Summer Harvest - here they come
 

Todays sample. Some not fully ripe but getting in before the birds.
[img]http://users.netconnect.com.au/~myrna/Dec3-06Sample.jpg[/img]

Clockwise from top left. Aunt Ginny, Opalka, Bush Whopper, Azoychka, Brandywines and Momotaro. The last 5 I haven't tasted yet this year so will report back soon.
Cheers Mantis

Only 235 days to go until I can expect to see anything like that here. Would someone please invent a way to email ripe tomatoes? Trying to grab these SH ones off my monitor screen isn't working. :arrow:

Looks like my patch is headed for the deep freeze. The forecast for the coming week is daytime highs of 5 to -5C, lows to -10C. :(

Nice spread. I will be interested to read your tasting notes.

BTW: If mine's anything to go by, it's looking very much like the Livingston's Favorite seeds I saved last season are crossed. Mine are looking as though they will be large cherries. If that's the case, sorry. :oops:

Don't worry Grub, I'll get plenty of tomatoes. Mine are about golf ball size now. Others are giving me smaller than usual fruit as well but my potted plants are giving me larger fruit than last year.

Maybe they are okay then? I just don't remember them that well at the green stage. Plant habit is right at this end. Lots of greenies here. Cooler weather might help Brandywine Sudduth and Earl's Faux set a few, too.

Yeah, I am hoping for the same down here with the cooler temps. Not to many of them flowering but.
Hey, I've got a lovely GMG starting to blush and is giving a bit on the squeeze test. :D
How's Pontings form eh. Most tons from any Australian and with a lot fewer tests. The guy is a legend.

That's great that GMG is ready already! Save a few seeds off the cutting board, pretty please. I think it must be getting close to stable now. I think we at about F6 or something. I can't recall, but you have the good one.

I have heaps of Stumps, Neves and Cherokee Purple fruitset. Very different year. I also have a new legend must-grow tomato. More when it gets riper. I'll be sure to save some seeds :)

Ponting is such a lengend. Had the cricket on. Gotta beat these Poms. Where I live, Manly, there are more Poms than Aussies!

Will save seeds for sure. One thing about these is they all have a big belly button, is this normal. Lovely size and shape.
Good news on the fruitset. Bring it on. When mine run out you will have to take up the challenge eh.

Hmm. I had a few with belly buttons but I couldn't say it was a distinguishing feature. Gotta be a climatic thing, eh? I've also got a large GMG Red growing from saved seeds from Robbins. So I'm excited about this one for other reasons, too.

This sure is an interesting season. I have more fruit set on the big-fruited ones than I have seen before, but everything is late. Even the cherries are green and not willing to change.

Got some nice cucmbers, some emerging jalapenos, some big purple eggplant flowers, and today I sowed two boxes of salad. I'm lovin' it.

BTW: Yesterday I went to antenatal classes, spent half my weekend looking at dilated cervixes, stretched vaginas, baby crowns, this and that. And tried the vaccum baby extracter on my forehead and got a good seal. Nature is amazing, eh? The way the baby turns to fit through the pelvis.

Thats becoming a distant memory with my youngest nearly 10, but yeah it is amazing.
My first daughter had to be dragged out with some oversize barbecue tongs, the second had to be caught by a very agile young lady doctor with a big catching mitt. Best feeling in the world when you see them come out healthy and with all digits. I am in easy period now with a 9 yo and a 11yo. Still love putting up the xmas tree and video taping the new kittens. Guessing that will not be the case in a short few years :shock:
But, it was Morgan Freeman, in a movie I can't remember the name of that said to a mother to be, "If you decide to keep this kid, make sure that you spoil it every day, and as much as you can" or something like that.
Spoiling kids is not so bad me thinks. As long as you constantly let them know that they are spoiled. :lol:

LOL Mantis.

I'm sure the birth thing is a minor part, really, what with having to deal with the grubs for another 20 years or possibloy more :)

Hi Mantis and Grub,

I am just sitting here reading with delight about your tomatoes coming on. BTW, Grub, earlier this year I got a GMG plant from Earl. It was the family favorite this summer - large fruits, great flavor and very pretty. All the children still talk about it and look forward to growing it again next season.

So, Grub, your wife expecting? I was a little shocked when the conversation changed abruptly from little tomatoes to little babies! I am sitting here on my hot pad and balance ball as our 5th little one will arrive in a couple of weeks! Very exciting time - a baby for Christmas! :)

Hope y'all continue to have a great season!

Lisa

Please tell us how all your varieties taste, as time goes on!

I'm especially interested in Azoychka and Momotaro................

And don't be shy with photos. We want photos, we want photos!

=gregg=

Congratulations Lisa!

No. 5 might be a quick one :D.

Just No. 1 for us, so very exciting.

I'll be sure to post tasting notes Greg. I have great fruitset on the Momotaro, which is an exceptionally strong RL plant that burst out of the blocks right from the word go.

Nice trusses of four or six or something like that. I'm curious to see to if it delivers its expected sweetness.

The wife and I sampled a couple yesterday. Started with Azoychka which is mild but fruity and very good. Then Brandywine and although the fruit this year are small, the flavour is still there, but maybe not as full and complex as the last couple of seasons. They really do stand out from the rest.
Waiting for the others to ripen more. Bush Whopper smells promising. Great little plant.

Momotarou was bred to have an extended shelf life so don't be afraid to let it sit on the counter before you try one. You may have to wait a bit before it softens up slightly but I have found that it is certainly worth the wait.
I think if you were to try Azoychka and Momotarou side by side you certainly would experience opposite ends of the sweet tart spectrum.

I took a few suckers off my Momotarou plants late summer and grew three plants from them in pots. I expect to harvest about 10 fruit off them in total. I have about four that I plan on harvesting this week. So little sun this far north.......

Jeff

Heres todays lot
[img]http://users.netconnect.com.au/~myrna/Dec4-06Sample.jpg[/img]

From top left clockwise, Aunt Ginny, Gregoris Altai, Grubs Mystery Green, Kellogs Breakfast, Bush Whoppers and a few Kimberlys and Juanne Flammees

I am loving these reports. I am loving these pictures. Thank you deeply. There is about a foot of snow on the ground, the guy who plows our driveway has been here twice in 24 hours, and it is time to hear about Azoychkas and such - - - and to pick out next year's seeds based partly upon what you good folks have to say.

=gregg=

That Aunty Ginny seems to be pretty pruductive. Great to see a GMG as well. Especially considering I thought it mid-to-late season, setting good fruit early, but taking a while for them to ripen. So your early sowing has paid off after all?

I checked my lot and it's a very very different year. Some like Gregori's Altai haven't set a fruit, others like German red Strawberry, Wes, Cherokee Purple, Momotaro, Neves and Stump are so loaded.

Good news for most of them eh. You might like Momotaro and my F2 growout is looking every bit the same as mom so far. So hopefully saved seed will come true. Cant trust those Japs eh.
Yeah, ya just cant pick em. Kellogs breakfast a dud for size , Brandywine, Prudens Purple, Cherokee purple the same. Aunt Ginny is the absolute standout of this bunch that have been sown in the same situation.
Others like Arkansas Travellor and Momotaro are giving me much larger fruit than last year.
Last year I got lots of fruit over a pound but this year Berkely Tie Dye looks like the only candidate for a pounder.
I really am thinking that a manure tea I made a few months back has tied up the nutrients in the greenhouse border soil, bugger.

Maybe they will grow out of it?

This year's dud patch was a surprise, being the one near the gum tree, which sucked nutrients and moisture out of the soil like a leech last year.

But, alas, after growing silverbeet in there then renovating the bed with homegrown compost with aged chook manure it held way more moisture than I ever imagined.

Plants drowned and were frozen for a while and are only growing back now, incluing Indian Stripe, JF, some rainbow one and this and that.

Your Tommy Toe x Nepal is pumping out basically Nepal-sized fruits. Not a bad fruitsetter and very tough.

Got a blush on a truss of Sungold. Hundreds of Kimberly waiting to ripen. Sophie's loaded. Russian Red aplenty. All green green green.

They will come in quick enough dont worry. Mine are starting to ripen everywhere.
Nepal size fruit off my NxTT yikes. The fruit I got were large cherry size but guzillions of them. The fruit got bigger later in the season and the one I grew out was in a dodgey spot. Get a photo man, I'm a daddy :-)

How big were your Nepal then? Mine were medium round ones a bit bigger than an apricot. The NxTT seem to be heading in the same direction, through it's early days and there is some variability in each truss. Will get a pick up ASAP.

Yeah thats about the size I got with Nepal. Interesting. Are your fruit round or slightly flattened with 4 ribs on the top. Mine were the latter last year, and pretty much identical to Russian Reds when sitting on the bench.

I think they are flattened with four ribs, but will have to don the jungle greens and dive in for a closer look this arvo.

Between NxTT F1 and Pasture alongside, both in pots, I have a 5ft wall of green shading the chook run. And these are early days. :shock:

Mexico Midget has set a bundle of pea-sized fruits alongside. But it's no midget plant. Thanks heavens Sungold and Reisentraube are at the other end of the garden.

Sounds like the chooks will do ok eh. Pink Ping Pong is my monster here which is in a SWTub with Lime Green Salad.
I have a Reisentraube in a hanging pot outside the kitchen window which is doing really well. I am trying to prune it so that it grows downwards but it doesn't want to as yet. The weight of fruit might change its mind eh.

Pink Pong is beside the above, but it's one of the slow ones that got drowned. But it has some fruit and is coming back.

I like your basket idea. Let me know if it works, as I have just the spot.

Hey, I'm beating this changeable weather, ie, low-20C tops some days and high-30C tops other days, by keeping the Bloom Booster up to them. So many flowers and always some flowers ready to set fruit on the right days :)

Hey, Mark Korney sent me Oleyars German a couple of years back. It's got so much promise. I can't wait to follow the progress. Heaps of flowers, good fruitset, and supposed to get really big ones that are tasty as can be.

Rare family one from his neighbourhood. Seeds hard to find. Everyone will want some. it will be like the running of the bulls. A scramble.

Mantis, would really love a report on Bush Whopper when you have a chance. I happen to think that it's a really good all-rounder (as in red and rounder). Not fussy about water either--a perk! Nice to see it growing at home again.

Am sending seeds for some Aussie dwarf varieties to PP for Christmas....Shhhhhhh.

Best to all,
Jennifer

Hi Jennifer. I will taste test the Bush Whopper tonight along with Opalka. My plant is a bush and only about two foot high and 3 wide. A determinate and has stopped flowering but has a lot of fruit set.
Grub, I might have to hit mine with more Bloom Booster as they have stopped flowering.