What is your Criteria for Growing What you Do??

[jcmorse33]

Well, I'm still VERY new to gardening, and with limited space (only 18 plants this year) my criteria is...
(a) if I have gotten a taste of a variety somewhere and loved it it gets on my would like to grow list.
(b) lots of positive comments about the taste of a given variety can also get it on the list.
(c) reports of success (good production, disease resistance, heat tolerance, etc) will move it higher on my list.

Then I go down my list and pick as many from the top as I can given the space I have... then I figure out how much space I can convince my wife to let me add to the garden this year!

[Leroy]

I used to grow what ever they had at the lumber yard. This is my first year growing from seed. I just guessed at what I would like. Then ordered from Burpee. Then I sent my stamps to winter sow. I had read a little bit by then. I have been reading more on this forum. Now starting a list for next year.

My goal is to grow and taste a few more each year. I had to make a bigger tomato patch from 5 plants to 30 give or take. I fenced it in so it wont grow out of control. lol

I have the space but I don't want to pump a lot of water. Last year ended a drought for us with a record setting rain fall of 56 inches. The tomatoes seemed to take forever to get ripe. So mutch rain that on my way to work one day there was a sand bar across the hi way.

I eat all can my wife eats a few and it makes me happy to give a few away. Almost everybody is happy if you give them a tomato.

A lady is going to sell me a dehydrator this year and I might try my hand at canning a few.

[goodwin]

A dehydrator really is the way to go - seems to concentrate the flavor and I find lots of ways to use them. The units that blow down through the top and have an adjustable temperature setting have worked well for me.

[obispo45]

I'm unquestionably a greenhorn also in terms of number of years gardening. Started on the ground floor so to speak. Virtually everything I have grown since day one has been from seed. Never gardened as a youngster and wasn't exposed to it for the most part either. Lots of trial and error. Lots of reading. Lots of soliciting of advice. Most importantly, lots of fun times along the way. This will be my 5th year in the garden.

Since my second season I have always tried to incorporate a theme of sorts. A small little side project that I may put an extra little emphasis on. This year it is/will be about a half dozen large golden cultivars. Last year it was the most dramatically unusually shaped ones....Purple Calabash, Togo Trefele, Gezahnte tomate Buhrer-Keel, Zapotec Pleated, etc. Year before that it was an extra emphasis on black cultivars.

Usually attempt to create some kind of "balance" if there is such a thing, outside of my side-project. Variety of colors, several cherries, varying DTM, some bigun's, some baseball size, etc....you probably get the picture. Guess that I'm only "married" to a handful of cultivars. Ones that I'd be incredibly dissapointed that I didn't grow: German Red Strawberry, Jaune Flamme, Bali and most recently Large Barred Boar and Orange Heirloom. The aforementioned handful seems to get larger each passing year....good problem to have more often than not. Just my 2 cents. cheers!

[kimpossible]

Themes are alot of fun - a side/experimental garden where you can choose to grow (for the current season) -

* a comparison of blacks

* a comparison of : (yellows, golds, oranges, greens etc.)

* a comparison of "earlies"

* a comparison of Brandywines

* a comparison of hearts

* a comparison of cherries

* a comparison of pastes ...


and on, and on, and on. I have 67 acres - 5 acres of grass around the house. If my god gosh darnoodley job didn't interfere with my gardening, I could do all of those experimental gardens at once !!

[cdntomato]

Kim, I'm doing a huge grow-out of Brandywines (to id for correctness/source), hearts, cherries (including dehybridization and new crosses), culinaries (canners/saucers/pastes) and dwarfs (including new crosses).
Let's compare notes. Oh, and some PGRC and Canuck stuff.

Jennifer on the other side of the province with only 20 acres, pitch-patch, and 500ish containers

Forgot about the Aussie stuff...with Ray coming to visit, I've got to put out the welcome toms and squash (Should we arrange a Canuck-Aussie confab whilst he's here?)

[kimpossible]

Sounds great, Jennifer. I am also growing about 8 or 9 "Brandywine" varieties, Cdn, varieties, plus another 80 or so others. Would be happy to compare notes. I'm just hoping the snow will finally melt & we will get above-freezing temps for more than a day here and there. To me, it looks like the plants won't be going into the ground until June 1st this year - about 2 weeks later than I strive for. (I thought I liked this "Gobal Warming" )

[heirloomdaddy]

I try my best to grow tomatoes for acceptance. Not flavor, not production, not beauty. I just want the squirrels and raccoons in my neighborhood to like me ; )

[Aphid]

I grow them with one thing in mind ... deep rich flavor.

[piegirl]

I grow for production - Jet Stars. Then each year before Tville and GW, I would find something different and give it go - Mr. Stripey, Husky Red, an orange, etc. THEN, I discovered the wonderful world of heirlooms - can't live without my Jet Stars and now I can't grow w/o Black Krim, C purp, Hungarian heart, my own compost baby, my friend's heirloom - which means each year I seem to have less room because I am always finding something that I must grow. Forgot Martino's Roma for sauce - maybe 14-16 of those this year. So instead of 14-15 new varieties each year, I am down to 10-12 depending. I have no where else to expand unless my dear neighbor would take down an awful elm! Piegirl

[rsg2001]

I pick varieties based on several reasons:
I have challenging conditions - not that much sun (though this year because we had to take down a big tree, I'm expecting a more 'normal' amount of direct sun). 5-6 hours a day - I think this year it'll be closer to 7. I plant about 20 plants in the ground, and as many in containers on the deck that my husband will put up with (lol). The ones on the deck usually do better, and I usually limit the number of 'late season' varieties.

So... the ones that perform reliably I keep in the roster, and those are Sungold, Eva Purple Ball, Black Cherry, Lemon Boy, Black and Kimberly. Lime Green Salad would have been in that group again this year, except my 2008 seed didn't germinate. I loved a couple of the varieties from Carolyn last year -- Pozhar and Marovsky Div (mispelled I'm sure), and those will be back as well.

Disease resistance is also a factor. There were some I loved in the past but only yielded a couple of fruit before the plants took ill. I've found hearts (e.g. Anna Russian) succomb to fusarium in my garden. Caspian Pink also. Green of bacterial wilt. So they didn't come back.

I will probably pick up a Brandywine Sudduth or Marianna's Peace transplant or other great heirloom that I didn't have room to grow from seed with my limited light-garden set-up, when I visit the Dutchess County botanical garden on Memorial Day weekend. Two years ago they had Basinga, and I regret I didn't save the seed - that one plant was my best producer in '08, big beautiful plentiful and delicious yellow tomatoes. That variety isn't readily available. At that center I also tried Hillbilly which did pretty well in my garden and I started that from seed last year -- not as many as the one I bought as a transplant, but a moderate amount and very delicious bicolor.

I also love growing a rainbow of cherry tomatoes. This year, in addition to Black Cherry and Sungold, I have Sprite (a red grape) and Green Doctor Frosted from Carolyn's seed offer and will be looking for one more cherry from a transplant. Carolyn was kind enough to send me a few more Green Zebra Cherry seeds when I didn't have luck germinating, so those will go in during midseason should I be able to get healthy seedlings.

The other seedlings I have to choose from are:
a "mystery" black - Cherokee Chocolate last year yielded small saladette size tomatoes last year and I saved some to see if they grow true;
Giant Belgium (new), Marizol Purple, Burning Spear, Rouge d'Amagu (wow - these are big and robust), Cherokee Chocolate, and Big Sungold Select.

They're not planted outside yet - they will probably mostly be in by Memorial Day or the week after. And thank goodness, since just a week ago the night temperatures went back to the low 40s for a few nights.

[platys]

Last year, as a newbie, I grew what I could find at Meijers, which was all hybrids. However, they still tasted about a million times better than any tomato I had had before.

This year, I'm pretty much growing out what I could find locally via Craigslist - I did order some that folks had recommended on other forums.

Next year, I can grow out seeds - the house we're buying has a "mini greenhouse" - which is really just a glass enclosed space off the garage, with an area to start seeds under florescent. Which works for me.

[kdawg39]

Didn't get around to starting from seed this year, so have to rely on the garden centre. Forunately have a great one nearby.

I only have room for 8 - 10 plants, so I place a premium on reliability and productivity.

Brandywine, despite its reputation for stingyness has always done very well for me, so it goes in each year. This time for the first time I'm also growing a yellow brandywine plant.

I grow one or two cherries. Since I discovered black cherry, it's the only one I grow.

I grow an early variety. Early Girl has always been a total bust. Stupice is very early and I really like the zippy, bright taste.

I grow some mid size, mid season slicers. I also really like Black tomatoes but I've yet to find one that's a reliable, heavy producer in my garden. I've grown Black Prince (from seed), and Black Krim (from plant) and Cherokee Purple (from plants). This year I'm trying my luck with Black Krim and Cherokee purple again, but from different suppliers.

I grow Green Zebra. love the color, and size and tangyness. A perfect salad size. It's also very prolific, although doesn't seem to have great disease tolerance. I think people who say they don't like the flavor aren't letting them ripen enough.

In the end, I like to see a balance of early, mid and late, cherry, medium and large and a good variety of colors: yellow, pink, red, black and green.

Originally Posted by matereater

Flavor, production & curiosity.

Flavor, production, size & curiosity.