Large Tomatoes for Cool Regions

15 years ago

Well, SoCal summer this year was about the coolest summer ever! Even tomatoes that set well for me last year were barren. As you might guess, cool weather tomatoes like Stupice and San Francisco Fog were among the most productive.

The only large tomato that did well for me was Lancaster County Pink, it grew 8 ft and had at least a dozen good sized fruit. In the past, Omar's Lebanese and 1884 Purple were also good producers, but this year, not so much...

So here's the question: I am looking for recommendations of larger fruited varieties that might do well for me, who knows, next summer might be even cooler. I like to make enough salsa to last the rest of the year, peeling enough small tomatoes like Stupice for gallons of salsa is just too much!

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Comments (5)

tom8olvr
15 years ago
Interesting question. I live in an area with a pretty limited growing time. But it gets warm. 2009 growing season we had a year that was wet, cool and shady (I personally feel what affected me the most was that there was no SUN!) I got NOTHING ? shook me so much I contemplated growing grass and flowers, eventually DID come to my senses! Thankfully 2010 was a good year for me. I DO push it and grow several that I probably shouldn?t with 90 days? but on the whole, I have success doing that. But a season that is cool and foggy I?ve not contemplated. If you hadn?t already mentioned Stupice, I would have b/c I have friends in Zone 3 who have good luck with Stupice (also on a foggy coast). I?m interested in the answers you get here ? and I could suggest it to my friends in Zone 3.
plantslayer
15 years ago
I'd like to grow Orange Minsk next year because it's supposed to be a very good large fruited variety, is fairly early for a large variety, and is from Belarus, so I assume it also handles cold well. I seem to recall that some people online had problems with getting fruit that were the wrong shape, so if anyone knows which place is the best place to get this from, I'd love to hear about it.

Also, Anna Russian might not be super-large but I had a couple of one-pounders from it. It seems to handle cool weather very well- summer of this year was terrible in Western Washington due to cool weather but these did reasonably OK. It's a good all-around tomato, it slices, makes sauce, etc. etc. Also looks cool.
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digit
15 years ago
I grew Orange Minsk this year with seed from Jeff Casey in Calgary. Only allocated space for 1 plant - it grew large and produced 4 huge tomatoes. DW and I decided that they were of very good flavor! It was, however, a poor year for tomatoes with an unexpected frost and just a lot of miserable weather during late spring.

It can be hot and dry thru the day here but it will be mid-July before lows rise above 50F. Even with 90F highs, overnight lows seldom if ever top 65F. It isn't coastal weather, however.

Prudens Purple may work for you, Coolbythecoast, but they will only ripen at the very last of the season here. Still, Prudens is a very nice, large tomato - fine flavored and on very productive plants!

Steve
slo_garden
15 years ago
Blacks always do well for me no matter what the weather. I also had a cool summer and all of my black tomatoes did great. This year I grew Amazon Chocolate, Indian Stripe, Brad's Black Heart, and Japanese Black Trifele (not large, I know.) Other ones that have done well:

Ananas Noire (Bicolor black)
Black Brandywine
Black from Tula
Black Krim
Carbon
Cherokee Chocolate/Purple
JD's Special C-Tex
structure
15 years ago
What SLO garden said. Blacks have all done well, and by well I mean flavor in addition to production. Some varieties (Brandywine, Coustralee) don't seem to get fully sweet.

For size, my largest ever was a Persimmon which also had excellent flavor. Almost two pounds with several over one pound on the same plant. Cherokee Purple usually produces a few one pound+ tomatoes. Moskovic (sp?) does well for a largish early.