Good morning!

"It's new so I won't try it."

Okay, I'm not quite that stuck-in-the-mud. But, it is a little embarrassing to relate that I've probably grown Early Girls for most of the last quarter century. Some varieties were real "finds" and I'm not about to give them up. Some are old friends, how could I turn my back and walk away from them?

I have large gardens and really enuf room to try most anything that cost could justify. I look long and longingly at the catalog pictures of that new beefsteak, Porterhouse. Or, there's that French "gourmet" Marmande and a high-tech Brandywine refinement - Brandy Boy! Cherokee Chocolate is supposedly a "stable" heirloom (THAT'd be nice). Golden Mama on the back of the Burpee catalog looks so, so very appetizing. And, Johnny's even comes up with the name NEW Girl - - better than Early Girl (he asks in a confused, small voice)!?!

Each year I try a few, some have quickly fallen by the wayside while others slip thru my fingers and then I wonder if it was a mistake to allow that to happen. Very few gain a second or third trial - what's the matter with me? Probably too darn hard-nosed for my own good.

The "NEW" varieties - we've tried in recent years and the ones we almost inadvertently allowed to slip away . . .

digitS'

Steve, it's a good thing you can't see the envy in my eyes when I read " have large gardens and really enuf room to try most anything". * Huge sigh *

But I'm inspired to try some of the gazillion (it seems) varieties that everyone has spoken about on this forum. My boyfriend keeps asking "should we expand the garden"? Of course, I did most of the work to create the garden this spring, so he would say that! Here's a pic of the 2 raised beds - each 23' long and 3 to 3 1/2' wide. In the foreground of the bed on the left is where I had my early crop of lettuce and spinach. Now I've temporarily planted some of the lilies I received from Karen at the plant swap. You can also see the Black Tomato, with a lot of fruit yet to ripen. Next year I'm going to try the L-shaped frame of wire fence (attached to the privacy fence) for the melons to grow up. Therefore giving me more room to plant.

In the right, at the far back, you can just make out one of two Forsythia that are old and huge. I think I will cut that closest one down to the ground next year. It will give me more sunshine, although the plants don't seem to have suffered much this year.

Re Kellogs Breakfast. I grew that for several years, it is a beautiful tomato and certainly acceptable. Then, I tried Aunt Gertie's Gold. Which, in a double blind, statistically significant p

Couple of rookie questions...

Steve, please elaborate on this "stability" question in regards to heirlooms?

David, what's "potato leaf" signify?

Thanks!

So much too learn - my day job is really getting in the way of my gardening personal growth!

I was wondering the same things, Alice! Thanks for asking, so I didn't have to, LOL.

Bonnie

There are regular leaf tomatoes and then ya got yer Potato Leaf Tomatoes, so the leaves don't have indentations, and they're huge. Personally, I find the plants are a bit more resistant to what ever crud hits my tomato plants every year in July when it gets hot, but I haven't run any scientific test.

I grow Aunt Gertie's Gold, OTV Brandywine, and a cross called Vorlon, which is Marianna's Peace and Cherokee Purple, which all have potato leaves. There are a lot more of them out there.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1224630}}

Okay, a "stable" heirloom is one you keep in the stable . . .

Not goin' to buy that are you? Well, let's say you've got 100 gardeners who not only raise an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) tomato but they save the seed each & every year. All of these plants trace their ancestry back to a single tomato plant growing in Meigs County, Ohio in 1937. Now, maybe some of these gardeners come and go but there are always 100 different lines of this variety out there. After 70 years of separation and given the chance of at least some cross-pollination with other tomatoes - you'd expect some variation between these lines, wouldn't you?

I think that there is more than "some cross-pollination." Tomatoes are supposed to be self-pollinating but I was recently told that potato leaf varieties especially are the most inclined to "jump the fence" shall we say.

I bought Large Red Cherry seed from Totally Tomatoes this year. I've done this at least a dozen times over the last 20 years. Years ago, I didn't know that LRC was a non-hybrid and then, last year I'd run out of saved seed and a packet was really cheap. But, hey, my Large Red Cherry tomatoes weren't LARGE this year. What the heck!!

Big Beef is a hybrid. It has a couple of parent strains carefully maintained by some seed company somewhere. Pollination is humanly determined - Parent A always crosses with Parent B and the result is always AB, a Big Beef tomato.

I don't really know much about plant genetics and breeding but I wonder if it wouldn't be a little more honest to refer to some of these heirlooms as a gene pool rather than as distinct varieties. Without someone isolating and selectively breeding one strain and then everyone buying from that strain, I think a range of variations is what one can expect.

digitS

Black tomatoes, pink Brandywines, yellow-orange Kelloggs Breakfast, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and then there was that Orange Blossom suggested by JimH last Spring, "try Orange Blossom from JohnnyÂs. It is an early, mid-sized determinate that is unusual in that it produces all season long. Moderately low acid and lots of flavor." Oh, gosh, the tomato world sure is colorful!!

LOL! Are you trying to tell us that we all need to build stables now, Digit?!! I don't have room for a stable!

I'm really enjoying this/these threads. Haven't had time to post anything coherent, but I plan to go back and start a list of some of these varieties for next year. I'm gonna actually splurge and buy some new tomato seed for next year. What I started this year was OLD---some of it more than 10 years old! At least tomato seed seems to stay viable forever.

Thanks for the great thread(s),
Skybird

When I worked overseas, there was an 'informal' seed exchange amongst fellow expatriates, particularly with tomatoes and flower seeds, and I became interested in growing 4 or 5 different varieties of tomatoes. When we moved back to the US, I discovered the world of 'mater wackos, and read up on all the different varieties, bought the books, and tried, over the years, at least 100 different kinds, I have boxes of seed.

I don't do that now, because I don't live in Ohio or parts of the midwest where the growing conditions are more to a tomato's liking. I live on the edge of the desert, dry, with night time temps down in the 40's for June, and then it moves up into the 50's for July and Aug before going down into the 40's for Sept. So I have, at most, 100 days with 50 of those days with night time temps like a fridge. Its great for humans, but not great for tomatoes.

So I try to plant 5 or 6 kinds each summer, most are ones that I know will do well and produce well here. If I plant out an 18" high plant with gallon sized roots, any thing will likely produce well, but the taste may not likely be all it's chalked up to be. Thats the problem - finding the ones that will develop that wonderful taste under these conditions.

As always, milage varies, and as I read up everyones comments, I'll keep on trying new ones.

Skybird brought up something else that's been nagging at me. No, not where to put the stable. But how long are seeds good for? If I have packet seeds from last year (anything - flowers, vegs) can I plant those next year?

"a bit more resistant to what ever crud hits my tomato plants every year in July when it gets hot, but I haven't run any scientific test."

What, no double blind, statistically significant p

Hi Alice,

Seed viability varies WIDELY among the different types of plants, so its a matter of testing your seeds, or, eventually just learning what lasts how long.

Below are links to a few of the sites I found giving approximate useful viability of some veggies. However, since viability for most things goes down slowly, if, for some reason, youre not able to buy new seed, you can always just seed really heavily with the old seed and then thin after theyre up if you get better germination than you expected. Some people also seem to think that plant quality goes down with older seed, but I havent, personally, found that to be true. From my experience, if it germinates, the plant I get is the same whether the seed is a year old, or 10 years old.

I couldnt find any good perennial or annual viability chartsand thats not surprising, since theres SO many different ones, but for flowers (and I have flower seed going back to as much as 30 years!) I just "proof" my seed before I try to actually plant it if its more than a couple years old. Its no fun to sit and look at a pot of dirt for 3 months and wonder if its time to throw it out yet!

To "proof" the seeds I just put a couple layers of wet but not sopping paper towels in the bottom of a food storage container and then put a few of each of whatever seeds I want to check on top of the paper towels, press them down to be sure theyre solidly in contact with the moisture, and put the lid on tightly. Then put it somewhere like on a corner of your kitchen counter, out of direct sun, and wait! Keep an eye on itsome things will germinate sooner than you expectand check every couple days to be certain the paper towel stays moist. If they havent germinated in a month, most of them probably wont, but I usually keep it around for a couple months before I give up. Age will definitely affect the length of time it takes for some seed to germinate. You can also proof them by putting them on a small piece of moist paper towel and folding it in half and putting it in a zipper baggie, but then you have to keep unfolding it to see if theyve germinated, so I switched to the container method. I usually use a square, shallow container, and I can put 12 to 18 different samples in one container, and then I make a little chart of whats what so I can mark which ones work. Just be sure you keep the container facing the same direction as your chart, or be sure you recognize a couple of the seeds so you can reorient it if it gets turned around!

I think the charts below must be giving optimum viability, cause, in my opinion, parsley seed, like tomato seed, is viable forever! Basil seed also seems to last a LONG timeand a lot of the other herbs. (I used to pick up a LOT of the free seed Paulinos would give away at the end of each yearthats why I have so much OLDE seed!)

As near as I can tell, most of the ornamental grasses have a VERY short period of viability. And, while the viability may become very low, with corn, I know its possible to germinate at least some of it after 500 years! (Gee, Im old!) Corn found stored at Anasazi sites has actually been germinated! But that was obviously not a hybrid, so I doubt that you can keep hybrid seed around quite that longjust in case somebody is inclined to give it a try! ;-) And parsnip seed really does seem to loose its viability very quickly. I wont be trying to use parsnip seed thats not new againand I grew my own this year, so I have REALLY fresh seed for next spring. (If youre saving your own seed, also keep in mind that some seed is sterile and wont grow no matter what you do to it. Scabiosa and purple fountain grass are a couple of thoseand I dont know what else!)

So check out the links, and do your own experimenting too! Theres nothing like personal experience when it comes to gardening.

Have fun,
Skybird

http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/426-316/426-316.html

http://growingtaste.com/storage.shtml

For me, tomato seeds last 5 years with out much drop off in germination, but beyond that, it starts getting iffy.

Stevation, no true tomato lover takes themselves too seriously. Something about the accumulated effects of lycopene....:->

Thanks for the info Dee. That's very cool. I didn't use all the seeds I bought this year (mostly vegetable), and I did save them. So next year I think I'll plant again the things I liked. I bought my seeds from Nichols Nursery. I think they are out in Oregon. I got their name from a newspaper article when I was living in Seattle. They described their catalog as fun winter reading... and it was!

On the saving of flower seeds... the other day when I was deadheading I noticed that the deadheads of my Gerbera daisy looked just like a dandelion. I really like this rich red color, so I took the whole thing and put it in a tray in the garage to dry. Anybody ever tried growing these from seed?

Serious pondering of something David said, "If I plant out an 18" high plant with gallon sized roots, any thing will likely produce well . . ."

I've wondered about this myself and Windwhipped makes me think again about the idea of only using dwarf varieties. Husky series may be dwarfs but they didn't produce very early - or, at least, the cherry Husky that I grew last year sure wasn't early.

If Sweet Baby Girl had done a little better in the garden than it did in containers (which was just fine for something confined to a pot), I might be advocating this approach as a reasonable one. For some reason, SBG just didn't grow much nor many tomatoes out there in the big, big world.

A New Zealander recently posted a tomato forum message on a Red Robin that survived his Winter and is now producing fruit in the early New Zealand Spring!! He said his climate is like coastal CA/OR. Well, I've lived on the coast in northern CA and if this is true - he has some frost every Winter. But, the little Red Robin must have been shielded from that and went right ahead and started kicking out tomatoes following.

I'm not going to try to get a tomato thru the Winter but a bed of Sweet Baby Girls would sure be cute and have very nice cherries early and for the entire season. The only serious problem that I can see (for me) is that I'd need to start a great number of the plants in the greenhouse. I mean, with the Red Robins especially, whaddya goin' to do - plant one every square foot? So, my 200 square feet of cherries would require 200 plants! No, better make that 600 square feet for adequate production . . . !!!

digitS'

Yes, thanks Dee, for the seed info!

Alice, you brought up a good point about left over seeds. So this morning I went through my seed drawer to see what was left in it, and was surprised at how much I still had. I know there is a seed exchange forum, but I was wondering if anyone here on the RMG forum would be interested in posting a HAVES and WANTS thread, so that we can pass those long winter days exchanging seeds, and maybe not spend quite as much on seed purchases.

I realize some of you are gardening on a much larger scale than myself, and maybe aren't interested in trading a packet here and there, since you are buying much greater volumes. But if any of you are interested, I'll be glad to start a thread about it. I am planning to wintersow again this year, so I am already making plans now for what I want to sow. Since I don't have a greenhouse or indoor grow lights, etc., it helps me get my gardening fix during the winter, LOL.

Bonnie

Boy, Bonnie, I don't have much. I did collect some orange Cosmos seed, and the Gerbera. And I have some instructions for collecting Morning Glory, so I want to do that with mine, and one of my neighbors that I've been admiring. But I'd be willing to participate with the sparse selection I have.

The seed collecting thing is still new to me. But in future years I hope I will do a better job as I get to be a more experienced gardener.

On the winter sowing, I checked out that forum and was totally intrigued. I think I'm going to try a little of that myself.

I'm busy trying to clean up some of the beds in the garden that had squash and melons and tomatoes in them so I can plant garlic, and its really windy, and I keep running inside to get out of the wind.....

I was pulling up some of the tomato plants that were started in April in 4" x 4" x 6" deep pots, and were about 2 feet high when I set them out in June. I dug the root ball in about 8" deep, and lay the stems down and buried them a few inches deep, leaving maybe 6" of tomato plant above the ground, about 5 - 6 feet apart along hog panels, in soil thats pretty good. Pulling them up now, the stems are over two inches in diameter, a lot of them the size of my wrist, and the plants, stretched out, are well over 6 ft high.

By contrast, the ones I purchased in 2" pots are tiny, the determinant ones are maybe a foot high, and even the purchased indeterminate varieties are only 1/10 the size of the ones I started myself.

Concluding here that starting off with big pots and big plants are the way to go.

A note on exchanging saved tomato seeds vs buying them from a reputable source. As Steve pointed out, there is a lot of natural variation in the plants, as well as some crosses, and a lot of named varieties sure don't look like the ones in the old catalogues. I have no problem saving my own seeds, and I would be happy to share, but I like to grow them out myself the next season and see if what you think I have is what I really do have, before sending them off in the mail.

However, I think its a great idea to exchange seeds that work particularly well in the Rocky Mt. environment, particularly those that you have saved year to year and know them to be reliable.

Alice, the seed collecting thing is new to me too! Most of what I have are partial or full commercial seed packets, and some that I received in trades or for SASE on the Wintersowing forum last year. There are lots of nice people over there, and very nice to newbies, which I was last year. Not as nice as the ones on THIS forum, of course!

Bonnie

I had a huge (it really was HUGE!) amount of freshly collected seed, but I gave it all to Sky for the fall swap.

Yes, Cnetter, it was a huge amount. I just checked the box the seed was in at the swap, and a lot of it got gone. I can find a way to return whats left to you if youd like, or I can put it into packets to send to people over winter, or for them to take at the spring swap. If youd like to get it back to swap with people, let me know. Im sure we can work something out againIll be getting a haircut in a couple weeks again!

If you, Bonnie, or anybody else wants to set up a swap or available for SASE seed thread, Id be glad to send out my seeds for an SASE to anybody who wants some. And theres other seed left over from the swap I could list too. Dont have time for what all it is right nowIm leaving on a trip in a couple hours and will be incommunicado till Sunday evening.

Have a good weekend everybodyand stay warm!

Skybird

There's leftovers? I figured the leftovers went to ... oh crud.... the donation place I've forgotten the name of the place that the extra plants went to.

And that was going to be my seed swap for the year - all done in one easy fell swoop.

Either you could list them mail them out or I could. Which ever is easier. Though you're usually alot more organised than I am. I don't know if I should make another trip to Timberline - too tempting. But if they have Dave's salvia....

Okay---here goes another installment on my tomtoes.

Kosovo---a meduim pink heart shaped variety. Very meaty and can get quite large, some double hearts. This is one dense tomato. Hearts would be good for making sauce, but you have to use them within a couple days of picking---the two I grew anyway.

Monomakh's Hat---was darker pink heart than Kosovo for me and a bit more uniform in size and smaller, although it did produce a few large ones. One of the first normal size tomatoes to ripen for me. It had a pointier end than Kosovo. I decided I didn't like it if it was too ripe---the flavor seemed to fade, so you have to pick it before it is too ripe.

Hybrid Bush Goliath---round red fruit that average the size of a baseball or a little smaller. It is a dwarf type plant so good for small spaces or containers. Produced good for its size. It was a sweet tomato, Okay in flavor but didn't have enough tartness, or zing for my preferences. I liked the flavor more of New Big Dwarf, although New Big Dwarf wasn't as productive for me.

Eva's Purple Ball---It was late for me. I just started picking fruit from it a couple of weeks ago, same with Momotoro Hybrid. I thought being that they had smaller fruit they would ripen sooner. Eva's Purple Ball was a bit larger than Momotaro, and more productive for me. I may give Eva's Purple Ball another chance because it seem like a good all purpose tomato with a good flavor and pretty dark pink color.

Cherokee Chocolate---I had mixed up seed for Cherokee Purple so I wasn't able to compare the two. I may grow it again, but Noir De Crimme the other black I grew was darker and more productive with a similar taste.

Moskavich---This was one of my earliest red tomatoes. It is was larger than Kimberly the other early red I grew. It has a good flavor. It is indeterminate and the size of the fruit varies from ping-pong size to baseball, with most in the middle. A good producer.

Kimberly---This has been my first to produce the last 2 years. I like the flavor, although it is usually no bigger than a ping-pong ball for me, so when I start getting bigger tomatoes that ripen it is a pain to pick, just like the cherries.

Pink Ping Pong---This was one of my largest plants. Very productive too. Loads of perfectly round ping-pong size fruit. Beautiful light pink color, tasty too.

Galinas Cherry---Our favorite Yellow cherry. It is a potato leaf plant and very hardy and productive. I get tired of picking them because they are so productive and the plant can take over the planet if you aren't careful. It seems to handle the cooler temps and heat equally well. Resists splitting.

Rose Quartz Multi-Flora---A small pink cherry that can be in a cluster with a dozen or more other cherries. It has a great flavor, but it seems to split a lot when you pick off the stem. I would finally pick a cluster at a time to avoid the splitting.

Polish---This was my favorite Pink Beefsteak a couple of years ago. It didn't do well this summer. I will try it again next year. It was in a spot that kind of sloped and I think the watter ran off and it didn't get enough moisture during the hot summer. I'll grow it again next year in a different spot.

Big Zak(hybrid)---It certainly produces huge tomatoes, but it is kind of late to make it worth it for me to grow again---plus it is expensive compared to other tomatoes.

San Marzano 2---It is a very productive plant, but the fruit are quite skinny. I prefer the orginal San Marzano to it, but I am more pleased with Heidi and Rio Grande for paste/roma type tomatoes.

Box Car Willie---The fruit had a good flavor, but they split really easy and weren't as productive as I'd hoped. The bright red fruit ranged in size form baseball to softball. I will grow Campbell's 1327 over it next year.

My only Carbon plant died early on, it was near the Polish plants, so it either didn't get enough water, or a gofer tunneled through the roots.

I think that does it for now. I would have to say my favorites (top 10) this year were: Kellog's Breakfast, Earl's Faux, Noir de Crimee, Heidi, Burracker's Favorite, Azoychka, Campbell's 1327, Rio Grande, Aker's Pink Plum, and Kosovo or Monomakh's Hat. (In no particular order)

I have to say that I don't do anything fancy to start my seeds. I germinate them in seed starting mix on a tray with a heating pad underneath, or on top of my fridge, and I grow them in a south facing window. I love starting from seed because I can try so many varieties of colors, shapes, and sizes. Am I obsessed? I don't think so---its just a hobby. My husband prefers me spending time and money on gardening to scrapbooking I think. I told him I was going to downsize next year, and he said, "Yeah right! By the time spring rolls around you'll be so anxious to start planting, and have heard of more great varieties to grow that you'll probably be trying to squeeze in few more plants than last year."

Tyffanie

Alice, Territorial Seed Co. has the Black tomato, which they describe as, "A Russian heirloom that is one of the sweetest tomatoes we have evaluated in its size class." But, 85 days!! Whaaa!

There is an heirloom Black Plum, however, 72 day!

I appreciate Territorial but see it as fairly well oriented towards cool-climate PNW gardeners. Not entirely . . . Good selection and their days-to-maturity numbers help since those might well be the same. And, I can't fault them at all for using their own tests gardens for descriptions and recommendations.

I wonder what that Matina tomato tastes like . . ? I may try that one along with Bloody Butcher next year. Here's where you have the contrast for Territorial - they have it for at 75 days, Florida's Tomato Growers Supply has it at 58 days! One or 2 weeks difference there.

digitS'

Tiffanie, Im pretty sure that it was "Barkeater" over in the tomato forum who sang the praises of Polish (another 85 day tomato). He's a guy who weighs the production off every plant. Since he grows his tomatoes in Vermont, I think he may be a good source for ideas for here in the intermountain West.

Yeah, here it is: 45.9# off one Polish plant! His highest producer - - That's staggering!

I can see why you don't want to give up on them.

digitS'

Digit, being a rookie, I don't quite understand the "days to maturation". When do you start counting? I bought my Black tomato as a 12" plant, I'd guess. I believe I planted it in late May, 1st of June. (Realizing now I should have kept a diary of when I planted everything!) And I'm pretty sure I started harvesting in August. (Again - next year write this stuff down!) It seemed pretty quick to me. Maybe the high summer temps here help it mature a little sooner than in the PNW?

Also, looking at the Territorial description, they describe the Black as 2-3", and while I have harvested some that size, I've had quite a few that have been 4" or more. The picture looks right though.

Uh, oh, Alice . . . you are going to hear my days-to-maturity rant!

I'll just give you a warning right now because I'd like to put it together with an example and also with ways one may cut some climate corners.

back later

d'S

Steve/Digit's days to maturity "rants" in the past really helped me in the garden this year. When I was choosing which seed packets or transplants to buy, I tried to find the shortest days-to-maturity varieties available. I got carrots, tomatoes, corn, lettuce/greens, etc. earlier because of the variety chosen. That also means there's a much better chance for the crop to ripen on the vine before the first frost. So it's a good rant to hear!

Alice, the dtm estimates vary so greatly from one seed company to another sometimes you end up going on blind faith and that isn't always good in our shorter seasons. I tried a few 80 dtm tomatoes this year and I had success only because I got them out earlier than usual this year. Don't want to count on that happening every year and I won't. Just wanted to see what the fuss was about for a few varieties. Next year will be back to the 75 dtm +/- a couple of days for surer harvest.

I just cringe when I see people here in town buying up all the 90dtm beefsteaks at the local store. They are gonna be disappointed more often than not. Yes, I too love the big honking beefsteak, but need a variety that tolerates a shorter season to satisfy that desire. :) And there are ones out there, thankfully.

With my specific micro-climate conditions, DTM really doesn't matter with 'maters - they all start to ripen in mid-August. The 55 - 60 ones first, to be sure, but the 80 day ones are only a few days behind.

Cherry tomatoes will start in late July.

Ok, Digit, I'm ready and waiting. And disappointed if you're going to tell me that my plans to chart and track planting dates and harvesting dates are a fool's errand. I was getting the spreadsheets all ready! ;)

Sorry, I'm so late getting back. I had to go buy a new printer. Pick up aluminum sprinkler lines in the garden. Try to hook up the new printer - race back to buy the not-included USB cable. Print out what has to be in the mail today - race off to the PO . . . .

Anyway . . .
As gardeners, we need specific variety information. Of course, more than politics, all gardening is local. So the surest thing would be to lean over the back fence and ask the neighbor if a Big Beef tomato will ripen in your neighborhood. However, with a world-wide seed industry, we may as well broaden our horizons with new and untested varieties.

We sometimes hear that days-to-maturity represent ideal conditions after 73 days from setting out your Big Beef seedling, there will be ripe fruit. I guess I can buy that but what the heck are "ideal conditions"? And, how do other varieties compare with my Big Beef?

Days-to-maturity would be better stated as accumulation of degree-days. THIS IS ALREADY DONE for commodity crops!! From alfalfa to wheat, from almonds to lentils, it is already done. If we had it for garden vegetables, we could do reality-based comparisons of varieties.

The weather service keeps track of the degree-days for us. "Degree-day - n. A unit of measurement equal to a difference of one degree between the mean outdoor temperature on a certain day and a reference." The reference may be 45 degrees for some crops. Any day with an average temperature above 45°F, promotes growth which accumulates until the crop is ready for harvest.

We should expect the seed companies to tell us what their varieties require in the way of time and warmth instead of pretending that designating a tomato as 73 days has any meaning whatsoever. Every seed company is making-it-up-as-they-go-along for every one of their varieties!

Here's an example of how meaningless the notion of days-to-maturity is: I once grew 75 day Health Kick tomatoes. As usual, I harvested 73 day Big Beef for over 3 weeks before the killing frost. Health Kick was covered with pale green tomatoes right up until the frost killed the plants!! Not one ripened - - what a difference 2 days make!

Here's another tomato example: I was just lamenting how Husky Red Cherry didn't ripen until just before frost in my garden. Days-to-maturity for Husky Red Cherry: 65 days. So why was I able to enjoy my 70 day Large Red Cherry tomatoes for weeks and weeks before those Husky Red Cherries ripened?!?

Here are some ideas from a Canadian tomato grower:

Start with a clear idea of the ideal planting date.

Plant deeply in warm soil and water thoroughly.

Cover the plants early in the season if frost threatens.

Leave the first red tomato on the plant; it gives off something that encourages the other tomatoes to ripen.

Take off all the leaves below the first bunch of tomatoes. Keeping the leaves off the ground keeps the plants much healthier.

We could cover the area where the tomatoes will be planted with black plastic for a couple weeks before setting out plants. We could also build a structure over the plants and cover them with clear plastic. I can't attest to these recommendations but they are probably worth following and maybe we can grow some of these later-maturing varieties.

Theres my rant and some ideas which may enable us to grow varieties that would be outside our neighbors range of possibilities.

digitS'

Alice, your plans to chart and track planting dates and harvesting dates are no fool's errand. Right now, and without a lot of carefully shared information, it will be the only way for you to have an idea of what varieties produce, when.

The degree-day (DD) program will need to wait for another day. Be assured that it is coming. Commercial agriculture already makes great use of it. I was reading yesterday about barley hay and lentil pasturage and there was the DD information on when to plant and when to expect harvest or to turn livestock out to pasture.

It isn't just for plants, either. A farmer spraying for pests can do so with far greater efficiency if he/she knows when 10%, 30%, 50%, etc. of an insect emergence will have occurred. A spraying program which kills the majority of pests before significant damage can be done is money in the bank. Because, you see, insects are also on this time and warmth cycle.

On a more fun note - - I cut up my first green-harvested, ripened-in-the-kitchen Thessaloniki tomato this afternoon! It was as good as the ones from the vines 4 weeks ago. I'll anticipate the next one greatly . . .

'Niki's listed some places as 68 days to harvest but I can attest that it isn't as early as Big Beef by a country mile. In the imaginary world of days-to-maturity (germane to nothing), 'niki might be a 78 day tomato. What I'm goin' to do, however, is NOT save seed from my plants but instead order some from one of these outfits that claim it is earlier and hope that they have a strain that actually IS.

Hope springs eternal in the gardener's breast.

d'S'
In all pleasures hope is a considerable part. ~ Samuel Johnson

Speaking specifically of tomatoes and eggplant, I proved (ok, maybe 'observed') this past summer that ambient air temperature isn't as important as soil temperature, and that soil in a container gets warmer quicker and stays warmer longer than soil in the garden - I planted 2 foot high tomato plants in the garden, and seed in a black container, and within 3 weeks the container plant was larger. With egg plant, I harvested at least 3 x the amount of fruit from container plants.

Issue with container plants, though, when they get big, you have to water them at least daily.

A comment on heating garden soil. I use black woven plastic weed barrier and raised panels, and I kind of suspect, but need to use a thermometer to confirm, that the black weed barrier may actually work as insulation, keeping the soil cooler.

Is day length correlated to production, as well as temps?

David asks, "Is day length correlated to production, as well as temps?"

I'd like Margaret to weigh in on this one (and any other 49°+/- parallel gardener). But, gosh, I think it just has to.

There are other ancillary issues here - and the author of the info linked below notes some of them, "temperatures too high, crops that have a minimum or maximum day length requirement, and drought or other stresses."

We could also imagine that light intensity may be one of the secondary determinants. But, and I guess that there's some consensus for this, time and warmth are the major factors. One reason a variety can fall so short of expectations if we just look at time alone is that the temperatures fall off as the growing season wanes. So, it's can't quite get there, can't quite get there, can't quite get there . . .

(Remember the old Firesign Theater skit:
"Antelope Freeway, 1 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/2 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/4 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/8 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/16 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/32 mile."
"Antelope Freeway, 1/64 mile." :o)

Note that link below gives some reference temperatures for garden vegetables (e.g., corn, beans, turnips, cabbage and peas). So you see, it isn't that the research hasn't been done. And, the seed companies provide the DD for their commodity crop seed. Its just that the seed companies don't feel compelled to provide this information for their garden varieties. So we are left with this fanciful fabrication - days-to-maturity.

d'S'

All right, I'm armed with a lot of new ideas for next season, and excited! I've added your tips Digit, to my garden diary. This winter I will have to organize it better though so that all the info/ideas I've accumulated this year can be utilized.

Thinking about what I did this year...I planted my tomatoes following instructions in a magazine article... The only thing I remember now was that I dug a trench and laid the tomato plant down in it and covered up several inches of the stem. Back then they seemed pretty pitiful and just kind of laid there for weeks, but when the weather started to warm up they took off. I also fertilized with fish emulsion. All in all, I have been pretty pleased with the results. Pleased also, that although we've had some cold temps and a very light frost that affected the squashes, eggplant and peppers, the tomatoes seem unfazed.

Next year I want to try winter sowing (the Black Tomato seeds I've saved). I will also try the wall of water on some plants and a traditional covering on others. Then I will chart all my experiments and log planting times etc. and see what happens!

On the black plastic, I wonder too Steve. This might be an easy experiment to do in early spring though. Cover part of the garden and then compare to uncovered. I'm thinking that if the soil is wet, and you cover when the temps are cold, it might stay cool. But if you cover when soil is dry and sun is shining you might get a warming result.

I don't know about woven material, but in my experience the black plastic definitely heats up the ground. I read somewhere that it actually works better if the soil is damp because the warmth creates steam. I've heard clear plastic works better to warm the soil in the Spring, but that black will still help with warming the soil. I know that if I step on black plastic in the garden in the summer, it can burn my feet, so I'm sure that kind of heat has some effect.

I've come to the conclusion that here in Utah just having a shorter season tomato doesn't cut it, we have to also grow varieties that handle our extremely hot/dry summers. I think that varieties that do well for Texas growers would do better here than varieties grown by those in the Pacific Northwest or the New England states. Some things I did this year that greatly increased my success were---consistent watering(we installed a drip system), I also used Fish emulsion to fertilize when the plants started blossoming, and about a month or so later when fruit finally started setting. This was in addition to the compost, peat moss, bone meal, and fertilizer I added at the time of planting. The plants seemed to really love the fish emulsion, I swear many of them grew overnight after applying it. (I especially noticed this on the peppers and squash.) I'm going to try and plant out earlier next year by warming the soil with plastic, and planting up against our ceder fence on the west side of my yard. Plants are effected least by frost there. I am going to buy some row cover, and tack some clear plastic to the fence and create a mini-greenhouse.
I have a tomato friend from another forum that gardens in Montanta---I have gotten a lot of good advice from her as far as variety recommendations. She really raved about a variety called Aurora this year. I will be trying it out next year.
I think days to maturity is so variable. I just stick to varieties that are in the early to mid-season range and still try one or two varieties that people rave about each year regardless of the maturation date.

Tyffanie

For lots of pictures of heirloom tomatoes, even more peppers, and I had no idea there were so many heirloom garlic varieties:
Heirloom Vegetable Archive

I'll be perfectly honest here, sometimes the plethora of Heirloom varieties, be they tomatoes / garlic / peppers, leads me to consider, just for a while anyway, the introduction of a totally fictitious variety. To do that well, it needs a "Provenance' ie

"Steve's dog dug it up and brought it to his neighbor, a 5 mile trudge through the snow, who, the dog knew, had a better soil for garlic than Steve, having both dug up and buried bones in both...."

But then one would need a whole Gardenweb group in on it, comparing the height of the scape, the diameter of the curl pre-straightening, the shade of red in the stripes, the width of the stripes, and vast commentary on the taste.

The problem is I know there are folks out there who take all this very seriously.

But the thought crosses my mind now and again.

I plant Music Pink exclusively, because I get 4 or 5 huge cloves, and I can grate them with clumsy fingers, or peel a couple of lbs to make some exotic sauce in a short amount of time, and they keep very well.

Can't use me in that story, David, unless the dog has turned on me because I haven't grown garlic for years. Always considered it of such limited use in my kitchen it may as well be a spice. I'd miss it if I didn't have 1 or 2 cloves around all the time but . . .

I just hope the existence and trade in heirlooms encourage people to have a healthier diet and greater interest in a healthy activity. And, it adds interest to my gardening. But, I've got to wonder if modern cultivars don't possess qualities never to be found in some of these heirlooms snatched from under the wheels of extinction.

I was reading this afternoon about OSU tomato legend, Jim Baggett talking about his "Legend" tomato - released after his retirement. And, yesterday, it was the guy who developed the Mountain series at NCSU, Randy Gardner. These guys didn't fall off the pickle wagon this morning and the work they did is pretty astonishing.

Fedco has a little blurb honoring Baggett. I've grown both his Summertime lettuce and Oregon SugarPod peas for umpteen years and never knew he was involved with tomatoes as well.

Now OSU is busy with high-lycopene tomatoes and some of them are purple . . . not black or brown and certainly not pink but really strong-colored purple! The photograph in the Master Gardener magazine was stunning.

d'S'

I think I need to get a lot more serious with my tomatoes plans rather than my usual fly by the seat of my pants - plant it and see if it grows approach.

I only got one Cherokee Purple tomato that turned color, but that one had BER. I still have two green ones on the plant that haven't frozen yet. So I can't say how it tastes.

I got a bunch of Super Sweet 100 tomatoes that had a ton of flavor for such little fruits, and still have a ton of green ones that I'm picking as they start turning color to finish ripening inside.

I've only had about 10 Early Girls get ripe, which had good flavor, but didn't get very big, and still have 5 green ones on the vines. I've been watching the weather and my thermometer in the backyard and as long as it's staying around 40 I think they're okay, but this weekend it is supposed to finally hit freezing so will have to bring the stragglers in to see how they finish.

I think my biggest problem was the amount of sunlight the plants got and probably overwatering a bit. So next year it's new varieties and a different spot in the backyard. I picked out some paste tomatoes (Black Plum and Ropreco ); had to get Digit's Thessaloniki tomato, along with Double Rich and Wisconsin 55. Wintersowing for an earlier start, plastic over the ground where they're going to be planted, and fish emulsion.

There is, to be sure, a fascinating worldwide process with food stuffs going on constantly, with Monsanto and their GM crops on the one hand, and some isolated village in Central Africa with carefully selected variety that does well in their particular environmental conditions on the other, and a whole mix in-between these extremes. With garlic, and I dunno if this is just folklore or what, but them allium forum types keep saying that a grower can easily develop a 'strain' thats adapted to their particular conditions by saving and growing the largest heads and cloves. I do that anyway out of habit, always save the best of the harvest for next years planting. If I had the space and time, I'd do it with tomatoes as well - see if I could get an edge of the desert, cold night, sudden July heat variety that ripens in less than 80 days - it should be possible. Its all good fun.