It's way to quiet in here at the moment......... 8) What varieties of tomatoes are people going to grow this year.?? I'm growing only a few different ones this year, after growing way too many varieties last year including new commercial hybrids, fancy double grafts, old school Aussies, and heirlooms from around the world. I've decided this year to not bother with any hybrids, I'm going to stick with heirloom and self seeding varieties, and I'm not going to bother with too many different varieities.. Does anyone have a favourite variety, one they keep seed from and plant again each year?? How are people growing them, in pots or in the ground? With support, or without? Joel
i was wondering how long it would take............ tomatoes mmmmmmmmmmm... las t year we had our veggie garden in pot and didn't have the best crop of tomatoes we only planted roma, which were okay... next week we will be planting in to the garden yellow and red pear cherry, and roma san marzano which have really taken off.......... have a few other ready to plant into seedling trays. any one got ideas for staking............
Hi Joel and Lillypilly, Joel, seed saving and open pollinated varieties, heirlooms, etc, are the key to true food security, and a big problem of the green revolution, being dependent on purchasing seed annually, is avoided altogether. We grow local varieties, which are sweet and dependable. One plant in the right soil can give massive amounts of tomatos. I have no favorite varieties as we grow what we can get, but find that cherry tomatoes do better for us, more resistant to bacterial wilt and fruit set problems than the larger beef steaks. And, not to keep embarassing you with how awesome your aquaponics system (hey, emoticons, get your butts fron and center, please... :wav: . Than ks...) is, but the tomato plants your system produces that I saw in your DVD are incredible, especially the one from the runt of the litter... I like the aquaponics system :wav: so much because it bypasses soil related problems, bacterial wilt, nematodes, etc, that caue probems with tomatos.... Christopher
Alternative to staking- a guy i know is laying cardboard on the ground around his tomatoes and then covering with mulch and letting the tomatoes go where ever they go... i'm gonna give it a go aswell.
I'm downsizing on tomatoes too this year Joel. Last year I grew quite a few different varieties having been give some seedlings from a friend who works in the trade; black russian, the yellow ones, lost the tags so can't remember their names, gross lisse, rouge de monde, tommy toe and a heap that sprouted from the ground from the previous years. Didn't really like the black russians, found the skin a bit tough and they were a little bland, the yellow ones were a bit too tarty, but very prolific. Still using them, frozen and bottled. The rouge de monde and tommy toe weren't that successful. This year, I'm only planning on planting grosse lisse, as they're my favorite, and sweet bite. I really like the little ones for salads, saves me cutting them up :lol: and am planning on bottling most of the big ones as I use heaps of 'peeled, crushed' tomatoes in my cooking throughout the year. Any that pop up, I'll relocate and nurture of course, cos I'm a softy for orphans, but that'll be about it. Re planting method, If it's a tree thing like grosse lisse, I'll stake and pinch out the laterals. I don't like them getting too busy cos it's too hard to find the tomatoes to pick them, for all the jungle of other stuff, then when I do find them, the birds have already gotten to them. For the vine type ones like a lot of the cherry varieties, I'll let them go as they are such prolific producers, I can sacrifice some to the birds, and they might leave my grosse lisse alone for my bottling. Tam
Have you grown the San marzano or any other 'paste' type tomatoes before Lillypilly? I grew san marzano, roma and Amish paste last year, the first two suffered badly from blossom end rot, evidently a common problem for paste type tomatoes, and especially bad when grown in pots.. I had a huge crop of romasbut lost almost the whole lot.. :cry: So you just use any tomatoes when it comes to bottling Tam? You don't use the paste types? I really know nothing about the bottling side of things (typical male :? ) but I had heard that the idea of the paste types was for bottling, or perhaps they are for making tomto paste and I'm confused... :roll: I'll go and do some research..... Though that will probably lead to me deciding that I need to grow another 20 different varieties. :lol: I grew some like that last year Luke, they did pretty well left to spread over the ground, simple way of growing them if you have the space. I'm running out of space here, so a lot of mine I grew in loops of wire mesh to try and train them up.. Definately up for some smaller tommies this year, the best flavoured variety I grew last year was a small red grape. I'm going to try a small white (snow white) and a small black (black cherry) as well, would love to try a stuffing tomato, they look interesting, oohh a giant yellow..... Damn it, control.... :? Don't go to sites like this, they are dangerous..... https://www.tomatogrowers.com Ahhh Christopher your back, fruitfull trip I hope.. Of course I have always known that open polinated, and especially heirloom varieties are the way to go. But realistically to keep everyone happy one must try all possible avenues rather than blindly discounting without experimenting.. Well, that was what I told myself last year as there were many people on a tomato group growing different hybrid varieties and swearing by them. And I proved, at least to myself, that there is definately nothing to be gained by growing hybrid varieties. The funny thing about tommy hybrids is that it seems they do have fertile seeds, but they will not be true to type, with each further generation they revert back to something like one of their original parentage. You have made me think about the aquaponics and this year I am going to try and grow paste varieties in the grow beds. After having no success growing threm in pots last year it will be interesting to see if they suffer from blossom end rot in the grow beds... If anyone went to the tomato growers link above and found a variety they wanted to try, this following link is a guy in Australia who sells many many varieties, just no pics though.. https://home.iprimus.com.au/ironbarkbob/seed/ Joel
Surely this thread deserves a bit more attention. Where's all out Vic and Tas members? And any more stalkers out there, :lol: come on, we're interested in what you're doing too. Tam
Glorious tomatoes! This year I am growing: Black Zebras, Black Russians, Tigerellas, White & Red Cherries, Red Fig, Wapsipinicon Peach, and good ol' Tommy Toes Hopefully there will be a bit of bottling in my future :lol:
