the outside. The white exterior helps reflect sunlight and keep the roots cooler. Ten-gallon grow bags only cost about $1 each back when I bought them (during the rainy spring of 2007).

For container growing, Southern Night is a great black one because it is a determinate. New Big Dwarf is a pink tomato that's grown just fine in pots for me, and I have had very good results from Jaune Flammee', Nebraska Wedding, Sun Gold, Sun Sugar (an imp. SunGold with less cracking), and Dr. Wyche's Yellow in medium-sized containers. I've even grown Sweet Baby Girl in 5-gallon containers and Window Box Roma in actual window boxes (although I put the window boxes on the ground for fear the weight of the plant would pull the boxes off the wall). You can grow Red Robin in 4" pots although 1 or 2 gallon pots are better, and Canary Yellow, Pixie Orange in 1 or 2 gallon pots. There are some tomatoes bred especially for hanging baskets, including Tumbler, Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow. Patio, Patio Princess and Totem are hybrids bred for containers. So, you don't have to be limited by the size of your garden because you can grow tomatoes in pots anywhere you have 6 hours of sunlight.

The issue of soil drainage is a very complex one. To sum it up briefly, plant roots technically do not grow in the soil. Instead, they grow in the air pockets between soil particles. With clay soil, those air pockets are fewer and farther between, so the roots struggle. Then, if your soil is very heavy and slow draining, the air pockets fill up with water and the water saturates the roots which doesn't let them take up nutrients from the soil. If this continues for a prolonged period of time, your plants may be nutritionally challenged and their growth and productivity will stall. When we talk about well-drained soil, we are referring to soil that drains well enough that the roots do not sit in water for prolonged periods of time. Sandy loam is great and so is well-improved soil. Clay is more challenging, but there are many kinds of clay. Clays that have a higher sand/silt/organic matter content drain better than soils that are almost entirely clay. I have areas in my yard with awful, thick red clay soil (picture red clay pots and that's my soil) but I have a couple of other area with a more sandy-clay soil and that's where I am putting in a new garden this year to give me more space for more corn, beans and winter squash. If you've added a lot of organic matter to your vegetable garden, it likely is well drained for clay soil, but it likely never will be as well-drained as Jay's wonderful (and really well-improved) sandy soil because he started with sand and you and I started with clay and nothing we do can change that fact.

I raised my son eating all kinds of veggies and he swears he hates them. Yet, he does eat potatoes (unfortunately, almost always as french fries), broccoli, green beans, black-eyed peas, corn, pinto beans and okra. I've noticed that he's much more likely to eat vegetables I raised than to eat vegetables from the grocery store, and I think it is because home-raised ones really do taste better. He doesn't like tomatoes a lot, but will sometimes eat some of the milder ones and he does like tomatoes it catsup and salsa. LOL

I think tomatoes are one of the home gardener's crops that gives a gardener the best return per square foot of garden space used because one healthy, high-producing plant can give you many pounds of tomatoes.

Dawn

You do know about Trudi on winter sowing and the tomato seeds for postage? I got some good tomatoes at Sam's - Campari on the vine in a plastic pack. They weren't cheap but I have been enjoying them through this snow better for me than the candy I'm also eating. They are hybrids but I have some of their seeds fermenting on top of my refrigerator now. I have been trying to find out more about them. They were grown in Arizona in a greenhouse I'm sure.

I believe that Campari is a hybrid, so your seeds are not likely to produce a plant like the parent.

Has anyone tried Sophie's Choice early tomato? I wonder if it would be a good one for winter greenhouse growing.

I had no luck at all with it outside, but I read in Carolyn's book that if it gets dry it can be stunted. I read somewhere else it doesn't like heat. That is what I have here hot and dry in the summer. Also it is supposed to be a small plant and that is not what I wanted. It was the only tomato I pulled up. Others have said good things about it; I don't have a greenhouse. I wonder where you can get Campari seeds?

tigerdawn - I just found a link that shows that people are growing them out from saved seed and having success.

Here is a link that might be useful: Campari

Carol,

We all have been "taught" that saved seed from F-1 hybrids will not give us identical plants/fruits in the F-2 generation. However, that isn't really true in all cases. That have been many documented instances of seed saved from F-1 hybrids giving rise to plants/fruit that are alike, which means the genes did not resort and give you something different. I am not a plant geneticist (and I don't play one on TV) so I cannot explain why this happens, but it generally means the parents were probably very similar to one another so that their offspring are very similar or, for one reason or another, genetic sorting failed to occur.

Some serious tomato hobbyists believe this is an indication that some tomato varieties passed off as hybrids may just be open-pollinated after all.

You also can save seed from any F-1 hybrid and dehybridize it over a period of generations via large growouts and selection, where you select for the traits you want and rogue out the other plants or fruit and don't save succeeding generations of seed from them. Lots of people have dehybridized hybrids which is why some places like Tomatofest sometimes offer O-P seeds of some varieties we all think are hybrids.

I think the chances are almost 100% that in this case Helen will get Campari seeds from her F-1 tomatoes that give her Campari tomatoes on her F-2 plants because numerous other folks have done it already. There have been several threads on the tomato forum the last few years about saving seed from Campari. The folks who have saved the seed and grown out plants from the saved seed say the fruit they get from their F-2 seed are comparable to the F-1 fruit from which the seed were saved. I haven't tried it myself so cannot vouch for their results, but the ones who've done it say it has worked for them. Santa is another well-known bite-sized tomato that has been either grown from saved seed and proven true or which has been dehybridized by some hobbyists. At one point Santa seed was available and was sold, but that was before lawsuits and legal trouble and such and the firm that won in court decided they would not allow seed to be sold to home gardeners in the United States. So, people who want to grow Santa themselves had to save seed from the F-1 and try growing it out and I believe they felt their F-2s and succeeding generations are true to type.

There are other instances where seed saved from F-1 hybrids have given plants/fruit in the F-2 and succeeding generations which so closely resembled the original that no one tell see a difference in them. In the case of Sungold, some people have grown it out to an F3 or F4 and beyond and still have what they believe is plants/fruits identical to the original (or even an improved version, like SunGold Select II). It can be done and I am not a plant geneticist so I can't explain the odds of success with any specific variety. Since Jay hangs out with those tomato geneticist types, maybe he can explain it. I know that a dehybridized, O-P Ramapo was kept alive via several generations of saved and grown-out seed long after the hybrid Ramapo was taken off the market (and now the hybrid is back).

Helen, In the past there have been a lot of Campari threads on the Tomato Forum and some of the older ones had what little history is known. A search there or on Google might find some of those old threads. A lot of times about all you can find out about a hybrid is which breeder created it or which wholesaler raises/sells the seeds. Everything else about hybrids is proprietary data that the breeders are not required to release because it contains info considered to be 'trade secrets', like the parentage of the hybrid, for example. We only know parentage of some old O-P varieties because back in the day when they were created, the 'owners' or 'breeders' of a new variety released that data voluntarily. In those early years of tomato hybridization, it seems like they were proud to say that Tomato A was an offspring of Tomato B x Tomato C and it was, in a way, a form of advertising because if you liked Tomato B and Tomato C then you'd be likely to try growing Tomato A merely because you liked its parentage.
Tigerdawn, I haven't grown Sophie's Choice in a greenhouse so I can't comment on that, but it grew well and produced fruit for me all summer in 2009 even when temps were in the 90s and 100s. I had it in containers and did keep it well-watered, so that may have played a factor, and I had it in a location where it received direct sun from roughly 11 a.m. to about 5 or 6 p.m. To me, though, the only thing that makes Sophie's Choice worth growing is that it is pretty early. It isn't a bad tomato at all, but there's many others that I think taste better and produce as well or better.

Dawn

Carol,

I see you found an old Campari thread while I was writing and eating my long post.

I personally suspect that there are some O-Ps passed off as hybrids and I'm not saying that's the case with Campari because I don't know that for a fact, but I think it does happen with some varieties sometimes.

Dawn

I just want a tomato in the winter that tastes... well, like a tomato. It doesn't have to be a pink brandywine or anything. That's what summertime is for!

It looks like I'll have room for 5 plants. At this point I'd like sungold and black cherrry, the Amana Orange that I'm trying to make work for me, a beefsteak, and maybe a brandywine. What are the chances that those might be at the spring swap?

Another question: when do you start seed for fall tomatoes? Can you use seed from your spring tomatoes or are they not producing yet? Or do you put in completely different varieties?

I have seen several tomatoes recently that I thought were Hybrid that are being sold as OP. Sungold being one of them. So is Sungold Select the OP form of Sungold? I have been buying Sungold seeds every year because I love the tomato, but I would love to be able to save seeds from one that taste like Sungold. I have already bought them for next year. Should I make it a hybrid?

You are hearing this from the person who didn't even know what she was eating last year after the labels got washed off. I knew the Rutgers and the Sungold because they were planted in different cups. I have never had that happen before, so it was a hap-hazard growing year. Somehow, I didn't get a Black Cherry transplanted at all and I know I started some. Probably some of those I just threw away when I couldn't get my garden ready in the spring. We had plenty of Sungold tho, planted in containers, so that helped to make up for it.

What I had read about Campari was that only 4 companies in North America were growing them and 3 of those were in Canada, so I assumed the seeds were controlled. If they are producing true from seed then they will not be protected for long, although I suppose they could keep you from selling them. I hate these patented things that they are allowing now, although I don't know if this falls into that category. I don't think that I have eaten this tomato, but it looks like Sam's in Missouri has it and I shop at the Sam's in Joplin, so I will have to look for it.

I went through my tomato seed last night, and I am having a hard time deciding what I want to plant. I wish I had room to plant them all. LOL

I am considering making my main crop a Sioux since George said they did very well for him last year. Dawn, what is your opinion? I am very anxious to try some of these that I got from Jay, especially the Goliaths, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Nebraska Wedding. I need a really heavy producer. I know I have lots of good ones with great taste so I am not worried about that. I just need to come up with one that will over-whelm me with it's production.

HaHa - I should also proofread better. I added the words "Should I make it a Hybrid?" to my post and it was meant to go on the LAST paragraph, not the FIRST. So when it doesn't make sense, blame it on senility.....mine.

I have no idea what will be at the spring swap. Undoubtedly Sungold and Black Cherry assuming everyone doesn't have a late freeze or crop failure or something. I don't recall anyone here having Amana Orange on their grow list in the past, so don't know if that one is likely. The chance of "a" beefsteak of one type or another is somewhat better because a lot of folks grow beefsteak types. Brandywine is iffy. I know I won't be growing it this year although I probably will grow True Black Brandywine. Someone else might grow Brandywine Sudduths's or BW Yellow Platfoot. The odds of a Brandy Boy or Brandymaster are higher because Brandy Boy is a proven performer in our heat and Brandymaster is a brand new variety that some of us will be trying for the first time.

Fall tomatoes are complicated. I vary when I start seed for them based on the DTMs of the ones I decide to grow. I try to start them sometime in May so the plants can go into the ground before the end of June. Whether or not I manage to do that depends on the weather and how quickly I finished the spring planting (or if I am behind because it is constantly raining or whatever). For my part of the state and for the varieties I tend to choose for fall, a late June or early July planting will give me ripe fruit well before the first freeze most years.

Everything you do with your fall plantings is based on the average date of the first hard freeze in your county. For my county, that date is officially Nov. 7th. So, if my fall plants are in the ground by July 7th, they have 4 months to produce ripe fruit. In reality, too, I usually can keep plants alive beyond the first hard freeze by covering them up well when a freeze is expected so I tend to be picking tomatoes into late November.

Unfortunately, the weather does as it please and not what we desire/expect, so it doesn't care when the average first hard freeze is expected....you get what you get, so we've had a hard freeze here as early as Sept. 30th and as late as mid-December in the 11 years we've been here.

It is unlikely you'd have seed from spring-planted tomatoes in time to start those seeds for fall. I won't say it will never happen, but it isn't very likely. You can, however, harvest and ferment and produce seed and use it shortly thereafter. Tomato seed does not need a dormant period the way seed potatoes do.

I choose to put in different varieties most of the time. For fall tomatoes, I need plants with shorter DTMs so they can produce more fruit before cold weather arrives. For fall fruit, I like to plant long-keeping varieties that I can pick green and ripem slowly indoors over time. What I choose for fall also can vary depending on what the spring crop contains. If I had a spring 'crop failure' with seedlings of a variety I really like, I'll try it again for fall. If I planted fewer paste types for sauce or salsa in summer, I might plant more of them for fall. It just depends on what my goals are that year. I often grow some of the Livingston tomato line in the fall partly because they are so tough that the heat doesn't seem to bother them much and partly because I love their history and like knowing that some of Mr. Livingston's varieties live on in my garden. Besides that, they have that good old-fashioned tomato flavor. (I may be the only person on this forum who has read "Livingston And The Tomato", but I am a tomato maniac and I love to read.)

I like planting different varieties for fall because it allows me to plant more varieties in one calendar year.

Don't forget, you can start fall plants using cuttings from the spring plants. It is the easiest thing in the world if you want to grow the same varieties again for fall. Also in a good year, some plants may handle the heat and pests and diseases well enough that they produce throughout the entire growing season. Quite a few of mine produced through all of 2009 and were not replaced with new fall plants. In drought years that is less likely to happen than in average or wet years.

And, you didn't ask but I'll throw this out there. If you are going to raise tomatoes in your greenhouse during the fall, I'd try to have those tomato plants about 6 to 8 weeks old and ready to go into the containers they'll be grown in well before the first frost. Ideally, you'd have them almost large enough to bloom before your average first freeze date. Plants slow down in cooler weather so you want them to be ready to start setting fruit in early to mid-fall. If you put in your greenhouse tomatoes too late, you won't have winter tomatoes to eat...just really early spring ones. And I am assuming your greenhouse will stay at or above 50-55 degrees so the plants and fruit perform properly.
Dawn

Tigerdawn,
As long as you aren't in a big hurry let me know what seeds you want to try and I will see if I have them. I'm sure I can fix you up with a few good ones to try. Dawn has labeled me the enabler so guess I'd better try to live up to that label. LOL. Jay

I've grown a few oranges here and they've all done very well for me. Which was unfortunate because I ended up not caring for any of them. LOL Kellogg's Breakfast that everyone raves about -- ptooey. Blech. Amana Orange -- icky. They were just all so blah. No matter which year I grew them or location, weather, what have you.

So, since you like mild tomatoes, I bet you'll like them. That's what I didn't like. I can't remember offhand the other oranges I've grown but do remember Amana Orange and KB did really, really well for me, AO the most productive by far. Good thing my kids aren't as picky as me!

Here's a question for whomever that this thread reminded me of: Is the "acid" flavor variations actually attributable to acid? I think I remember it being related to the sugar content and the acid variations in tomatoes are negligible (as far as taste but, of course, canning safety is a different topic). But, I may be thinking of something else that got all twisted in my brain. I stopped spending time at tomato forums because of personalities a couple of years back so the info is buried in some rusty corner of my brain and a quick google didn't get me any answers.

No biggie, just curious since this thread made me think of it.

Diane

Diane,

Yes, technically the actual acidity of tomatoes is attributed to acid levels and it is measured in standard pH terms. Earlier in the tomato's growth process, it is the malic acid and then later as it ripens, it is the citric acid. You're also correct that it is the variations in sugar content that influence how our taste buds perceive tomato flavor and acidity/sweetness because most tomato varieties are relatively similar in pH.

Most tomatoes have a pH between 4.0 and 4.6 with only a few exceptions, so the difference tastewise is negligible if you were basing your taste buds' perception of flavor on the acidity level only. Then, along come the sugars to influence our perception.

The sugars in tomatoes, both fructose and glucose, vary and it is the combination of the sugars + the acidity that our taste buds perceive as acidity or sourness or tanginess versus sweetness. So a tomato we believe tastes lower in acid really is just higher in sugar.

Is that how you remember it?

When you cut open a tomato and look at it, you're mostly looking at two main types of tissue. There is the pericarp, which is what we commonly refer to as the flesh or meat of the tomato. Then there are the seed locules where you find the seeds and the jellylike substance that surrounds them. Pericarp tissue has higher levels of glucose than the locule tissue contains, and locule tissue has higher levels of acids than the pericarp tissues. So, different varieties of tomatoes will have different ratios of pericarp tissue to locules and that gives them a differing balance between acidity and sweetness.

As I understand it, acid and sugar levels within tomato fruits are not exact in each variety because their development is influenced by the soil they're grown in, their growing conditions, and even the intensity of light the plants receive. The more intense light a tomato plant receives, the higher its sugar levels will be. Also, potassium levels are an important influence on the development of proper acidity levels.

A couple of years ago, Korney posted a chart on the Tomato Forum (I only lurk and don't post there for the same reason you stopped spending time at those forums) that showed the pH of a few different varieties as well as their Brix (sweetness level). Let me run a search and see if I can find it. If I do, I'll link it.

And, for canning purposes, either citric acid or bottled(not fresh) lemon juice or vineger must be added in the amount stated on the NCHFP website and I won't try to say what it is from memory, because I'd likely get the amount wrong.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Korney's Chart Is Last Post On This Thread

Ah, that's it! I thought I remembered it was something along those lines but my brain was fuzzy on it. It's been a couple of years since I bothered with my inner tomato geek. I think she's hungry for attention.

Thanks, Dawn!!

Diane

Diane,

You are welcome.

Your inner tomato geek must have cabin fever.

C'mon now, Diane, you have a greenhouse......you could be out there playing in the dirt in the greenhouse right now. LOL

Just because the sun was shining I had an overwhelming urge to plant something today, but I didn't. With snow due tomorrow and/or Wed. and/or Thurs., planting didn't seem smart right now.

A lot of garden catalogs arrived today, and I really don't need any more seeds, but that won't stop me from looking at them!

Dawn

I do have several things growing out in the greenhouse but, not being heated, the more fun & tender stuff is still a ways off. *sigh* That and I'm currently working on reorganizing my enormous fabric stash -- in the greenhouse. I can barely move out there right now. LOL I aim to conquer it all this week and regain control so I can start in on winter sowing next week.

Hold me to that!

Diane, the procrastinator

Diane, it might be a toss-up to see who has the biggest fabric stash. I had too much for one person to have and then people starting donating fabric for my children's clothing project. Usually I whip out kiddie clothes fast and furiously for a humanitarian project and send them off in November. I have been so busy this year that I didn't get many made. I have a stack of shirts back there now that need to be hemmed, and about 10 more cut out and ready to serge, but I just can't seem to get around to doing it. I told DH that I need 2-3 weeks in January when I do little but sew so I can get my sewing room back to normal.

When I am focused, I cut out a dozen or more shirts, then serge them all on day 2, then hem them all the next day. I hem them on my sewing machine so I don't have to keep changing my serger back and forth.

It's not like this is an expensive garment, so I use white thread to serge the light colors and black to do the dark ones. It doesn't show anyway and this way I can keep one serger with black thread and the other with white and just switch my chair back and forth. I hem in the fabric color, but the sewing machine is easy to change thread on.

Sometimes we make tee-shirt dresses and I just serge the tee shirt part and pass it on to someone to add the skirt. Some of the ladies that help me with this can do that part but don't know how to do the part I do, nor have the equipment to do it. Sometimes I make the skirt also and just let them put them together.

It is amazing how few people sew anymore, so I try to encourage others to do any part of the project they will try, so that they get some sewing experience. Sometimes cutting out is all they can do. I'm afraid it is becoming a lost art. I am really picky about how things are cut out because a mistake there is hard to correct.

I have one friend that makes a lot of dresses for us and she lives about three hours from me. Almost everytime we see each other she gives me a stack of cute little dresses.

I have a neighbor that is getting ready to move. She called one day and asked if I could use some flannel for my project. I told her that we could make PJs or gowns with it. She said, "I'll meet you in the street." She gave me a huge bag of 5 yard pieces of flannel. A week or so later she gave me 36 yards of shirting material. I have been making tee-shirts, but I guess I will have to change directions until I get all of that sewn up. It amazes me how much people will donate when they know you are sewing for children and it could be going anywhere in the world where there is a need.

I must get focused so I can get a stack of sewing done before it is time to garden again. LOL

Dawn, everytime I read one of your posts I find myself nodding all the way through it and even saying "mm-hmm" out loud. You are so knowledgeable and gracious! All of you guys are!

I have the Amana Orange seeds, but not the others. I can always get plants locally at the farmers market if there's a problem with availability. At this point I don't have enough of a refined taste to be picky about varieties.

I'm not sure at this point if I should do fall tomatoes. I'm worried that I'm overdoing it as it is. I suppose I don't have to make that decision (sp?) any time soon. I'm too much of a planner sometimes. But the planning is half the fun!

Thanks again for being so wonderful!! I'm bringing lots of thank you cookies to the swap.

Carol,
I just got around to reading most of the posts on this thread. Saw your question about adapts Yes in my mind they are similar. And I agree I think evolving goes along with adapting. The tomato lady who wrote a book says there is no evidence tomatoes adapts. But many disagree with that. I could show her my results but she wouldn't believe them. And then I know breeders and researchers who also agree with us

Diane the personalities are still there and maybe more of them. I tend to come and go at several forums. And some have ego's bigger than Texas. I have learned a lot and keep hanging around some for that reason. And it seems most tomato forums have it. Jay

Dawn (of the tiger variety):

The people on the Okie forum here are great. Nobody has to agree but everyone acts like an adult -- a caring, sharing adult. It's a rare find on the internet these days.

Jay:

I go in spurts where I'll go peek in on tomato forums once in a blue moon, then I'll see a familiar name with the same M.O., and I'll quickly close out that window, shudder, and not get the urge to go back for a few more months. LOL

Carol:

You sound as bad (or worse?) than me! Folks around here give me their old clothes (stained, worn, ripped, or just terribly far out of date, knowing I'll eventually do something useful with them. In fact, we're rather a junkyard at times because people give us discarded EVERYthings. LOL From old, broken furniture to newspapers to food. I keep telling hubby we need to hang a "Sanford & Son" sign above our drive.

Diane