Spring 2016 Seed Selection: Tomatoes

2016 Tomatoes Selected

I prefer to grow my tomatoes from seeds for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost I love the variety available to me via on-line seed sources.  Sites such a Adaptive Seeds, Heritage Seeds, Tatiana's and the Seed Savers exchange are great sources for both heirlooms and the unique.  I've found that a pack of well sourced seeds can last for years.  This year I am growing some varieties that were first purchased back in 2008.  My selections this year tend to follow my usual requirements.  They must have excellent taste, be productive in my zone and be generally reported to be reasonably disease resistant on forums such as Tomatoville.  In my zone I lean towards mid-season varieties as the long season varieties tend to leave me with too many greenies on the vine in fall.

I planted these babies on 3/6/2016.  Eight days later all but a few are up.  I expect the older seed to take a little longer.  Here are the varieties I chose for this year and why they made the cut.  The last three on my list I added a couple of days ago.  Because I had room!

1. Forest Fire:  Early, 60 Days with very good flavor and productivity.                                        
2. Chocolate Stripes: My seed. Gorgeous, unique neon stripes.  Productive with very good flavor
3. Striped Roman: Long, meaty productive sauce, pretty colorization.  Productive.  Good flavor
4. Amazon Chocolate: Mid-season black with very good flavor.  Good Producer. 
5. Indian Stripe: midseason compact. Purple beefsteak  Excellent producer.  Taste is exquisite.
6. Porkchop: mid-season yellow with green stripes.  Great flavor. 
7. African Queen: Late season. Pink Beef steaks 1#.  Very good producer.  Excellent taste
8. Marizol Bratka: midseason 1# potato leaf, dark pink with outstanding flavor
9. Sibirskiy Velikan Rozovyi: midseason hearts/beefsteaks, excellent flavor, heavy producer
10. Eva Purple Ball x Big Beef: Productive disease resistant with good taste.  F3 so not yet stable
11. Neves x Brandywine: F3.  Disease resistant cross.  Very productive.  Taste Good.  Salad size
12. Galinas: Sweet fruity highly productive cherry.  Vines get huge.  Early producer.
13. Darby Red and Yellow:  Early 60 days, red with yellow stripes.  Flavor excellent.
14. Earls Faux: mid-season 1-1.5# pink beefsteak.  Award winning flavor.  Good production.
15. Anna Russian: Early oxheart.  Gorgeous.  rich complex flavor.  Very reliable.
16. Aunt Ginnys Purple: Mid-season vigorous.  Exceptionally flavored pink beefsteaks
17. Siletz:  Early red slicers.  Productive.  Taste is good for an early
18. Crnkovic Yugoslavian:  mid-season.  reliable.  large pink sweet beefsteaks, excellent flavor
19. Black Seaman: Mid-season.  Productive.  Stunning pieces of art when cut.  Delicious.
20. Hillbilly Potato Leaf: Mid-Season.  Beautiful Bi-color 1# beefsteaks.  Sweet.  Heavy Producer
21. Black Cherry:  Very tasty cherry when you get good seed.  Many bad seed sources out there.
22. Seattle's Woolly Blue Mammoth:  Very fuzzy.  Very blue.  Cool looking plant.  productive
23. Orange Russian 117: Bicolor 8 oz oxhearts. Meaty and very delicious.  Mid-season. 
24. Black Krim: Very disease resistant in IL.  wonderfully flavored black.

 

Garden Sights: Mud, Snow, Sprouts and Puddles

Wow. The first post on my first blog. How to begin? Garden bloggers seem to often lead with a spectular picture of a bloom from their garden. Hmmm.

I could go with the picture of my cold frame collapsing under six inches of snow, from two days ago. Rather dull though.


Maybe a picture that sums up the 1.5 inches of rain from today?

A picture taken of the neighbor bailing his window wells might have been entertaining, but I'm not nearly as cruel and twisted as that. Instead you get muddy shoes. They are not mine. I'm not so silly as to garden in 40 degree rain. Today my little seedlings got a total of ten minutes of my time. Five minutes to take the tomatoes outside and put them in the frame, and five minutes to bring them back inside in the evening.

Persimmon, one of the heirlom tomatoes I'm growing got a minute or two more. Persimmon is clearly the tenderfoot of my bunch. It has the pouty purples. The pouty purples is what happens to mothers when they lock themselves out in a snow storm and the children are too engrossed in Mario Kart to hear the shouting. The pouty purples also occur when some plants get cold and stop taking up phosphorous. Their stems and the underside of their leaves get quite purple. It's attractive, though mildly disturbing.

Persimmon's pouting is manifested by the refusal to grow even half as fast as its neighbors. Persimmon has taken that to the extreme by refusing to grow at all. It was moved to a warmer part of the house today. Until it greens up, it's going to have to live with the peppers. How embarrassing.