Monday, November 27, 2006
Winter Tomato Trials
I have to admit that this is the first time that I have had tomatoes fresh from the garden as we go into December. Now these are not tomato plants that happen to have hung on from the summer, but plants that are just now coming into their prime.I have four different varieties that I am trying out. Jetsetter, Glacier, Manitoba and Taxi. These varieties and other are able to set blossoms even when the temperate hits 40. Since the area I'm in almost never gets frost, things should be ok.
I have two of each variety. I like growing everything from seed, but was not able to get them in time. All I could find were started plants in 6" containers. This was bad from the start because all of the plants had been in the containers far too log and already had tomatoes on them. his is a no-no, but I really wanted to try them out.
I planted one from each variety in a newly prepared garden on the side of the garage. The other four plants went into other beds in the backyard.
Of the four plants on the side of the garage, they took off well. The tomatoes that were on the plants when I got them didn't seen to be doing anything after sometime, so I picked them so the plants could get on to new business. The tomatoes that I picked were small and not that exciting on flavor. Didn't really care much about those.
The next tomatoes that these plants produced were much better tasting. Right now there are plenty of blossoms on all of the plants.
The four plants that I put in the backyard have not done quite as well. All of them have produced fruit however.
The Glacier and the Manitoba are now both history. The Taxi suffered a traumatic injury by getting in the way of my foot. This damaged the main stem which I eventually had to cut off. The remainder of the Taxi plant I'm going to transplant into another garden bed to try an experiment and will let you know more about that later.
The last plant in the backyard, Jetsetter, is doing great. It's about 5 feet tall now and has been producing decent fruit although not allot.
These tomato varieties produce smaller fruit than most other tomatoes.
Jetsetter / 8oz - Indeterminate
Glacier / 3 to 4oz - Semi-determinate
Manitoba / 6oz - Determinate
Taxi / 4 to 6oz - Determinate
Labels: Glacier, Jetsetter, Manitoba, Taxi, Winter Tomato
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