May | 2018 | Delectation of Tomatoes, etc.

Fifty giant tomato seedlings were transplanted into the high tunnel late evening (planted by moonlight) of May 28, 2018:

Giant Tomato Vines in the Ground!

Here’s a quick look at them the next morning:

List of seedlings/competitors follow.

Along the north row, these first 25 (and the first three in the south row) were planted from seed on April 24th, so transplanted 34 days from sowing:

1. Behemoth King (2.491 Shlomin 2014)
2. Big Rainbow (1.888 LBH 2011)
3. Big Zac (1.246 DT 2016 (7.10 Foss 2014))
4. Big Zac (2.41 Ritchie 2016)
5. Big Zac (5.42 Strickler 2017)
6. Bigzarro (3.754 DT 2014)
7. Bulgarische Rosa Riese
8. Domingo (3.420 DT 2017)
9. Giant Heart Climber (Victory)
10. Gildo Pietroboni
11. Gold Medal (1.310 DT 2012)
12. KY Cygni (2.28 DT 2017)
13. Michael’s Portuguese Monster (2.610 DT 2012)
14. Nesravnenniy (1.894 DT 2017)
15. Peter Glazebrook’s Special (0.972 DT 2015)
16. Polish Giant (Goldman 2012)
17. Rhode Island Giant (2.006 DT 2014)
18. Ruttgers (2.370 DT 2015)
19. RW Cephei (3.376 DT 2017)
20. Sainte Lucie (2.150 DT 2017)
21. Serdtse Ameriki (1.924 DT 2014)
22. Sibirskiy Velikan Rozovy (2.066 DT 2014)
23. Tadzhikskiye (1.728 DT 2017)
24. Tamara (1.964 DT 2017)
25. Westerlund (3.698 DT 2015)

Along the south row, numbers 4-25 were planted from seed on May 8th, so transplanted 20 days from sowing:

1. Yaponiya (2.264 DT 2017)
2. Diamante (3.44 Oppedisano 2017)
3. Domingo (4.75 Marley 2014)
4. Big Zac (4.05 Borgers 2017) (5.75 Timm X Open < 6.22 Bryson 2015)
5. Big Zac (3.19 Borgers 2017) (8.36 Boudyo X self)
6. Big Zac (3.19 Borgers 2017) (8.36 Boudyo X self)
7. Big Zac (0.87 Borgers 2017) (Clone of 8.61 Sutherlund)
8. Big Zac (0.87 Borgers 2017) (Clone of 8.61 Sutherlund)
9. Big Zac (3.27 Borgers 2017) (7.18 Harp 2009 X open)
10. Big Zac (3.97 Borgers 2017) (7.05 Porkchop X open)
11. Big Zac (3.30 Borgers 2017) (7.10 Foss X open)
12. Big Zac (4.01 Borgers 2017) (6.83 Boudyo X open)
13. Big Zac (4.01 Borgers 2017) (6.83 Boudyo X open)
14. Big Zac (4.38 Borgers 2017) (6.79 Sutherland X Open)
15. Big Zac (4.38 Borgers 2017) (6.79 Sutherland X Open)
16. Big Zac (3.29 Borgers 2017) (LaRue X open)
17. Big Zac (3.48 Borgers 2017) (4.57 MacCoy X Open)
18. Big Zac (3.71 Borgers 2017) (6.15 Ansems X self)
19. Delicious (3.78 Borgers 2017) (7.33 Hunt 2010 X open)
20. Delicious (3.96 Borgers 2017) (6.83 Fulk X open)
21. Megamutt (5.24 Borgers 2017) (Megamutt (D))
22. Megazac (2.34 Borgers 2017) (6.13 Konieczny X open)
23. Megazac (2.34 Borgers 2017) (6.13 Konieczny X open)
24. Wixom Slammer (3.02 Borgers 2017) (3.77 Borgers X open)
25. Wixom Slammer (3.02 Borgers 2017) (3.77 Borgers X open)

Experienced giant tomato growers will notice several varieties that have not ever been recorded at bigpumpkins.com as producing giants. Well, these have shown some promise in the open field, so I’m putting them up against some tried and proven lines to see how they perform. Hopefully we’ll discover some fresh DNA for the world of competitive giant tomato growing!

A special thanks is obviously in order to Bob Borgers (bnot on bigpumpkins.com) who provided a huge portion of seeds from top-of-the-line genetics for this project!! Disappointed, however, that none of the seeds germinated from the 8.22 lb. Domingo.

Anyhow, in the planting holes went all kinds of good stuff:

In addition to products shown here, about 1.5 cubic yards of spent mushroom compost was incorporated into the soil, along with Azomite (source of trace minerals), Redmond sea salt, Sustane 4-6-4 (slow release organic fertilizer) and bone meal. I plan to start applications of liquid nutrients tomorrow.

Goal: to exceed 5 POUNDS with at least one tomato this year.

Ok, on to the 2018 Dwarf Tomato Project!

Following is a list of 71 dwarf varieties I am growing in 2018 – note that for a few of these I have seeds available (see https://www.delectationoftomatoes.com/store/c10/Dwarf.html ); hopefully by November, seeds of all of these will be available:

Adelaide Festival
Auria
Banksia Queen
Barossa Fest
Big Green Dwarf
Boronia
BrandyFred
Bundaberg Rumball
Chocolate Champion
Chocolate Lightning
Demidev
Dwarf Arctic Rose
Dwarf Barossa Moon
Dwarf Beauty King
Dwarf Bendigo Dawn
Dwarf Black Angus
Dwarf Blazing Beauty
Dwarf Caitydid
Dwarf Confetti
Dwarf Crimson Sockeye
Dwarf Firebird Sweet
Dwarf Franklin County
Dwarf Golden Gypsy
Dwarf Golden Heart
Dwarf Kelly Green
Dwarf Lemon Ice
Dwarf Mahogany
Dwarf Mandurang Moon
Dwarf Mr. Snow
Dwarf Orange Cream
Dwarf Pink Opal
Dwarf Pink Passion
Dwarf Purple Heart
Dwarf Sarah’s Red
Dwarf Sarah’s Red (2nd tag D Saucy Mary)
Dwarf Saucy Mary
Dwarf Scarlet Heart
Dwarf Shadow Boxing
Dwarf Shadow Boxing (NOT dwarf)
Dwarf Sneaky Sauce
Dwarf Velvet Night
Dwarf Wild Spudleaf
Fred’s Tie Dye
Husky Pink
Kangaroo Paw Brown
Kangaroo Paw Green
Kangaroo Paw Yellow
Kookaburra Cackle
Loxton Lad Dwarf
Loxton Lass Dwarf
Lucky Swirl
Mallee Rose
Maralinga Dwarf
Nevskiy
New Big Dwarf
Pertsevidnyi Polosatyi
Red Alert
Rosella Crimson
Sosulka Krasnaya
Summer Sweet Gold
Summertime Green
Sweet Adelaide
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf
Tanunda Red
Tasmanian Chocolate
TastyWine
Totushka
Uluru Ochre
Waratah Dwarf
Wherokowhai
Willa’s Cariboo Rose

I am doing a paired experiment: one seedling of each dwarf variety in garden soil, and its matched pair in a 7-gallon grow bag with a potting mix that I concocted.

For completeness, here is a list of another 35 dwarf (including dwarf determinate) varieties which I am not growing this year but have seeds in stock to share with other growers:

Al-Kuffa
Beryl Beauty
Big Dwarf
Boloto
Dwarf Emerald Giant
Dwarf Golden Champ
Dwarf Jade Beauty
Dwarf Red Heart
Dwarf Russian Swirl
Dwarf Shadow Boxing
Dwarf Stone
Dwarf Sweet Sue
Dwarf Wild Fred
Husky Red
Iditarod Red
Krainiy Sever
Large Lucky Red
Lime Green Salad
Nano
Orange Pixie
Perfekta
Perth Pride
Polish Dwarf
Purple Reign
Qiyanai-Huang
Rosella Purple
Sean’s Yellow Dwarf
Shamrock
Sleeping Lady
Snow Fairy
Summer Sunrise
Summertime Gold
Tennessee Suited
Utyonok
Yukon Quest

And now for Micro-dwarfs!

I already have seeds of:

Red Robin
Venus

And this year I am growing out these additional 16 varieties to trial and for seeds:

Andrina
Aztek
Baby
Birdie Rouge
Florida Petite
Gold Pearl
Jochalos
Micro Tom
Minibel
Mohamed
Orange Hat
Pinocchio
Pinocchio Red
Rainbow Dwarf
Rejina Red
Rejina Yellow
Tigrette
Yellow Canary
Yellow

Now for the main tomato project – you don’t really want me to list all of these do you? At last count, 497 ADDITIONAL varieties, so 497 + 50 (giant tomato project – many are lineages, not unique varieties) + 71 (dwarf) + 16 (micro-dwarf) =

634 tomato varieties

That I am planning on saving seeds from this year. There are at least an additional 40 varieties that I have not even planted from seed yet – replacements of varieties already lost this year, etc.

And this doesn’t even count peppers, melons, beans, squash, herbs, etc. Perhaps and additional 100 varieties? I still have not finest extracting and processing seeds from the 2017 season…

Here are a couple of helpers discovered in the high tunnel: