Frank Miles wrote:
....
I'd be delighted if others would share what they've learned - we're
definitely going to be trying new varieties next year! We're especially
interested in early to mid season as we don't get enough heat here to
ripen most varieties.

we are located in mid-michigan.

we grow beefsteak for canning/juice and sweet 100s
for cherry tomatoes.

this year we added roma tomatoes and tried the
ball beefsteak tomatoes that were supposed to be
resistant to diseases.

we were coming along well until a flash flood
knocked everything back for a few days and then
fungal attack took out the beefsteak and roma
leaves. both types had a large crop on them even
in spite of the heat and drought we'd been
experiencing. without the leaves the plants took
forever to ripen anything and most of what we
picked was orange. which we made into salsa.
the taste was still ok.

as for splitting, no tomato plant resists splitting
if the rain hasn't been coming and then there is a
storm. the cherry tomatoes will split and we pick
them and eat or put them in with the juicing or
chunk tomatoes when we put them up.

our previous six years of tomatoes all did get
ripe and we've always been happy, so this year was
not a normal year, but we'll go back to the regular
beefsteaks next season and hope that the weather
isn't quite as difficult. i'm not sure we'll try
romas again, but for salsa it was nice to have a
firmer tomato. i never did get to make sauce as
nothing was ripe enough for the color/flavor.

i think it was only the last few weeks that we
had more leaves growing and few enough fruits to
get red tomatoes. we have one more to eat up and
then that's it. frosts/cool weather shut down
the tomato plants a few weeks ago.


songbird