Boron Elgar wrote:
songbird wrote:
Boron Elgar wrote:

So I planted some Mortgage Lifter tomatoes this year. The plants grew
very well, were most prolific in flowering, setting and ripening of
fruit.

The only problem is that the tomatoes are not wonderful. They look
fabulous. They would make ideal magazine shots or state fair entries,
but they are, at least to me, underweight for their size and have no
depth of flavor whatsoever.

aw!

thanks for saying. we've always been happy
with the beefsteaks. the past few years we
added the sweet 100s cherry tomatoes and they
are very good. two plants take up about 60sq
ft and keep producing so many we have plenty
to give away. i'd rather give away a half a
pint of cherry tomatoes instead of a three
pound beefsteak.

I like the sweet 100s. Their only flaw is a tendancy to split after a
heavy rain...much more so than any of the other cherries or small
tomatoes I have going this year.

hm, we had that problem last year, but not
this year as much. the watering lately has
been more even and we are picking more often
(when they are orange they taste as good to
me as a regular tomato) orange or red.

i'm splitting more by accidentally stepping
on them. the plants get rather large and
sprawl all over the place. still loaded with
fruit.


Yes...the cherries get given away, but those perfect full size
tomatoes are guarded like treasure.

past years we had more variety in sizes of
tomatoes so we had small ones i wouldn't mind
giving some away. this year they are not
perfect in shape (they are often having strange
holes in the ends, i suspect that being from
how hot it was when the fruit first set), but
they are mostly huge. we'll be picking again
tomorrow.


....
It's fun gardening.

sure is, i have been working on thinning out
the strawberries and planting the runners in a spare
spot. five gallon bucket packed full. i have another
two sides to finish yet. they will go in another
place to fill in that garden.

I grow strawberries for show, I swear...with what the critters leave
me, it is an exercise in futility.

oh, well, yeah, we have fences and defenses
in layers. without the 7ft fence for keeping
the deer out the rest of the gardening in
there would be pointless. one neighbor has
lost her complete pepper and tomato crop this
year to the deer.

in addition to the fence i put out snap
traps to reduce the chipmunk/mice/vole
populations and we have large rocks in
piles to encourage the snakes.

everbearing have more than one chance at
getting some kind of crop even if it is a
smaller one than the initial burst. i'm
just finishing the third round of flowering/
fruiting and might get another in before the
temperatures get too cold.


songbird