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Re: Tomatoes

Dara (zone 7 or possibly 6 in the mountains of western North Carolina) asked
for tomato variety suggestions.  She's presently lined up with
>Heatwave hybrid (already have 2 plants growing)
>Tiny Tim (already have 7 plants growing)
>Trip-L-Crop (3 plants growing)
>Rutgers (7 plants growing)
>Beefsteak
>Amana Orange
>Homestead
>Red Cherry, Large Fruited

I was not knocked out by Heatwave's flavor last summer (as I'm generally not
by the hybrids).  It did set fruit during hot weather, but so did all my
other types in '97 (a cooler-than-normal and much wetter-than-normal summer
in greater Washington, DC).

Rutgers still has many fans and I believe has been a staple of the New
Jersey truck-gardening industry for decades.

Amana Orange is the only one on your list that I'm absolutely sure is an
heirloom, open-pollinated tom (i.e., not a hybrid).  Good things are said
about its flavor, but I've never grown it.

Here are some toms I've had terrific luck with in recent years:

Hybrids

Dona
Carmello
[both strong flavored, almost tasting like heirlooms but with better disease
resistance]

Park's OG Whopper [very nice performance in '97 and NO cracking or green
shoulders]

For paste:  Mama Mia [superb and wildly prolific; can't understand why it's
almost impossible to find]

Heirlooms

Brandywine [numero uno--you gotta have this one even though plants don't
make many fruits and there's virtually NO disease resistance]

Yellow Brandywine [sampled it in '97 at the Behnke's Tomato-Tasting Festival
in mid-August; out of this world and a lovely bright orange, not yellow at all]

St. Pierre [an old French, strong-flavored variety]

Dara, if you'll send me your snail-mail address, I'll forward a selection
from the above list so you can try them out yourself.

>So, given my own consumption and giving some away or selling some to
>the local market, how many plants total should I grow? Anyone?

If you have lots of sunny spaces to fill with tomatoes, 30 plants would not
be too many under these circumstances, particularly if you emphasize the
nonhybrids and go for the flavor gusto.

If you have plenty of fluorescent light setups ready to go and can work out
a deal to let your local farmers' market SELL your seedlings to other
people, go for a much higher number.  Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter is
a famous SW Virginia/West Virginia-based heirloom tomato that a
car-radiator-repairman named Charlie selected out over several years in the
1930's in his own garden.  He named his best offspring 'Mortgage Lifter'
because he retired the mortgage on his house by selling the seedlings at $1
apiece *during the Depression.*  This price is nothing short of amazing
(steak dinners were going for 25 cents at the time in the Midwest...).

In short, there's money in them thar seedlings if you can find a suitable
outlet.

--Janet Wintermute

>Dara - still looking forward to spring. Went to bed the other night
>with 1/2 of snow on the ground. The local folks say to plant anything
>that's frost tender on or after May 10th.

May 10 is definitely borderline too early where you are.  We had a killing
frost in D.C. on May 11 last year, and everybody but me lost all their
outplanted toms, peps, and eggplants.  I was running behind on my
seed-starting and got saved by my own incompetence, putting stuff into the
raised beds on May 23 and losing nothing.


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