Planted my heirlom tomatoes today! Crossing my fingers!

Not sure which tomatoes will do well here in the heat, Phoenix AZ. Everyone seems to have a different answer. I planted seeds and plan on transplanting in mid to late February. Hope it works because it will save me a lot of money by not buying seedlings in the spring! Besides, I would never find that kind of variety no mater where I went to look!



San Marzano
Brandywine (yellow, red, and pink)
Black krim
Italian Roma
Big Rainbow
Nebraska wedding
Tommy toe
Wapsipinicon
stupice
Roman Candle
Federle
Striped Cavern
Cherokee Purple
Beef steak
Arkansas traveler
Mortgage lifter
Bradley
German johnson
Green zebra
delicious
Rutgers
Marglobe
Aunt Ruby german green pole
Gardeners delight

That is a great list.

Can I ask, why did you choose Stupice? I've got used to that being a cold zone tomato that you grow because you have to. Have you had it before?

Will these all go into SFGs or do you have other gardens as well?

My Garden is a little bit of Eden but without that good Arizona heat. Water is not a problem in my Western Washington garden.

I finally got to try a Green Zebra and now I get the attraction. I'll be trying one. Delicious is another that I will also be trying. Both of these are a long shot for my quilt-nights in August.

Last year I got tomatoes from Siltz (Stupice's big sister) so I'm going to have her back. There is a new early season plum tomato from Canada, "Beaverlodge" that might give me red sauce instead of green.

Loved seeing your long list!
Debs....who has to cut her list way back.

This was a tomato weekend at our house, too. Hubby and I finalized our tomato plans yesterday. We plan to grow these, all in SFG:

Aunt Ruby's German Green
Royal Chico
Green Grape
Rutgers
Mountain Fresh
Thessaloniki
Missouri Pink Love Apple
Great White
Hillbilly
Djena Lee's Golden Girl
Chocolate Stripe
Yellow Pear
Arkansas Traveler
Henderson's Crimson Cushion
Ign-something Gigante Liscio (from memory)
Sweet 100
Henderson's Pink Ponderosa
Jersey Giant
Tropic
Monomakh's Hat
Fox cherry


This will be the first time for many of these for us. (We've already grown Aunt Ruby's, Green Grape, Yellow Pear, Arkansas Traveler, Rutgers, and Sweet 100.) Please let us know if you have experience, good or bad, with any of the others.

We still need seed for Yellow Pear and Chocolate Stripe, if anyone has any to share. I can exchange for any of the above.

Debs: Stupice was just part of a pack of seeds we ordered. I have heard of people growing it here, but I think it was in the fall not the summer. Figured I would try it spring and if that doesn't work fall.

These will all be in a sfg. We are doing a major expansion in Feb.

We have eaten:
big rainbow.
mortgage lifter
purple cheroke
green zebra.

They were all so good, and my husband finally understood the obsession with growing tomatoes after tasting them!

Right now we have black russian prince and a beefsteak growing in the garden, but haven't gotten to eat any of those yet. Also, yellow pear, we have had them before and will always have them in the garden. We bought it as a seedling, sorry no seeds to share of that one.

We really like the strange and colorful ones.

Mmmmm I'm with you there. That is a whole lot of square foot garden.

Last year was an exceptionally bad tomato year in western Washington (Best salad year in YEARS if you don't mind replacing your salad tomatoes with strawberries)

I had a Black Prince specimen but it was too cold for him to do anything. The production was just low enough (he tried but never got past the green stage) I will not be trying him again unless a friend gives me a start. Same with Purple Cherokee that so many on the board rave about.

I am ordering a Delicious (I think I saw that on Ander's list). It takes a whopping 90 days but tolerates cool nights (or so the package says). TSC will send a plant of anything they sell seed for. I grew Persimmon last year, an orange-yellow giant tom. I did get to taste a couple of the small guys in autumn. Not just the best yellow tomato but the best tomato I have ever eaten. Healthy vines but the really big toms did not grow fast enough in our cool PNW summer and what I call potato bugs got into the cracks around the stem. Hope they enjoyed them. I am hoping for a better summer. Since I still have seed I will be giving those another try. Oregon Spring was also weather stressed. She made a few little, squishy fruit that were unappetizing next to Siltz.

Here is a list of what I'll be tossing the dice on (in addition to the above). Usually I have to at least double the days to maturity in the PNW (last year it took even longer). I travel enough that I cannot fuss with covers or anything more complicated than a tomato cage and water.

Legend D (OP) at 68 days (4 to 5 inch red; parthenocarpic like Stupice and Siltz)
Momotaro I (F1) 70 days (6-7 oz dark pink from Japan)
Those, with Persimmon are my long-shots

Beaverlodge Plum D (OP) 55 Days
I still have seed from Black Plum Paste I (OP) 65 days. A VERY productive plum but never produced ripe tomatoes last year. It still needs heat to finish.

The rest are specimen plants that I want to try but don't have the seedling room to start.... Thank you TSC!
Jolly Elf: red grape
Oregon Cherry
Chocolate Cherry
Gold Nugget (cherry)
Green Zebra (75-80 days)
Silvery Fir Tree (58 days Russian)
Manitoba (66 days Canadian)

Debs…..feeling strangely international

Debs, who are TSC?

Persimmon sounds like something I might want to order.

Whoops, sorry ander. TSC is Territorial Seed Company

I have been totally drooling over the seed catalogs this week (when I should be doing a million other things!). I really need to get my orders in quick because I should be starting my tomatoes soon...well, my spring tomatoes. My fall/winter tomatoes are enjoying the current 85 degrees

My trouble is that they all sound so good! There are probably at least 20 varieties each of tomatoes and peppers that I have circled! The pictures in the Baker's Creek make me swoon and the Southern Exposure one is SO informative.

The week before I was thinking about how I was really content with the 3 2x8 beds I have right now and that I probably wouldn't be spending as much time in the garden this spring. I thought maybe I would add some containers on the front porch at that would be it. I've still had a fall garden going, but it's been kinda laid back and slow...planting a square here and there and leaving some open.

Now that I've started getting catalogs...well, let's just say I was out there today, trying to decide what spots I could clear... I've been bit by the gardening bug again!

Any reccomendations other than Baker's Creek and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange?

Howdy Folks:

Reading these lists makes me think that I am so behind in my planning and it is only the 3rd day of Winter! With snow on the ground that may be slowing me down just a bit. On the bright side a neighbor is bring me 2 trailer loads (bigger than my pickup truck bed) of horse stuff this week for the compost pile. They load, deliver and unload FREE. Gotta love the price. Now where did I put the phone number for the goat lady?

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

WardinWake wrote:Howdy Folks:

Reading these lists makes me think that I am so behind in my planning and it is only the 3rd day of Winter! With snow on the ground that may be slowing me down just a bit. On the bright side a neighbor is bring me 2 trailer loads (bigger than my pickup truck bed) of horse stuff this week for the compost pile. They load, deliver and unload FREE. Gotta love the price. Now where did I put the phone number for the goat lady?

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

You and me both!!! I just ordered all my catalogs and made the decision to go all heirloom this year. Still deciding where to place the new beds and I haven't even built them yet. Since Jan and Feb tends to be the bitterest winter months, I thought I still had 8 weeks to go before I had to have everything ready to put in the ground (well, in the beds).

Starting to gear up to produce dry beans for sale to our local food co-op and deciding what box configuration would be best. Finally decided that I really need to do some boxes raised so that harvesting the bush beans doesn't kill my back every day. Thankfully my hubby has offered me plenty of leftover oilfield sucker rod for my trellis frames, so I won't have buy material for that. Just cut and weld, then slide over rebar feet in the ground (and I found his stash of rebar too!). Looks like only purchases are going to be the stuff for MM.

Any sprouts yet duhh? (its been almost three days) tehe

I don't know if this helps or not elli but I cut my list down by sitting down with graph paper and figuring out where everything is going. That at least helps me decide what I might want to really put in. I don't want to shade my beans and I've got to have lettuce and peas. But I'm an suburban gardener. I am blessed to have as much room as I do but it is nothing like the room I had in the valley. Graphing also helps scratch the gardening itch. Makes me feel a little more settled... even knowing the I'm not organized enough to follow the plan when seeds are actually in my hands and my finger is fixen to plunge into loom. I'm just sayen.

Debs,
Actually we do! I planted them a few days earlier than I posted. They have been going since last Wednesday. About 10 different ones have sprouted and I'm very excited. We have been leaving them outside during the day and bringing them in at night to keep them warmer. I didn't do anything special. Just stuck them in mels mix and kept them moist! Love it! I am amazed at how fast they pop up!

I have a notebook filled with my plans! I work on it all the time redoing it and switching stuff around. Then it gets chaged again when I'm actually planting!
I've tried the online things, but I like to do it @ work between clients and don't have my comp there.

duhh wrote:snip.... " About 10 different ones have sprouted and I'm very excited. We have been leaving them outside during the day and bringing them in at night to keep them warmer. I didn't do anything special.

Awesome! Nothing like little green sprouts to bring out the momma in me. Thanks for posting that. I am so boring that when I was chasing the sunlight with my sprouts (although it was April/May in Washington) I actually posted about it. You are far more classy than self.

This is going to sound off topic. Yesterday, while shopping for fishing poles (an "ugly stick" was on the list and dang, there really is a pole by that name) and cast iron Dutch ovens with lids that have an inverse lip to hold hot embers without letting the ash slip into the biscuits, we came across a national park monopoly game. I brought it home to play on New Years. When I opened it, just to see what parks were represented, which one replaced Baltic Ave. and which one qualified as Park Place, I was confronted with a sheet of static plastic name tags and matching park pictures so that I could customize my board. I remember my mom buying me high tech paper dolls that had clothes and pictures of different weather for the window. The idea was to dress the doll for the day's weather and show what kind of weather was happening outside of her window. Forty-five years ago I thought it was the kewlest, not so much yesterday on the Monopoly board for just shy of $30. Back to gardening. I thought it would be kewl to have a grid page that those static labels would stick to, with a sheet of brightly colored labels for my different garden choices so that I could play around with who goes where. Right now, I have to draw my grids (I know there is a web page and I know I can (and have) use Excel to do this. But the paper doll lover in me still wishes for the pretty stickers and board.

Deborah... thinking she should actually proof read.

Has anyone tried the Heirloom Super Sioux? produces in hot climates, cluster tomato, good for canning.
I want to try this one.

CarolynPhillips wrote:Has anyone tried the Heirloom Super Sioux? produces in hot climates, cluster tomato, good for canning.
I want to try this one.

I have not tried this one, but will write it down for next year. I keep adding more to my list. I figure I'll try the ones I have started, see which do well and I like, then try a few new varieties every year for fun.

Here are my sprouts so far. Considering grow lights next year so I don't have to take them in and out. All but 5 have come up so far. It rained on them, so their pots are a bit soggier than usual, but they loved it!



The ones with true leaves were done a little before the rest. My hubby was playing with the little peat pellet things.