[EPawlick]

Originally Posted by shule1

Honestly, I've never grown a tomato advertised as a keeping tomato (yet; I plan to in 2017). However, I've found that many regular tomatoes work just fine for storage tomatoes, if you pick them green. The vendor you mentioned has Brandywine, which it says can take a while to ripen. You might try it and see how it goes.
I've had some tomatoes that I believe were Brandywine, which were picked green and ripened indoors. They tasted pretty great.

So far I'm going to order 2 pkg Kalettes, Brandywine, beetroot rainbow mix, golden burpees beets and rainbow blend carrot organic. Any other seeds that I need, I can get from our local William Dam Seeds.

Originally Posted by shule1

I would be more concerned about how long tomatoes keep after ripening, though (because if they don't keep long, you have to be extra vigilant in finding the ripe ones promptly).

In my case, I didn't have many tomatoes left on my plants in October but I made the mistake of only picking about 20 just before a hard frost hit. I'm not sure how long they would have lasted, since we ate them all by the last week in November. We ate the last one about six weeks after it was picked.

Originally Posted by shule1

You may also try highly disease-resistant varieties (which might keep better as a result, compared to similar tomatoes that aren't disease resistant). Healthy tomatoes tend to store longer.
Regular Roma keeps well (that's probably one reason the grocery stores sell it so often). I haven't tried Roma VF yet, but I hear it tastes great (the vendor you mentioned sells it, too).

I grew from seedling two Bonnie Roma tomatoes and they performed well but my daughter used all the tomatoes for canning as soon as they ripened so I don't know if they would have lasted well.

Originally Posted by shule1

Tomatillos tend to keep very well (at least if you don't pile them up high). They keep *very* well refrigerated, too (husked and washed). Your vendor has Toma Verde tomatillos. Tomatillos are great for salsa and such. I believe Martha Stewart has cooked with them a fair amount on her show, too.
Anthocyanin tomatoes and tomatillos are supposed to have a storage advantage. I guess the anthocyanin may deter some rotting pathogens.

I grew tomatillos last year and any tomatillos that we didn't use right away, I washed and froze so that we could use them for salsa during the winter. At the end of the season, I tried grilling them on the bbq and they were delicious. Unfortunately by that time I had pulled the tomatillos. I will definitely check out Martha Stewart's recipes. Thanks for the tipl

Originally Posted by shule1

It seems to me like fruits sometimes keep better the second year, from saved seeds (as long as the seeds are disease-free).

I'm not sure if I'm up to seed saving yet--maybe next year...

Originally Posted by shule1

I don't know what your area is like, but in mine, the end of the season is when disease seems most likely (due to it no longer being hot, dry and semi-arid). Keeping your plants healthy should help a lot. Making sure they have enough silica, potassium and calcium should help to keep them strong (but depending, it may or may not also impact the flavor or texture in undesirable ways).

Fall here usually brings colder temperatures and rain and sometimes more disease. Fertilizing, spraying, new raised beds, mulch and keeping the ground clean seemed to help. This past year I had problems with earwigs. I will be replacing all my bamboo stakes with metal this year after I noticed that earwigs were hiding in the bamboo poles. Next year I will put out water bowls with soap again and start spraying earlier to control cucumber beetles and earwigs.

Originally Posted by shule1

It would be great if you could get microbes that compete with fruit rot pathogens in order to prevent fruits from spoiling. We usually just have anthracnose to rot our fruit after it ripens and sits too long inside, but in 2016, another pathogen was indoors (probably spread from old storage potatoes). The funny thing was that it competed with the anthracnose (no tomato got spoiled by both pathogens, and anthracnose almost disappeared completely after it arrived).

Last season, we experienced an unusual drought. My beds are raised and the soil was augmented with promix premium. No problems with rotting, just the earwig problem I mentioned earlier. I used promix premium with mycoactive which contains viable spoors. That may have helped too.

Originally Posted by shule1

One thing I highly recommend is if you have fruit trees, don't let any fruit fall on the ground and rot. Pick it, and if it falls off the tree, pick it up. I personally believe that rotting fruit contributes to more rotting fruit (and more fruit rot pathogens).

No fruit trees but I did regularly pickup random fruit probably left by birds or squirrels.
Maybe in 2018, I'll try a long keeper/good keeper. Thanks for your help!