Homegrown Tomatoes

Posts Tagged ‘Tomatoberry’

Hybrid tomatoes are deliberate crosses between two different tomato varieties.  Hybrid tomato plants are often thought of as being more productive or disease resistant – but not as great tasting as heirloom tomatoes.  Is that true? And how are these hybrid tomato plants doing in my garden?

Hybrid Tomato Varieties

Although I mostly grow heirloom or open-pollinated tomato varieties, I do grow some hybrids.  I especially like some of the cherry tomatoes.  Then of course I have to try something new every year — you never know when something will earn a continued spot in the garden.

This year, I am growing the following hybrid tomato plants:

• Celebrity Bush (determinate slicer)
• Fabulous (determinate slicer)
• Goliath Bush (determinate slicer)
• Juliet (cherry)
• Park’s Whopper (indeterminate slicer)
• Supersweet 100 (cherry)
• Tomatoberry (strawberry-shaped cherry)

So how have they been faring?

The Cherry Tomatoes Win for Productivity

That’s really no news, since cherry tomatoes are known for their prolific yields.  But one variety in particular is amazing — Tomatoberry.

I bought Tomatoberry because the description sounded intriguing — a cherry tomato the size and shape of a strawberry.  While I’m not sure that the fruits are really strawberry-shaped (although I do see a slight resemblance on some of the fruits), the plant is amazing!

I didn’t take a photo of the awesome flower sprays this plant has, and so far, pretty much each flower has set a fruit.  So “prolific” is a little bit of an understatement.  I’ll have to take a photo as the tomatoes start to turn red — that will be a sight!

Juliet bears some lovely fruit — it’s a grape cherry tomato.  While setting on nearly every blossom, it’s not quite in Tomatoberry’s league.  Then again, I am growing Juliet in 5-gallon containers!    I imagine that Juliet would do far better in a larger container, or in the ground.

Supersweet 100 was the first of the cherry tomatoes to set fruit.  Once again, pretty much every flower sets fruit.  I have it growing in the ground, but it’s not in the best location — it only gets about 6 hours of sun a day. 

It’s been nibbled by a bunny, blown down in a windstorm and I’ve not always been the best in watering that particular area.  Still, this plant continues to grow and set fruit with abandon.  I’d call it quite hardy in less-than-desireable conditions.  I’ll have to grow one of these plants in the main garden that gets full sun one of these days.  That should be a sight!

Well, this post is getting kind of long, so I’ll stop for now, and pick up later with the report on the slicer-sized hybrid tomato plants.

Here are some tomato plant updates for the week (as well as tomato seed updates).  Sorry I haven’t been around much this week — I’ve been busy with my tomatoes (not to mention with my other veggies).

Supersweet 100

I mentioned in my first tomato update post that I had three SuperSweet 100 plants, and I was going to run an experiment with them.  One I kept inside in a south-facing window.  Another I took outside to a protected area with strong indirect sunlight (as well as a couple hours of direct sun).  The third I went and planted in its final container outside.  Three weeks later, how did they fare?

It’s been rather cool here lately, so the plant I kept inside in a south-facing window is by far the tallest and has the most leaves.  However, it’s verging on leggy.  I’m keeping it inside for the time being, seeing as the forecast is for temps in the upper 30’s next week — if I sent it outside now, I’m afraid it would have a severe setback.

The one I planted in its final container in the garden is the next most developed; it has medium-sized new growth — not as much as the one I left inside, but it’s stockier — not leggy at all.  It has a nice, dark green color.

The third that I left outside in a protected location is the smallest.  I decided to go ahead and plant it in its final container out in the garden area, so it could get some more growth.  Dark green leaves, though, so that’s good.

Brandywine

All my started to grow quite well by about the 10th, when I potted them up twice since then.   I was thinking I had the red version of Brandywine, but they all ended up potato leaf style, so I either have red Brandywine with potato leaves or pink Brandywine.  Hmmm.  I’ll have to wait and see the color of the fruit.

Pineapple Tomato

These are for the Great Tomato Experiment, and they are doing very nicely.  I transferred them to the next size container, and am keeping them inside for now, given that lower temperatures are forecast during the week.  All my Pineapple seeds germinated nicely, so I have four plants to choose from — the three strongest will take part in the experiment.

White Bush

I originally said that one of my White Bush seedlings had been going for the sky.  Well, it had, then a short while later it looked like it was going to keel over.  So I brought it inside and hoped for the best.  It hasn’t been until the last few days that it’s started looking healthy — now it’s growing fine again.

The Rest of the Tomato Plants

I have Juliet, Tomatoberry, Big Rainbow, Kellogg’s Breakfastall repotted up.  I brought one Kellogg’s Breakfast inside, and everything else I left outside.  Yellow Cherry is also outside, but I’m not sure how it will fare.  I probably should bring it inside.

New Tomato Seeds Germinated

I tried for some of my legacy seeds, and so far, Green Grape and Loxahatchee are the only two up.  I had also planted newer seeds forand Tumbling Tom, and they both came up.  For the legacy seeds, still waiting on Black Krim and .

Loxahatchee is a strain I am developing.  I originally saved the seed from an unknown globe-shaped tomato that tasted wonderful, and hoped that the resulting plant would also have great-tasting tomatoes.  I didn’t know if the tomato was hybrid or open pollinated, so I wasn’t sure what I’d get.  At any rate, I’ve selected plants for three generations whose tomatoes tasted the best.

Whoops!  For some reason I was down to just 6 seeds — not sure where the rest ran off to.  So I carefully planted 3 of the seeds.  Two have germinated so far, and hopefully the third as well.

For these, I want to do two things.  First is still select the largest of the great-tasting red globes — that will be two of the plants.  The third plant I want to use as the female cross with another tomato variety.  Not sure which I want to use for the male parent of the cross.  I’m debating using Pineapple, Kellogg’s Breakfast or maybe Druzba.  I’ll have to see how this generation fares, first.

Yesterday’s Seeds

Finally, I planted two new varieties yesterday — the heirloom tomato and the hybrid Fabulous.  (If you plan on planting seeds and need some guidance, check out the germinating tomato seeds post.)

With Tomatoes and Flowers

Almost forgot, I have tomatoes on Patio, Celebrity and Husky Red (a cherry-type).  I have more blossoms on all these, plus also with Mr. Stripey (Tigerella) and Park’s Whopper.  It’s been a cooler winter than normal, so everything is growing slower than usual; I should have already had at least some almost-ripe tomatoes by now.  I’ve still got a ways to wait, though.