My garden choices

[owiebrain]

Okay, I'm going to put the pressure on myself to choose by posting here. You all come kick my butt when I waffle. Decisions need to be made!

Already growing:

Wild blackberry patch--acres of them.
Grapes

Jeanne d'Arc pear
Bergamotte d'Ete pear
Docteur Desportes pear
Reinette du Mans apple
Reine des Reinettes apple
Reinette Gris Parmentier apple

Potato onions (unnamed)
Vostani garlic
Asian Tempest garlic
Georgian Crystal garlic
Purple Glazer garlic
garlic, unnamed farm store variety
Russian Red garlic
Chinese Purple garlic
Racombole garlic, topsetting
Martin's heirloom garlic
Beth's elephant garlic
Arlene's elephant garlic
Heritage Sweet onion, topsetting
Catawissa onion, topsetting
Egyptian walking onion, topsetting
chives, common
chives, garlic

peppermint
spearmint
sage, common
sage, pineapple
lemon balm
lavender

[owiebrain]

Tomatoes. Here's where it gets tough. It's like having to choose between my children. Gah!

Okay. Deep breath. You can do this, Diane.

Cherry and other small tomatoes--planted in the front yard for snacking. I want to keep it around 20 plants total for these so I'll only plant 2 of each instead of the usual 3.

1. Dr. Carolyn Pink
2. Fox Cherry
3. Ildi
4. Rena’s Unknown Dwarf
5. New Big Dwarf
6. Peacevine Cherry
7. Red Pear
8. Reisentraube
9. Snow White
10. Yellow Pear
11. Yellow Perfection

22 total snack plants. Okay, I can deal with that.

Paste/plum types. Heck, let's just go ahead and try to see if I can make myself plant only 2 of every tomato this year instead of my normal 3 each.

1. Black Plum
2. Gilberti Paste
3. Paquebot Roma
4. Principe Borghese
5. Prue
6. Roman Candle
7. San Marzano
8. Uncle Steve’s Italian Plum
9. *Viva Italia (hybrid)

Okay, total of 18 paste/plum types. Doing good.

Other tomatoes--slicers, canners, juicers, whatever. Between this group and the paste/plum , I want to keep it to about 100 plants total. These will be going in the main garden. If I only plant 2 each of these as well, I can squeeze in 41 varieties and still be at 100 total main garden plants.

1. Aker’s West Virginia
2. Arkansas Traveler
3. Aunt Gertie’s Gold
4. Aunt Ginny’s Purple
5. Aunt Ruby’s German Green
6. Azoychka
7. Beefsteak
8. *Big Zac (hybrid)
9. Black Krim
10. Black Prince
11. Black Russian
12. Box Car Willie
13. Brandywine
14. Carbon
15. Cherokee Chocolate
16. Cherokee Green
17. Cherokee Purple
18. Coustralee
19. Earl’s Faux
20. Ernesto
21. Eva Purple Ball
22. Faribo Golden Heart
23. German Pink
24. German Red Strawberry
25. Green Zebra
26. Hawaiian Pineapple
27. spam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typed
28. Hugh’s Yellow
29. Jubilee
30. Large Pink Bulgarian
31. Long Tom
32. Magnum Beefsteak
33. Marianna’s Peace
34. Mexico
35. Mortgage Lifter
36. Neves Azorean Red
37. Omar’s Lebanese
38. Oxacan Pink
39. Palla di Fuoco
40. Paul Robeson
41. Ponderosa
42. Pruden’s Purple
43. Rinaldo
44. Rosalita
45. Silvery Fir Tree
46. Stupice
47. Taxi
48. *Tomande (hybrid)
49. *Tomcat (hybrid)
50. Wisconsin 55

Dang. I just can't get this last portion down under 50. Dang, dang, dang. Okay, so I'll leave it at 50.

So... 50 plus 9 (2 plants of each variety) equals 118 total main garden plants. Plus 22 total front yard snacking plants. 140 total tomato plants. I'll start seeds for 4 of each variety to compensate for any seedling losses--that's a total of 280 seedlings to start. That's 4 flats (in their 72-cell tray starts) for the heating mats. That's 16 flats (once they're in their 4" final pots) of tomatoes in the greenhouse. If all goes perfectly well, I'll have 140 extra seedlings to give away.

I need to draw this out on graph paper and then will move on to the next choices--chiles!

[tbs727]

My goodness, Diane! I want to come live at your house!!!

Have you already started your seeds inside?

[jlxian]

Diane, this is an impressive list! I'm familiar only with a couple of these varieties.

We grew Stupice last summer. They are prolific, adapted well to our cattle panel staking system, and are a nice size --- about the size of a lemon. I made a ton of sauce with them. We had 4 or 5 plants and I don't think I will plant that many again. But I don't plant nearly as many tomatoes as you are planning on!

We grew Mortgage Lifter and Arkansas Traveler a couple of seasons ago at the recommendation of DH's brother who also lives in Oklahoma --- sorry I don't recall too much about them, but we decided not to use them again. Could be they are better suited to Oklahoma climate LOL.

I've never grown cherry or pear tomatoes before --- this may be the year I try one or two plants!

Are these all varieties you have grown before? Please keep us posted!

[Valerie in WA]

Diane, could you please share a bit about how you choose your varieties?

Thanks,

[owiebrain]

Tiffany, nope, no seeds started yet. I'm behind on everything this year because of the house construction and a super-clingy, teething baby. My goal this weekend is to get the greenhouse cleaned up. Next week will be to organize and gather any needed supplies. The seeding should begin next weekend, if all goes according to schedule (which we all know it never does ).

Jean, Stupice was wonderful for us last year! It was one of the first, if not THE first, to ripen. It was super yummy and kept going and going and going... LOL Arkansas Traveler has always been a workhorse for us, no matter where we lived and gardened (IL, MO, OK, KS). Mortgage Lifter... Well, I tried it for the past two years and was not impressed. But I had an unnamed strain of ML. I'm trying a new strain this year that Cindy (ACEhearts) is sharing with me. If it's also a dud, I may just break down and actually buy *shudder* the original Charlie's Radiator Mortgage Lifter. From what I've read, there are a few "imposters" out there.

Nope, I've not grown all of these before. Some are new to me for this year. I'm pretty heaving into seed trading so I always have new varieties to try. Well, since I got into open-pollinated seed-saving and trading a few years back anyway.

Valerie, well, I kind of let them find me. LOL As mentioned above, I do a heck of a lot of seed saving and trading.

I always plant some cherry and small varieties for snacking -- plus they make good sauce anyway, jsut stick 'em in the blender/food processor/foley mill and then simmer them down. My current favorite of that is Peacevine Cherry--sooooo yummy! Then I take a few votes from hubby and the kids to see which they'd like for the year. Then I toss in a few interesting new ones.

For paste/plum maters, I'm on a quest this year to find *good* tasting, huge ones. Uncle Steve's Italian Plum was the winner for me last year--it was heavenly! I use any type, color, shape, and size of tomato for pastes, sauces, salsas, etc but I like to have some actual paste/plum types just to keep the shapes interesting in the tomato patch.

For the "regular" tomatoes, it's a combination of the above decision-making. I take votes from the family on past years' favorites, try to add in some new, untried-as-yet-but-promising varieties, and try to keep an interesting mix of colors and shapes, as well as keeping it fairly diverse as to what I think would do good if we have a dry year or a cool year or wet or hot and so on. I also stick to OP 99% of the time but happen to have 3 hybrids that I'll grow out this year because they happened to find their way into my seed stash and begged me to plant them. Above all, of course, are 2 requirements:

1. Taste! They must taste great or they'll not be back in my garden. I do try to give them a couple of years to prove themselves because well, we all have bad years once in a while. LOL

2. Productivity. Gotta be productive because I supply tomatoes for a few square miles of country neighbors, as well as stocking for my own large family of tomato hogs and my personal salsa addiction.

That brings me to another point. I supply quite a few local people with seedlings. I'll often choose to grow out a certain variety based on their tastes, just to see if it does well. That way I can recommend the variety that will be a good personal fit for them. I try to broaden area folks' horizons a bit each year by pushing them to try something they normally wouldn't have, such as different colors or shapes or textures, etc. I was just telling Cindy the other day that, last year, I actually had to take an assortment of various tomatoes (red, orange, purple, pink, green-when-ripe, yellow, black, striped, etc) to some folks and make them taste them. Many folks have never heard of, let alone grown and tasted, anything but red, smooth, round, blemish-free blah-taasting tomatoes. When they see a black tomato, they think it's rotten. When they see a yellow tomato, they think it's just never going to ripen--and they cuss me out for giving them a dud plant. Once I get them to taste some of the wonderful varieties available out there, you can just see their minds (and taste buds) opening. The next year, you'll see them timidly ask if maybe they might get "one of those orange striped ones you had last year" and I love it!

The above goes equally for my chile passion. Tomatoes and chiles make the world go 'round! Of course, I'm also rather fond of my other veggies, too, and try to spread the love of them all but tomatoes and chiles are what I'm known for in these parts. Okay, so I'm getting there with the alliums, too, recently. LOL

[jlxian]

I bet your neighbors love your garden produce!! (My folks called it garden sass.) What a wonderful neighbor you must be!

Yes, I can imagine some of the more unusual and exotic varieties can be a hard "sell" in the beginning but I bet one taste and they are converted.

I have a little anecdote about cherry tomatoes and sauce making --
The neighbors DH and I had when we were first married were a family of four living on one teachers salary (not a lot at all in those days). They were experts in frugality (I wish I had learned more from them) and depended heavily on their garden for fresh stuff and stuff to can for use the rest of the year. One year they were anxiously watching their tomatoes and realized they were ALL (probably over 50 plants) cherry tomatoes --- having been mismarked at the store who sold them. They made lots of sauce from them, but I know they were a little aghast at the prospect of that chore. I wish I knew if they raised their own plants after that --- we moved the next spring --- I'm betting they did!

One question --- when you save seeds, how do you ensure no cross pollination has taken place? Because of that fear, I haven't tried to save tomato seeds at all.

[Kimberlina]

Wow- what a huge garden you must have,

I, too, have a tough time paring down my varieties, but I try to keep my list small. I can't afford to buy all the seeds I want, so I make a list of the few choicest (IMO) varieties and then work from there.

I can't wait to hear more about your garden this year, Diane.

[Darlene]

Zowie, my eyes are popping & my mouth watering. Do you can all these tomatoes? What do you do with them?

[owiebrain]

Jean, I don't worry about cross-pollination for tomatoes. They're self-fertile and, because of the blossoms' physical make up, crossing is unlikely. Not impossible but unlikely. The best research I've seen on it reads that there's something like a 5% chance of crossing with tomatoes. Of course, it all depends on your own environment, climate, insect population, etc. Gotta go with what makes you comfortable. Out of the hundreds of tomatoes I've grown and saved seeds from, I've only had 1 cross so far. (Now that I've said that, I'll have 300 this year. LOL) If you're worried about crossing, you can bag the blossoms. Get the book "Seeds to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth. It's THE book to have if you're interested in saving seeds.

Kimberly, I can't afford to buy many seeds, either. Out of all of those varieties listed above, I've actually bought maybe 3 or 4 of them. All of the rest I've traded for.

Darlene, I eat them! There are 7 of us tomato-eating maniacs in this family. Our neighbors down the road are tomato-eating maniacs--8 or 9 of them, depending on who's staying with them at the time. A bazillion other friends that love tomatoes. Plus all that I put up for winter. Of course, the hogs, chickens, and Spock the Wonder Goat like to get a treat now and again, too.

I'm still working on mapping out where everything will go this year. Fun!

[owiebrain]

Okay, the greenhouse is cleaned and prepped. Just need to wash pots and flats, gather a few more supplies, and get to planting!

I did a rough plotting of the garden last night. In the main garden will be:

118 tomato plants (2 each of the varieties listed above).

Appoximately 50 chiles (varieties still to be decided).

28 zucchini (dark green, cocozelle, and a mix).

204 square feet of alliums (what's listed above plus welsh onions and more chives and garlic chives).

Approximately 50 eggplants (Black Beauty plus one or two other varieties still to be decided).

66 row feet of cucumbers (varieties still to be decided).

85 row feet of beans (varieties still to be decided).

Plus the entire pond bank will be planted in sunflowers (for eating seeds).

I still need to plot out the front yard for the snack tomatoes, herbs, greens, etc.

[Darlene]

Do you actually have one favorite in each of the catagories your planting? I'm looking for a good meaty tomato for sauce, more meat, less liquid. Grew San Marzano & Roma last year and they did pretty well.

[owiebrain]

Other than a few deformed redheaded stepchildren that I keep locked in a closet, the tomatoes are all my babies and I love them all! LOL

My current favorite paste/plum tomato is Uncle Steve's Italian Plum. I grew it for the first time last year and it kicked butt! It was huge, meaty, extrememly productive, and a tiny bit juicier than other paste types--a plus for me since I don't like them too dry. I'm trying a bunch of new-to-me paste/plum types this year, in addition to some already loved ones.