Too many varieties...

[Lindalana]

Just got my first order from Doublehelixfarms, was happy to learn it is still operational. Got some really outstanding goodies from this company in the past.
Never mind that I already have enough for next year and then some.
Never mind that another couple of orders coming from Ukraine- from private sellers, if anyone interested in catalogs and can read in Russian would be happy to share links.
Never mind that Tania is about to post her 2015 seeds mid Oct...
anyway, how do you all select what to grow next year- by size, shape, color, age of seeds?... I think I need some help

[ginger2778]

I just look through all my new ones, and pick what I must have from the year before, then narrow it down, then squeeze a few more in where I don't possibly have the room! LOL!

[Worth1]

Next year it is going to be easy for me.
Only 6 verities.
How do I do it?
I make my mind up and stick to it.
All of these have been a success in my garden and I like them.
Neves Azorean Red
Orange Russian.
Riesentraube
Sun Gold.
Black Cherry.
Aunt Ruby's German green.
If all goes well I will plant 36 plants all together.

Worth

[AlittleSalt]

I just build 14 more gardens

But seriously, it's going to be a time consuming search to choose through the varieties I already have seeds for. I have set aside all of November and December to figure it all out.

[Gardeneer]

I am also cutting back on varieties, from 2015's 30 to about 15.
But instead will grow more of the winners. But still I aim at about 30% reduction in number of plants too.
Too much work take the fun out of gardening for me.

Gardeneer

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

I am also cutting back on varieties, from 2015's 30 to about 15.
But instead will grow more of the winners. But still I aim at about 30% reduction in number of plants too.
Too much work take the fun out of gardening for me.

Gardeneer

Gardeneer I couldn't agree more.
50 is my limit anything else is just too much work for me.
36 is the number of Texas Tomato Cages I have.

I want to have enough Orange Russian to make salsa with orange chilies.

Worth

[Cole_Robbie]

I have access to plenty of land. The limiting factor for me is the cost of trellising. This year I made cheap pvc conduit H-posts, drilled holes in them, and ran baler twine to connect them. The cost was well under $1 per row foot. My (non-dwarf) indeterminate plants ended up collapsing the posts. But it was enough to hold up dwarf varieties. Considering that they are many of the best-tasting tomatoes I have grown and I would like to start selling to restaurants, I'm hoping to plant a lot of them next year, possibly up to 1,000 row feet. Even if I could afford to support that many indeterminates, I don't think I could keep that many plants pruned and tied up.

I'm planning to have one or two dwarf varieties of each color. I've got two good "red" reds, Mano and Cyril's Choice. Rosella Crimson as a dark red. Rosella Purple and Tasmanian Chocolate as two more darker varieties. Bosky Chabarovsky as a pink. Quiyanai Huang as an orange. Sweet Sue as a yellow. And Jade Beauty as a GWR.

Titan Red and Taxi will be my early high tunnel varieties. I'll grow a couple hundred feet of cherries, but they take a long time to pick and are hard to support. I like Fred Hempel's Artisan mix, Chang Li, Sun Peach f1, Green Dr's Frosted, Fahrenheit Blues, white cherry. I try to stick to one or two of each color.

Of my outdoor heirloom/op varieties, the best taste came from Paul Robeson, Esmerelda Golosina, Orange Russian 117, and Pink Rose. I also like all of the Jazz tomatoes. I will grow them again.

I'm still going to try a lot of new varieties, maybe up to a hundred or so. Some of them may end up sprawling. But the point of trying so many this year was to learn what varieties grow well and make the best product.

[NarnianGarden]

Next summer, I'm planning on making it a pink theme year - plenty of pretty pinks I haven't grown, also some I already tried and loved. This past season was an orange one
Other colors will be present too (black ones are a must), but building the list around one color makes it more organized for me, and is easier to narrow down the possibilities.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Gardeneer I couldn't agree more.
50 is my limit anything else is just too much work for me.
36 is the number of Texas Tomato Cages I have.

I want to have enough Orange Russian to make salsa with orange chilies.

Worth

And I want a jar of that salsa! I'll swap you for a jar of homemade ketchup, hows that?

[heirloomtomaguy]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

Just got my first order from Doublehelixfarms, was happy to learn it is still operational. Got some really outstanding goodies from this company in the past.
Never mind that I already have enough for next year and then some.
Never mind that another couple of orders coming from Ukraine- from private sellers, if anyone interested in catalogs and can read in Russian would be happy to share links.
Never mind that Tania is about to post her 2015 seeds mid Oct...
anyway, how do you all select what to grow next year- by size, shape, color, age of seeds?... I think I need some help

Please do share the links

[Ricky Shaw]

I'm in a big expansion. I'm adding 12 hangable spots, maybe 15 with some single or two vine pruning. This will largely be heirloom additions, of which I know nothing. My brain is filled up.

Coming Back: Big Beef, Early Girl, Roma, Sweet 100

Definite Newbies: Paul Robeson, Black From Tula, Crnkovic, Delicious, Pink Rose, Sungold, Yaqui

Most Probably: Stupice, Caspian Pink

On the Bubble: Black Sea Man

Moving up the Charts: Mexico, Pruden's Pride

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

Just got my first order from Doublehelixfarms, was happy to learn it is still operational. Got some really outstanding goodies from this company in the past.
Never mind that I already have enough for next year and then some.
Never mind that another couple of orders coming from Ukraine- from private sellers, if anyone interested in catalogs and can read in Russian would be happy to share links.
Never mind that Tania is about to post her 2015 seeds mid Oct...
anyway, how do you all select what to grow next year- by size, shape, color, age of seeds?... I think I need some help

You ask how each of us select what to grow the next year, whether by size, shape, color, age of seeds, etc.

I can only speak to that when I was growing my own tomatoes, several hundreds of plants and varieties each year, and now what do I look for from the seeds I source for my own seed offer here.

First for me always was TASTE. Sometimes my fellow SSE members had grown a variety I was interested in and I knew them well enough to trust their opinions, but most of the time it was a new variety I had sourced and that was the majority of time back them so I just had to grow it and decide for myself.

I didn't really care anything about size, although I did prefer large fruited varieties, nor color, nor shape although when I first got into growing tomatoes I did grow some oddities such as Reisetomate, Purple Smudge , Lutescent, nee Honor Bright, and the like just out of curiousity.

Color and shape were not considerations either, and nor were disease tolerances since where I was in upstate NY it was the four major foliage diseases that were problems and not the soilborne ones such as Fusarium and friends.

And although I'll be handing over my seed offers here to someone else starting in Jan, after I get the 2015 one up I hope in a few weeks, I'll still be the one to find varieties new to all or most folks who participate.

And thanks to the many friends from many countries, as well as others from this side of the pond I've been very fortunate in locating same. And two of my current seed producers are long time SSE members and each lists around 700 varieties each year in the Yearbook. And they have lots of new ones they have sourced, and so we share.

I know Tania was so happy when I sourced two from the Republic of Georgia and they will be in the 2015 offer as well,

So for me, taste has always been and will be most important to me.

Seed age? I never had a problem with that when I was growing my own tomatoes since I was always regrowing varieties for my SsE listings and seed offers prior to Tville opening.

But now, I do go through all my seeds that I intend to offer and do not offer any seeds that are over maybe three years old,depending on the variety, since I've found that folks new to germinating seeds often have problems.

Perhaps not the answer you were expecting, but I did address the criteria you noted, good girl that I am.

Carolyn

[Gerardo]

I'm still growing. I'm gonna try to push it all the way to Dec.

Normally I shut down for about two months, as Jan-Feb can be a bit cold here. Please don't hit me northern climate folks, but it goes all the way down to the high 30s. I wish you guys could see the locals walking around in heavy snow gear at those temps, it's just hilarious.

With this year's El Niño, all bets are off, so I may be able to go straight through without a break in production.

This year I grew out/am growing out 75+ varieties searching for the right plants for my conditions. For 2016 I've promised myself I'm only gonna grow a dozen different types, 4 plants each and that's it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Still in flux, but here are the players:

Black from Tula or Bkx (TBD)
Carbon
Couilles de Taureau or Titan Red (TBD)
Cour Di Bue
Dester
Germ J PL
Odoriko vs Eva Purple (productivity will decide)
Pink BerkTD
Mt. Magic

Under consideration for the final slots: Taxi, Tasmanian Chocolate, Cyril's Choice, Grightmire's Pride, and Green Tiger.

Productivity and Flavor being the major criteria.

[ilex]

How do I select?

Most rare go first, then those whose stock is too low, then new ones to try and then plant some known winners as a base crop. Then I increase my garden. A well known cycle.

All this trying for a significant negative reduction in varieties.

[Darren Abbey]

I've got a few varieties I plan to grow next year... but then I also have way too many different seed lines I want to explore from my own limited breeding projects. I already see the current projects playing out over several years, then of course they will multiply as each year something new and interesting will appear. It is hopeless.

I'm mostly thinking of a few plants of each of the specific varieties, then fill the current garden with large numbers from one of the experimental lines. and then make another garden...