My half- garden of 2013

[Paradajz]

some new details...

i've been away for almost a week, things changed- my family started harvesting, eating, estimating, taste- judging, bla bla

anyway, here's what it looked like a couple of hours ago:


Crnkovic

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Aunt Ginny's

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Cherokee

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Caspian

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[Paradajz]

Brandywines ( each one way above a pound )

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Caspians hiding

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Ozarks finally getting there ( planted this one solely because it was described as a very early tomato, but after all it happened that both Crnkovic and Cherokee came earlier )

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Cherokees

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[kath]

Wow- what a difference a week makes- so many beautiful ripe fruits! You are fortunate to be able to leave them on the vine that long. Hope you're soon doing your own share of eating, taste-judging...

kath

[Paradajz]

...than i made a harvest

Crnkovic ( 7 plants, second harvest, 30lbs )

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Cherokee ( 3 plants, second harvest, 8lbs ), Brandywine ( 5 plants, first harvest but from a single plant, 5lbs ), Ozark ( 2 plants, first harvest, 3lbs )
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Caspian ( 5 plants, first harvest, 10lbs )

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BTW, taste test results only tomorrow

[Paradajz]

... and the most significant thing in this jungle, the Mold fungicide spray and anty- shock drench and foliar treatments i made some ten days ago delivering results:
less than 10% of infected foliage, plants showing quite some strong new growth both high and low ( note the way fruit branches started developing healthy new foliage even down there, suckers too ), high floors showing quite some new fruits although it's been way above 35C ( 95F ) daily average here for some time now ( even with Granpa Ashlocks, which i expected was extremely low- yield sort; delivering 8-10 very sizeable fruits at 3rd and 4th floor, the good old fellow )

[Paradajz]

...

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i shall make a low strenght vermicast+beneficial bacteria solution drench and kelp+micros at 30% dose foliar tomorrow to support my players in the fight

[Paradajz]

Originally Posted by kath

Wow- what a difference a week makes- so many beautiful ripe fruits! You are fortunate to be able to leave them on the vine that long. Hope you're soon doing your own share of eating, taste-judging...

kath

it's actually been a bit over ten days between the photos, i only posted the first set with a few days delay

but the plants were also prompted to deliver- i cut the tops two leaf- branches above the 4th fruit- branch, and used a high potassium fert as a part of anty- shock therapy.
it's not a regular procedure, added some speed to ripening, but most importantly- at this point i can estimate quite safely that it prolonged the life and yields of those plants for some 3- 4 weeks.

[z_willus_d]

Ivan, you're setting a high bar there. It's great to see such healthy plants, despite all the wetness you had through the Spring w/ disease pressures. So what do you do with all those beefsteaks? You can't possibly eat all that in the 3 to 4 days left before they start to ferment in their skins. I just started into drying using brokenbar's recipe (http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....69&postcount=9)... we'll see how that turns out.

Please continue to post your updates. Very nice to follow.
-naysen

[Heritage]

Ivan, inspirational, your melding of the new and old world growing techniques! What were the results of your taste tests, did any variety stand out above the others in flavor?

Steve

[aclum]

Hi Ivan,

Great looking garden and tomatoes! I esp. love the way you prune them - seems like at least in some of the latter photos, the stems are mainly bare except for single leaves here and there that are sort of shading individual tomatoes or clusters of tomatoes. (Sort of like fig leaves ).

Do you do anything special to get such great fruit set (electric toothbrush, etc.) or do you just let nature take its course?

(Also, thanks for answering my query on the worms in Naysen's thread - interesting).

Anne

[efisakov]

Great job.
The big size yellow beefsteak tomato that is a must grow for me is Kellogg's Breakfast RL or its PL version KBX. The second variety I would recommend would be Golden Cherokee, RL bicolor.
Kellogg's Breakfast last year produced for me tomatoes: 1 lb 7 oz, two 1 lb 2 oz, 1 lb 4 oz, 1 lb 6 oz, 1 lb 13 oz. That is from one plant and I only recorded the tomatoes that were above 1 pound range, there were more below 1 pound.

[z_willus_d]

I'll second the recommendation for KBX. Though this year, I had a mystery orange/yellow that my Dad gave me (old old seeds he had saved). It wasn't as productive, nor was it fast in setting fruit, but it's produced the tastiest of the season with the right balance of flavor, meaty flesh, sweetness, and acidity. It's a PL. I'll have to try and ID it sometime.
-naysen

[Dewayne mater]

Even more stunning than before! I too am quite interested in your pruning. I've always let my plants grow up in cages as much as they want figuring the more foliage the better. Right now, they are as high as 7 feet and lots of leafs. However, the production is nothing like yours and it gets so dense in foliage that disease control becomes extremely difficult. So, thanks again for sharing and as usual, I look forward to more!

Dewayne Mater

[Alfredo]

Great set of pics Paradajz...Looks like you're getting a really big harvest...Which tomatoes have been your favorites this season?

~Alfredo

[Paradajz]

hi all,

thanks for your kind comments and sorry for not answering earlier

just some answers:

* pruning

unfortunatelly it wasn't me who pruned those plants but a nasty foliar disease named Fulvia Fulva ( Leaf Mold ). in this part of the world it's an abnormal accidence in outdoors growing but weather conditions in this season made it happen.
so the pruning was a result of the disease management strategy i used to deal with it: an adequate fungicide spray, waiting for suitable weather conditions ( dry ) and then removing the infected foliage, another fungicide spray, and constant anty- shock treatments for the plants to recover.
anyway, please do not prune your plants this way, it's actually only adequate with indoors growing where you want as much fruits as possible and as fast as possible. with outdoors growing it would significantly reduce the photosynthetic capacity of your plants, put them in a state of an extreme stress, enlarge disease pressure and reduce the yields and life- time of the plants.

* productivity

Anne, would i like it to have such yields every season....
it's probably the most sensitive issue in tomato growing and needs some more serious attention than i could provide here.
as simply as possible:
lets estimate that the production of your plants will be naturally determined by you at 50% rate and by some other stuff ( weather conditions and sort characteristics mostly ) at 50%.
the way to move this equation slightly to your side is to achieve the following:
* understand that basic productivity of your plants will be determined in seedling phase, critical period being in between the 4 sets of leafs phase and the first flowering branch appearance.
there you need to respect the plant's need for suitable temperatures ( both to low and to high will reduce the yield capability irreversibly, along with reducing the plant's disease resistance capability ), for constant and suitable watering ( constant being the important word, with only a deliberate period of intentional drought just before and after the transplanting to the final spot ), and a very specific issue: increased need for borron and phosphorus in this period, which will be the most determing factor eventually. feeding your plants with those particular minerals is extremely specific and depends on quite some factors ( soil quality would be the number 1 ) so i won't be elaborating on the system i use here, because it just could be a very wrong system for anyone else.
* in later stages one needs to be vigilant for mites and thrips at intensive flowering phase ( can do horrors to productivity ), and monitor the plants with a special attention to nitrogen/calcium/magnesium status in addition to borron and phosphorus issue mentioned earlier. in other words, adequate soil preparing and plants fertilising will be the dominant factor there, along with insects control.
the rest will be in someone else's hands

as for taste- tests results... oh, it's a hard one
Cherokee i consider for commercial growing next year, speaks enough about the overal quality of the sort, since i stopped commercial toms growing years ago. the taste was on the excellent side for me, but altogether ( disease resistance and productivity ) it's more than a great tomato.
Crnkovic was also on the excellent taste side. i actually know this tomato, it's very common in Vojvodina region of Serbia. there they call it a ''cooking tomato'', which means that it's extremely ''meaty'' with a low amount of juice, which for it's part makes it prefferable for saucing rather than fresh eating. the productivity of this one ( 20+ lbs average per a plant ) was something i really haven't met with a heirloom in all those years.
Granpa Ashlocks was far more productive than i expected from the descriptions seen on the net ( 10+ lbs average per a plant ), tastes excellent too, but the characteristic of this one i liked the most was it's yielding period: it's an all- around- the year producing tomato. incredibly long yielding there- at this point i can estimate it will quite out-do even the Caspian which simply doesn't stop producing for me ( dissregarding the fact it was pruned at 4 fruit branches, not sprayed with anything for more than a month and diseases are just making a feast out of it ).
Winnsall ( PL as i got it ), or whatever this sort might actually be was amazing: it's the sweetest tomato i ever tasted, pure sugars in it. but i actually don't prefer it that sweet, although my family has gone mad about it. to me it was to much of a 'banana- like' taste. i'd say it would be an incredible sauce making sort though.
Brandywine Sudduth's was more productive than i expected ( 15+ lbs average per a plant ), with a taste just as i expected it: perfect, old time tomato taste. on the other hand, just about any tomato sort around here has that same type of taste so it didn't make me ''jump''.
but...
Caspian and Aunt Ginny's were the pure heaven to me this year. so very very jummy juicy, sweet just as i like it, good producers ( Caspian is a monster with this ). i'm definitely insufficient with English language to describe how much i actually like those.

if i find some time i shall see to post some photos of the garden as it is now, especially since the over a month absence of spraying and an incredible ( record making ) drought & high temps period made it just a perfect example to set a small tomato disease & pest school here.
but than again, all the plants are still producing and it appears that it will be like that for a few weeks more.

and finally, sorry all for such a long post, just a special message to Naysen and Steve:
if i manage to post some new photos you will be thrilled to see how a reall Leveillula Taurica, Verticillium albo- atrum, wide range of mites and thrips varieties, get along just ok with me.

thanks again, br.