The TOMATO thread

[meizzwang]

Almighty$, was wondering when you'd join the conversation! I just tried a fully ripe brad's atomic grape and so did my wife. She said there was some funky flavor to it, and I taste exactly what she's talking about. While I did find it a little weird, the sweetness combined with fully body tomato flavor in the background totally makes up for it! And BTW, that thick skin issue you experienced in BAT has gone away in this generation. However, I can't say the same for Sweet Cream-that one has skin that's so thick, it's kind of a turn off to me. The flavor is absolutely there, but harder to attain even under ideal conditions.

Interestingly, in my opinion, the best tomato I've ever had so far is Candy Sweet Icicle, and I'm starting to understand why: every last fruit on the plant tastes heavenly, even when they're not fully ripe! No thick skin issue, which means it can split easily if over watered. Nevertheless, if you're light on the nitrogen though out the grow season, the plant produces more fruit than it can carry. This eventually drains the growth points and slows down growth once your first fruit start ripening. The relatively quicker death of the plant is probably the reason why the fruit quality is so good: no matter how much you pump the plant with nutrients, it's growing much slower and taking up much less water at this stage! Not sure how this translates to hydro though, but if you got that salt stress figured out, I don't think any of this matters, you'll get good fruit!

Regarding CSI, I'm saving an F-ton of seeds from all 3 of my plants, all of which are proven fantastic in growth, production, and flavor. These 3 are the most vigorous individuals out of 15 seedlings, so they've received some additional selective pressure. The longer they hang on the vine, the better they get!

Just for fun, a small harvest of various varieties:

[bogman]

Mike, how was that last Dark Galaxy, any better?

I fear the flavor of all the tomatoes is suffering now; day after day of rain. I can almost hear them splitting. Speaking of splitting...

Is that green, striped one Lucky Tiger? Every year I grew those, they had insane splitting issues, no matter how water was managed. The high heat and humidity must not agree with them. We had four, other varieties in the same row, and they were fine. But the Lucky Tiger was a fruit fly bonanza.

I'll be interested in Dark Galaxy and Candy Sweet Icicle seeds, when you have them! Had a thought, regarding your comments on the CSI: since that one fatigues fairly quickly, it might be a candidate for grafting. Is it determinate?

Thick skins are best on processing type tomatoes; easier to peel after blanching. Not so desirable on a BLT.

What's your fertilizing protocol, Mike?

As soon as the rains stop, it'll be time to spray with Daconil or Mancozeb, and brush the tadpoles off the leaves.

I'm hoping the shiitake and wild mushrooms come out soon. It's about the season for Black Trumpets.

[meizzwang]

The last dark galaxy was outstanding! Definitely an acidic bite, but mellow sweetness with a great, tomatoey body. However, I had a tomato from the same plant maybe 1 day after watering, and it was totally bland yet acidic! I hadn't watered for almost 2 weeks, so it seemed like it was time to irrigate again, but lesson learned.

You're definitely a tomato NERD!!! That is Lucky Tiger! And your assessment is spot on: I had the same exact problem with Lucky tiger, so I stopped watering it completely. It hasn't split since then, but if you get summer rains, seems like this variety won't do well for you. That's such a shame, the fruit on mine are very sweet, even on the ones that don't look totally ripe! Love the flavor of this plant, will probably grow it next year, but it does seem to be very susceptible to disease.

Regarding nutrients, I amend the soil heavily before planting with lots and lots of compost/top soil. Everything is done 100% hippy certified organic. No pesticides whatsoever, not even organic ones! If disease appears to be spreading like wildfire, I cull the plant before it becomes a problem. We have no summer rain and low humidity during the day in general, so with drought stressed plants, it's pretty easy to keep disease in check here...until the marin-foggy weather and very moist, cool nights shows up! Feeding-wise, I don't really do too much, I add a top dressing of top soil before watering, and occasionally add a low N, high P and High K organic fertilizer.

Candy sweet icicle is indeterminate. To give you perspective, I think the early senescence is because I don't feed my plants very heavily after the vegetative growth spurt and they don't get much nitrogen ever. Pink Berkeley Tie dye, despite being indeterminate, did the same thing for me: It stopped growing once the plant was loaded with fruit. After that, there was no reviving the plant. If you graft CSI or if you amend the soil with chicken manure, I bet CSI will continue to grow even after heavy production.

Some pics: Lucky tiger didn't get the facy trellis, it's just hanging off a retaining wall. I have 3 plants, it's the one int he middle and slightly to the right. Plants have outstanding production: (on a side note: see that red cluster of red grape tomatoes in the upper left hand corner? that's fantastico. Don't waste your time with this variety, with some of the best weather in the world for tomatoes and dialed in soil/watering, it still didn't taste all that great:


Some closer shots of fruit starting to ripen. I don't pick them until they get slightly soft to the sqeeze, but even if you pick them at this stage, they're still pretty darn good:


Aside from the squeeze test, they're pretty difficult to tell when they're ripe...BUT if you look at the undersides of the fruit, they sometimes have a little splash of red on them. Dead giveaway that they're ready to pick! (note: you can't see the red in this pic):



My opinion is slightly changing on Maglia Rosa-these have hung on the vine weeks after they turned red, and I got a couple of juicy ones that were sweet yet slightly tangy. It wasn't mealy this time either, but the skins are still slightly tough:


Emasculated flowers that have been cross pollinated,these will probably all make it and produce fruit:


Blush is a very heavy producer:


5 star grape x jasper f1: OMG! So much flavor and sweetness! Truss after truss loaded with decent sized fruit for a "real" grape tomato! Acidic when picked just after it turns red, you definitely need to let these hang on the vine for 1-2 weeks after, and they get ridiculously tasty:


Solanum cheesmaniae: yeah, the real deal cheesmaniae have fruit that are maybe slightly smaller than a pea:

[bogman]

I think the most productive tomatoes for me, in the small-fruited category, might have been Indigo Kumquat. Hard to tell about fruit quality, since an overload of rain is typical. But, it kept producing tons of fruit until frost, after other varieties blighted out.

The Lucky Tiger, which did not split early in the season, were very tasty. We waited for the red streak, as you mentioned.

Does your "cheese-man"   tomato have yellow, yellow-orange fruit?

Inch after inch of rain, for days, is worrying me about the tomatoes. At least they're planted on a steep slope, so the catfish won't get 'em.

I got up at 3:30 am to go check out a big flush of Jack-O-Lanterns (Omphalotus illudens) growing near our driveway. They were glowing in the dark, an incredible green glow! Couldn't go out last night, due to storms. But the early am had a pause in the deluge. Anyway, the bioluminescence is best when the mushroom is rapidly expanding and almost mature. The particular clump has a daytime color of brilliant orange when young.

[bogman]

Geez, no doubt this is the worst growing season for most vegetables in 35 years. We've never had so much rain and humidity.


It has basically been wet since May. Multiple flooding events, too. I've spoken with several local growers who all agreed this is the worst they've seen. Many are financially on the verge of complete loss, especially the organic growers, who can't control the fungus. One grower, who's been in business for decades, can't even get summer squash to grow. Even with spraying Daconil and Mancozeb, my tomatoes are suffering big time, and over seven feet tall. Fruit set is poor, due to the lack of sun.

Guess I should have planted more tropicals this year, to deal with the climate change, which has really been bad since 2013. It's getting depressing that traditional crops are failing here, beans, tomatoes, squash, plants that have been grown in this area for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Winged Bean (Psophocarpus) and Vigna (Yard-Long, Cowpeas, etc.) may need to replace "normal" beans, I've been having better luck with those tolerating the heat and/or rain-humidity. Lettuce was a 100% loss for field growers in this area, but my Water Spinach (grown on regular garden soil) is doing well, as is an Egyptian green, Molokhia (Corchorus).

So far, the pepper plants are in good shape. Lower fruit set, again, due to the dark days. There's about 80 of them, mixed kinds. Those range from the hottest: Carolina Reaper-from Smokin' Ed Currie himself, to Red Cheese Pimento. We just started harvesting Shishito peppers. Of course, no time was wasted grilling them on the stove and serving them lightly salted with a very cold, local IPA. Ahh IPA, eases the pain!

[meizzwang]

Well, I'm working on some more tropical friendly tomatoes, hopefully will have something for you in the next few years!

[bogman]

I bet you can do it, Mike! A little of this, a bit of that, with some "cheese-man" for sturdy and pimpinellifolium to kick up the flavor. You may have to undertake an expedition into the Manu or Amazon, Central American jungles to discover new, resistant species!

My dream tomato: Indeterminate, red with black stripes (color can be different), red interior, resistant to: Fusarium, Phytophthora, Septoria, Alternaria, and, oh yeah, Colletotrichum. Resistant to heat and humidity (e.g. 90-100F, rH90%+). The flavor would be a balance of sweet and acidic, with the smoky overtones in Russian heirlooms and prominent, classic tomato flavor. 12-60 seeds per fruit. Elongated, 4–6 inch long, more flesh than gel and suitable for fresh eating or canning.

Might be too much to ask. However, a significant cash reward will be sent to the developer who is successful, after the traits are confirmed!  (No, not enough to retire on!)

Hawaiian Tropic is the most heat-resistant hybrid I've heard of, but it may be out of circulation.

[bogman]

Finally, a bit more sun has been getting through. The rain has encouraged tremendous vegetative growth, but, so far, a bit below normal fruit set. Many vines are 8-9 feet tall, getting tied horizontally to the highest lines, since that's the only option.

The first ripe tomatoes have been coming in: Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Cosmonaut Volkov, Opalka, Pineapple and Italian Franchi Red Pear Select. With all the water, I was concerned flavor was going to drop. In an effort to offset this, I've been spraying the foliage, about every three weeks, with Growmore seaweed/Kelp extract. Not sure if that's the reason, but flavor is very good on all varieties, even the Berkeley P.T.D., which is very juicy, but still rich.

It has also remained quite hot and humid, which may account for Mike's different impression of the Berkeley's flavor.

I'll try to get some pictures up, if time permits. Anyway, A friend tipped me off to seaweed extract, years ago, as a way to get tomato flavor up to potential. Given what we're tasting, despite the excess rain, he may be right.

[meizzwang]

Great feedback Bogman, and thanks so much for sharing! In retrospect, I think my cool nights last year probably had something to do with PBTD not tasting all that great....that and our luke warm days. Also, the plant had stopped growing completely due to N stressing, but I still watered it maybe 1x per week because that kept the rest of the fruit developing normally. Under our conditions here, I probably should have completely stopped watering altogether (learned this with dark galaxy). Dark Galaxy fruit continue to be flavorful here! If it was hot every day, that might offset the cooler night temps.

In general, When we have a few warm nights in a row, the sugar content on almost all the tomatoes increase. I'm intrigued by the seaweed extract idea, definitely want to give that a try next year to see if it works here too!

Another interesting observation: some varieties might require consistent warm daily temperatures to get great flavor. For example, I grew Matt's Wild Cherry, which is famous for having incredibly high sugar content. Grown outdoors in Northern California, it was consistently HORRIBLe, but we have warm days and cool days mixed in all the time. Mine tasted like a tomato that has been refrigerated, and the sugar content didn't appear to be anything noteworthy. I think our 55F night temps. destroyed the flavor and hindered sugar production. I suspect this variety grown on the east coast would be amazing.

[bogman]

Aug 10, 2018 13:11:15 GMT -5 meizzwang said:

Great feedback Bogman, and thanks so much for sharing! In retrospect, I think my cool nights last year probably had something to do with PBTD not tasting all that great....that and our luke warm days. Also, the plant had stopped growing completely due to N stressing, but I still watered it maybe 1x per week because that kept the rest of the fruit developing normally. Under our conditions here, I probably should have completely stopped watering altogether (learned this with dark galaxy).
...
Another interesting observation: some varieties might require consistent warm daily temperatures to get great flavor. For example, I grew Matt's Wild Cherry, which is famous for having incredibly high sugar content. Grown outdoors in Northern California, it was consistently HORRIBLe, but we have warm days and cool days mixed in all the time. Mine tasted like a tomato that has been refrigerated, and the sugar content didn't appear to be anything noteworthy. I think our 55F night temps. destroyed the flavor and hindered sugar production. I suspect this variety grown on the east coast would be amazing.

So, we are comparing very different growing conditions! For example, it's 72 degrees at 5:30 am here. Nights are usually 68-74; days are around 90-96. At times, the plants go heat-sterile, but when days drop back into the 80s, fruit set returns. This set of conditions usually provides for decent flavor assessment. I had another PBTD yesterday, and it was delicious, with medium acid, "classic" rich flavor, but overly juicy. This is likely why PBTD has a reputation as a very poor keeper. Other varieties have not been so juicy, despite the rain.

Your 55 degree nights are doubtless affecting both texture and flavor. Put a tomato in the fridge for several days and it'll lose flavor and gain starch, which explains one reason why supermarket tomatoes are usually mealy. This can often be reversed if removed from the cold and set in a warm, dark place for several days. Many tomatoes after-ripen off the vine quite well, as long as they're showing 25-50% ripe color, e.g.red. Since supermarket fruit is often gassed to induce "fake" ripe color, all bets are off with those. It might be interesting to compare flavor of your fruit, Mike, after-ripened indoors, if the nights in your house are warmer. That would mean picking at 50-75% ripe color. You never know!

I've noticed many Italian varieties are best picked a little early, half red or pink. This is particularly true of processing types. One sign of this is a relatively small peduncle connection, compared to rounder shaped fruits. This connection often starts to die and cork over before full ripening. If the fruit is allowed to fully ripen on the vine, it often falls off! This trait is actually a favorable one. Fruit can be picked slightly under ripe and still achieve full flavor. It is firmer, less prone to damage at harvest (think stacking in baskets or crates. It is less prone to splitting (ripe fruits split worse in heavy rain). Fruit can be stored at optimal temperatures for final ripening. It is less prone to rot in high humidity areas. It is less attractive to animals, especially birds.

The Growmore has a lot less NPK and higher seaweed compounds than, say Maxsea. With 9 foot plants, I don't want to add any Nitrogen, if I can help it! One odd observation this year is very few pests. The only insecticide I've been using is Dipel, Bt, for caterpillars.

[bogman]

Time for some images. Hear's the Franchi Red Pear, a large to huge tomato. Not very pretty, but good flavored and one of those processing types you pick earlier than full ripe.

The bottom left is about when I pick them. In 1-3 days, they're full-ripe, like the others shown.

Here's what I mean by the stem/peduncle attachment:


You can't see the mass difference very well here, but the Red Pear are 4-6 x larger than the PBTD, but the stem attachment on the smaller PBTD is equal to or larger than the more massive Red Pear. That Red Pear on the left will almost fill a quart jar.

Yeah, the fruit have signs of the rain wars. We're due to get another three days of rain.

[almightydolla]

Here's White Tomesol and Black Beauty side by side on the same plate. Very different in taste!

[meizzwang]

Almighty$, yall get any "Materz" that are at peak ripeness yet? The Dark Galaxy plant I collected seeds from is without a doubt 100% absolutely...DELICIOUS! It has some sugar content, but isn't sweet like the smaller ones. Instead, it has a nice acidity to it that really brings out the flavor, but it's not sour because there's sufficient sugar to balance it out. Even my wife, who has grown very picky (she blames being a "food prick" on me) said she liked it. If you smuggled this tomato into a restaurant and swapped out that crappy ethylene ripened tomato with a Dark Galaxy on your burger, it's a GAME CHANGER!

Dark Galaxy on the left, Musa Blue Java aka Ice Cream on the right:


Brad's atomic grape. notice the biggie off-type, which is susceptible to late blight and doesn't taste as good as the intended release:



Even after multiple heavy harvests, Candy Sweet Icicle is still PUMPIN out flavorful tomatoes. Brad's Atomic Grape plant on the right is so vigorous, it's sorta taking over:


5 star grape F-1, it was so good last year, that I went through the trouble of cloning the plant and overwintering it under lights. Here's the same clone grown this year! I thought it was the SHizzle until I tried candy sweet Icicle. Nevertheless, still worth the effort to pick, these can get crazy sweet under the right environmental conditions:

[bogman]

Mike, what are you doing with all those tomatoes? You turning red from all the Lycopene?

Aside from canning, thought I'd mention what I'm doing with the harvest. First up, salsa! The last salsa blend had the high honor of my wife saying it was the best she ever had, anywhere. She's a foodie, so I took notice   Everything was chopped using a razor-sharp knife, less juice and more consistent chunk sizes than a processor, 'bout 1/8-1/4 inch chunks. Chopped tomatoes were put in a sieve to drain while the other ingredients are all added to taste: Jalapeños-cored, seeded, Vidalia onion, Yellow/ Orange/Red, whatever Bell pepper, Finely ground greek oregano-(careful, flavor creeps out), finely ground basil, pressed garlic, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, ground cumin, black pepper, salt, cilantro. It's important to drain the tomatoes because of the added lime juice and vinegar; you don't want it too fluid.

Drying tomatoes has to be monitored so they don't oxidize and turn black. Keep the heat low, but most important is to remove them from the dehydrator as soon as they're dry and vacuum-seal them.

I'll be freeze drying some, for the first time. Freeze dried tomatoes can be crushed into tomato powder. Then, seeds can be sifted out. The vacuum sealed powder, along with an oxygen absorbing packet, can allow storage for up to 25 years! Plus, it's a fast way to make sauce (no long boil time), add to chili, gazpacho, etc.. Boiling as soon as rehydrated is important; tomatoes have enzymes which cause the juice and solids to separate. Boiling denatures the enzymes.

But, the bulk of them get processed by a Squeezo food mill. Made in the USA, this is the bomb for turning gallons of tomatoes into skin and seed-free juice/puree. Core tomatoes, chop into big chunks, e.g. quarters or halves and cook them briefly to denature the enzymes. When cool enough to handle. You put them in the Squeezo's funnel-shaped hopper and crank the handle. Seeds and skins come out one side, puree, the other. You can re-squeeze the seeds and skin to get the most pulp out possible. I can this juice by bringing to a boil, loading the jars and doing the boiling bath.  There are cheaper models of Squeezo imitators, for those on a budget. Even a Foley food mill will help remove seeds and skins.

During the winter, when we need the humidity, the juice gets turned into a reduction sauce on the wood stove, or added to chili. In the summer, it's the base for gazpacho and Bloody Marys.

Cautionary notes: I once made about 30 quarts of inedible tomato sauce by cooking them down with the seeds. After the long boil and canning, the seeds gave the sauce a weird, bitter flavor. Smaller tomatoes, with their higher seed count, are notorious for this.

Many tomatoes these days are low acid and require a bit of citric acid when canning their products. Follow package directions. If this step is ignored, it's possible to get botulism from canned tomato products.

And last, Tomato Wine! 4 lbs. green tomatoes+: 1 quart Lemon Balm leaves-including stalks, 1 lb. raisins, 1 lb. corn, barley or wheat, 2 lemons or oranges 3 lb. sugar, 1 gallon water, 1/2 pint of cold tea, yeast and yeast nutrient.

Soak the grains overnight. Scald the dried fruit and pass the tomatoes, grains, leaves and stalks, dried fruit and zest, through a processor. Put this in a fermenting jar, add sugar and pour the boiling water over this. Add cooled tea, lemon/orange juice, yeast and nutrient. Ferment for seven days. Then, strain into glass jars. fit air lock and ferment, rack in the normal way.

If you love British cuisine, this wine will pair with it.  It's a British wine recipe, from an old book "130 New Winemaking Recipes", C.J.J. Berry. Inside this treasure trove, you'll also find the secrets to make Onion wine, Oakleaf wine, Sarsaparilla and Banana wine, Rosemary wine , Parsley and Rice wine, Cabbage wine and more! (No, I have NOT made tomato wine, and have no intention of trying it.) Think I'll stick with British Ales!

[meizzwang]

Dang bogman, I was sweatin a little bit keeping up with all that in depth tomato nerd talk LOL

Where do all the tomatoes go?
1)AT my wife's work, one doctor asked another doctor if she could ask my wife to ask me if I could give her some tomatoes. Word got out and we gave a bunch of different doctors bags of tomatoes. A lot of these doctors are food pricks like myself.
2)My wife is having a baby shower at her work, and normally you wouldn't think tomatoes are great gifts, but the word has gotten around, and everyone wants them, so these will be given out as gifts.
3) I probably eat 1/2 lb daily right off the plants, can't help myself. I've turned into an A-hole and only want to eat them right off the vine! If a cherry or grape tomato sits in a basket for more than 2 days, I don't want it, that's how much of a prick one can become when you have all the tomatoes in the world. Exception to the rule is Dark galaxy, which is still really nice after sitting in the house for a few days.
4) My friend and his wife come over and "clean up" all the tomato varieties that we don't really want to eat. compared to anything you can get at the store or farmer's market, even my crappiest ones are still incredibly flavorful. But when you have an abundance of the best of the best, even very good tomatoes become undesirable.
5) I sun dried sun golds back in the day when I lived in Sacramento, CA, where it's hot as EF and very dry. Oh.MY.GOD! I think dried, they're even better! We had about 2 lbs of dried tomatoes and that didn't last more than a month unfortunately, almost reminded me of dried cranberries.
6) Sister in law and mother in law
7) family munches them too!



Most of the varieties I chose get better the longer you let them sit on the vine, so while it looks like there's a lot to harvest right now, maybe only 1/4 of the red ones are truly at peak ripeness.

Some closer shots of the Dark Galaxy harvest, such a beautiful tomato! It's surprising that the taste is also top notch: usually good looking fruit are selected for looks only, but this has it all: