Cutesy Maters

At the beginning of the growing season, I was overzealous about growing tomatoes.  I decided on a whopping 22 varieties.  LOL.  It was a lot of hard work, and definitely was a little crazy keeping track of them all, but it's finally paying off.  The tomatoes are turning color now, which is really, really late in the season.  It was a strange wet growing season with lots of rain and cloudy days.  So the tomatoes got off to a rough start.  But at last, I am finally picking so many beauties.  Here are some of the smaller varieties that I've been picking everyday.  Aren't they adorable? They are in different stages of ripeness, I pick them as soon as I see a flush of color because I have lots of squirrels that love eating them.

These are the varieties I tried to grow this year and some notes on them.  Despite all the varieties I tried to grow, only 14 varieties actually grew well enough to produce fruit.  These all turned into salsa, yum.

Brandywine - Large, giant tomatoes, most ranging half - 1 pound. Nice slicer.  Beautiful red color.  Full of flavor.  Very juicy inside.

Black Mystery - Jury is still out whether there is one of these plants in the garden.  Some of the marker ink on my homemade plant markers was washed away.

Cherokee Purple - Gorgeous color.  Meaty and a good slicer.  A squirrel ate the first tomato, still waiting for the other to ripen. 

Chocolate Cherry - Best tasting cherry I grew, rich deep flavor indicative of the purple family of tomatoes.  Not very prolific in container pots.  Will grow it in the ground next time, since I think it didn't like the container pot.

Hillbilly Potato Leaf - Just harvested my first Hillybilly, although it doesn't look like a Hillbilly.  I think I might have tagged this plant incorrectly.

Isis Candy - a nice size cherry, yellow / orange in color, nice tart taste, very prolific

Jaunne Flamme - Fabulous bright yellow / orange color, a little larger than a golf ball in size.  Great flavor and nice producer.
 
Paul Robeson - Gorgeous color tomato and super tasty. Nice rich deep flavor, fantastic raw with salt.  Not prolific but a keeper!

Persimmon - A beautiful orange color medium size tomato.  Flavor wasn't as tasty as I would like.  Meaty tomato, great to add to salads for the color. 

Roma - Surprisingly, I have at least 6 of these plants in the garden.  All volunteers!  I didn't have the heart to kill the volunteers so I just let them grow.  I didn't sow any of these seeds because last year they were plagued by Blossom End Rot, but this year, hardly any tomatoes had BER. I think because I added crushed eggshells around the soil.  Also, it seems like the plants were healthier because they were grown entirely outdoors. 

Rutgers - The most gorgeous red color tomato, nice size and meaty.  Good for sauces.  

Sungold - Too bad this little mater is a hybrid.  The flavor is outstanding a very prolific to boot!  I harvested the most cherries off this plant.
  
Tiny Tim - Super small tomato, burst of flavor, perfect for container planting, not very prolific

Yellow Pear -  I had 2 Yellow Pear plants in the garden, both were volunteers.  I don't particular think these are tasty tomatoes, but the shape and yellow color are adorable.

(I love these giant Brandywines, Isis Candy in the middle for size comparison)

Plants that did not make it:

Druzba - Plant died of disease, and some seeds did not germinate.  Sadly no plants survived.

German Johnson - Plant died from bug consumption.

Giant Belgium - Did not germinate
  
Green Zebra - Plant died from bug consumption.


Hovarth - Plant died, unknown cause. 

Manitoba - Plant died from bug consumption, and some seeds did not germinate.
 
Palmira's Northern Italian - Did not germinate. 

Pineapple - Plant died, unknown cause.

Purple Calabash - Did not germinate.    
 
San Marzano - Did not germinate. 

The best part of growing tomatoes.  SALSA, SALSA, SALSA.  Oh my good stuff.  Break open the tortilla chips.  Pronto!