PNW Tomato Tuesday 2013

It's time to show up, show off, inspire, and help out your neighbors in the PNW. We know that most anybody can grow a tomato plant, but getting a steady supply of red, juicy, sweet tomatoes in the PNW can be a challenge. Show us your pictures, and tell us your tricks! PNW Tomato Tuesday 2013 starts noooooow!

My only suggestion for getting more red tomatoes in the PNW is finding more heat for them. My favorite solution so far is a simple plastic covered greenhouse/hoophouse (whatever you want to call it). Even on a cool cloudy day it will be warmer inside than outside.

Various types; all indeterminates. I started planting starts in the greenhouse on March 9, then adding a few more each week.


It's hard to see, but the majority of plants have blossoms. Brandywines are in the foreground.


This past winter's experiment: an inside grow space that is warm and well lit.


I'm keeping this one plant inside just to see how it does.

Impressive!

I believe we have 19 tom's planted this year a few of the same from last year and some new ones.....wanted to try more cherry types and more det to see if we can get a few more tom's out of the growing season.....would like to find a few good ones, so not to have to plant so many in the future....we started them all indoors from seed...

SFG box 1:

Marglobe, Heirloom-Det-70 days-grew last year, not the healthiest of plants but produced a handful of very flavorful med size red tom's....so decided to give this tom another try this year

Oregon Spring- Indeterminate-60 days-new to grow this year-developed for the PNW

Super bush-Cherry-75 days-new this year-container tomato

Bush beef-Det-62 days-new to grow this year

In our 4 teir SFG box out front

2-Super BushDet-75 days-new to grow this year-container tomato

In pots :

2-WA cherry-new to grow this year-developed for the PNW

2-Maskotka-cherry tomato-new to grow this year- good for hanging baskets or pots

In hanging baskets:

2-Red Robin-cherry tomato-new to grow this year

In ground:

Sweetie Cherry-grew this last year-LOVED the flavor and bounty

Thia Pink Egg-Heirloom- Indeterminate-new to grow this year-heard about this tom as a gardeners favorite thru a you tube garden channel

Boone Dock-Heirloom- Indeterminate-new to grow this year-sent as a gift from Tomatofest

Gold Nugget cherry-new this year

2-Itilian Paste-Heirloom- Indeterminate-grew last year-produced well-slight issue with BER on the inside of some fruit-decided to give it another try this year and work on the BER problem and grow them single stem this year

Jubilee-Heirloom- Indeterminate-grew last year-nice large orange fruit with wonderful flavor

will take some pic's as soon as the rain stops for a bit

Happy Gardening
Rose who loves seeing and reading about Tomato Tuesday

Boffer your tom's are looking great!!...excited to see how the one you are keeping indoors does and taste

are you heating your green house? and are you going to keep them in the green house all summer?....if so how do you cool the green house down?.....we want to try the same thing and grow some tom's in our small green house but we found last year it was to hot for the tom we kept in there and she didnt produce at all...it can get over a 100 in there this spring our green house is small at 5x6 and maybe the reason its not working to keep tom's in over the summer.....

we could work out some kind of hoop house for next year.....if that could work better.....

happy gardening
rose...who has idea's floating around in her head...

No heat in the greenhouse, but I've been half-heartedly experimenting with water filled 55 gal drums. When I need heat assistance from them the most, we don't get enough sun.

I have soil heater cables in two boxes where I planted the toms in early March. I also made some twin-wall polycarbonate covers for them for the 'greenhouse inside a greenhouse' trick. Those helped.

I try to emulate what the pros do to keep a greenhouse cool. Shade cloth over the top, sides rolled part way up, one exhaust fan in the wall, another fan blowing the space across the tops of the plants, and on the hottest days, hosing down the floor to take advantage of the cooling effect of evaporation. Humidity and condensation build up fast so it's important to keep that inside fan going. During that hot streak we had last summer, I was able to keep the temps in the low nineties. I think the toms slowed down a little during the hottest days last year, but I still harvested more red toms last year than I have in my entire life two times over!

Oregon Spring is the only tom you listed that I have grown. I'll be interested to hear your opinion of it.

May 21

Gold Nugget

I am trying to stay ahead of everything but I feel like it is all getting ahead of me. There are only 10 days of school left and I don't want to let myself begrudge those awesome kidd-o's these last few days. At least it is raining for a spell.


BeaverLodge Plum

Some of the tomatoes are doing great in the greenhouse, some of them look like they are struggling. It is weird. The beaverlodge are doing great. I gave away lots of these last year, but peeps thought something was wrong with them, they stay fairly small. They fit nicely into a window box type pot. I thought they were unimpressive fresh but when I dropped them into a zipper bag, then pulled them out in January, they made sauce that tasted like it was made from fresh picked tomatoes in August.


The determinants, Legend, Siltz, Gold Nugget and Silvery Fir Tree.

Can you believe it? After nearly a week of 80 degree days, now I hear that we could have hail for the next two days. The nice thing about buckets is that I can move everything. It is a little crowded in the green house so some of these got snuggled up against the house, some of them are pressed against the chicken run, anywhere I can find an overhang to protect them for a couple of days.


Tomato Tent (poly cover) Zipper

So far, the stick on zipper is working GREAT! I need to be careful with it because it feels like it will not hold together if I man-handle it, but it is doing what I wanted. Yea!


I know, I know, this is one too many.


Snug inside the tomato tent, in the center squares, onions (red I think) and carrots plus a few radish. There are way too many tomato plants (8 per side).

They include (plums) Stripped Roma, Oroma, Black Plum, and Sheboygan. (Round of many colors and sizes) Persimmon, Lakota, Black Prince, Grandma's Pic, Stupice and ________ (can't remember). I wish there was a Brandywine or a Gold Medal. The globes have sisters in the greenhouse. They don't seem to be doing as well, but it could be that they are less crowded in their own pots. Wait! I remember, the last one is Ceylon. Cherry size but ruffled like Brandywine.

Good growing PNW!
Debs..... as the sun sets on Tuesday.

Pictures from last night

SFG box #1 Marglobe, Oregon spring and Bush beef



Sweetie cherry



Boone Dock and Thia Pink Egg



Super bush



2- on the ends Maskota cherry & 2 in the middle Red Robbins all 4 have baby fruit on them



Super Itilian Paste



WA cherry



Gold Nugget



Jubilee



happy gardening
rose

Rose and Deb, I must live in a refrigerator compared to you two! I've only been able to get decent outdoor tomatoes in 2009 and the second half of last year. You two have them all over the place outside. Do you get good harvests outdoors during summers that are less than 'unusually hot for the PNW'?

LOL Boffer I think we are taking a big chance with the tomato plants being planted this early out side....

2009 was the first time we planted anything....2 cucumber plants, 2 tomato plants and some walla walla onion starts. We planted them in ground in between our rose bushes in the front yard just for fun and was so happy and surprised on how well they grew and the harvest was fantastic that we built our first 2 4x4 boxes in 2010 to start gardening for real

we have been experimenting, expanding and pushing the limits from then on

on the ride home tonight from our sons PT session, I told my husband that i was worried about the tom's being out in the rain but figure with 20 plants we should be able to get a few ripe tomatoes this year at least we have hope

happy gardening
rose....to be honest.....we were tired of up potting the plants

I'm not PNW, living in Maine, but love to see your tomatoes since you get yours out earlier. It gives one hope for our own future.

FamilyGard.....Are you sure your Oregon Spring is indeterminate? I had a few 3 years ago that were determinates. And by the way, in October they were once again coming into blossom and fruit but my season was too short for them to have a second flush of crops before frost hit us. Where yours start sooner, you may be able to get that 2nd harvest, so don't pull them out when they are done harvesting.
By the way, Oregon Springs can be put in the ground a month before one's last frost. They can take the cold.

Oregon Spring tomatoes taken on Oct 2nd. See the new green fruits and I had lots of blossoms....and then the frost arrived.
Those states with longer growing seasons could get a 2nd harvest from their determinates.

Quiltbea funny you should mention about the Oregon spring being a Det instead of a indeterminate.....I was confused yesterday writting about the tomatoes we planted this year....I wrote in my tomato notes that the Oregon springs were a Det....but looking them up on Tomatofest web site where we purchased them they say its a Indeterminate :scratch: I must have read on another web site but not the site we ordered from that they were a Det....because thats what i thought they were and recorded them that way....but changed it in my post on the forum.....

http://store.tomatofest.com/Oregon_Spring_p/tf-0364.htm

Our Price: $2.95
Days: 60
Size: Indeterminate
Color: Red
Season: Early-Season



so Im not sure what they are....but happy to here from you that they hold up against the cold temps......and may give us a second crop ......now I need to go out and look to see how many we planted....im thinking we only have one because the germination was not the greatest.....

happy gardening
rose who now wonders what Boffer thought of his Oregon spring he planted in the past....

I personally didn't find the Oregon Spring to be very flavorful for a homegrown tomato, but better than the cardboard-flavored store boughts. And it was the earliest of the season so nice to eat fresh as opposed to store toms.
Almost forgot....another plus as can be see in my photo. No blight problems at all.

Don't you mostly grow Brandywines Boffer? Last year was a nice, late summer for tomatoes but I did not get Brandywines. I got a few nice persimmon tomatoes (late season) and buckets of Cour di Bou (late season) but none of the coveted Brandywines.

I put bags and bags of Beaverlodge into the freezer, just dropped them into bags (red-ripe) and into the freezer. I think I already said that they were unimpressive fresh picked, It was only my desire to not waste produce that caused me to put them in the freezer, but they were wonderful in January.

The hybrid, Grandma's Pic were very pretty on the vine but boring to eat. Clusters of large red tomatoes, fun to photograph, but I stuck them all in soup with Apple Jack (American Cognac). Black Plum Paste taste ok, ripen up nice but really are for cooking, the mouth feel isn't great for raw tomato pastas or salad. I still get freaked out with brown fruit. But "Have seed, will plant."

For fresh eating in Everett, Siltz (4 to 6 ounces) dependably ripen up in early August. Gold Nugget (Rose I hope you didn't get those because you see the name on my posts.... they are good but I thought I ordered Sun Gold, got these) is like candy in late July.

All of these are acceptable unless it is a Brandywine you are craving!

I consider ripe tomatoes a gift of the angels. I grow late season to harvest green and let them ripen in bowls, not for fresh eating but for soup and sauce. Early season tomatoes that get harvested green just rot in a bowl. I have five different plum tomatoes in my garden for two reasons. 1. I never seem to run out of black plum seeds and they stay viable. 2. I want more in my freezer.... and one more reason, to add to the bowls of green tomatoes for fall sauce.

Everett is almost a chilly as Yelm. (It warms up here when the politicians move south to Olympia…which seems close to Yelm)

FamilyGardening wrote:...rose who now wonders what Boffer thought of his Oregon spring he planted in the past....

Mine was an indeterminate, and I haven't planted any since for the same reason I don't plant Early Girl anymore: they're not much better than store bought.

Last year I tried Siberian tomatoes; they have similar cold weather tolerance and fruiting ability as Oregon Spring. It was poorest performing, producing, and tasting of the three.

Lavender Debs wrote:
Everett is almost a chilly as Yelm. (It warms up here when the politicians move south to Olympia…which seems close to Yelm)

Which would make Rose's yard a freezer! She's closer to Oly than I.

Nearly half of my toms are red Brandywine. I was eating them for lunch and dinner for nearly a month last year, and still had to freeze some cause I couldn't keep up. (They were in the greenhouse.)

boffer wrote: ....snip....Nearly half of my toms are red Brandywine. I was eating them for lunch and dinner for nearly a month last year, and still had to freeze some cause I couldn't keep up. (They were in the greenhouse.)

Which is why I got a greenhouse.... then forgot to get a packet of Brandywine :drunken:

Quiltbea good to know about the blight your toms look so pretty in you picture and thank you for sharing about the Oregon spring

Deb the gold nugget is seed we had from last year that we couldnt get to grow....so decided to try it again this year .....we seem to have a lot of seeds too..... so far only the Sweetie cherry we love ....

we want to get to the point of a couple nice tomato plants that will grow well here in the PNW ..... allow us to eat fresh and to also can or freeze for the winter..... :drunken:....its fun to try differnt ones....but also its a lot of work starting them from seed....I got tired this year

happy gardening
rose

boffer wrote:

Lavender Debs wrote:
Everett is almost a chilly as Yelm. (It warms up here when the politicians move south to Olympia…which seems close to Yelm)

Which would make Rose's yard a freezer! She's closer to Oly than I.

Nearly half of my toms are red Brandywine. I was eating them for lunch and dinner for nearly a month last year, and still had to freeze some cause I couldn't keep up. (They were in the greenhouse.)

surround by politicians :lolsignwave: and living in the artic........eek!

I keep about 10 of my tomato plants in the greenhouse, to ensure at least some tomatoes for the year. This year I have 7 different heirlooms, and I have several tomatoes that are 2-3 cm. It seems early to me because my recollection of last year is that we did not have red tomatoes until well into July. The ones planted in the garden are NOT happy though

Wait a minute GWN, are you saying you have marble size reds or are they still green. I'm gonna give the queen crown (Rose has it today) to you if those babies are red!!

Lavender Debs wrote:...Which is why I got a greenhouse.... then forgot to get a packet of Brandywine :drunken:

OH NOOOOOOOOO! Say it ain't so!

I've got a couple in pots I'll trade ya...

Sorry that took so long, I had to go see what I have for trade.

These are all in 1 gallon pots and are between 18" and 2 feet tall (none are of the same quality as Brandywine)

• 1 Ceylon
  
• 1 Grandma's Pic
  
• 2 Stupice
  
• 1 Gold Nugget

Not much, the good stuff is all in the ground.

Wait a minute GWN, are you saying you have marble size reds or are they still green. I'm gonna give the queen crown (Rose has it today) to you if those babies are red!!

NOPE..... give it to ROSE. they are green.... It IS going to take awhile to get a red.

I have brandywine, Dagma's perfection (from Nonna), Black Krim, Juane Flamme, Savignac ( a Canadian heirloom), Alicante (an heirloom I saved from last year) and chocolate cherry tomato. I tried starting a few others, but they did not survive and I did not notice soon enough that they had perished to start more.