While we foresaw 2020 as another year of rehabbing the house, we wanted to at least get a start on some vegetable gardening to experiment. With the start of August, we are starting to see tomatoes ripen in our tiny garden. Part of the gardening process is watching and recording which varieties grow well and which do not. We tried four varieties of tomatoes, and we have some initial observations.
Yellow Pear - We have grown some variation of yellow pear tomato for many years, including starting Beam's Yellow Pear tomatoes from seed obtained from Seed Savers Exchange. This was a last-minute addition - I expanded the bed to make room for a plant we purchased from a local hardware store greenhouse. It has performed like other yellow pear tomatoes we have tried. The plant quickly outgrew its cage and was subsequently fenced in with chicken wire for additional support. It is covered with tomatoes that are just starting to turn bright yellow. Tasty, early-ripening, and productive. In the past, we have had plants producing yellow tomatoes until frost, and I expect this one will do the same.
Early Girl Bush - We purchased this to get some early slicing tomatoes. It is by far the smallest plant in our garden. I am assuming 'bush' means it is supposed to be a compact plant, probably for container gardening. It has produced some nice tomatoes, but not in a quantity I was hoping for. This variety may be better for a deck than a farm garden.
Jet Star - This is supposed to be a vigorous, productive slicing tomato. This plant seems to be the slowest growing of the group, and has not yet produced a ripe tomato. It has a lot of fruit on it, but the jury is still out on this one.
Midnight Snack - This variety was a 2017 All American Selection (AAS). Our plant has grown well. It does not have a lot of leaves, which makes it seem leggy, but I think this trait is a benefit as it allows improved air flow through the plant and makes it easier to see the tomatoes. We are just staring to get some ripe fruit with its unusual striations, and it is a sweet-tasting cherry tomato. As an indigo variety, it is supposed to be high in antioxidants.
There are a couple of factors that may be limiting production for us. The first is that this is a new garden bed. We simply removed sod and planted directly into the soil. Future amendments will likely improve production. I also interplanted onion sets around three of the tomato plants, which may be robbing nutrients for tomato production. Interplanting with shorter-lived crops like lettuce or radishes may have been a better choice.
All of these varieties are F1 hybrids, so the seeds will not produce true to type. Our long-term plan is to grown heirloom varieties so we can save the seeds each year. I have grown tomatoes and peppers from seeds on and off for many years. Once we get more settled, and have a larger garden, we look forward to seeing tiny plants emerge from their trays in April while everything else is still brown. One of the fun parts of winter is looking through seed catalogs and trying to decide what to try and grow. The hard part is setting a limit, as those seeds eventually become plants that need to go into a garden bed that may or may not yet exist.
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