Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Interesting. I'd rather give long season tomatoes some early protection
rather than grow an earlier one that doesn't get rave reviews. With the
investment of time and materials in the greenhouse we can't afford to waste
it on ordinary tasting tomatoes. Last year we wasted two beds on French
heirlooms, Marmonde and Market Marvel. Just didn't have that
drop-dead-delicious taste, tho the Market Marvel fruits held up to frost
better in Nov. Only tried Marmonde because it was the only variety sold by
Vilmorin a hundred years ago that's still sold today. 

Anyone else tried Sophie's Choice, Moskvich, or Black Cherry? How about
Matt's Wild Cherry? 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 1/5/2008 at 9:31 PM yarrow@sfo.com wrote:

>Is Early Girl on your list? I grew it last year, and it produced well 
>as a late tomato, but it wasn't much earlier than the heirlooms I 
>grew. Here in the SF Bay Area, where we have cool nighttime 
>temperatures, I picked the last one around Thanksgiving. This year, I 
>planted one in a  pot for a neighbor. It still has flowers and has 
>been trying to ripen one fruit for the past month. (At my garden, the 
>tomatoes were all frosted a couple months ago.)
>
>By itself, the flavor is good, on the sweet side. But compared to any 
>of the heirlooms I grew, the flavor of EG was flat instead of 
>multidimensional. It keeps very well because it has thicker than 
>usual skin. When I had both Siberia and Early Girl in my garden, EG 
>tasted far better and seemed to produce a little better in cooler 
>weather, too.
>
>On the gardenweb tomato list, discussions of early tomatoes (or 
>tomatoes that set fruit in cooler weather) usually end up with this: 
>none of them are really worth growing, if you can bear to wait 
>another couple weeks for the really good ones. Two early varieties 
>that some people think have good flavor are Sophie's Choice and 
>Moskvich.
>
>Other early tomatoes I've grown are Siberia (huge production, but 
>so-so flavor); Stupice (consistent production, small, ok flavor but 
>not good enough to try more than once) -- and, of course, many 
>varieties of cherry tomatoes, which for me are reliable and tasty 
>both early and late in the season when other varieties are weak. I've 
>liked Tommy Toe, Galina, Sun Sugar (hybrid), Black Cherry, all of 
>which produced huge amounts and had great flavor.
>
>Other varieties worth trying are the long-season tomatoes. Here, some 
>indeterminates peak early in the season and then produce a few small 
>tomatoes. These varieties are supposed to produce better over a 
>longer season: Rostova (Sunset Red Horizon), Big Zac, Mexico, Earl's 
>Faux, Ste. Lucie, Persimmon, Druzba. Last year, Aunt Ruby's German 
>Green produced big tomatoes even toward the end of the season for me.
>
>At 8:29 PM -0800 1/5/08, Phil Bunch wrote:
>>That's good news.
>>
>>I'm going to try some of the varieties that are supposed to set at temps
>>considerably below 55F planted out normally. However, not having grown
>them
>>before, I don't know if we are going to like the flavor. Hence the backup
>>plan with the hoop house.
>>