While wishing you all a bountiful and successful 2019, I've decided to start a new thread for 2019 tomatoes.

I already have some new varieties to try out, with a few more to come in the mail.
The new ones for 2019 are:
Alicante
Charlie Chaplin
Soldacki
Star of Moscow
Volgograd 323

I'd love to get some extra Sasha's Altai after I traded away all my saved seeds (bad mistake) but they seem to have gone out of fashion and the few sellers carrying them will gouge me with shipping fees. Do their seed travel first class on Cathay Pacific?

I usually seed indoors in the last week of February but given the complete disaster last year I'll probably start a bit earlier, just to have the time to seed again if things go awry. Again.

I'm rewriting this post because I decided not to take the risk of freak hybrids from seeds that I took from tomatoes from a friend's garden. They grew several kinds of tomatoes and non-tomato Solanaceae very close to each other and I decided I'd rather just grow something known this year, maybe save the potential weirdos for another year or something.

I'm now growing:

Great White

Big Rainbow

True Black Brandywine

Wagner Blue Green

Might be the best thing for you to do. Of the 6 volunteer tomato plants i let grow last year, not one had a tomato. Though, actually, last summer was a bad tomato year, as I put up too much sun screen trying to keep them cool.

texaskitty111 said:Might be the best thing for you to do. Of the 6 volunteer tomato plants i let grow last year, not one had a tomato. Though, actually, last summer was a bad tomato year, as I put up too much sun screen trying to keep them cool.

I let one volunteer pop up last year, the seeds would have had to have come from my Cherokee Carbon I grew near there the year prior. They actually grew a couple small roma-like tomatoes and the plant seemed super healthy, all it got was water because it was near a bed where I had set up a sprinkler, no copper fungicide or fertilizer. Unfortunately it would appear either a slug or rodent got to it before they could actually ripen.

Would be an interesting pursuit if I had the space, but I sure don't!

I'm going to start all of my tomatoes as soon as the last round of seeds from baker creek gets here. I also bought some wall-o-waters so I should be able to set the tomatoes out 4-6 weeks early at a very safe estimate...

This thread is very quiet, I suppose most people don't have anything to say yet.

Here's something interesting: my 2 most anticipated tomatoes of this season were the first 2 to sprout. True Black Brandywine and Big Rainbow. I'll be putting them outside in my off-brand wall-o-waters either when they start to outgrow the starter cells, or in the first week of March, whichever comes first.

I'm still picking tomatoes, but fighting spider mites, and having to pick before fully ripe or they drop. Whoever says you can wash spider mites off with a hose hasn't dealt with mine. Hope a week of rain will do the job because spraying with Neem or soap sure hasn't.

Carol, spider mites are arachnid, neem is good, but arachnids are beasts...

The main problem is that there is no way to get complete coverage on a indeterminate tomato plant...no matter how hard I try. I really don't want to use toxic pesticides on something I want to eat. All advice says you can just wash them off with water because they hate moisture. Mine haven't read that.

Do spider mites actually eat the plant (even if the damage is small)? If so, you might try a neem soil drench. You basically just mix up neem oil the same way you would if you were spraying it on the leaves, except you water the plant with it. It's supposed to take up the neem oil and slowly kill pest insects that eat the plant you've treated.

I know you people don't like certain solutions, but I've found neem oil to be completely useless, a waste of time and money.

Spider mites are only killed effectively by pesticides: generally speaking infestations are treated by using first a broad-spectrum pesticide such as imidacloprid to kill off the adults followed by etoxazole to kill eggs and larvae. Mineral oil can be substituted for the latter, but it is easily washed away by rain and overhead irrigation, so the trend has been for alternatives. Red spider mites in all stages are effectively killed off by dicofol, but this chemical has become harder to find and will surely be banned as soon as Bayer, Suntory, Syngenta etc have a much more expensive alternative to market.

Soap... if we are talking about ordinary household soap it's a "grandmother's remedy", meaning completely useless but still used nonetheless. Potassium-based soap is moderately effective against scale insects but it's mostly used to help fight aphids (blackfly and greenfly) because it's effective to wash away the honeydew they produce which can attract ants and especially provide fertile ground for fungine infections.

ElPolloDiablo said:I know you people don't like certain solutions, but I've found neem oil to be completely useless, a waste of time and money.

Glad someone agrees with me about neem being absolutely useless. Any of the times I used it , well it did absolutely nothing.

Did you use actual cold pressed neem oil? Neem oil extracts and those RTU sprays are useless.

So I'm starting tomato plants from seed this year and looking to try something different than what I can get from a commercial nursery. Looking for suggestions.

I use tomatoes for the following:
salsa
sandwiches
italian dishes
salads
mexican dishes

I'm willing to go crazy with colors and shapes and sizes. I'm going to try a ground cherry or two for the first time. I'm trying unique peppers this year as well.

So for you experienced seed starter types, what are your recommendations?

repentantslide said:Did you use actual cold pressed neem oil? Neem oil extracts and those RTU sprays are useless.

I just used some neem oil stuff in a bottle. I gues neem extracts.

thommesM said:So I'm starting tomato plants from seed this year and looking to try something different than what I can get from a commercial nursery. Looking for suggestions.

I use tomatoes for the following:
salsa
sandwiches
italian dishes
salads
mexican dishes

I'm willing to go crazy with colors and shapes and sizes. I'm going to try a ground cherry or two for the first time. I'm trying unique peppers this year as well.

So for you experienced seed starter types, what are your recommendations?

Going to start some of my favorites which include-
Sungold
Amy's Sugar Gem
Golden Queen USDA Strain
Rose De Bern
Country Taste

I think I have mentioned before that I do not plant specific varieties for the uses you have indicated. What I do is start seeds from tomatoes that we really like and then use them for all purposes. For example salsa: we make salsa from whatever is available in the garden when we are ready to make it. Amazing how good it tastes with three or four different heirloom tomato flavors mixed into the recipe especially if we use different colors in the same batch.

The same goes for ethnic dishes and salads. Any big slab of tomato for a sandwich makes it better.

Hmmm.....reading these recent posts have given me yet another reason to move back West. We're still recovering from a major ice storm; the major utilities have finally been restored and the roads cleared of downed trees; now it's up to the individuals to clean up their yards of broken or downed trees.

(This winter has been extremely harsh. Just in my block, I drive past 2 carports that were totally collapsed by the weight of last month's snow storm: one crushed the new car, but the other neighbor had wisely left for a visit with children in warmer climes!!)

I can't start my tomatoes until around March 1st, for a plant-out after the first week of May.

I've ordered and received all my tomato seeds and have started setting up a dedicated gro room, but I'm having to take it slow to help delay my sowing frustration.

I'm eagerly looking forward to March. . . . .

One of my free packets from seed orders this year was Lime Green Salad tomato. Has anyone grown or tried this one? It is determinate and suitable for pot growing, so I was thinking that I would grow one in a planter by the garden.

PaulF said:I think I have mentioned before that I do not plant specific varieties for the uses you have indicated. What I do is start seeds from tomatoes that we really like and then use them for all purposes. For example salsa: we make salsa from whatever is available in the garden when we are ready to make it. Amazing how good it tastes with three or four different heirloom tomato flavors mixed into the recipe especially if we use different colors in the same batch.

The same goes for ethnic dishes and salads. Any big slab of tomato for a sandwich makes it better.

Yep I totally agree. Maybe with the exception of liking romas for a pasta sauce. When I make mexican beans I typically put anything that's ripe in it, except for cherry tomatoes perhaps.