Loaded Brandywines!

Here is a picture of a portion of one of the Brandywine vines. This is about a 3-4 foot section. There is a cluster of about 5 tomatoes about every foot! There are about 18 clusters at the moment  You can see a couple blushing...can't wait!!



Here is a white icicle radish. Fast growing! only planted it about 3 weeks ago. It was WAY too hot for me! But kinda cool looking!!

That Brandywine is going nuts!!!! Funny...too hot Icicle Radish!

very nice...wish my Brandywines would do that well

Good for you! This is my first year planting brandywines, and like you I am enjoying how vigorous the plants are.

southern gardener, that is an amazing Brandywine plant.  Brandywines are the best tasting tomato, in my opinion.  Mine are just now blooming.
Madge

by grownsunshine  Funny...too hot Icicle Radish!

haha!!  never even thought of that! that IS funny!!

southern gardener, that is an amazing Brandywine plant.  Brandywines are the best tasting tomato, in my opinion.  Mine are just now blooming.
Madge

This is our first time growing them and they are VERY tasty! We clipped off a few suckers and stuck them in another garden! This was a sucker we stuck in this bed a couple of months ago, and BOY is it happy! There is LOTS of pig manure in this bed, and everything loves it here. I have a pumpkin plant that's growing 12-18" a day!  cilantro, onions, beets, lettuce, beans, corn, kohl rabi, marigolds, MONSTER swiss chard (one stalk is 31"!), more tomatoes, carrots, turnips, zucchini, crook neck squash, doesn't seem to matter, it all grows, and so green and lush.  the picture shows only one of the five vines growing from this one plant.
It's a beast!!   

 Very cool SG!  what are you plans for all those Tom's?

congrats!....Im really happy for you  

Happy gardening
rose

FamilyGardening wrote: Very cool SG!  what are you plans for all those Tom's?

congrats!....Im really happy for you  

Happy gardening
rose

..

thank you rose, you're so sweet. My husband loves to cook, and better yet, he's a GOOD cook. We will probably mix the tomatoes in the vitamix with our basil and garlic. We then reduce the sauce and make pasta sauce. He made pizzas last weekend with this sauce, and it was probably the best pizza we've ever had! He made the crust also. He's quite a man!! Hoping to get our SFG on track, and have a LOT of veggies this fall and next spring for sure. How's your BTE garden coming? Ours has revived some plants from death for some reason?? Some, I think we buried too deep in chips, but overall, has been more good results than naught. TY again for the sweet comment

well, here are the first five of many on this monster vine! BLT for lunch??

Oh that is just completely yummy looking!  Pig poop, huh?  hmm...

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Oh that is just completely yummy looking!  Pig poop, huh?  hmm...

CC

Yepp, and lots of it! We just added it to the bed to raise the level higher, then topped it off. We just planted some flowers at first, then a volunteer tomato now pretty much everything! The whole garden is lush and green with large healthy plants. Who knew??

Another cluster of 5 ripened up today!!  Man, are these GOOD!!
The bottle is there for comparison size

Those are some GORGEOUS 'maters!
GG

Looking so good that I can almost taste those.  How many have you harvested so far?
Madge

Thank you GG, I hope I don't appear to be bragging, but I just can't believe this one plant.
Madge: I think we've harvested about 15 to 20 so far from this plant? I don't know how the clusters can support 5 tomatoes this size, but they are! My son in law and my son are eyeballing tomatoes too, so we'll be sharing more.

We have some huge turnips ready to harvest now too out of this same bed. My grandson pulled back some of the tops and said, "Gramma, look at the size of your turnips!!" I only wish the beets grew as fast as turnips! haha

SG, are you going to be saving some seed from the productive brandywine plant?

SG you should be bragging those are some beautiful Brandywines and a very productive plant. Sounds like you got a good mix in that box, congrats! Now if only it my tomatoes will start doing something.

camprn wrote:SG, are you going to be saving some seed from the productive brandywine plant?

Camp: I guess I should? Not sure how to do that, and avoid cross pollination? I might have to check it out. I was toying with the idea of taking a sucker and trying to coax it through the winter? What do you think?

TX, I hope your toms get going for you. Yes, that's some kind of mix in there. I have cilantro coming up all over too, smells so good Have a great Saturday all

SG oh I bet it does. I love cilantro. With you in zone 10 I bet you could overwinter some suckers from your tom. I would do some extras though just in case you lose some during the winter or during transplant time. Have a great weekend!!!

If you have a few new flower stems coming on on the same plant, and the flowers are not yet open, you can put a net around the blooms to prevent the pollinators from visiting until the fruit sets. you just need to juggle the stem a few times during bloom for the pollination to occur.

When you take the net off, tie a ribbon or other flag around the fruit stem for ID . When the tomatoes mature and are ripe, cut open the tomato, pushe the seeds out with your thumb, let the seeds fall into a little glass dish, then set it onto the window sill for a few days. Once you see a scum starting on the surface, the little gel capsules around the seeds should be deteriorating enough to be rinsed off. using a small strainer with a fine mesh, rinse the seeds. Dump the seeds onto a paper towel and allow to dry, when dye you can take the seeds and put the into a not air tight container for storage.

thank you Camprn. That's great info. There are still LOTS of blossoms coming on, so I should be able to target a few I wonder how big this plant will get? The vines are spilling onto our driveway, so we're having to move them out of the way so we don't run over them with our car! LOL. Thank you again for the info

SG, two things - 

1. You don't come across as bragging.
2. Those tomatoes are brag worthy! 

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

I know nothing about the viability of keeping a plant going over the winter. My hope is that you will save some seeds and try to keep the plant going. That way, you will not only have an excellent shot at growing this plants offspring, but you can report to us on the over-wintering trial!

SG, brag away I say. This story gives us all hope!  

Yea pig poop!  

CC

Thank you Martha and CC. I would never want to be considered a "braggart" :)I just went out and snipped off a couple of suckers from this plant to see if I can get another one going! While snipping, I found another huge red tomato hiding! I'm going to try Camprn method to try and save some seeds. Will a paper bag work, or does it need to be netting does anyone know? There's lots of bees and wind out there, and I don't want cross pollinating if I can help it.  Thank you again for all the kind comments and suggestions. Wish you lived closer and you could taste these beauties PS. the plant in my avatar, is the "mother" plant the sucker came off of. I only ended up getting three tomatoes off of it. I just counted the "sucker" plant tomatoes, and there's about 125!!   

SG, do you have any tulle ? just use a small patch of it to cover the flowers for a few days.