Silvia, after eating 'fresh' store-bought tomatoes for over a month now, the beginning of steady producton is a piece of heaven for me, but I guess we'll both have to wait for to be fair, since it sounds they are doing well so far. That tomato adorned dip looks like another form of art to me (, and it is hard to think it couldn't taste as good as it looks, where are the carrots to start ;-)

I do have the problem especially with bicolors and some yellows that they are best when a vigorous plant has fruit developed in full sun with a little drought stress, they don't meet their potential. But there's nothing like a purchase at the supermarket for a wake-up call! This season I took too long to finally build all my cage/trellis supports for my new additional tomato project so I have many anemic plants in them, but I am hoping I can get them to turn around.

I once lived by a mammouth large ('creole'?) avocado tree, but I never enjoyed the fruits as much as the Hass variety from the market which are much more creamier. I think the fat content of many of the traditionally grown Florida varieties is quite low and it would be interesting to learn more about this.

Centex, there it is! That #1 taste of tomato! The wave of luck is traveling northward! Time to give my maters a pep talk before the rest of the country swamps both of us and gets into full production for the rest of the summer as July and August burn everything out here and where you're at. That's a good strategy you have which would amount to a third season here ... to grow a fresh plant for summer. I was going to do the same but to be honest have just worn myself out and decided to hold out on it this year and nurse whatever selected plants might make it. Unfortuantely September is our wettest month so the cards are stacked againt a good late summer crop (mold) or taking chances to get a few weeks of early Winter... it's a perpetual game of hurry up and stop. I built a hoop and used it to get through the winter last season but it wasn't pretty by the end, and gave little incentive to repeat it. I may have some new Kumatoes to try for the dead of summer though. CP didn't do well here in the Summer, but another plant I have high hopes for is Bradley in our environment. It was developed for the Arkansas heat by tomato experts of that distinguished state from a tasty Gulf state variety and commercial heirlooms all mostly 100 or more years old now. It is one of my most vigorous plants so far and has ping pong ball growing tomatoes so far on their way to turning into be pink tomatoes a size between baseballs and softballs.

That Interstate looks close for comfort! I can picture all your plants swaying in the dusty Texas summer air and Sun to the tune of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" as they try to jump on the pavement and head north of Waco ;-) It's too easy to cuss at the humidity here for ruining everything until we see that the dry heat doesn't always offer a much better alternative.

Keep the faith Sey, not till long till your plants will have their turn in the Sun and we'll all be admiring them from a distance!

PC

Haha.. After eating store bought tomatoes for 7 months I am quite used to it and have to wait another 2 months (maybe longer0
But I see the buds at the end of stems somewhere. Will they flower at least. LOL

Sey

OK Sey, have a few pictures of my girls to tide you over till you get an elusive mother load of maters:

First, the prettiest girl I have, her name is Charlie, and she'll accompany you to an all-expense paid virtual tomato trip to ...ITALY (careful, though, she's got a bad case of Fulvia, but if you already have it, there're no problems!)

Your first stop is in Verona, where you can put a note in Giulietta's old house wishing for a whole crop of your own, meet Juliet:

Next on your itinerary, head off to the calm waters of the Italian Riviera and enjoy your stay with your host, a voluptuous Genovesa, and descendant of the Niña, Pinta and Santa María, who, let me tell you is no bambolina village girl like Juliet ... she's all woman in the city that your favorite basil was named for!

But what trip to Italy would be complete without going to Rome and doing as the Romans do! Meet your wingman, a decidedly Italian signorino: Speckled Roman. Look out for Charlie around this dude, he can't stop marveling over how early he's maturing (Don't tell him he has peach fuzz for foliage!) ;-)

Being such a cosmopolitan city, don't be surprised if a gorgeous and tanned kiwi girl walks up to you to ask in that sweet accent for directions to a quaint pizzeria where you can leave all the bustle behind. Meet Margaret Curtain:

And when you are through, you mosey along some hidden streets with your favorite tomato, music and fragrances of tomato sauce wafting in the air! You top it off seeing tomato gardens by every doorstep ... don't forget, your trip was courtesy of the Land of the Everglades, where gators and ibises are munching on little treats, tomatoes and lizards alike!

Salute della Florida (well, the north of it, anyways!), and with that, sip a nice cappuccino and you're magically transported back to Seattle with a smile!

PC

"Salute della Florida.."...
Yeah , sure why not . PC. Have a home run !
All I have right now is few flowers and some tiny buds dangling out there.
I hope it warms up here. Past today( high 62F, low 40F), we are going to see some highs in 70s. That should move my plants a bit. Big Beef and Purple Passion have flowers on them. Maybe BrBoy will open that green robe and show that yellow jacket too. hahaha

Sey

PC, you have a nice variety of tomatoes there and you can tell a story for sure! lol.

I am not keeping up with what is ripe anymore, a lot of them started and soon I will be looking to share, we cannot eat them all.

I will plant again the Zolotoe, they have good flavor, are the earliest and they produce well. Today I will probably make something with all the tomatoes harvested, also have to pick the carrots. The variety of avocado that I have is the Brogdon and is a hybrid, to me and other people that sampled they taste much better than the Haas, I don't particular care for the tropical avocado varieties.

Looking forward to see all the future tomato harvests from everyone and PC you are first on the list!:)

Silvia

Thanks for the great guided tour PC! That was great fun!

Linda

Enjoyed your tour so much PC!

Jennie

All in good spirits Seysonn. This week my large indeterminate leading plants are around 7 feet now and most have set, but I screwed up on mold control so it will be a problem this season. Water usage in just the last few days is starting to spike, from a quart to a quart and a half, literally overnight. That couldn't be great, but it's not bad either... Good luck with Big Beef especially. Is that the hybrid or your OP version?

Some challenges have cropped up and I just hope the plants survive the upcoming week. My midget Brandy Boy is starting to raise a bud, and if I'm lucky I'll get a few tomatoes at least to try. But I doubt I stand a chance of winning anything except my own tomato, since Sun City Linda shares my Zone in another world 3000 miles away ;-)

Silvia you sound like you're in your seasonal sweet spot, timed perfectly! Had I starterd 2 weeks earlier, but the weather was to iffy in February, our coldest freeze of the season was February 18! I hope your production lasts a couple of months and there are many happy people running around with gifts! I'll look more into the avocados, the giant creole ones just don't have the appeal to me and I've yet to get a good one marked grown in Florida. Perhaps it has to do with what I grew up eating, in my case nothing makes a good guacamole to satisfy me as do Hass avocados. Hope to see a few pictures of your prizes soon ;-)

Thanks Linda & Jennie! I'm glad you had fun on the tour ;-) Other people might think I'm losing my mind, but I enjoy a round-the-world ticket with tomatoes whenever I get the chance. I have at least one more Italian variety, Téton de Vénus which is a heart and has just set fruits. Although its name is from a Roman Goddess, there is a good case it was named after a historical French Peach that was also a milestone here in the colonies and later States. Also Snow White which I believe is related to Italian Ice, but has been slow to flower though an aggressively growing vine. If they survive next week, I'll try to get some pics posted.

Ciao!

PC

PC

Since we are on a tour, I like to add some pictures from tomatoes.

Campo de Fiori tomatoes in Rome

Tomatoes from Madrid


I have tomato seeds from both places, next time I will grow them....

Silvia

Makes me see red that I don't yet have any red. I guess I'm green with envy. Yeah, lots of green.

Things are settling down now that my 'maters are back in (irrigation) step since my trip for 10 days in mid May. They all survived but after 6 days of TLC now, I can see that they were all somewhat drought stressed in the makeshift irrigation systems (3!) that I put together to get me through the absense.

Dan may I help you see a little red on top of all your green!

Silvia your pictures are beautiful! When you return from your current trip, please share some pictures. Do I see Kumatoes in your Madrid pic? These Campo de Fiori and Castilian tomato market pictures are so fabulously colorful. To think you kept all those tomatoes' company in Rome and then could have skipped over to the Trevi fountain to bite into some delish Latin-style red golden (love)apples, sounds like a prescription for paradise! In the market pic I see two different Costoluti, and neither is Genovese. Curiosity got the best of me and for central Rome in your market, and I checked to see if I could see any prices. Sound right that San Marzano takes the place of Romas at $1/pound in season, while nice Heirlooms cost up to $3.50/pound, and there's everything in-between. I wonder how they taste? Like my fresh picked Costoluto Genovese dinner yesterday which had as very good flavor in the Florida Sun jeje;-)

And together with the rest of my type of Dagwood's snack raided by moonlight from the mosquitoes outside at midnight! I share my Tuscan Kale with the caterpillars since they need love too :-( A pile of rucola is crunched up in the foreground of the bowl hidden!

Ciao! Buon appetito!

PC

OMG! Beautiful! Are those your first ripe that aren't cherries? ENJOY!!

Thanks, wormgirl! You noticed, thanks for reading my bloggy post! Technically, they're not, but if you say, "Are they your first medium or large ripe tomatoes", then, --- yes! I've been eating table ripe red Santorini tomatoes off the vine which are loosly called cherry tomatoes - but really are just small regular tomatoes in tomatospeak (Solanum lycopersicum var. lycopersicum = regular, not Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme = cherry).

Costoluto Genovese is a very early tomato, coming in 10 days after Sungold, but the size isn't as big as I imagined. I hear they can get big, but the feeling of holding one in your palm while making a salad is great. I like C. Genovese because I imagine it is the oldest red tomato in the Old World. Someone in Columbus's family surely brought some back to their hometown ;-) It has a great flavor under a baking Sun but I've read many reviews in cooler climates that it doesn't rate high sometimes in those. I like that, it makes me think it is our most primitive tomato that still has vestigial ribs and a preference for the tropics. Many Texans like it and mine were quite sweet, for a tomato considered "acidic", so much so that half of one didn't make it into the salad! Unfortunately it was very susceptible to leaf mold and is my only tomato that actually got attacked by the leaf mold on the sepals of the fruit (see pic). But the tomato was a very attractive knockout in a shapely way and the color is quite deep and flavor surprisingly good for fresh eating.

PC

I gotta go and check the Tomato Truss Timeline to see when I am going to have a ripe tomato. I think the last time I did it was like 38 days from now.. That will be around July 1st. Or say Jun 30th. that sound better. hehe
All I have now are a handful of Hahms Gelbe Topftomate. (Ja, Ja, aus Deutchland )

Sey

EDIT: 5/24

here is a picture of my Brandy Boys. Can you see the fruits ? LOL

I had somehow missed Consulto Genovese was so early! Maybe it's worth a try here. I agree, the color and the shape are both very appealing.

Sey, hang in there! It's no wonder Carly Simon's 1971 hit single, "Anticipation" had the song "The Garden" on the flip side ;-)

wormgirl, A few days ago my Juliet blushed but today it is bright red. Juliet hybrid was sown at the same time as Costoluto Genovese but it was grown in a less fertile soil, so it lost a week. With all the heat we have now, it went from first blush to (over-)ripe in 4 days so today I'll have Juliet over for dinner (picture was a day after first blush):

Just for a fun fact since I'm crazy about Italy and all things tomato -especially the shape of this one- let's talk Costoluto Genovese. The name Costoluto Genovese is probably not the name this tomato goes by in Genoa. Locally in their open markets, it can be sold as 'Pursemin', which translates as "Parsley" in English. I don't think it is because they put parsley in their great tomato sauce made with this variety perfect for that ...

I think it is because of a salacious version of the fairytale Rapunzel written in 1634 in the Hapsburg Kingdom of Naples, present day Italy (the inspiration of Rapunzel, not the other way around-- LOL) had her braid her tresses up to form the ladder up the tower so the handsome prince could pay her nightly visits undetected. She was named Parsley because she ended up in the tower when her Mom had pregnancy cravings for her neighbor's (a witch) garden parsley and then was caught stealing it by the older woman. The penalty was giving up her firstborn child aptly named, Parsley. I think the tomato is reminscent of a ladder of hair in this sense - look at the picture and tell me if you see that too! I've been known to be spectacularly wrong though hahaha!

I am so happy I am growing the Pursemin tomato! I don't particularly like the renaming of varieties going on but put up with it. Some have much more interesting names than what concupiscent seed savers decide to call them in 'catalogs', so far and removed from the variety's original home and history!

Ciao!

PC

This is one of my Big Beef guys

Way to go Vince! Preparing for a Beef-steak dinner for two the end of June?!!

PC

I hope so Pupillary, but not eating beefsteaks until August last year, I'll be happy if they were ready in mid July. I always see your tomatoes ripen way before mine but I have to have patience realizing you're in Florida. Good luck rest of season.

I had fun reading your post PC, I hope to get some very tasty tomato pictures for you when I am back in Florida, I am enjoying the beautiful views of Nice, France. I went to the market yesterday and I saw the most beautiful tomatoes, hybrids and heirlooms, they also had a dish with all the varieties to try, all colors, shapes and sizes. We are in zone 10a here, about 70 degrees and no humidity, flowers everywhere.

Your Costoluto looks wonderful! And you are eating your greens too, good for you.

Silvia

Vince, they are coming along just fine, tomatoes are always riper in the next garden over, unless you're Silvia. jeje;

Silvia, I thought I was lucky to have my tomatoes survive my trip to Mexico and here you are at France's door to Liguria, Italy right where Costoluto Genovense is grown in the countryside ;-) Well, you gave us a picture of a tomato market in Italy and one in Spain, I'm wondering if France is next, I sure hope your camera went with you to market! Especially in that wonderful Mediterranean climate, maybe pick up some or even learn comment faire les tomates séchées au soleil ? LOL Do they (French sun-dried tomatoes) have viable seeds inside, so you can bring the varieties home without the USDA getting in a tizzy?

Keep on the lookout for the local heirloom, Coeur de Boeuf de Nice (link) ...

Can't wait to see how your plants were watered to have you come home to a tomato Jungle after this! Amuse-toi bien, santé !

PC

PC, I am confused. Tatiana calls CG midseason. Craig Lehoullier calls it late! And you, here you are, with it being your first larger ripe. Oh, the mysteries of the universe.

wormgirl, yup. What can I say? The tomatoes were delicious and I actually held them too long because they looked so pretty. Only the creator knows!

But it might have something to do with aggressively pruning off the lower petioles and leaving these tomatoes bare. They probably would have grown larger, but I can't see more than a full week. I don't have early seasons to compare, and the heat here clearly favors CG if not for the mold problem.

Probably I shouldn't have emphasized how early it was without putting it in the context with the rest I'm growing, but IT WAS MY FIRST TO REALLY BITE INTO ... can you blame me ;-). Sometimes when you stress a plant it accelerates ripening the tomatoes, have you noticed? In this case not only was it pruned on the lower leaves, but there was mold stress as well. And on top of that, the fruit was not covered from the Sun.

The biggest mystery is why they were so sweet. Other tomatoes on the same fertilization program were not sweeter. It is just one datapoint. But the plant has more fruits now and they are still in development. Occasionally a plant will throw early fruits, like CP is famous for doing. It is officially an even later midseason, but has been known in several forum members gardens', including my own, to beat Early Girl. I may be just a student, but I grab my tomatoes first (and eat them) and then ask questions later ;-) They were only about 5 oz, and this is a beefsteak that should reach larger size. See, for example this:

Costoluto Genovese beefsteak picture

Sown Jan 31

Transplant @ ~5 weeks ~March 9

Table-ripe (2) May 17 (69 days)

Rutgers is 7 days or so behind it. Sungold came out with its production about 10 days earlier.

Pomodori, andiamo!

PC

Nice PC I have a few that I have harvested as well. Now I get to wait on a few to ripen all the way.

PC, I did notice that they seemed on the small side for a beefsteak type, but I assume that is just because first fruits can be different than the "typical" fruit. Against all my better judgement, I bought a very stressed looking Kelloggs Breakfast a couple days ago (I was "rescuing" it) mostly because I found a fruit already forming on the plant. It's as if it's saying, "quick, reproduce!!" I'm nursing it back to health :)

I have a freak early fruit on my CP, but just the one so far. Although I think some others are coming along behind it now. We are teetering right on the edge of good conditions for fruit set.

Centexan - nice haul! It's interesting to compare where the three of us are in the season.

Beautiful Harvest Centexan! I see Brandy Boy coming along great top front center! Tomatoes are definitely here as the tomato wave travels northwards! Here was my tomato dinner from yesterday, my first Rutgers of a pretty massive harvest off a smaller determinate type plant. You can see all the leaf mold problems I'm fighting, as Rutgers got hit badly (and I promise to get around to tidying up):

Here's what's for dinner:

And a little more on my Santorini tomatoes. They are often called "cherry tomatoes", but technically they probably are not. They are more a small class of regular tomatoes as I mentioned earlier, based on the concept of a cherry tomato being rounded and typically with only two locules. That is a debatable question with no definitive answer unless the IAU decides to get involved and requires baloney to be present for it to be demoted to being a theoretical cherry tomato (science humor, pardon!).

Here is the interior of the Santorini tomato, note three locules and it's hard to see but this gives the most recognizable examples of Santorini tomatoes having a trilocular shape (three ribs):

Wow, those look like good seeds, don't they? That gave me an idea! Notice my Santorini tomatoes have suddenly become seedless with the rest of my garden greens!:

Mmmm, lots of flavor and mass was lost in the seeds and gel. Maybe if I add a little radiccio ... when will I learn to grow radiccio ... and Hellenize my bowl, it can become more delicious! Meet my Atlantean salad, kalí óreksi!

PC

Rutgers! Hello Gorgeous!

"bought a very stressed looking Kelloggs Breakfast a couple days ago (I was "rescuing" it)"

wormgirl, that's classic! Aren't so many of us guilty of running tomato rescue houses ;-) Good luck with Kellogg's Breakfast. I'm told that yield takes a very hard hit in those cases, but if said yield continues past first frost (minor detail), I think you'll bring out the tiger in them yet, because they're Grrrrrreat!

Cheers

PS, Rutgers says "Hello!" back, in his Joisey accent ;)

PC

Yeah it was a bad call but I'm a tomato addict! I want to help them all! I'm not even going to mention the Mortgage Lifter I bought yesterday! (Actually it was incredibly healthy and that's what got me.)

I am liking that I am at last harvesting some maters. The heat is going to shut things down with them very soon. A couple of the plants I no longer will need to use the fungicide on as they will be pulled as soon as I get the last of the ripe tomatoes off of them. Then I will start some more plants to replace them with for some fall tomatoes.

I will edit this with some pics from my phone. I find it much easier to type with a real key board. I hate the spending 5 minutes to type two sentences.

Yeah, sure in Florida tomatoes are there 12 months of the year. hehe
Enjoy, PC and Silvia. You are the greatest.

My plants are just pumping a lot of buds and flowers. The finale should come in late July. But I will start the firework on The Fourth.

Sey

Sey, the garden's always greener over the fence or may I conscript your mold fighting abilities for this Florida mess here! Right around July 4 is when the fireworks start to all fizzle and sputter here, so I'm sure Silvia, like me, is going to live it up till then!

wormgirl, Mortgage Lifter :-) ? I'm growing German Johnson, maybe we can compare notes. I hope yours does better than mine. I have two plants and both are growing but dropping blossoms. Disappointing for me as I had hoped it would do better in the heat and two plant spaces no less!

Centex, I think you've hit the nail on the head with the second crew of plants to face the heat - the only way to go. When the heat gets so bad as it is here now, I quit applying moldicide, just letting the day cook the mold and dry out the leaves if I can keep them dry. I'm looking for your pics, can't wait to see how they're shaping up. That's already quite a harvest and plenty to go around for more than one mouth ;-) Don't feel too peeved about the PITA with typing these things. Today has been a miserable day. In Carolyn's words, "I've been hacked!" Man, and the mother of all hackers got me so I was ripping the guts out of my computer since 10 AM due to CryptoWall 3.0 ransomware. Sweet mother of Hades, it turned my computer into ground zero meat paté.

OK, so, I really need to be late season by now the way the summer is heating up. I pride myself in being so careful about labeling my plants, and here I was thinking my Bradley plant (labeled) was right on time. Bradley is officially mid-season, right on the heels of Rutgers. Well, my Bradley where ever it is, is far behind the plant in it's labeled place. Speaking of Hackers, what would we do without the Russians? Presenting, Orange Russian 117, that is, a Russian-American cross, with Georgia Streak, the Georgia that's 25 miles from here! Definitely not Bradley ;-). My plant started out with a fused blossom, looks like a triple fruit to me and I did as I always do - grow it out! A beautiful & hefty pair of heart tomatoes:

The fused fruit is still not ready, but here we have a late season bicolor ("90 DTM") which graces my table tonight in 79 DTM with a vine ripened sweet and pineappley taste - Fantastic! It is the smaller tomato behind the fused one that's being harvested:

Look at those beautiful streaks. This one's 9.2 ounces but the triple heart is gonna be beautiful looking and around 12 ounces. This tomato is just Georgia Streak (the Georgia where Atlanta is!) in a heart shape, forget what they say about Russian in the name, the Russian 117 really didn't do much for this cross. No clue why it wasn't named Big Hearted Georgia, or my "Russian Streakin' Heart" (controling the urge to name it after a Patty Loveless song, Orange-Streakin', Double Crossin' Georgia Heart).

There's one strange craving I have today. I love to eat these sweet tomatoes "Sweet & Spicy". They never really go well in regular salads since they lack the acid. My garden salad greens and and some Caspian sardines with jalapeños in vinegar is my favorite way to eat these sweet colors when I need to stretch them out to make a whole dinner. Don't even like olive oil on them, but the salty sardines in oil is just the right flavor for my strange tastes:

No time to make it pretty. Fixing the work of nasty Russian hackers is hard work! Just a little vodka would combine well with this ... and might make me forget about being hacked :-(

Dobrei Nochi (~G'nite in Russian), Y'all!

PC

I am drooling .
That Orange RRussian looks yummy. Resemble Mr. Stripy. I love bi color tomatoes. I am growing several of them, including Mr. Stripy.
Give me another month , or so and I,ll show you some color.
Man does not live with bread alone; He needs hope too and butter , of course. hehe.

Sey

I ate a bicolor last year for the first time and really loved it! So this year, I have Pineapple and Big Rainbow.

PC, yes, Mortgage Lifter too. I justified it in my mind by saying, well I still didn't have any big red/pink slicers. Not that ML is the biggest of the big, but that's a good thing, because we don't have time for that now. The truth is I haven't grown many heirlooms before this year, and so it's interesting to try some of the real classics.

The Big Rainbow, Kellogg's and Mortgage Lifter were all impulse purchases and therefore just went in last weekend. Which could set me up for some heartbreak. This might be a repeat of when I did the same with a Brandywine - it went in last and got the least-sunny spot - and it grew 4 big tomatoes, none of which ripened.

This year I did at least give the sunnier spots to the longest day plants, and they are by the marblecrete wall that helps amplify and smooth the temperature. I do have them cloched to get them started too. And I have a plan B if they are green at the end of season. I hear pulling up the whole vine and hanging it in the garage allows the fruit to continue ripening.

PC, how did the Orange Russian taste? As sweet as always? Yum!!!

PC, that is one beautiful tomato! I was trying Russian 117 this year, but it had something weird going on with it so I pulled it. You should be hired by one of the seed companies strictly to name tomatoes! I think your names are a lot more fun and would sell more seed! ;-)

wormgirl,

You might want to try Armenian. I thought I was growing it again this year but when I was getting ready to plant out I noticed I neglected to start any! Very good looking red and yellow bi-color and sweet as a peach, or at least it was last year. I might try to start one or two to set out late but I better get it done in a hurry.

Thanks hoosier, I put it on my "to grow someday" list! Another I'd like to try is Northern Lights, some say it finishes earlier than other bicolors.

Are sungold tomatoes usually small? My MIL (mother-in-law) gave me a sungold transplant and tomatoes are small.

bluee welcome to the tomato forum! I started growing my Sungold from a very weak plant since the plant was overwintered and became anemic, and my Sungold fruits are turning out on the small side since the plant is quite pencil-ly. I think the following are the typical sizes you can expect from Sungold, using mine as the low end due to both the plant vigor and the heat here in FL:

Sungold:
7 grams to 13 grams per tomato average 10-11 grams
15/16" to 1 1/8"+ in diameter
2 to 4 per ounce (35 to 70 per pound)

LOL Jennie! I already was hired by a seed company some years ago, and not only got to name but also to trademark and write promo material (OMG, someone has to make it up!) which was great fun while it lasted! So sorry to hear about your Russian 117, I'll try to post another picture of my Orange Russian 117 in honor of your fallen Russian 117 comrade :-(, if I can do it discreetly, since it will be a memorial besides a tease for those among us that don't tolerate the beauty of fused-fruit worship ;-)

Hi wormgirl, I think all your tomatoes will handily whip Brandywine, so don't worry about them so much :-) Everyone who joins the forum here always has tastier tomatoes just by the sheer enthusiasm and moral support. I don't ever underestimate some hybrids. So far, Better Boy is still my favorite red tomato. But when it comes to interesting tomatoes with an extra challenge, heirlooms can't be beat! I'm trying to remember if you have CP; I hope so!

The trick of pulling up tomatoes on the entire plant seems to works well if you have a good hanging place and nice temperatures. I think the bigger sweeter might ones need more living sunshine to get sweet, but they probably still do much better than anything at the store! One of these days I'm going to have to grow "Vesuvian Small Hanging Tomatoes" and hang to Sun dry to see if that works in a humid environment that is the Florida east coast but I've not yet tried since I really don't have high hopes.

Pomidorino de Piennolo on the Naples (Italy!) coast

Are you in on this too? ;-) Orange Russian 117 was an 8 out of 10 in my climate on that first fruit, and they'll probably get better. It is a very sweet bicolor, but to be truthful while I Iove the fruity sweet taste, I don't think any bicolor in general doesn't mask some of the "complex" acids to fill out the flavor for a tomato trip around the world and back (Perhaps Sungold has succeeded where they fail me). That's not a good/bad thing, though, it's just what they ... at least for the ones I've grown. I can eat them straight for dessert without anything on them and be in heaven:

Heaven after growing/eating OR117

But after a while I do crave the tomatoes that have a high organic acid/flavor content I find the variety of bicolor isn't as important as the growing conditions, in which you just want to maximize sugars. I really haven't found a bicolor I like that isn't sweet. Maybe one is out there! What I mean to say is when grown right (or the luck of the draw per season per variety, depending on who you ask) they all rate wonderfully, but when not, I find them pretty non-descript, and that can happen to any of them that I've had. I got turned from hybrids to heirlooms by a bicolor, and it was nothing short of awesome. It was dry farmed in ther hottest part of summer and set very few fruits, but the ones it set were worth a million bucks!

Hey, Sey! Yes, it had my salivary ducts in overdrive too, just looking at it. The salad was ok as they will get a little sweeter as the harvest goes on, and by then I'll just be eating them straight I don't think you need hope, LOL, just patience!!! In a month I'll be oh'ing and ah'ing your bicolors as I moan about the weather here, and echoing your comment about needing hope as I try to get a few plants through the summer with full-sized fruits! Hang in there and I think you'll have more bicolors than most of us. I have four this time around: Hillbilly, Orange Russian 117, Charlie Buckets, and Speckled Roman. I can't tell the difference between Hillbilly, Pineapple and Big Rainbow so I consider them the same for me. I wonder if you'll get different results comparing Big Rainbow to Pineapple where you're at...

PC

Bonjour everyone

PC, just came back from a wonderful place, perfect weather, food and people. Here are some pictures of the tomatoes that I saw, tomatoes where everywhere, tomato and basil gelato, tomato oil for the skin, tomato soap made from the leaves.
The market tomatoes

I stop at the nursery where they sell plants and seeds and bought some to take home, I talked to the vendor and he recommend a variety of the Coeur De Boeuf, he said he grows that one at home and save the seeds


I bought some


I am very busy picking tomatoes at home and I am happy to know that my tomatoes taste the best! no bragging here,lol

Beefsteaks Red Penna



And I sampled one with the best salts that I bought in the market in Nice


Silvia

Silvia!!!

Great to see a petite glimpse of the wonderful time you had in the enchanting sub-tropical Mediterranean climate of the Côte d'Azur and I hope you didn't lose all your tomatoes while you were in Monaco! I'm sure your tomato plants need some TLC and hope they didn't miss you too much! Did they make it ok? I don't see too many caterpillar or leaf miner problems on your Red Penna, and let's see how far I get writing this till I am forced to break for lunch with your Nice rock(?) salt. Wonder how you got a stoppered test tube with white crystals through US Customs LOL along with all those tomato seeds!

Thanks so, so much for adding some authentic French flavor (saveur française) to my summer! The market really looks great :-) Black Krim, Ananas & Coeur de Beouf at market :-) :-)

Since Coeur de Beouf de Nice is a local heirloom - do you know if one of the seed packs you got their heirloom Coeur de Beouf? I can't read the pack in the lower right of the seed packs' beautiful picture, but it doesn't look like the fluted Hershey's kiss shape most have in the second picture which look to be the local Heirloom grown in Provence, or maybe it is if that's a double one with an accordion shape which looks a lit like Costoluto Genovese!

I'm so envious in a great way, that I must go pick a ripe tomato of my own and take a big juicy bite and think France!

Santé Silvia and a very big welcome home from me and all the 'skeeters that missed you! Now I just must bite into that juicy tomato after seeing this (Call this the kung-fu movie effect for tomato enthusiasts)!

PC

Sylvia, amazing photos! Thanks for sharing and you must have had a great time.

PC, you also shared an amazing photo, of those bunches of tomatos that I guess are drying? I see one bunch in a box in the picture, I guess for shipping?

Orange Russian has been on my "to grow" list for some time and now you have sealed the deal. One small correction, though. If anyone here in WA has a bicolor in a month, I will eat my hat. Well, I would rather eat their tomato actually.

Oh my, I am very tired and probably not coherent. Off I go to bed to dream of a dry-farmed bicolor in a hot season.

Great pictures, Silvia.
Thanks for sharing with us here.
I bet you will have lots of new varieties to try the next time around.

Sey

Silvia, beautiful pictures of what had to be a wonderful trip. I love France, though I've never been to Provence, only Paris and Normandy. You make me want to go back. Enjoy your seeds. So much fun to try new varieties.

As for US Customs, well, I'm sure we've all brought back some things they'd rather not know about (like maybe seeds from this awesome melon we had in Barcelona. It was probably a hybrid, but the resulting fruit was still very good.) :)

Thank you all for your kind words.

PC, it makes me happy to share some of the wonderful time that I had in Nice, it was probably one of the most perfect places to visit and we did buy a lot of stuff, we went through the customs in Montreal and I told them most of what I had.:) bread, cheese, chocolates, cookies, nuts, dried fruit, dried peppers, coffee, tea, soaps, things for the house,pictures and I did not remember the salts and now that you told me I am sure they look suspicious, especially that I had a whole bunch of them in the test tubes,lol.

The seeds packets on the round one is says Fraicheurs Bio Tomate Coeur de Boeuf, the accordion one it says Tomate Coeur De Boeuf variete Canestrino, I took some more tomato pictures, you will figured it out.:)

Sun dried tomatoes and peppers

Figs and tomatoes


The Monaco casino and no I did not gamble, I was just too busy looking at the sights and shops.:)

Wormgirl, thank you. The food and the sights were wonderful!


Sey, thank you. And they were selling some dwarf tomatoes for the balconies, not everyone there have space to garden.


Caryltoo, thank you. If you decide to go to Nice in the future, you will love it there!

About the seeds and the customs...I saw an interview with Michael Pollan, the writer and he said that the first thing he does when he goes some place is buy seeds. Oprah said I thought that you could not do that and he reply "as long as is in the seed package, you can bring them". And when I was at the seed store I thought if he can do it, I can too.:)

I was not going to miss the chocolates,lol


And another view from the top of the hill in Nice

Silvia

Silvia, I've been off line and two-three nights straight cleaning my computer's hard drive to make it like the day I originally bought it since it was infiltrated about a week or more ago. Your wonderful scenes remind me of how beautiful the world is and how much I'd like to be on one of those beaches! I was joking about the Monte Carlo, for me every trip is a gamble when growing tomatoes. Like children they don't do well without farmcare. I hope you didn't have any losses while you were gallivanting around paradise.

I have some Michael Pollan, the tomato variety that is ... maybe you want to trade a few ;-) Thanks goodness I have no weakness for Xocolatl to go with my Tomatl, the chocolate shop looks like a room from the palace at Versailles.

Well, since it's my job LOL, I'd say the Coeur de Boeuf de Nice heirloom is simply an heirloom that was developed in Liguria and recently found its way to Nice where it caught on as one farmer's favorite. variety: Canestrino is from the Italian, "Little Basket", right?

15 Euro for a tomato plant sounds awfully expensive even if it is a dwarf bearing maters in those tiny pots. But they look so cute! The pics are so fine ... you've got something for everyone ;-) My favorite is the one from the mountain looking down by the statue. That's where my terrace would be!

Great job with customs. It's so good to hear that there is still a little bit of fun left in international travel!

wormgirl, I harvested my second Orange Russian two days ago and it was great, though unfortunately very few seeds when it was time to do what we do from a massive great tomato! It was really, really a triple sweetheart of a tomato! 13.1 ounces, which is great for an OR117!

And just to show the equivalence, take a look at all the tomatoes I had to harvest today in the sweltering heat to make something similar to yesterday's treat!

Lunch (all of them!)

Cheers everyone!
(and my dreams of a Mediterranean capri blue coast tonight)
PC

PC, sorry about the troubles with your computer and I am glad that you fixed it.

With the heat and the no care, a lot of things took a hit in the garden. I saved what I could making sauces, salsas and oven dried them.

Very prolific Indigo Rose, they did not have them in Nice.:)

Tablecloth was 10 euros in Nice, the chocolate shop was the oldest in Nice and you have it right one of the Queens used to shop there, they preserve the fruits candied them, I bought few but they were too sweet for my taste. Chocolates are delicious! I only like the dark and if it has fruits and nuts even better.

And of course we can trade a few seeds, most of them are heirlooms but I got some hybrids too, by the way the shop owner recommended the fluted variety. I got other veggie seeds too, last time that I was in Italy the owner of the winery gave some greens seeds that were very good. Send me a message with your address and we will be soon on time for the next growing season.

When I was taking pictures from the views of the beaches, I realized that they were topless and nobody was even looking,lol. I guess that is a common sight. On this picture I like the color of the water.


Silvia

Silvia
Beautiful pictures and memories... Thanks for sharing with us.
I love those farmers markets and fruits stands in Europe. I have only seen them in parts of Germany., Not as colorful, but well organized.

You Indigo Rose looks good. Mine is in bloom and ready to set fruits any day now.

Sey

Thank you Sey, when I go anyplace away from my house, the first thing that I hit are the farmers markets to see what is in season and taste as much as I can, I ask so many questions to the vendors. One thing that I noticed lately is that they are having the place of the veggies or fruits where they come from, this way the customer can make a choice. I like to shop as much as I can with local produce and you cannot get any closer than having your own garden and then we get spoiled when we get inferior tomatoes at the store.

After trying the Indigo blueberries and the Indigo rose, I like the rose better, bigger fruit and you can tell when is ripe it gets a red color at the bottom.

Keep on gardening!

Silvia

Yeah, I understand , as a gardener what interests you.

PC, that is a nice harvest there. They all look yummy.
I know Juliet. It is prolific and if you are into canning whole tomatoes, juliet is a good choice. I am growing something like it . I named it "mini roma". I got the seeds from store boughts.

Okee dokee. Keep harvesting before the heat comes.

Sey