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Old August 10, 2013   #91
Tania
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The picks (Aug 3)
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Old August 10, 2013   #92
Penny
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Well done Tania, everything looks amazing!! Can you tell me about the flavor of the "love apple"? Is it a mild, medium or hot pepper?
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Old August 10, 2013   #93
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Penny, Liebesapfel pepper is very sweet. It has thick walls too, so it is quite heavy for its size.
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Old August 11, 2013   #94
BennB
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Default Some tomatoes of my youth back East!

Some big ones in the harvest this week! I planted several varieties that generally have no place in a PNW garden. Between our good tomato summer and keeping some of these in my greenhouse, I have actually been getting some to ripen!

In the second photo, they are (from left to right) Tiffen Mennonite, Chianti Rose, Garden Leader, Tiffen Mennonite, and Pink Ponderosa. The third photo is just the Chianti Rose. The forth is a San Marzano Gigante.
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Old August 11, 2013   #95
Tania
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BennB, this is such a lovely harvest of huge tomatoes.

This Chianti Rose is a monster!

What are you doing with all these fruits?
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Old August 12, 2013   #96
BennB
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tania View Post
BennB, this is such a lovely harvest of huge tomatoes.

This Chianti Rose is a monster!
I tried the Chianti Rose for the first time this year. It is a very, very good tasting tomato. Almost seedless. Sweet but still tasting like tomato... but it had very low productivity for me...I grew it in my small greenhouse, in raise beds, and in containers in my driveway...It also has pretty low disease resistance. So I am unlikely to grow it next year.


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What are you doing with all these fruits?
Eating a lot of them...I like them sliced...maybe with some mozzarella and basil, but mostly with salt and pepper...I've stuffed a few with salmon salad, eat them on tuna melts. I also grow peppers and make fresh salsa. I gravitate to beefsteak tomatoes. I grew up near Brandywine, PA and it would not be summer without fresh tomatoes.

We give a lot away to friends and neighbors, but most go into sauce. We are not fussy about the sauce. We cut up any variety of tomatoes seeds, skin and all... mix them with onion, whole garlic, olive oil and salt in a roasting pan, cook at 425 for a couple hours, emulsify with an immersion blender, add herbs and seasoning to taste, put a quart in a zip lock bag and freeze it.

We've made about 3 gallons so far. A great taste of summer all year long.

I also have a bunch of Heinz 2653 and some Roma VF that should be ripening at the end of the month I plan to dry.
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Old August 12, 2013   #97
Tania
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BennB,

It is so interesting how the same varieties perform so differently in different gardens! I am also growing Chianti Rose this year, and I cannot complain about its yield. The fruits are not as big as yours, averaging about 12 oz, but there are quite a few of them on the plants. It is a keeper for me

Unlike Vinson Watts which I am growing for the 2nd year, had no fruit last year, and I see only 3 fruits on 1 plant. I heard this tomato performed so well for other folks, but not for me...

We are also eating lots of fresh tomatoes and peppers. Have not started canning, saucing, or drying yet, but it looks like if the weather continues to be dry here and late blight does not hit, I will be busy with lots of tomato preserves. So far I only made 1 jar of marinated tomatoes, from all the 'wrong' fruit (which did not grow true to type). The correct ones go into seed saving and into salads after the seeds are removed.

Last year I made over 200 litres of tomato sauce, and we still have a couple of boxes sitting in the basement, so I think this year we'll do more hot sauce (thankfully lots of hot peppers are ripening!) and dry/dehydrate more.
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Old August 14, 2013   #98
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We had an excellent year here in central California...we harvested about 5 times this amount!



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Old August 16, 2013   #99
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Default Disease got me...

Sadly, the plants in my small hobby greenhouse succumbed to disease. I am pretty sure it was septoria, although there was some gray mold and probably some late blight thrown in for good measure. I have been battling it for a few weeks, but this week we had a run of warm, humid, wet weather and the few plants that were trying to hang on, gave up the ghost. I still have some outside, but even a few of those are showing signs of disease. I pulled off affected leaves and hit them with bleach spray, so I hope they can hang on to get some of the pounds of green fruit ripe, but I think I am likely winding down my 2013 season in Seattle.

I went through and picked all the ripe fruit and then I pulled all the blushers and under ripe fruit I could from the greenhouse plants tonight before they were yanked out and put in the yard waste. The box of under-ripe fruit must weigh about 40 pounds! Hopefully I can get enough of these to turn to mix in with some sauce.

All and all I can't complain about the 2013 season. If it were not for a few cool weeks and some issues with the marine layer in late July, it would have surely been one to remember.
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Old August 16, 2013   #100
Tania
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Oh no!!!! I am so sorry to hear about your tomato plants dying... But your tomato harvest is still very beautiful.

I looked at the pictures, and thankfully it is not late blight that you have, and that's good news.

It has been raining here since yesterday, and cooled down significantly. I had to go out today in the rain to pick ripe tomatoes, could only pick 1 box before getting so wet... Everything looks good so far, but some fruits cracked badly, as there was such a drastic change in humidity, from super dry to 100% humid. I think it will be more cracking happening. The rain is supposed to stop on Sunday. Yikes!

So next week we'll know if we are getting late blight here or not. I hope not yet!
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Old August 16, 2013   #101
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tania View Post
BennB, this is such a lovely harvest of huge tomatoes.

This Chianti Rose is a monster!

What are you doing with all these fruits?
BTW - I finally remembered to take that big Chianti Rose into work and weigh it on a digital scale. It came in at 741 grams...about 26.1 oz! And that was a after a week on the window sill! It was 145 mm...about 6 inches across at its widest point.

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Old August 31, 2013   #102
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I finally got to harvest my big tomatoes. They finally started ripening this week. As usual, the black tomatoes are my favorite, especially Black and Red Boar and Black Krim. There's nothing quite like that first taste of the season. The other black tomatoes aren't quite ripe yet, and it's so hard to wait for them!


Black tomatoes (clockwise from top left): Vorlon, Black Krim (4), Tasmanian Chocolate (dwarf plant), Black and Red Boar (3), Black Prince (3)


Other tomatoes (clockwise from top left): Paul Robeson (2), Cherokee Purple (4 unusually small fruit), Green Zebra (4), and Not Isis Candy I and II are from plants grown from seed saved from the same fruit that was supposed to be Isis Candy but wasn't last year.

The Cherokee Purple is an F3 plant since I saved seed from a CP plant grown in 2011, then saved seed again from the resulting plant grown in 2012. This year's plant is really prolific, with almost 10x as much fruit as the other black tomatoes like Spudakee, Vorlon, and Paul Robeson, but the fruit is much smaller, about 1.5 oz. Last year the fruit from my Cherokee Purple varied between 4-6 oz. None of the fruit are quite ripe yet, so I'm really curious to see if it tastes just as good.

Not Isis Candy I actually looks like an unusually large (double the size of regular) Isis Candy; it even has the characteristic starburst on the blossom end. Not Isis Candy II is twice the size of the perfectly round 1" red fruit I got last year. Since they're both about the same size as Jaune Flamme, I wonder if the fruit from the original Not Isis Candy I grew last year was pollinated and mixed with Jaune Flamme, which was a few feet away. The red 1" fruit I got from the original Not Isis Candy last year was almost as sweet as Sungold, so I can't wait to taste them to see if they're just as sweet.
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Old August 31, 2013   #103
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Holey Schlamoly !!!!!!!!!!!!!

PNW, what an unusual and fantastic harvest for your area. Congrats !!!!
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Old September 24, 2013   #104
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thought I'd add my harvest pic to this thread ........... from early September - includes Cheerful F2 growouts, Sunsugar F1, Dwarf Jade Beauty, Durmitor, Persimmon x unknown heart F2, Sunset Falls F1, Roger's Sweet Light Yellow, Black Cherry
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Old September 24, 2013   #105
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This was the 2nd year growing Alices Egypt and like 2012 it is by far the most productive variety I've ever grown. There is a large variation of size with tomatoes in the 6-18 ounce range. The MRs and all her Korean friends really love the taste but it's to sweet for me. Another great tomato, more to my liking was the Hmong. It also was very productive of huge 1-2lb tomatoes. I used 5 six foot bamboo stakes, per plant, and the plants still tipped over. I saved seeds from both and the plants were isolated from other varieties. Next year I plan to only grow the Hmong and Alice's Egypt.
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