Behold, home grown maters!

[wildeyed]

The big ugly one on the left? I ate that one, the whole thing, and it was soooo good. It is called "Brandywine", allegedly one of the best tasting tomatoes on the planet. I concur. I ate it all, then, without thinking, started to gnaw the little edible bit that was attached to the stem. I was lucky to get a ripe one so early. It said late season on the package. All the others are still green. Hey, I have something to look forward to :)

You know why I didn't share the Brandywine with my family? (I'm going to vent a little here.) Because they all claim to "hate" tomatoes. It is frustrating. I grow heirloom tomatoes, from seed no less, and my family "hates" them. :mad: I had to bribe the children into eating a bite. On the plus side, after trying the Brandywine, the small child said he doesn't hate tomatoes anymore, so maybe I will produce a tomato lover yet!

[NMDemDist2]

1. i am so envious! sprinkle some sugar on them and make them close

their eyes and taste. they might surprise themselves LOL

[Gormy Cuss]

2. You are fortunate to have an early Brandywine

They can take forever but the flavor of Brandywine and the other big ugly heirlooms is worth it in my book. Our tomatoes are late this year - so far we've had one ripe cherry tomato only but the Early Girls are making an effort to ripen up this week. Early Girls are the only hybrid we grow and they're the chief supply until the heirlooms are ready.

Johnny's Seeds has an heirloom variety called Striped German that is a red/yellow striped variety that put outs 20 to 24 ounce fruit pretty consistently and the flavor is wonderful.

[wildeyed]

3. If the Brandywine experiment continues to be successful,

I will try some more heirlooms next year. That was the pure taste of summer, couldn't miss that!

Here in the south, we have to rotate where we grow tomatoes and peppers from year to year to avoid soil borne diseases. But I have two bed and can add more, so that should not be a problem.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. I rotate too, but we have four beds.

Wouldn't need that many if it weren't for our obsession with tomatoes.:-)
We have an absurdly long growing season because until late October we have warm days and cool nights, perfect for setting tomatoes.

[wildeyed]

7. If I want to continue to grow heirlooms, I will need four beds, too.

Problem is, I can only grow the maters and peppers in one bed at a time. To avoid the soil borne diseases here, it is recommended that you adhere to a four year rotation cycle. Problem is, I am only interested in tomatoes and peppers, not much in other veggies, so I am not sure what to do with all the other beds. I may try to grow flowers for cutting in one of them. Lower maintenance than veggies, and it would be wonderful to have a supply of flowers for the house.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. I've read, but don't remember where, that heirlooms are more resilent

to soil-borne diseases. I am not about to test that and risk losing my homegrown crop, however. We used to have two beds and created a rotation by using only half of one bed in any year.

Flowers sound like a great space filler. I love it when I have something in the garden to cut.

[wildeyed]

11. Not here.

In NC, if you don't rotate, you get nematodes or some such thing. It happened to me at my old house. There was only one spot sunny enough to grow maters. The first year, glorious success. The second, something happened to the plants, the stems got all funny looking, as best I could figure it was nematodes or some kind of wilt, can't remember which. But once you have it in a spot, it goes on forever. Rotating may help me avoid the problem in my new garden, but I may also end up having to grow resistant varieties, too. But this year is good. I have Brandywine, after all :)

[wryter2000]

22. I love Johnny's Seeds

Have you tried their Diva cucumber? Yummy! Of course, you can get seeds for them everywhere now, but Johnny's developed them.

[mtnester]

5. AHHH....a garden full of warm, home grown maters, and a salt shaker in my

hand....heaven and juice running down my chin!

Sigh...it got a bot chilly right after maters were planted here and they are running late this year (Central Ohio)

Hope someone brings some up from the Ohio River Valley this weekend to the farmers market.

[Lugnut]

6. Beautiful!

There's nothing quite as good as a home-grown tomato.

We've eaten three Early Girls already which is a bit unusual for this time of year in the mountains. They normally don't ripen before early August.

[bearfan454]

8. My Early Girls are making pretty good.

I've canned a bunch of them already.

[grasswire]

10. have you mato growers ever heard of pruning your plants?

I saw a reference to this the other day, and it's something I had never considered. Does anyone do it?

[wildeyed]

12. I should.

Mine are completely out of bounds. But they grow so fast once the weather gets hot, I never keep up.

[bearfan454]

13. I read about that too.

I will try it next year on one plant and see what happens. I think you prune the sucker branch they call it. It uses energy that could go to the fruiting process.

[grasswire]

15. I read some stuff about it yesterday

You get fewer tomatoes that are bigger and sweeter. So it's a tradeoff.

[Lugnut]

16. I do that regularly

I pinch off the sucker branches but I also snap off the big, heavy green leaf stems. I want to fertilize the tomatoes rather than the foliage.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. Yes, and it works.

Fewer and bigger tomatoes. I did it when I was planting in limited spaces. I let mine get rangy now because I grow heirlooms that always throw off big fruit but my over the fence neighbor keeps his plants pruned back and his tomatoes are always larger than the averages for the varieties he grows.

[bearfan454]

14. I have heard about Brandywine a lot.

They say it wins every taste contest. I experimented with Sweet 100's, Big Boy, and Better Boy. Next year I am sticking to my Earlt Girls, and I'll do Brandywines too.

[NJCher]

17. some comments on comments

Those are beautiful tomatoes, wildeyed. I've grown heirlooms, too, and sometimes they don't look as pretty as some of the standard varieties grown around here. I'll always grown heirlooms, though, because we grow for the taste, not the looks.

Re neemy-toes, as we call it here, you can plant marigolds and I believe that either keeps them away or destroys them, I'm not sure which. Maybe do a search and see what you turn up. I don't have that problem here so that's book-learnin' I'm passing on to you, not practical experience.

Also, you can grow tomatoes in hanging baskets, as I'm doing this year. I'll be posting some updated pics of how they're doing soon, so check out the hanging tomatoes thread on the garden forum.

I was reading a spring issue of Better Homes & Gardens and in there was an article about the gardening editor of that publication. He grows all his tomatoes in pots and they showed a pic of his pots, all lined up on the sides of the sidewalk. All were staked and labeled. He only does heirlooms, too. Anyway, he does it that way because he says he is too old to be in the garden digging holes.

Such a pretty pic and very encouraging to those of us who are still waiting for our tomatoes to ripen!




Cher

[wildeyed]

18. I have marigolds and nasturtiums going in the same plot

with the tomatoes. Adds color and fights disease. I hope that and the rotation plan will be enough to keep the soil diseases away.

Post pics when your babies come in!

[DawgHouse]

20. Those look delicious! I once sat down in my grandma's garden

and plucked every cherry tomato off her vines and ate them right there in the dirt. I had enough foresight to bring the salt shaker from the kitchen with me.

Boy, was she mad! :)

[wryter2000]

21. I hate, hate, hate you!

So far, I only have a few early girls. I can't grown a Brandywine to save my soul.

I want your tomatoes. E-mail them to me NOW, and no one gets hurt.

[wildeyed]

23. You know I would if I could.

All my maters are coming in at once. I have cherry tomatoes, Big Boy Bush, the stripey ones plus the Brandywine all producing at the same time :shrug:

According to the seed packets, it wasn't supposed to happen this way. The cherrys were for early season the stripeys and the Big Boys, mid and Brandywine was late summer. Did I mention that I don't have a kitchen, either, because we are remodeling? I have been eating LOTS of tomato salads and giving bags away. Today I made gazpacho. But I really need a functioning kitchen to take advantage of all this bounty.

I am sure you will have your own bounty later this summer :)