Homegrown Tomatoes

Started my day's "cooking" by slicing up a few more homegrowns . . .


Homegrown Tomatoes, Rally & Yellow Brandywine
I'm going to be very sad when the season's harvest ends, and unfortunately, as we all know, that's coming up pretty soon. But we've had a really good crop this year, so I'm not complaining.

=R=

It’s been a beautiful season!!

Five of the eight tomato plants I have this year are either cherry or plum. I picked a ton of sungold yesterday and some Juliet plum and a few larger tomatoes. Sun Gold is my favorite tomato, but I also really like brandywine too, but the times I have grown brandywine they have not been very prolific. I am growing a Yugoslavian tomato this year that is fairly productive.

boudreaulicious wrote:It’s been a beautiful season!!

Nice!!

=R=

NFriday wrote:Five of the eight tomato plants I have this year are either cherry or plum. I picked a ton of sungold yesterday and some Juliet plum and a few larger tomatoes. Sun Gold is my favorite tomato, but I also really like brandywine too, but the times I have grown brandywine they have not been very prolific. I am growing a Yugoslavian tomato this year that is fairly productive.

I love the brandywines, especially the yellows, but those have been our most problematic and least prolific plants this year. They're persnickety for sure!

=R=

Quickie, work-from-home lunch featuring green zebras from the garden . . .


Plated Up
Green zebras, leftover sausage, cheeses and weekly slaw.

=R=

Getting to the very end of our homegrowns and as long I still had some lox left, figured this was a fine allocation . . .


Nova Lox, Sesame Bagel & Homegrown Tomatoes

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Nova Lox, Sesame Bagel & Homegrown Tomatoes

By the light of Dear Sweet Carol Channing's ghost that's one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.

God Bless Home Grown Tomatoes!

Got into the first of our homegrowns. I accidentally bumped this yellow brandywine off the vine a day or two early and it was still awesome . . .


Nova, Toasted Sesame Bagel & Homegrown Tomato

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Got into the first of our homegrowns. I accidentally bumped this yellow brandywine off the vine a day or two early and it was still awesome .

Very jealous: even my cherry plant has barely set fruit, looks very slow this season. But the pickles are coming in steadily now, and the butternut squash is taking over the whole garden and then some -- can you eat those like zucchini when young?

JoelF wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Got into the first of our homegrowns. I accidentally bumped this yellow brandywine off the vine a day or two early and it was still awesome .

Very jealous: even my cherry plant has barely set fruit, looks very slow this season. But the pickles are coming in steadily now, and the butternut squash is taking over the whole garden and then some -- can you eat those like zucchini when young?

Well, I'm jealous right back at you. We have tomatoes, a nice variety of herbs and a better-than-decent crop of garlic that we planted last fall but even though my yard faces south, most of it's heavily shaded by a very large oak tree. So, we have limited usable growing space. I wish had room to plant more veggies, especially ones that require a lot of sunlight.

=R=

One more tomato treat from yesterday . . .


Tomato, Pimento Cheese & Caramelized Onion Boule from Loaf Lounge

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:One more tomato treat from yesterday . . .

By the light of dear sweet Carol Channing's ghost. Beautiful!

Every summer I get tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers from a neighbor. He's not thrilled with his tomatoes this year. Not enough rain, not juicy enough.

I've picked eight cherry tomatoes from my garden so far. They were all good. I did not see a lot of tomatoes at the farmer's market yet.

I got a few of the last of Nichols' heirloom tomatoes a the Evanston market this morning. I used to try and grow my own, but it was a lot of work, and the farmers' market tomatoes are as good or better than those I've grown myself.

Katie wrote:Every summer I get tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers from a neighbor. He's not thrilled with his tomatoes this year. Not enough rain, not juicy enough.

I’ll confirm this—weather is the primary culprit—extremes all around—too cold, too hot, too dry, too humid, too wet followed immediately by too hot and dry—it exacerbates bug issues, powdery mildew, tomato blight, etc.

Cukes, beans, melons, and, strangely, peas have been fine. My arbor is groaning under the weight of 1000 grapes.

But squash bugs look like they’re going to be really bad (and I purposely planted late to try to dodge them), Japanese beetles are impossible to get under control and the blight looks like it’s going to really do a number on my tomato harvest—it’s really early for it to be this bad.

Still, the garden is my happy place and I’ll take what it gives.

boudreaulicious wrote:Still, the garden is my happy place and I’ll take what it gives.

Amen!

No garden issues here yet but it's very early and the sample size has been small so far. We've been proactive in removing suckers , non-flowering/low growth, and have been preemptively cal-magging, in the hopes of warding off blossom-end rot, which has been our biggest issue in years past. We've also been watering very sparingly. Our farmer friends have advised us that once there's fruit, they stop watering entirely. So, unless the plants start to look a little wilty, we don't intervene. And so far, so good. But again, it's early. History says that it won't end as wonderfully as it's started. It rarely does. That said, we picked a few early-arriving Mountain Spring tomatoes that were just pristine. So, bagel time again . . .


Sesame Bagel, Nova, Chive Cheese & Mountain Spring Tomato

=R=

I used to raise Brandywine tomatoes in my garden, and I love them, but they do not produce really well for me, and cherry tomatoes are much more productive for me. I always do sun gold tomatoes, and last year I planted esterina cherry tomatoes, which I liked almost as well as sun gold, and so I have them in my garden again this year. I get the plants from Teresa Brockman who comes to the Evanston farmers market every year with lots of wonderful veggie and herb seedlings.

I am waiting for Henry Brockman to bring some #2 tomatoes to market before I buy any tomatoes at the farmer's market. The reason why I still grow my own tomatoes, is because I love working out in my garden, and I get super excited when I see the first ripe cherry tomato in my garden. I refuse to spend $6 a pound on tomatoes too, and that is what they charge right now until the #2 tomatoes become available. I know I can get cheaper tomatoes, but those are grown to produce perfect tomatoes that have no taste. Heirloom tomatoes taste a whole lot better, but they don't produce nearly as well.

NFriday wrote:. . . Heirloom tomatoes taste a whole lot better, but they don't produce nearly as well.

I've found the same. There's a trade-off. I think hybrids deliver the best of both worlds but planting a few heirlooms is always fun, even if they're not overly productive. We love green zebras and we did plant one this year. I'll be curious what that plant yields but I'm not counting on much.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

NFriday wrote:. . . Heirloom tomatoes taste a whole lot better, but they don't produce nearly as well.

I've found the same. There's a trade-off. I think hybrids deliver the best of both worlds but planting a few heirlooms is always fun, even if they're not overly productive. We love green zebras and we did plant one this year. I'll be curious what that plant yields but I'm not counting on much.

=R=

I don’t think of Green Zebras as heirlooms —they’ve always been prolific when I’ve grown them. Unfortunately, my hubs doesn’t like any version of green tomatoes so I don’t plant them anymore.

I was in Jewel today, and this gentleman was buying a ton of plum tomatoes, as in probably three pounds worth. I looked at the price to see how much they were, and they were on sale for $.99 a pound. My tomatoes are way better I am sure than the ones he bought.

Ellen has a green thumb, she grows beautiful flowers, peppers, and herbs, all wonderful. And our backyard looks pretty to boot. For some odd reason she has trouble with tomatoes, soil, sunlight, evil witch tomato gods, no way to really tell.

That said, my favorite breakfast diner, Yellow Rose Cafe's owner Angelo is a tomato genius. And he kindly gifts us a number of tomatoes over the course of the summer.

click to enlarge



Tomatoes, count me a Fan!

ronnie_suburban wrote:We've also been watering very sparingly. Our farmer friends have advised us that once there's fruit, they stop watering entirely. So, unless the plants start to look a little wilty, we don't intervene. And so far, so good.

Huh, I've never heard this before. Almost the opposite. Like when it's super hot out, you might need to water more than once per day. Curious to hear what the rationale is.

Previously, I've grown tomatoes in sub-irrigated planters. This is the first year I am doing so in a raised bed.

I've been watering pretty consistently when the top of the soil seems dry (not necessarily every day). I have a *ton* of green growth this year (more than I've ever seen). The plants are > 6' tall, but the fruit production seemed to be lagging. I think I needed to up the fertilizer a bit and now there are more fruits in the pipeline. The brandywine plant in particular had a ton of flowers that didn't fruit.

I'm pretty bad at removing suckers (probably need to do a better job of that next year given all the growth). I think my biggest issue is probably to fertilize more at the beginning or more frequently as the season goes on. I've run into this issue before where I'm getting green growth and not fruiting and attribute it to the fertilizer because after I re-fertilize a bit ahead of schedule (according to the package) this seems to improve. Who knows, maybe my problem is watering after all.

The most common cause of excess green growth with lack of fruit in tomatoes is too much nitrogen with insufficient sun in second place. Tomatoes can profitably use somewhat more nitrogen once the fruits reach golf-ball size for standard size tomatoes, but do not go overboard.

gastro gnome wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:We've also been watering very sparingly. Our farmer friends have advised us that once there's fruit, they stop watering entirely. So, unless the plants start to look a little wilty, we don't intervene. And so far, so good.

Huh, I've never heard this before. Almost the opposite. Like when it's super hot out, you might need to water more than once per day. Curious to hear what the rationale is.

Previously, I've grown tomatoes in sub-irrigated planters. This is the first year I am doing so in a raised bed.

I've been watering pretty consistently when the top of the soil seems dry (not necessarily every day). I have a *ton* of green growth this year (more than I've ever seen). The plants are > 6' tall, but the fruit production seemed to be lagging. I think I needed to up the fertilizer a bit and now there are more fruits in the pipeline. The brandywine plant in particular had a ton of flowers that didn't fruit.

I'm pretty bad at removing suckers (probably need to do a better job of that next year given all the growth). I think my biggest issue is probably to fertilize more at the beginning or more frequently as the season goes on. I've run into this issue before where I'm getting green growth and not fruiting and attribute it to the fertilizer because after I re-fertilize a bit ahead of schedule (according to the package) this seems to improve. Who knows, maybe my problem is watering after all.

I know, right? I really can't claim to know much of anything about gardening. For the most part, the results seem random to me. I know they're not but there are a ton of variables, some of which can be controlled and some which cannot. And I certainly haven't been gardening long enough to have accrued much usable knowledge. On top of that, even experienced advice is not always applicable, as each garden situation has its own unique set of conditions.

The 'water less' move didn't make much sense to me either but I haven't had such screaming success in the past that I was unwilling to consider it. So, this year we're watering a lot less. Why not try it?, we thought. When they seem to need it (e.g. drooping), we give the plants some water. But rather than water regularly, we do it more on apparent need now.

Is this the reason we're having a really strong crop of tomatoes this year? I honestly don't know. We've changed plenty of other variables, too. We planted clover last fall as a 'cover crop,' we've mulched generously, we've been proactive with the calmag, we've been more aggressive about the suckers, etc. But so far it's been a great year for our tomatoes. Has watering less frequently been a contributing factor? Your guess is as good as mine, lol.

=R=

ekreider wrote:The most common cause of excess green growth with lack of fruit in tomatoes is too much nitrogen with insufficient sun in second place. Tomatoes can profitably use somewhat more nitrogen once the fruits reach golf-ball size for standard size tomatoes, but do not go overboard.

I think lack of sun may a be a culprit here. I *think* this new spot gets about 6 hours of sun a day, but it's probably borderline. Previously, I grew on a deck that got more sun. It's also possible I crowded these plants a little bit as well. Green growth without fruiting is something I noticed in my last spot on occasion (though this year is a whole different level).

The Nitrogen thing may also be a factor. The fertilizer I use has a lower % of N compared to other nutrients. Also wouldn't necessarily explain why I saw more fruiting after adding more fertilizer (would add more N but would perhaps make it a lower % of overall nutrients).

Anyway, things to consider for next year as I try to learn how to best take advantage of the new spot. I think it likely makes sense to spread the tomato plants out a bit (or maybe move some plants to a balcony that might get a little more sun).

Back when we were still trying to grow tomatoes (and struggling to get much fruit), Dave Dyrek from Leaning Shed (boy, do we miss him and Denise at GCM) advised to use fish emulsion for a fertilizer and it made a huge difference. You'd have to hold your nose for a bit, but we did see results in our yields.

Even though this sandwich didn't make itself, I did grow the tomatoes (pineapple variety) and they are spectacular . . .


BLT w/home-fermented garlic-dill pickle
'Tis the reason for the season!

=R=

We planted late this Spring and for the last three weeks the tomatoes have finally ripened! Too many volunteer plants came in - all of the cherry variety which does crowd out the big boys and heirlooms. But figured out this year that too much water brings out those nasty tiny flying insects that bore a hole in the fruit. Also to prevent the squirrels from taking a bite out of every not quite ripe fruit I have now picked fruit that started turning color and finished off in kitchen window. I still have a lot left on the sill and on the vine. I have made 2.5 quarts of tomato sauce for freezer ( limited to fridge freezer so space is small) and will have to make more to keep up. It’s a lot of work to make the sauce as cherry tomatoes have a lot of skin and seeds to remove. Thinking about trying to figure out how to dry or roast them in oven and keep in olive oil in fridge but a bit skeptical. I do not know how to can/preserve with the mason jars. My neighbors, coworkers and even our postman have had their fill. But I know the weather is getting cooler and the season is coming to an end. I’ll never tire of a good BLT…