Looking great, Joanne. Can you explain a little about what the maxikap system is?

I've been struggling with BER this year...with all of the heat and humidity, the plants are huge. Apparently the dolomite in the Earthboxes is not able to keep up. If it weren't for that, everything would be great.

Would you like us to send you some of our heat??? Of course, the high humidity comes with it as a bonus!

It is forecasted for a possible freeze and snow so we picked all the tomatoes

Here's some more

What a great harvest--I'm sure that's more than I've harvested all season. It seems too early to think about freezing weather and snow (Yuck!!).

I have the heater on in the GH. 6 huge plants left to keep a continuous supply of vine ripened tomatoes

Way to go, Joanne on your tomato harvest.
Mine were all outside so all were picked green.
There was snow this morning and frost coming tomorrow morning.

when can e talk about what tomatoes we re growing for 2011. LOL

Anytime. Why don't you start a new thread for it?

Karen

Frank,

Don't be shy, start us off. I quickly checked some seed catalogues the other day and have listed a few to grow for 2011. But lets move to a new thread.

my favorite sed companies are --
www.totallytomato.com
www.njtomato.com - they sell seeds which won a biggest tomato compeition the year before.
pandpseed.com - they sell giant vegetable seeds
www.tomatogrowers.com
www.rareseeds.com
www.growitalian.com - vegetable seeds from italy

i continer garden and at the moment i have 9 containers so i might haveto eliminate a few of these tomato seeds because i also grown ultra hot peppersand basil.

o.k. here are my tomato seeds for next season - just about all of these were given to me by good friends on the other site and 99 percent are big red and sweet tomatoes

john's huge greek red
red penna
german giant
mexican beefsteak
giant belgium
german red strawberry
lady lucy
delicious (burpee)
buckbees new fifty day - these are early season reds about 4 ounces each
sun gold - very, very sweet cherry orange in color
super beef steak (burpee)

Here are the tomatoes that I have on my list so far, I may add a few more.

Bear Creek - OP, Indet., RL, Black/Purple
Big Cheef – OP, Indet., PL, Purple/Pink
Black Cherry – OP, Indet., RL
Bonny Best – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red, 4-10 oz..
Boondocks – OP, Indet., PL, Pink, Beefsteak
Brimmer – OP, Indet, RL, Pink, Beefsteak
Burpee’s Delicious – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red, Beefsteak
Campari F3 – Indet., RL, Red
Caspian Pink – OP, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak
Celebrity – Hybrid, Det., RL, Red
Cowlick’s Brandywine – OP, Indet., PL, Pink, Beefsteak
Depp’s Pink Firefly – OP, Indet., PL, Pink, Beefsteak, 12-18 oz.
Evergreen – OP, Indet., RL, Green, Beefsteak, 8 oz.
Florida Pink – OP, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak, 1-3 lb.
German Johnson – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak, 7-14 oz.
Gigantesque – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red, Beefsteak, 8-10 oz.
Gold Medal – OP, Indet., RL, Bi-color, Beefsteak, Yellow streaked with red.
Jet Star – Hybrid, Indet.
Jetsetter – Hybrid, Indet., RL, Red
Komohana – OP, Det., RL, Red, Grape
Market Wonder – OP, Indet., RL, Red
Mexico – OP, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak
Moneymaker – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red
Mortgage Lifter – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak
Mule Team – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red
OSU Blue – OP, Indet., RL, Purple
Old German – Heirloom, Indet., RL. Bi-color, Beefsteak,12-24 oz.
Olive Hill – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak, 1+ lb.
Opalka – Heirloom, Indet., RL, Red
Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye – OP, Indet., RL, Purple/Green/Pink Striped, Beefsteak
Red Barn – OP, Indet., RL, Red, Beefsteak, 16-24 oz.
Santa Clara Canner – OP, Indet., RL, Red, Beefsteak, 8-12 oz.
Soldacki – Heirloom, Indet., PL, Pink, Beefsteak, 10-18 oz.
Southern Night – OP, Det., PL, Black
Spudatula Black – OP, Indet., PL, Black, Beefsteak, 8-10 oz.
Tennessee Britches’ – OP, Indet., RL, Pink, Beefsteak, 10-16 oz.
Truckers Favorite – OP, Indet., RL, Pink
Wes – OP. Indet., Wispy RL, Red, Heart

patti - that is an impressive list. how many of each do you actually grown.

i am limited to about 9 containers so i try to limit what i plant.

I will grow 2 each of most but there are a few that I will grow 3 or 4 of. I usually plant out 90-100 tomato plants and about the same amount of peppers.

What can you tell me about these from your list? You have a few that I haven't heard of.

john's huge greek red
mexican beefsteak
lady lucy
buckbees new fifty day - these are early season reds about 4 ounces each

Patti--that's quite a list. You also have a number of varieties I've not heard of before. Have you grown Olive Hill or Berkeley Tie Dye before? I have seeds for both and are considering growing one or both this year.

I always have such a difficult time narrowing down my choice to 10. I grow in containers also, so have to make some tough choices every spring.

This will be my first time for both of them. I think either one would be a good choice but if I could only pick one I would probably lean towards the Pink Berkeley Tie-Die just because it has my curiosity piqued.

Pink Berkeley Tie-Die
http://www.localharvest.org/pi...

Olive Hill
http://t.tatianastomatobase.co...

Here's my first pass at narrowing down my choices (of course, I reserve the right to change my mind several more times before planting time )

Silvery Fir Tree
Berkeley tie-dye
Sunray
Nebraska Wedding
Golden Queen
Bloody Butcher
Black from Tula
Black Brandywine
Big-boy hybrid (Burpee)
Olive Hill
Goose Creek

Yes, I do know that this is 11, not 10 varieties. I'm thinking because Silvery Fir Tree is supposed to be a dwarf plant, I surely can find a spare container for it , right? It won't take much room.......

The only one of these I've grown before is Goose Creek, which we really enjoyed last year. Our last 2 growing seasons have been so terrible, it's been hard to judge how well anything really did. Pretty much anything that survived and actually produced fruit was a winner in my book!

I haven't grown any of the ones on your list but I have had Goose Creek on my list for a while and need to give that one a try, also Nebraska Wedding. Would like to see what you think of them at the end of your season.

You folks are so organized. I haven't given a thought to what I'll grow this year. I want to limit it to 6 plants this year- 3 in each of my 2 raised beds. I think we had 10 plants last year and we had more than we could eat and give away.

Karen

patti - i can;t you much about them since it will be my first time growing them but i can tell you that they are all red and over one pound and sweet. i got those seeds from two friends from DG who were kind enough to shre them with me when i mentioned how much i wanted to grow big, red and sweet tomatoes.

linda - i have never heard of any of your tomatoes except the black blandywine

I think I recently read that there were something like 4000 recognized tomato varieties. I'm not surprised we are all growing something completely different. One of my biggest delights of summer is trying the new varieties of tomatoes we've grown.

I've really expanded my tastes in tomatoes recently. Much like Herbie, I grew up loving sweet, round, red tomatoes. Now, I love the black tomatoes probably better than anything, and have found several yellow/orange varieties I like, as well. A friend gave me some seeds for a green tomato--I may have to try it just because I'm so intrigued by it!

Karen--I'm not that organized....I'm just so ready for spring and trying to keep myself amused until it's time to start planting seeds. I've had my little break from growing/gardening, and now I'm geared up for another season (remind me of this in April when I'm moaning about tending all of the seedlings). I did start some lisianthus today, but since they're not edible, that probably doesn't count here.