Wednesday Glamour Shots

I first took pictures of all the plants in the isolation bed on May 24 just after heeling in; the second set of photos were taken two weeks later on June 06. It's hard to believe that another two weeks have passed and it's time to post the update on the growth of these 14 varieties, but here they are.

Everyone ready for glamour shots first thing this morning.

Maruskin's Andes - see the "wispy" foliage? But compare this plant's foliage to Lusignan's Special. This year there are several in this bed with wispy foliage - Andes,  Lusignan's Special, Polish Linguisa, Hartford, Verna, and Nolt's Holy Land.

Maruskin's Andes blossoms.

Butler Skinner. I cut the cattle panel sideways to make this cage, so the height of each opening is 8" rather than 6" on this cage. Butler is always one of the giants in the tomato bed.

Butler Skinner blossoms: Butler is slow about doing everything (except putting on huge growth). Slow to germinate, slow to flower, slow to ripen. But truly one of the most beautiful and tasty tomatoes I've ever grown.

Depp's Pink Firefly. The Depps were very slow to put on any kind of growth this year in the seedling beds. I did not fertilize them as they like to be - they are really big eaters that thrived the year I actually killed some varieties by making a mistake in the feeding schedule. Depp loves lime, calcium and phosphorus supplements.

Depp's Pink Firefly blossoms - looks like it's going to be a stellar crop. I make sure to shake these plants at least once a day, including directly stimulating the blossoms to ensure good fruit set since they won't have as much help from insects this year due to the tulle isolation barres.

A typical Depp leaf - this type of gigantic, tropical leaf is very typical of almost all the potato-leaf varieties. Huge growth, robust cell structure, and fewer crenellations in the leaf mean better disease resistance, as well as cold and heat tolerance. They're long-lived and generally healthy although not necessarily any more resistant to early and late blight as a group.

Greenbush Italian is the monster this year. It's already nearly up to the top of it's cage, and seems to be thrilled to be alive. Very healthy, strong seedlings, quick germination. If the fruit is anything to write home about I'll be using this one as a transplant tomato for spring programs. Had absolutely no trouble with this as a seedling. Tough as nails, big eater, and does a lot with the food it gets.

Greenbush had a baby and I didn't even know it. I would have bet any money on this being an elongated paste or even a slightly oxheart-shaped fruit, but I believe it's going to be a fat pendulous oval.

Nolt's Holy Land is still a mystery, but it's a tremendous plant, robust in growth which can be unusual for the wispy-leaf plants. Still have no idea what the fruit will be like. This is a multiply-branched plant, with several primary stalks originating near the soil line. Definitely one to cage rather than stake for a variety of reasons - wispy foliage, lots of branches, seems to be a fairly brittle-stemmed plant as well. She's also having an aphid attack right now, so I sprayed with a chamomile / tea-tree oil / baking soda solution to see if I could knock the infestation down a bit while providing some natural antibacterial support.

The winner of the triumvirate of tiny seedlings I planted in this plot. Jaune Flammee is one of John Maruskin's favorite tomatoes, and one of the only two he asked for by name this year....and when it was time to plant I realized with horror that I had sold all the large plants without saving one for us. I had also tossed the Flammees into the composting bucket just that week, so I had to root around for still-living seedlings covered in soil. I came up with about 8 and planted the three strongest-looking ones in the compost bucket.

The Kenny, from Mischelle Hodgkin. You can tell that this one has really put on some monster growth like the Depp in the last two weeks. I anticipate the potato-leaf plants catching up with their older siblings over the next two weeks.

Another plant I had no intention (like Holy Land) of growing this year. Beauty was such a, well, beauty when I grew it out to use as transplant tomato for the programs that I fell in love with it - and then after reading a little bit more about it in Livingston's book I decided that I had to grow it. Supposed to be trouble-free, glorious-tasting 19th-century sweetheart.

Livingston's Beauty blossom cluster. Apparently prolific!



Lusignan's Special is one to fight for. Very frail looking but tougher than you'd imagine - this was introduced to Seed Savers Exchange supposedly by William Woys Weaver. Hails from Lusignan, a small French town, and produces luscious rose-red bomb-shaped fruit about 4 to 7 ounces each. It looks like a paste tomato, but it has a tender, juicy sweet flesh.

Lusignan's Special appears nowhere online, in a catalog, or anywhere else that I have found, and I was shocked to find that it was not listed anywhere in the Seed Savers Yearbook this spring, so I'm encouraging everyone I can find to grow out a couple of plants and keep it going.  

Peacevine Cherry seemed to experience a drop from catalogs this year. Great-tasting full-flavored cherry does beautifully as a roasting tomato. Gorgeous in salads. Big feeder, needs a good boost of phosporus. Hard to kill. Seems to never have any blight issues. Super-high in gamma-aminobutyric acid.

Peacevine Cherry fruits.

One of my favorite pastes - a tie with Andes. Sturdy, a fatter wispy-leaf. Doesn't seem as robust as I remember it, but still a strong grower.

Rose Beauty produces creamy-yellow fruit with a pink blush on the bottom when dead ripe. Beautiful plant, beautiful fruit, great-tasting, full-flavored and not bland like many pinks and yellows. From the Rose Family in Estill County, Kentucky. Hard to find - and I can't figure it - the seedling is another super-robust one that requires no extra care. Shows drought tolerance and some disease tolerance / resistance in my garden.

Rose Beauty flowers. Lots of polycarps this spring.



Verna Orange - a stunning orange oxheart. No blight resistance, hence the huge stack of hay underneath her. Unfortunately I think Verna is one of those tomatoes that hates being mulched, so I'm not sure what to do with her this year. She's healthy enough, but I need to aerate her soil . She's at the end of the line to get superior air-circulation in an attempt to stave off blight, but she may be getting and staying a little nutrient-starved, so I'm going to up her feeding schedule a bit. She'll be getting a drink of Dutch Soil from Homestead Gardens Nursery in Casey County KY.

Verna Orange flowers. Vernas produce gigantic orange oxhearts that are a sold sheet of mango colored and textured flesh when cut. Fewer than 100 seeds per 16 to 20 ounce fruit. Gourmand's delight; seed-saver's and grower's nightmare. Worth every bit of extra care she requires. Getting to be hard to find ... and Verna is an oddly strong, fast-growing seedling. Excellent germination always, even in older seed that has been poorly kept. I think she wants to make every seed count since she doesn't produce very many!

Another hard-to-find oxheart. I believe I got seed first from Bill Minkey. Hartford is a beautiful deep rose-red oxheart with a glorious flavor. Pretty productive, but stops producing early on, at least the last time I grew it that's what happened. Well worth it for the fruit. Eastern box turtles will be a problem if you grow Hartford and you have a lot of this critter in the neighborhood. We had a big male who took out a Hartford every single day. I found him asleep one afternoon with his nose resting in the remains of what had been a one-pound fruit.