18 Earl's Faux

[travis]

Here's 6 picked Saturday, August 5, about 116 days from transplanting the seedling.



Here's another 12 E.F.s picked Tuesday, August 9, off the same plant.



Here's one about 4" x 3.5 " (oblate) sliced up.



Thanks, Bully Farms, for seeds for this great tomato.

PV

[Tomstrees]

wow ~ what a great looking tomato !!!
Flavor PV !!!???

~ Tom

[Grub]

Great return and congrats.
Sniff.

[Earl]

Vic, nice pics of Faux. They never look perfect, but it seems every now and then a plant will give a tremendous amount of fruit.

[travis]

Originally Posted by Earl

Vic, nice pics of Faux. They never look perfect, but it seems every now and then a plant will give a tremendous amount of fruit.

Earl,

These look very good to me. A Big Beef plant two down from the E.F. plant has had more "defective" tomatoes than the E.F. plant.

Most of the defects in the E.F.s are bug holes, a very few catfaces, and some minor skin cracking following a rain ... not the genetic type radial cracks, but random skin splitting from rapid swelling.

I've not had to discard any fruit. The only complaint is that it all colored up at once!

There are several greenies left and about six more blushed breakers, but the plant stopped setting blossoms for about two weeks during the hottest weather in July. Otherwise, there would be tons of fruit on this plant.

Its Brandywine neighbor has done almost an identical production but was about three days earlier and yielded in reverse ... the dozen first and then six or eight a few days later.

The only difference I see between the E.F. and the Brandywine plants so far is the E.F. separates from the calyx (or whatever you call the stem thing) a lot easier and the shoulders are smoother and absolutely no green shoulders on the E.F. at all while the Brandywine has a hint of green shoulders, more radial cracking (but very minor) and is rather reluctant to be picked off the stem ... you have to twist and tug.

Taste is about the same but the E.F. edges out the Brandywine just a tad.

Both these plants are great plants. I'll post some Brandywine pics later for comparison.

PV

[travis]

Here's the front side of the E.F. plant showing the first cluster I picked and you can see another clump in the back through the foliage (those little things are either RQ or Sungold from a couple of rambling neighbor vines).



Here's that clump around back of the plant.



Here's a clump of Brandywines on the vine. Who said you only get two tomatoes per vine?



And there were more hidden deep in the vine because here's the ten Brandywines I picked that day off that one vine.



Here's a slew of Brandywine and Earl's Faux piled in a heap together. I can't tell the difference except for those two yellow Brandywines on the bottom of the pile (where they belong).



Anyway, one Brandywine plant and one Earl's Faux so far have produced 36 tomatoes (20 E.F. & 16 Brandywine) Saturday - Tuesday with several more ripening up this weekend. The yellow Brandywine has made 2 tomatoes and looks like it might make two or three more at most.

PV

[feldon30]

You lucky bugger! Enjoy for all of us!

[sirtanon]

Good lord man! What are you trying to do to us?? I'm feeling....

...jealous. My plants, at this point, are only about 1" - 3" tall. That, and I don't think I've ever had a harvest like that at any one point.

Who knows, maybe this year will be good.

Now, on to important things.. if you find that you are having trouble figuring out what to do with all of those, feel free to send me a care pack 8)

- Eric

[jerseyjohn61]

PV,
now I truely do regret my lost EF. Next
year is looming large now. Sudduths,
after delay, are really starting to come into
their own. Sweet goodness.

What strain are your Yellow BWs? Ours are
Platfoot and very prductive, tasty and the
prettiest darn shade of ocher.

Happy for your yeild and wishin' i had the same....JJ61

[travis]

Originally Posted by jerseyjohn61

PV,
now I truely do regret my lost EF. Next
year is looming large now. Sudduths,
after delay, are really starting to come into
their own. Sweet goodness.

What strain are your Yellow BWs? Ours are
Platfoot and very prductive, tasty and the
prettiest darn shade of ocher.

Happy for your yeild and wishin' i had the same....JJ61

JJ,

I had the hardest time starting Earl's Faux seeds. I ended up with about three seedlings if I remember right. They didn't look promising.

Then I lost a little one in the garden at home to a severe thunderstorm, and lost another in the seed garden to flood and heat after it put out only a couple of small tomatoes. But this last one at home is a true monster and a trooper. And it's been through hell and highwater.

Same story with the Brandywine. I don't know what "strain" it is, but the seed came from a hardware store display and the envelope said "Livingston Seed Company." If I can find the envelope, I'll scan a pic of it.

The Yellow Brandywine I bought as a 1.99 seedling from a local lady who sells her own starts at her "organic" herb and plant shop. She had a table set up at the Earth Day outing we participated in out at a local "created" wetland park. My wife and I had a table set up and gave away about 200 tomato and pepper seedlings, so this lady's commercial table did not sell many tomato starts that day. (We were distributing pamplets on water quality management practices for homeowners and encouraging folks to build rain gardens ... and tomatoes would do well in rain gardens, I think). I felt badly about hurting her sales (even though the organizers were not aware she would be selling) and bought some tomato plants from her. Neither her Amish Paste nor the Yellow Brandywine did very well.

Next year I'm gonna try Platfoot and Yellow Potato Leaf and see if either does better in my garden.

JJ, I'm happy with my yield too ... and doggone lucky to have it. The last time I grew Brandywine, it wasn't like this believe me. Okay, here's the rub ... there aren't a whole lot of seeds in these E.F. tomatoes ... but what I'm saving surely will make for some healthy plants here and elsewhere I hope.

I hope the growing season in Jersey, this summer and next, is productive for you.

PV

[tjg911]

Last night I ate the 1st earl's faux of the season. Oh it was just wonderful!

When I picked it, it had a pinkish blush and needed at least a week to ripen. In order to protect one of the most valuable tomatoes I am growing from the varmint that's taking bites out of ripening tomatoes I decided to take it. It sat on the table for a week or a bit longer. It was deep pink and soft, dead ripe. There are 4 more on the table and several more on the plant.

Tom