Tomatoes
 

In the thread "Members Yard Photos" there appears to be a great interest in Tomatoes!
I'd never heard of "Odoriko" either, but I'll have to try it! Here's my all-time favorites:

Azoychka
Big Girl
Cherokee Purple
Green Grape (Cherry) Hierloom
Palla di Fuoco
Persimmon
Sun Gold (Cherry)

I've tried many others. Here's a list categorized by size and taste: http://www.plantsthatproduce.com/guides/TomatoGuide.pdf
Of course there's always room on the list for more ... :)

Re: Tomatoes
 

We will be starting ours late next month in pots to get early start. Forget what kind of seeds wife bought.

Re: Tomatoes
 

Going to try these types this year.

Green sausage
cour di blue
mortgage lifter
omar's lebanese
german head.

:2181:

Re: Tomatoes
 

wife got them out

Supersweet 100 VF, hybrid
Red cherry
she thinks more lost
plus might buy more

FOUND
Beefsteak

Re: Tomatoes
 

This year I'm just growing one vine of 'Juliets", they look like mini Romas. I grow them on a 5' tall by 10' long trellis and end up with a huge wall of vine covered in fruit.

-Ethan

Re: Tomatoes
 

Do you guys have problem with white flies with your tomatoes?
If so how do you control them?

Re: Tomatoes
 

White flies have a generation cycle of 4 days. If you are using a chemical pesticide then you must spray 3 times, 4 days apart.

Pesticides that actually work on white flies:
1. Malathion
2. Bayer Powerforce "Cyfluthrin" -- a synthetic pyrethrene with napthalene for staying power.

Bio-vector:
3. Green Light Spinosaid or Green Light Fruit Tree Spray with Spinosaid. Spinosaid is a family of bacteria that attack many kinds of insects and their eggs. The law states that you can only use it six times per growing season. Please don't spray it on bees. This is the only product that will kill the citrus leaf miner.

Re: Tomatoes
 

Richard:
Oh, thank you very much maestro. You are great!

Re: Tomatoes
 

I pretty much grow the same thing every year although I have grown lots of different heirloom varieties. I'm at the point now where it just seems easier and more fun to sample all the tomatoes at the Farmers Market and buy whatever tastes the best that week.

These are my normal choices for backyard tomatoes.

Sungold or Sunsugar - Hybrid orange cherry that seems to never stop producing and has superb flavor.

Brandywine- great for slicing

Stupice- really early, good flavor, small to medium sized

The last couple seasons a farmer at the Santa Monica Farmers Market has been selling a bright orange, roundish tomato he calls Caltrans. I can't find any info on them but they are really good!

Re: Tomatoes
 

Long time ago my grandfather used to hang strips of adhesive paper over tomato plants in his greenhouse and asked us, children, to walk along the plants and to shake each one a bit - white flies were disturbed and landed right on the adhesive paper, however I was too small then to judge the effect (I wrote this in case you feel you could try a pesticide-free method)

Re: Tomatoes
 

I tried this method before and did not work for me. They seem to be smart after a while they avoided them entirely and sometimes the wind made the sticky paper stuck to the tomato leaves.
I used the vacuum cleaner method and it helps a lot but after 5 days or so they are at it again.

Re: Tomatoes
 

I tried this method before and did not work for me. They seem to be smart after a while they avoided them entirely and sometimes the wind made the sticky paper stuck to the tomato leaves.
I used the vacuum cleaner method and it helps a lot but after 5 days or so they are at it again.
It is a constant battle.
I am thinking that it maybe cheaper to buy tomatoes at the store in the long run because of the labor involve.

Re: Tomatoes
 

The Green Light brand "Spinosaid" or "Fruit Tree Spray with Spinosaid" is certified by OMRI. It is very safe, effective, and affordable.

I will guess that he is selling Kellogg's Breakfast, or a seedling thereof. Its a great tomato that everyone should try!

Re: Tomatoes
 

They have a more deep orange color than the Kellogs. They look like the vests that the Caltrans workers wear, sort of a florescent orange. I'll ask him this season. He also sells another little oval shaped cherry that's light yellow in color, almost cream colored and they have a satin sheen to the skin instead of the normal shine. The flavor is very sweet with no acidity. Those are my wife's favorites.

Re: Tomatoes
 

Hey, speaking of orange tomatoes - has anyone else tried Persimmon? It might as well be called Pumpkin. I fed it a cup of 3-12-12 granular and it produced tomatoes the size of cantelopes!

Re: Tomatoes
 

Haven't tried growing them but we buy them and they are very good! We use them in veggie burritos.

Re: Tomatoes
 

The tomatos we use to grow in central NC grew very well but now I live about 30 minutes from the beach and the dirt is not so good here. We have had a really hard time growing tomatos. We have are in the process of improving the soil with compost from our house and horse manure from the farmers, but we still have a ways to go. Does anyone know of a tomato that will grow well in poor soil?

Re: Tomatoes
 

I guarantee my soil is worse than yours. You have to feed them. Check out page 2 of this flyer: http://www.plantsthatproduce.com/guides/TomatoGuide.pdf

Re: Tomatoes
 

Here in the netherlands they use more and more grafted tomatoes.

They are more resistent against soil-diseases, grow higher and produce
more.

Some stems are used for more cold hardy tomatoes and others to prevent
fusarium-3.
It's easy to do. Just cut the under-stem and put the plant you want to grow straight on the understem and fix it with tape or so..

I haven't tried it yet, but it's interesting though.

Ron

Re: Tomatoes
 

Ron:
I did a lot of grafting on trees specially citrus but I never heard of grafting tomatoes till now.
Do you have a picture/drawing that you can download here?
You got me interested and I want to do it. I have all the equipments.
So for one tomato plant I can have different tomatoes in one tree.
Joe Real has over 60 different cultivars grafted in one tree. Imagine that. I think it is listed in Book Of Guinness Record.