Stupice is Out in Front .. Literally

Stupice (say "stoo-peach-ka") is one of my favorite tomatoes for so many reasons - it's early, it's frost-, heat-, drought-, and disease-resistant, it's productive, it's pretty, and it tastes like a big beefsteak tomato instead of a 4-ounce, 60-65 day fruit, which is what it is. This little Czech tomato is always the first one to set blossoms, and the first one of mine to bear ripe fruit.


Cattle panel in its 8th year and 3rd incarnation: I finally cut it all apart with bolt cutters and made individual cages.

It's also one of my favorites to use as a transplant tomato in the AppalSeeds Workshops because it is incredibly hardy and stands up to abuse that would decimate even Rutgers, our very tolerant and sometimes long-suffering Kentucky favorite. And finally, it's a happy-looking tomato with it's large blue-green potato-leaf foliage. The Stupice on the left is nearly twice the size of it's right-hand neighbor Piedmont Pear (which is equally healthy - but just a smaller plant).