Tomatoes

What varieties do y’all like to grow as far as flavor and grows well? I have a hard time growing tomatoes down here and looking for something. I did some major soil amendments where I’m going to have a dedicated mater patch. Please share any info that may help me grow a dang tomato.

I think any Hairloom verity is a good tomato. Try this when you plant, dig your hole a couple of feet deep place an 🥚 in the bottom with a fish and banana cover with dirt then put a cup of epsun salt on top of soil water to desolve salt. Then plant tomatoes. You can put some used coffee or tea in the hole. I know it sounds like a lot of work but it works. Look it up on Pinterest I may have left out something! I am going to try some tums with mine this year I do have an unlimited supply of fish chicken litter.If you have a source of cotton waste that is good oh yea cotton seed meal is good also then when your tomatoes get ready y’all have to have a ladder to pick them and they will be as big as basketball 🏀🤣Seriously I got these ideas for Pinterest and if y’all study it y’all see what each thing will contribute to the growth of your tomatoes 🍅 let me know if it helps happy gardening

Get them in the ground early before the stink bugs get on them. Amelia has been the best producer for me. I'm trying some different ones this year however.

I gotta go get me a tiller!!!!

I plant twice. Celebrity and Better Boys first. Celebrity bear earlier. Then I plant Better Boys again in late June.

Better Boys are my absolute favorite. Not too sweet and a good acidy taste.

Parks Whopper,better boy, Atkinson. Tomatoes like acid. Soil needs calcium. We add lime,basic slag,10-10-10 and water.

Hell, Bloomberg says just dig a hole, put in a seed and add water, nothing to it.............

If you want a real old days acid tasting tomato, go to Lowe's or Home depot and get a couple of Bonnie Plant Farm "Husky Cherry Red" tomato plants.

These are golf-ball sized tomatoes and one plant will make all you can eat for the season. Two plants and you're giving them away to all your neighbors.

You won't believe how good they are.

Gonna have to try a couple those.

I like the black varieties heirlooms the best. Heirlooms typically will give you much smaller yields than the hybrids.

Better boys are my favorite, beefsteak would be second for me. Also plant a couple of cherry tomatoes, favorite is sweet 100

Better boy is my favorite. It's the one that my parents planted in our garden, and the one that l grew up eating as a sandwich tomato. My dad and I would walk to the garden when he came home from work with a salt shaker in his hand, and we'd eat them like apples.

I'm planting way further south than where l grew up, so I've been experimenting with several varieties that can stand the heat. I've had good luck with Paul Robeson, Berkeley tie dye, Cherokee green, Cherokee purple and black and brown boar. Planting several new varieties this year that are supposed to produce well in summer heat...large barred boar, delicious, Jamestown, mountain merrit and a few other oddballs.

You guys try some Sunsugar cherry tomatoes. Best I’ve ever had.

Fur, where can those be obtained?

San marzanos for pasta n pizza better boys and beef steak fo sammaches

Golly, I have planted all kinds but I went with Better Boy and Roma this year. I love the heirlooms but I prefer indeterminate varities that give the bigger yield and keep producing. I generally plant twice too, like Fur.

I hve 36 better boys and 36 rutgers ready to plant. Stays warm and dry a few more days and they will go in. Hoping to grow our own canning tomatoes this year instead of buying. Wish me luck!

Jason

I guess I get caught up in the moment. My wife asked how many tomato plant I planted. I went count and good grief. With what I planted in the ground and containers, I have 75 plants and still have some in trays. I got a mix of Celebration, Roma, Yellow pair, Bella Rosa, sugar sweet cherry, and Red Snapper. I’m hoping I can get a couple mater sandwiches.

better boy

Dang yall planting a lot of maters. I thought I had too many with 12 plants.

I usually plant 40-50 in garden and another 10 in raised beds

I bought the last one of these they had at the feed store this morning to give it a try

Love them old tomatoes that have a lot of acid taste.

Really glad to read this, because I just happened to buy two of these this morning (without reading this before).

I'm trying something new this year I got from Johnny's select seeds they are valley girl F1 and bhn 1021 f1. Both are beef steak determinate tomatoes. We'll see how they do got got planted 48 seeds and got 47 plants. We'll see how many make after they get transplanted amd see how they produce. I some heirlooms last year I forgot what they was exactly it was 4 different varieties I wanst impressed with any of them.

I like beefsteaks for eating on things and wife likes romas for sauce makin.

I like Cherokee Purple for sandwiches and just eating, Better Boys are good for eating and canning. Roma’s for salsa and canning.

Excellent tasting tomatoes. Weird color but taste great.

My current favorite that I have mentioned here before is a hybrid type called Big Beef. Just the best all around tomatoe I have found. Good taste and they typically produce the first ripe tomatoe in my garden; the most ripe tomatoes per plant; and are the last plant still producing tomatoes in my garden. They are good sized tomatoes as well. Usually with most tomatoes the lower ones will be the biggest and get smaller the higher you go up the vine. These are very uniform in size.


Typical size

also celebrity does well. Not as susceptible to blight like some

I planted the new Celebration variety. It’s the new and improved hybrid Celebrity. Supposed to have a better disease package and more prolific. So far I’m liking the way the plants look and they are starting to put in fruit. I have my fingers crossed I can make a decent crop of tomatoes. I have horrible luck with tomatoes but I’ve been babying them since I put the seed in the starting trays. So far so good.

I have not heard of the Celebration variety. I'll get some of those for next year. I plant Celebrities for my early variety because they come in nearly as early as an Early Girl and are a whole lot better tomato to me.

What kind of "horrible luck" do you have with your tomatoes Marsh? They die?

Either I do something to kill em or weather does it for me. Last year when they started producing I was getting around 20 tomatoes a picking. After the 3rd picking we had a storm come thruwith bad wind and hail. It destroyed every plant. I really tried to educate myself on growing tomatoes by research and talking to people I know that grows great tomatoes. As I said so far so good.

They look great. You've got a little leaf curl going on, on the bottom limbs. I'd prune those off, but other than that, they look fantastic.

This is my first year at trying to have a good garden. Local nursery had a really good deal on started plants, $1/each, so picked up 2 plants of 7 different kinds. Beefsteak, better boy, celebrity, brandy wine, yellow pear, Cherokee purple, and another yellow one I can’t remember the name of. I put them in the ground last week and they’ve taken off. Put some triple 12 and dolomitic lime in the soil with them, and gonna side dress with blood meal and fire pit ash when they start fruiting.

You're gonna need a phosphorous source.... I'd get a bag of 5-20-20 and let her rip. Blood meal and wood ashes sounds good, but fertilizer is more practical.

I normally get mine at a local nursery, but she didn't plant any this year. Bonnie plants has them this year. First time I've ever noticed them selling them. Just look around where those are sold. If you can't find any, ask them to get you some. They are amazing.

My bag of blood meal says it’s 2-7-4, so I’ll just add more to make up the difference.

Ive got 70 that look as good as I've ever had. 3 ft tall already. They've lucked through 2 storms and maybe today want gettem.

only garden crop I've ever lost was because of too much rain and cool temps. Dang, I'm tired of rain.

My row of cucumbers don't look worth a flip. Two plants on the end of the row look decent but the others are yellow. When I got up this morning and looked out back, the cucumber row was standing in water.... My whole garden is in a low spot, not like a swamp, but just a low swell where my yard meets the field behind it. Since we apparently now have a monsoon season in Alabama, I'm gonna build me a row hipper like Marshmud did so I can plant my garden on high ground next year.

What do y'all use with the indeterminate tomato plants that grow 5, 6, 7 or 8' tall? For stakes or baskets or whatever you use.

I use concrete reinforcing wire that I make into baskets about 2' in diameter. I think it's 5' 6" tall. I have stacked two on top of each other but rarely do that. I drive 2 pieces of 1/2 EMT conduit on each basket. 180 degrees apart. I use hay string to tie the conduit to the upper end of the basket.

Thanks Fur, that's about what I've done in the past. I always have some of the plant sag down in the basket and then some out of the top just lay over the adjacent baskets. I just think there has got to be some way to deal with the plant that grows above the top of the basket.

I'm using 50 inch tall cattle panels down both sides of each row. 3 T posts per 16 foot panel. I also have removable dividers between the plants also constructed from cattle panel. I got tired of the cheap cages breaking or falling over due to lake of support. A little pricey but they should last the rest of my life. LOL

David

Hey Dave, I could see that working, especially if you raised the panels a foot or two off the ground. I may try something like you are doing, but with a cheaper grade of wire fencing. Thanks for the idea.

If any of you are close to Hamilton and need some taller cages I have several pieces of 8 ft deer fence drops that would make some good baskets. When we build pens we usually have 6-7ft left at the end of each roll.

this is what I do every year

I only plant 6- 12 so I just use basket's i made from 6' welded fence . I should probably steak them up with t posts but I use scrap 2×4 since its what I gotst.