Alaska- greenhouse tomatoes 2014

[AKmark]

I just ate the best beefsteak I have had in many years, I have ate it three times now, and I am floored by the complex taste. German Johnson, just moved to the front, no beefsteak I have had this year can touch it, Dester, Brandywines, NAR, BW OTV, etc, amazing complex tomato taste that is memorable.
We also had a couple of Bear Creek again, blew Blk Krim, Paul Robeson, Blk Prince, Carbon, away in yield and taste.

[Salsacharley]

This is good info to know. Thanks Mark.
I assume that your comparison of varieties is based on similar growing conditions for all the varieties you mention.

Charley

Originally Posted by AKmark

I just ate the best beefsteak I have had in many years, I have ate it three times now, and I am floored by the complex taste. German Johnson, just moved to the front, no beefsteak I have had this year can touch it, Dester, Brandywines, NAR, BW OTV, etc, amazing complex tomato taste that is memorable.
We also had a couple of Bear Creek again, blew Blk Krim, Paul Robeson, Blk Prince, Carbon, away in yield and taste.

[AKmark]

Thanks Charley, all varieties go through the same environment to start with, but then I try them under various conditions, mostly tinker with temperature and humidity.
I forgot to mention, my tomato friend Sherry _ak brought up a few of her crosses that she grows outside, all were good, but she had this little orange tomato that was very delicious, maybe the best orange yellow I have had, it had a very unique sweet taste. Just a great year, I'll post some pics soon.
Mark

[aclum]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for all the photos and info. AMAZING! And thanks for the tips on German Johnson and Bear Creek. Are you growing the regular leaf German Johnson - or the potato leaf version?

Anne

[zero244]

I would be interested in which version of German Johnson you are growing as well. I have some seeds but I didn't have room this year to try it. I believe I have the Potato Leaf seed.

[AKmark]

The German Johnson I have is, (RL) it is my favorite above all others so far this year.
I should add that Delicious has been an excellent red this year, huge yield big tasty fruit, and Big Rainbow for a yellow Bi-color type. I just walked in from taste testing tomatoes for a group of about 20, and the latter two I mentioned were standouts in their categories.
Mark

[Barb_FL]

Mark, I concur with everyone that your garden is amazing; I even called my husband in to look at the pictures.

A couple of questions if you don't mind. From reading though your responses, are you growing your plants in 10-20 gallon containers? Are you using drip irrigation? What are you using for your soil(less) medium?

Thanks,
Barb

[AKmark]

Barb, yes they are 10-20 gallon, I do think 10 is big enough though, however, my biggest yielders come from 20 gallon, not by much though.

I use promix, a few have compost added.

I am putting everything on drips, but right now I have hoses ran under all the benches, watering only takes an hour or so. By hand watering I am really accurate with each varieties needs, and they are different.
Next year the bulk of my plants will consist of my favorites, and I will have many of each variety, easy to calculate for drips. My experimental tomatoes will probably be watered by hand I will take the time to keep them pretty, so I can gauge them under fair conditions. I have had so many disaster crops in the past, that I am a big chicken when it comes to change now.
Do you have a bad time with cracks in Florida? I would think the thunderstorms/ heavy rain would just swell the fruit and burst the skins. If so, is it feasible to cover the plants? Do greenhouses down there use air conditioning, and dehumidifiers?

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by AKmark

Do greenhouses down there use air conditioning, and dehumidifiers?

Mark most have vent fans as far as I know.
It would be great to have an air conditioner in one.
An air conditioner is a dehumidifier also.
It has been an experiment I have always wanted to try in a smaller greenhouse.
I do know that years ago we used to visit a greenhouse and it had swamp coolers in it.
This may even work.

Worth

[AKmark]

Here are some pics of my Brandywines in my other greenhouse, Sudduth's Cowlick's, and Glick's, cuttings and seed plants. Production is massive and the fruit shapes are near perfect, has to be a humidity thing, that is the main difference that I can observe from one greenhouse to the another.

[AKmark]

Notice how smooth and round the fruit is on NAR and Chocolate Stripes, these are cuttings, and the fruit looks very round and smooth compared to mother plant that you will see in earlier posts. Bear Creek is totally loaded, I cannot get all of the fruit in one clear picture, and it is GOOD, REALLY GOOD.

[Barb_FL]

Amazing! It's hard to believe that you've had disaster crops. Do you grow anything besides tomatoes?

Thanks for getting back with me re: pot size and promix.

Where I live in Florida (Central, East Coast), by the time the rains are heavy (like this week), the tomato production is done. This is the exception, but I have some earthboxes that had plants from the spring that I am trying to keep healthy to see if they will produce now or in the fall. I also planted new heat resistant plants (grew from seed) just to see if they would produce in the summer. I roll them out from the porch about 6:30 AM and back in the afternoon when the sun is blaring. It rarely gets over 90, but the humidity is pretty much always over 90.

I couldn't imagine A/C a greenhouse; I would do lights inside the house before that; but I don't want my electric bill any worse than it already is.

Did you ever find out what the little orange tomato was?

[AKmark]

The potato leaf Blk Krim is earlier than the RL, yields good and is pretty darn tasty. PL Early Girl seems to be more tart than the RL version, has smaller tomatoes, and the foliage is more susceptible to leaf mold damage, fragile. I got one out of 200 from Burpee's seeds, and about the same ratio from TGS, and those who have grown both seed companies EG knows the taste seems a little different. At any rate, my cross of (PL) EG and (PL) BK seems to have took, I thought it may be kind of a fun project.
Barb, I will ask Sherry, thanks for the reminder. BTW, have you grown Big Rainbow? It is so good.

[efisakov]

I grew Big Rainbow two years in a row with absolute disaster. First year it was killed by septoria, given me small ripe tomato. The taste was so good, I gave it second chance. Second year it gave me very few tomatoes and spider mites got the rest of it. Again the taste was out of this world. Now I have about a dozen tomatoes all green... yet if I only have them and nothing afterwords, I will be satisfied.

[AKmark]

This variety is ripening fast, and is just awesome tasting, heavy yielding too, a for sure must have, I am extremely happy with these. I imagine the ripening tomatoes off of the plant in the pic will weigh up to better than 8lbs, it is just loaded with tomatoes for its size.