In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:26:05 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:04:10 -0700 (PDT), fsadfa


I don't care what variety the tomato I grew was - whether heirloom or
hybrid - I just want it identified.



How nice for you.

Likewise, I am sure.

I presume that your unidentified "heirloom" tomato is still in
production, it being only the 25th of Aug., and still full summer here
in the northern hemisphere.

The heirloom is spent and has been for almost 2 weeks. Late blight got
to it early, actually, and it spread from that to other plants near
by, taking out several others, but I have another patch of different
varieties far from it.

Northern NJ here. Great summer for tomatoes.. Never had so many
tomatoes so early in the season. Most grown from seed sewn directly in
the soil. I have great luck with that. The "heirloom" and Mortgage
Lifter were purchased as plants, though.

Go on with your exposition, I am sure someone is listening.

Boron

Will that please you?
--
- Billy
Both the House and Senate budget plan would have cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Kucinich noted that none of the government programs targeted for
elimination or severe cutback in House Republican spending plans
"appeared on the GAO's list of government programs at high risk of
waste, fraud and abuse."
http://www.politifact.com/ohio/state...is-kucinich/re
p-dennis-kucinich-says-gop-budget-cuts-dont-targ/

[W]e have the situation with the deficit and the debt and spending and jobs. And it's not that difficult to get out of it. The first thing you do is you get rid of corporate welfare. That's hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The second is you tax corporations so that they don't get away with no taxation.
- Ralph Nader
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/19/ralph_naders_solution_to_debt_crisis

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

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
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 have only two full size varieties growing this year (many cherry,
pear, patios, etc, as they bear and ripen earlier here), the MLs
and some identified only as "heirloom tomato" on the labeling, that
latter having been bought as a lark from a reduced rack at the
local grocery store.

I wish I knew what the "heirloom tomato" really was as it has
produced fruit that is everything that exemplifies a home grown
tomato with indescribably delicious complexity of taste.

the seeds should be reusable.


Really? You must have that Harry Potter wand and magic word that
turns plants back into seeds .... "Reverso tomaticus!"

LOL. I was thinking simialr thoughts at the use of 'reusable'.

Have you planted any toms yet or do you need to wait a while longer?

My summer stuff is still in trays.

You are organised. I havent' done a thing except for garlic and spuds in
situ.

The volunteers are coming up already but
there is still time for a frost before summer despite having budburst on
the stone fruits. So I will wait another 3 weeks to be safe.

I have some volunteer lettuce aroudn my rhubarb, and going gangbusters, but
that's it. Must get orf me date and do something.......

"Nad" wrote in message
...
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
FarmI wrote:

Have you planted any toms yet or do you need to wait a while longer?

My summer stuff is still in trays. The volunteers are coming up already
but there is still time for a frost before summer despite having budburst
on the stone fruits. So I will wait another 3 weeks to be safe.

How we differ, you are thinking of planting and I am thinking of harvest

I have been canning and freezing my summer bounty planning for the winter
while on the other side of the planet the summer is upon them.

In a way it does seem like, I am in the Muggle's world and the other side
is just past the 9 and 3/4 magical world.

Well, reading all those posts of fecundity from you notthern hemisphereans
has been rather hard on poor David and I for the past 3
months............... Now it's our turn :-))

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:01:26 -0700, Billy
wrote:


Go on with your exposition, I am sure someone is listening.

Boron

Will that please you?


There is enough BS here to keep a large farm well-fertilized.
If you want to preach, go for it. I am not particularly tolerant of
lectures or finger wagging about the One True Path.

Boron

Boron Elgar wrote:
....
There is enough BS here to keep a large farm well-fertilized.
If you want to preach, go for it. I am not particularly tolerant of
lectures or finger wagging about the One True Path.

all gardens are well done in BS.
as soon as the poop stops and nobody is
about to care for them then they'll
revert to the local flora in time.

at the moment, most of usenet is like
this with the few odd holdouts marking
the space, like the odd apple tree at the
margins of a lot that has long since grown
over and shows no signs of the previous
homestead.


songbird

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:01:26 -0700, Billy
wrote:


Go on with your exposition, I am sure someone is listening.

Boron

Will that please you?


There is enough BS here to keep a large farm well-fertilized.
If you want to preach, go for it. I am not particularly tolerant of
lectures or finger wagging about the One True Path.

Boron

Please indicate where you find the bull shit in my posts to you, so that
I may avoid similar gaffs in the future. It must be irritating to have
new gardeners making suggestions to you, but that is the price you pay
for posting to a mixed group of UseNet posters.

It does seem odd though, that someone who has "been growing tomatoes for
over a quarter of a century and have the methodology down pat", wouldn't
have tried to identify a tomato in their garden that "has produced fruit
that is everything that exemplifies a home grown tomato with
indescribably delicious complexity of taste", while they still had fruit.
Ate all of them, did ya?

But as you know with your quarter of a century of experience, because it
is an heirloom tomato, it will reproduce to type when you plant the
seeds next year. It doesn't really matter what it's called, does it,
because you have the seeds to re-grow it and enjoy it, again, and again,
because it is an self-pollinating (heirloom) tomato. Then, if you wish
to identify your mystery tomato, you can take it to someone who can
identify it (nursery, ag. extention, ect). Thank heavens that a person
like you with a quarter of a century of growing tomatoes behind them
knew to save the seeds for this tomato with "indescribably delicious
complexity of taste".

You did save the seeds , didn't you?

That's my kind of fun ;O)
--
- Billy
Both the House and Senate budget plan would have cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Kucinich noted that none of the government programs targeted for
elimination or severe cutback in House Republican spending plans
"appeared on the GAO's list of government programs at high risk of
waste, fraud and abuse."
http://www.politifact.com/ohio/state...is-kucinich/re
p-dennis-kucinich-says-gop-budget-cuts-dont-targ/

[W]e have the situation with the deficit and the debt and spending and jobs. And it's not that difficult to get out of it. The first thing you do is you get rid of corporate welfare. That's hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The second is you tax corporations so that they don't get away with no taxation.
- Ralph Nader
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/19/ralph_naders_solution_to_debt_crisis

Marcella Peek wrote:

That's the beauty of heirloom produce, you can save the seeds and
plant them instead of buying seeds.

We plant Romas and a variety called Scotia, allegedly one especially
suited to Nova Scotia's climate. Every year numerous Scotia plants
come up in the compost heap from the discarded rotters and (possibly)
from the pomace left from making last year's tomato sauce.

I really should try saving some of the seeds and starting them in the
micro-greenhouse [1] in March as the volunteers in the compost heap
are too late to bear heavily.


[1] Bigger than a phone booth but not by much.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

On Aug 25, 4:57 am, The Cook wrote:

I just made 3.5 pints of sauce from my grape tomatoes. *Couldn't think
of anything else to do with them. *About tomorrow I guess I will be
canning another7 quarts of tomatoes. *I'm thinking about
gazpacho, hummus and tzatziki today. *Bought some pita since I doubt I
will feel like making them today. *Maybe I will search the freezer and
see if I still have some there.


Did the same thing with an abundance of yellow pear tomatoes a couple
of years back.
Was VERY good.

I used to grow several different varieties each year and still try a
couple of new ones each year, but seem to have settled on Cosmonaut
Volkov and Super Marzano as my main crop varieties.

Cheers!
-Paul

What you describe doesn't sound like a mortgage lifter to me.

By "pretty", do you mean round, uniform and really red, like a
grocery store tomato?

My ML are huge, non-uniform in both shape and color, prone to
cracking, and generally just ugly. Definitely not pretty, but very
meaty and tasty, with few seeds and not very much juice.

We've been eating on a red one for the past couple of days. I put a
slice on a turkey sandwich and the slice overlapped a normal slice of
white bread by a couple of inches on every side. Not even enough
juice to make the bread soggy. If I were guessing, it likely weighed
at least a pound and a half.

Are you sure they are true ML?

tom


On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:28:35 -0400, 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.

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

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

Heh! I can relate. I get a few berries while I'm doing my garden work,
but not enough for a dish.... yet. The plants are expanding, and I hope
to add the adjacent bed into the strawberry fields next year.

I got hoops and netting to put over them, but Irene came along just
then, and I put off installing them.

Priscilla

In article ,
The Cook wrote:

I just made 3.5 pints of sauce from my grape tomatoes. Couldn't think
of anything else to do with them. About tomorrow I guess I will be
canning another7 quarts of tomatoes. I'm thinking about
gazpacho, hummus and tzatziki today. Bought some pita since I doubt I
will feel like making them today. Maybe I will search the freezer and
see if I still have some there.

I've been cooking with my extra cherry tomatoes (after giving several
bags away to my team lead who has two young sons), but it hadn't dawned
on me to make sauce and thus can them. Of course! How foolish of me.

One of my favorite ways to eat the extras is to cook a grass-fed beef
patty in a heavy cast iron skillet, then, when the patty's cooked, take
it out, turn up the heat in the skillet, and toss in freshly washed
cherry tomatoes. Shake the pan as they sizzle and get a bit cooked,
then pour/roll them onto the plate with the patty.

Also good with onion and mushroom put in first after a little EVOO, then
add the cherry tomatoes last. Add a glop of guacamole or just slices of
avocado to the plate with the patty and veggies, and you have a lovely
rather low-carb supper that took about 15 minutes to prepare. My
favorite kind.

Priscilla

"Priscilla H. Ballou" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Cook wrote:

I just made 3.5 pints of sauce from my grape tomatoes. Couldn't think
of anything else to do with them. About tomorrow I guess I will be
canning another7 quarts of tomatoes. I'm thinking about
gazpacho, hummus and tzatziki today. Bought some pita since I doubt I
will feel like making them today. Maybe I will search the freezer and
see if I still have some there.

I've been cooking with my extra cherry tomatoes (after giving several
bags away to my team lead who has two young sons), but it hadn't dawned
on me to make sauce and thus can them. Of course! How foolish of me.

One of my favorite ways to eat the extras is to cook a grass-fed beef
patty in a heavy cast iron skillet, then, when the patty's cooked, take
it out, turn up the heat in the skillet, and toss in freshly washed
cherry tomatoes. Shake the pan as they sizzle and get a bit cooked,
then pour/roll them onto the plate with the patty.

Also good with onion and mushroom put in first after a little EVOO, then
add the cherry tomatoes last. Add a glop of guacamole or just slices of
avocado to the plate with the patty and veggies, and you have a lovely
rather low-carb supper that took about 15 minutes to prepare. My
favorite kind.

Priscilla

Cherry tomatoes make the very best juice. Have a bloody Mary made with
cherry tomato juice, absolutely the best!

Steve Peek wrote:
....
Cherry tomatoes make the very best juice. Have a bloody Mary made with
cherry tomato juice, absolutely the best!

not sweet 100s, i did some juice from them
last summer as a test and it was sweet but
relatively tasteless otherwise.

we've added some to the tomato juice
this year as we've had so many and it
is a nice bit of added sweetness to the
complexity of the beefsteaks.


songbird

Priscilla H. Ballou wrote:
Boron Elgar wrote:

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

Heh! I can relate. I get a few berries while I'm doing my garden work,
but not enough for a dish.... yet. The plants are expanding, and I hope
to add the adjacent bed into the strawberry fields next year.

I got hoops and netting to put over them, but Irene came along just
then, and I put off installing them.

i hope that helps.

i've really enjoyed my patch this season
and now that i've started some everbearing
plants i've eaten a few here or there all
season. one plant just bloomed again so
i might sneak one more berry in before
the weather turns inhospitable.

my one patch is now expanding to three
patches, so i can have more to put up. i
eat too many and we give away enough to not
have left me much this year to make jam with.
so next year i hope to do a little better.
and perhaps i'll try not to eat quite so
many.

i still have to finish thinning the first
patch out. one edge to go and that should
give me more plants to continue the takeover
of one of the bean patches. it will be a
good use of the space for a few seasons.


songbird *oink*