choosing tomato varieties

All America Selections (AAS) is a great place to start when looking for new tomato varieties to try. It's is a national, non-profit plant trialing organization that tests new, never-before-sold varieties and selects winners with superior performance. I toured a dozen seed breeders in CA with AAS last summer and they are a fantastic organization.

My wish list has a bunch of AAS Winners that I'd like to try out next year. First, Mountain Rouge, a brand new 2019 AAS Winner. I visited its breeder, Bejo USA, last summer and saw this tomato growing in the field. It's really beautiful - a big red slicer with great flavor, plus very good resistance to tomato diseases, especially late blight. Here's a video of Mountain Rouge out in the field and shown by its breeder. (I was visiting Bejo with AAS when this video was made!)


--Mountain Rouge F1 and Midnight Snack F1

Midnight Snack is also an AAS winner that I saw growing in the field (at PanAmerican Seed). It is a tall, highly productive cherry tomato with a glossy black color that develops in the spots where sun hits the fruits. I love it and look forward to trying it in my garden. I usually only grow Sun Gold cherry, so this addition will give me some interesting variety.

Chef's Choice Orange is also a fantastic AAS Winner (2014) that I have grown for several years now with great success (bred by Seeds By Design, a really nice family-run organization that I enjoyed visiting last summer). I'm planning to grow this one again next year.


 --Chef's Choice Orange F1

Next year, I'd also like to try a variety from the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project. It's nice that this Project is producing OSSI seeds, which means they are all OP and the seeds can be saved and you'll get the same plant again next year. You don't need to keep buying the seed. Rosella Crimson Dwarf looks like a fun one to try growing in a hay bale or pot. Maybe it will nice in my Mom's small garden. I love the idea of compact, highly productive, and newly breed plants.

I also like the totally random method of looking at lists of heirloom tomatoes and choosing varieties to try. There are more than 3,000 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in active cultivation! Baker Creek and Sand Hill Preservation Center have enormous selections. Dr Lyle was one of my random selections this past year and it was super. A huge and delicious red slicer that was very vigorous and productive. I will definitely grow it again next year.


 -- Dr Lyle (heirloom)

Tomato varieties I grew this year:
   Cherokee Purple
   True Black Brandywine (large purple slicer) (OP)**
   Carbon
   Pink Brandywine
   Martha Washington
   New Girl
   Mortgage Lifter
   Dr Lyle (large red slicer) (OP)**
   Pink Beauty
   Raspberry Large Red
   Chef's Choice Orange (large orange slicer) (F1)**
   Orange Blossom
   German Old Sterling
   Sun Gold (orange cherry)**
   Principe Borghese (for sun-dried tomatoes) (OP)**
   San Marzano
   Opalka (large paste) (OP)**
   Polish Linguisa
  
My wish list of varieties to grow next year:
   The six varieties with ** above
   Mountain Rouge (large red slicer, high disease resistance) (F1)
   Midnight Snack (black cherry) (F1)
   Rosella Crimson Dwarf (a large red slicer on a compact plant) (OP)

(OP means open-pollinated, which means I can save seeds and they will produce the same plants again next year. F1 means it's a hybrid. It will have "hybrid vigor", but I won't get the same plant again next year if I save seeds. I'll have to buy these seeds.)

Maybe I'll add to my list of varieties in the coming months. I usually end up with a list that's longer than I meant it to be.

What varieties are you planning to grow next year? Let me know your suggestions!

yesterday's harvest

My tomatoes are in!! I thought this photo was worth playing with and making it into a piece of art. I love all these vegetables. The big tomato is a new variety I'm trying this year - Dr Lyle. I like it. I also pick a huge orange tomato yesterday, but we already ate it - Chef's Choice Orange.

Unfortunately the critters like my tomatoes too. Chipmunks have taken bites of several tomatoes, so I'm picking them a bit green to ripen inside. This happens every year when the tomatoes first start to ripen. It will be less of a problem later.

my best tomatoes this year

I'm almost out of garden tomatoes. Two weeks ago I picked the last of the green ones on my tomato vines. They’ve been gradually ripening indoors. Yesterday I made a batch of sauce, probably my last one after a summer of making nearly a batch a week. I only have a couple tomatoes left :-(

I’ve been thinking about which were my favorite varities this year. For slicing tomatoes, it was an heirloom variety called True Black Brandywine (seeds from Baker Creek). It’s not related to Brandywine and doesn't have that mealy flesh. Its flavor and texture are fantastic and it's beautifully colored - deep purple with green shoulders.



My best sauce tomatoes were San Marzano and Opalka. San Marzano gave me a huge number of middle sized tomatoes. Opalka had fewer tomatoes but they were enormous and perfect for sauce.

I grew about 20 varieties this year - a couple of each. Next year I'm planning to grow many fewer varieties. Probably slicing tomatoes: True Black Brandywine, Orange Blossom, Pink Beauty, Cherokee Purple, and Mortgage Lifter. Sauce tomatoes: San Marzano and Opalka.

I'd love to hear what tomatoes did best for other gardeners.

tomato seedlings are in

My tomato seedlings are all transplanted out into my garden now. Yeah!! Finally. It's turning point for me.

For many things, gardens included, preparation is most of the effort. By the time my tomato seedlings go in, my soil has been amended, the seedlings raised and hardened off, and my tomato supports are up.

But more than that, tomatoes are my big summer crop, and once they go in, all my spring beds have been prepared and planted, and my garden design changes have been done. This year I laid down new wood chips on garden paths and reseeded grass on the main path. I emptied and turned compost bins and rebuilt the one at my community plot. I've harvested greens so far, like lettuce, spinach, and arugula, but planting tomatoes makes me hungry for summer vegetables.

I outdid myself by planting 28 tomato seedlings between my home and community garden plots this year. Plus another eight for my mom in her garden. They are about 60% slicers and the rest sauce varieties. Mostly heirlooms, a few hybrids. I over planted and have 32 seedlings left over. My neighbors and fellow community gardeners always seem happy to take the extras.

So it's a time to celebrate. A toast to the coming summer vegetables. A hope for a productive season. And a rest with feet up (briefly) after the spring's work and before that of summer.

the last of my garden tomatoes

All my green tomatoes have now ripened in their baskets in my kitchen. They are sadly :-( the last garden tomatoes and green peppers for our salads. Tomato season has come to an end.

I have to say, however, that it's been a really super tomato year. I made sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, salsa, etc. I froze and canned about 100 pounds of tomatoes, producing 50 pounds now in my pantry and freezer. And, who knows how many tomatoes we ate fresh ... sliced on salad with mozzarella and basil ... yumm

I think this year should be crowned the "Year of the Tomato" (as well as the "Year of the Big Drought") for my gardens. I think I'll make some buttons for my sidebar.

true black brandywine tomato

My favorite slicing tomato this year is definitely the True Black Brandywine. It's a beautiful fruit. More productive than my regular Brandywines. And it tastes incredibly good. Either just plain, or with mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Or layered on top of an eggplant with cheese, basil and olive oil then broiled to tenderness.

This tomato is sold by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I don't think it's really black - it has dark green shoulders. Dark green shoulders are the result of a gene that prevents the breakdown of chlorophyll, a process that normally happens and allows a green tomato to ripen to red. If some chlorophyll stays intact, the combination of red and green makes a dark green, purple or "black" color. Anyway, that's the biology of it... Whatever the reason, it's a great tomato.

"sun-dried" tomatoes

I have an inexpensive vegetable drier. It is great. We cut up and dried down two big bowls of tomatoes. At 135 F, most were ready after 12 hours, a few went about 5 hours longer. We packed them into several pint and half pint jars and covered them with olive oil. In the past, these have kept 6 months of more in the refrigerator.

comparing slicing tomatoes

From left: Sun Gold, Cherokee Purple, Huge Lemon Oxheart, Brandywine, Pink Beauty and Giant Belgium

Not shown: Beefsteak, Mortgage Lifter, Carbone, Iron Lady and Mountain Merit. The last two are late blight resistant varieties that I'm growing at my community garden plot.



And here are some sliced tomatoes. From top left going clockwise the varieties are: Cherokee Purple, Orange Blossom, Carbone, Mountain Merit, Iron Lady and, in the center is Stump of the World. (I bought the Orange Blossom tomato as I miss growing this one - I ran out of seeds this year.)

I'd like to eliminate 2 or 3 slicing varieties next year and add 2 or 3 new ones. Orange Blossom is one to add!

My notes:
Sun Gold was tall and spindly this year. Grow two plants next year.
Cherokee Purple outdid itself with many beautify tasty fruits. Its still my favorite.
Huge Lemon Oxheart, definitely huge and yellow, but also mealy. I'd like to try a different lemon variety.
Brandywine: Great tasting, but shape seemed different, smaller, this year. I'll have to look up the strain.
Pink Beauty: I tucked this plant way in back. It still produced many delicious tomatoes.
Giant Belgium: Three or four spectacular big tasty fruits.
Beefsteak: This plant fizzled. A couple small fruits.
Morgage Lifter: Amazing number of big fruits early in the season, fizzed by the end.
Carbone: Two or three fantastic fruits. I tucked this plant way in back and it didn't get as much sun.
Stump of the World: My husband likes to eat these like cherry tomatoes. He says they're very sweet. I think I'll stop growing it because of the ugly name. (Where did that come from?!) It's incredibly prolific.
Iron Lady: Lots of tomatoes, medium sized fruits.
Mountain Merit: This is my favorite late blight resistant variety, a nice big meaty tomato.

Eliminate: Huge Lemon Oxheart and Beefsteak

comparing paste tomatoes

From left: Tiren, Stump of the World, Cordova, Opalka, Heinz 2653, San Marzano, Nova
Not shown: San Marzano G3, Polish Linguisa

I'd like to eliminate 2 or 3 varieties. And grow less variety for my paste tomatoes. I really prefer the big meaty tomatoes, but they produce fewer tomatoes than the smaller ones. Of course one big Opalka is the size and meatiness of 5 or 6 tiny Novas.

My Notes:
Tiren: Very early, heavy producer, seems hollow, not so meaty
Stump of the World: I think not a paste tomato, a saladette, Huge production of sweet small fruits
Cordova: Good production, med sized round fruits.
Opalka: Amazingly beautiful and the meatiest tomato I have seen. Very few fruits.
Heinz 2653: Hard for me to distinguish this one from Cordova.
San Marzano: Similar to Cordova in size, maybe thinner and a bit longer. Low production.
Nova: Lots of tiny fruits.
San Marzano G3: This was my standard paste tomato, but it produced very few fruits this year in sprite of the front row seat I gave it.
Polish Linguisa: This one is performing stellar in my Mom's garden. It's a late producer of few fruits in my garden. Fruits are large, delicious and very meaty.

I think I will eliminate Stump of the World and Nova and double up on Opalka and Polish Linguisa

canned crushed tomatoes

red sauce

My tomato bowl filled up again today, so time to make red sauce.

When I make red sauce I peel, seed and chop tomatoes, then simmer about an hour. More detail: I boil a big pan of water and then put a few tomatoes at a time in it for about 1 minute till their skin starts to split. Remove and cool. Then peel skin. I squeeze out as many seeds as I can, then chop the pulp. I put all tomato pulp in a big pan and simmer, stirring occasionally till it is as thick as you want it. Usually about 1 hour of simmering.

My mom has extra tomatoes too this year (what a great year!) and wants to make sauce, but my skinning and seeding steps seem to much work. (They go fast for me since I have a routine.) My brother said to whirl the tomatoes in a blender and then boil them down. She thinks this sounds easier than peeling them all. My brother said the blender is good enough so you don't have pieces of skin. What do you think? My mom will try this sometime this week and see how it goes. I am looking forward to her report.

I have tried before to just core the tomatoes and cook them down. Can't get any easier. I cut them in half, thinking I'd pull out as much skin as I could. Here's a post I did on this: short-cut red sauce. It was a really really delicious sauce with lots of tomato varieties also squash and carrots added, but I ended up taking a lot of time trying to remove the skin and wasn't successful at taking out much of it so I ended up pureeing it.

After reading my old recipe, I think I will add some summer squash and carrots to my red sauce tonight.

my first tomatoes!!

tomato planting time!

What a great day! Perfect planting weather.

At my community garden today we distributed tomato seedlings that we raised at local greenhouse. Four varieties of late blight resistant tomatoes. About 350 plants distributed to 55 gardeners. Legend, Moutain Merit, Defiant and Jasper. Nice big seedlings.

It was a good day to be a gardener! Or a tomato seedling....

late blight resistant tomato seed

Does anyone have experience with late blight resistant tomatoes?

After all the problems we have had the past few years, we would like to provide our community gardeners with late blight resistant tomato seedlings next spring. I am looking into the best varieties.

I am thinking of trying these:
Defiant PhR (Johnny's Seed)
Mountain Magic (Johnny's Seed)
Plum Regal (Johnny's Seed)
Ferline (Thompson and Morgan)
Legend (Reimer Seeds)

Labor Day red sauce

A fitting tribute to a super summer growing season, I made a big pot of red sauce today from my tomatoes! It's the first time in years that I've had enough tomatoes to do this. It included a mix of San Marzano Gigante, New Girl, Brandywine and Purple Calabash tomatoes. I added some of my onions and peppers. Also oregano, thyme and chives.

We had some of the fresh sauce on pasta tonight and it is fantastic!!!

I will freeze the rest.

I have been picking my tomatoes as soon as they turn a bit red and keeping them in a wooden box that I found at a local wine store. Today I used all of the red tomatoes, then washed and replaced the green ones to continue ripening.

today's harvest

This is what I picked from the garden today. Lots of tomatoes.

The blight is hitting my tomato plants hard now, so I picked all of the tomatoes that were anywhere near pink. I pulled off all of the blighted leaves from the plants. The stems are nearly bare now with a bunch of green tomatoes hanging, hoping to ripen. I went ahead and sprayed again with Copper fungicide, as I have been doing weekly, even though there wasn't much there to spray.

And I was surprised by finding a bunch of broccoli shoots today. I almost pulled all of my broccoli a few weeks ago, after I picked the first, big heads. They didn't seem like they were producing any side shoots. But now, all of a sudden, I have lots of side shoots.

The two summer squashes in this harvest, a Zephyr and a Starship pattypan, will likely be my last of the season. I can't say I am sorry. I think I've eaten a million summer squashes in the past couple months. They were yummy, but I'm looking forward to moving on to another vegetable.

Two days ago, my sister and I used a giant zucchini and made zucchini bread. The one zucchini made about 8 cups of grated squash. I use 3 cups per my 2 loaf recipe. We made a 1x recipe, and then a 1.5x recipe, ending up with 3 loaves, 1 Bundt cake and two giant muffins. My sister took a loaf to work with her and I froze two loaves. It really came out nice and we have been enjoying it.

canning tomatoes

I bought 25 lbs of local tomatoes at the Farmer's Market, added a few of mine and canned 11 quart jars.

Recipe:
- Peel tomatoes after scorching in boiling water 1 minute. Slit and remove seeds. Slice in food processor with 1/4 inch blade.
- Clean quart canning jars in dishwasher. Boil lids and rings in water on the stove.
- Pack tomatoes in jars to 1/2 inch of the top. (I added a small chili pepper to half of the jars.) Clean rims. Apply lids and rings. After tightening rings fully release 1/2 turn to allow pressure to escape.
- Place packed jars in large pot with rack so they are not sitting on the bottom of the pot. (About 5-8 jars per pot.) Fill with water to 2 inches over the top of jars. - Heat water to 190*F slowly, over 1.5 hours. Maintain heat at 190*F for 30 min.
- Remove and cool jars. Check for seal.

tomatoes!!

The "real" tomatoes are ripening! Ahh. Can't beat this time of year.

A couple weeks ago my mom sent me a fascinating article about how supermarket tomatoes lost their flavor. Turns our the green shoulders contain chlorophyll and work to make the tomato sweet as it ripens. The great supermarket tomato advance was to remove the green shoulders and produce a perfectly red tomato - with NO TASTE. Remarkable!

Work linking tomato sweetness and green shoulders was published June 28, 2012 in the journal Science: How Tomatoes Lost their Taste.

A nice article is at The Salt (NPR food blog): How The Taste Of Tomatoes Went Bad (And Kept On Going).

My first three real tomatoes are a Pink Beauty, a Purple Calabash and a Brandywine.

comparing tomato planting dates from previous years

Yesterday I transplanted 6 tomato seedlings to my side yard garden. Its been so warm this spring that it seems like tomato planting time already to me. Temperatures the past 2 weeks have been in the 70s and 80s, nighttime lows staying up near 50*F. The forecast is for a week of rainy weather in the 60's - perfect for tomato roots to take hold and grow. I plan to plant another 6 plants out at my community plot. I will try to wait until mid May to be safe as this big open space can get late frosts.

I compared this tomato transplant date with previous years. For the past 6 years, I have transplanted tomatoes out from May 3 to May 30. One year that I tried planting out in April with wall-o-water protectors and the plants did not do well.

2012: April 21 and TBD

2011, May 30: Last spring was very cold and damp. I planted tomato seeds late, around April 25, then transplanted seedlings out to my community plot on May 30. I never really got many tomatoes from these plants. I think my mistake was to plant them right next to my dense corn patch (just to the north of it), and I planted too many tomato plants too close together. I had lots of fungal problems - fortunately no late blight, but seemingly every other fungi (post). I pulled the plants in August and gave up.

2010, April 7 and May 16: I planted a few tomato seeds very early, Feb ?, and the rest right on schedule, March 23, 6 weeks before our usual last frost date of around May 4. I tried Wall-O-Water and transplanted the early (Beaver Lodge) plants to my side yard garden on April 7 (posts). But cold weather stayed late and I couldn't remove the covers til the first week of May. Most of the plants in them died from fungi as there is no air flow inside the units. I did my regular tomato transplanting on May 16 (post).

2009, May 3: I sowed tomato seeds Feb 21 and April 2, then transplanted the seedlings to the garden on May 3. This was the year that Late Blight wiped out almost every tomato in New England. Mine were no exception.

2008, May 22: This was a year of super tomatoes (post). Not many plants, but beautiful tomatoes (post). It was also my first year in my community plot. Here's a photo of transplanting tomatoes (with Amelia) on May 22 in my brand new plot (post). I planted my tomato seeds on April 6.

2007, May 20: I had an enormous crop this year!!

2006, May 23: Another super year for tomatoes.

I wish I had a chart for each year to see when certain flowers bloomed and birds arrived and nested. My sense is the season is at least 2 weeks early here this year. My early rhododendron blossoms have come and gone, the purple iris is blooming and tree peony buds are about to open. Oak leaves are bigger than squirrels ears and the robins are nesting. The activity at our community garden is amazing and everyone is enjoying the warm spring.

tomato spots

I have every type of spot on my tomatoes this year - except late blight, thank goodness. Big spots, small ones, orange and brown and black. The damage is pretty much limited to the fruits and is not on the leaves or stems of the plants.

Its been perfect weather for fungi this summer - hot and humid. But I think much of my problem is that I planted my tomato plants too dense and between tall popcorn and sunflowers that reduce airflow. Other gardeners in our community garden have nice tomatoes that they planted with lot of airflow. Next year I will do this too....