Re: [tomato] getting ready to order seed. Need opinions.

Greg Park (Tomato@GlobalGarden.com)
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 11:16:47 -0700 

Hi Michelle,

Please oh please let me know how things turn out for you next fall!  I live
in Redondo Beach, CA and would really love to hear how others near me did.

This year I ordered 10 varieties from Chuck and grew them this year at a
friends house in El Segundo (I didn't have a yard at the time).  I grew:

1.  Anna Russian
2.  Brandywine - Joyce's strain
3.  Grushkova
4.  German Johnson
5.  Korean Love
6.  Reisentraube (cherry)
7.  Marizol Gold (Bi color)
8.  German Gold (bi color)
9.  Mammoth Gold (Bi color)

and one other I can't think of at the moment and my records are at home.


>I am in Southern Calif, zone 9, and I grow all of my tomatoes in large
>containers. If anything I have listed would not be suitable for containers,
>please let me know. Thanks.

None of the varieties I grew are suitable for containers unless you prune
the HEAVILY, as they are all vigorous indeterminate varieties.  Most of them
broke the bamboo supports I tied them to!  When I grow these next year I
will space them out much more and use a much sturdier support.  Many of the
vines were more than an inch thick and the plants really spread out.  If you
want to use containers, I would imagine 10-20 gallon size minimum per plant!

FYI, Anna Russian is a very wilty plant (looks like it needs water, but
doesn't).  Chuck says this is normal for oxheart varieties.

At any rate, my garden was near LAX airport and as you know, we had a very
strange summer; cool and overcast near the coast until recently.  I chose
all of my varieties by chucks descriptions.  I was really looking for SWEET
tomatoes.  Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.  My tomatoes all grew
vigorously.  However, they all didn't taste much sweeter than store bought
tomatoes!!!!  None of them were sweet in the least bit even though they were
very ripe.  I asked Chuck for his opinions and he said that there are so
many variables in climate, soil, etc. that any combination of these factors
could have contributed to the differences he and I experienced.  I
personally think it was due to a lack of warm sunshine.

Chuck was easy to do business with -- he was very prompt in shipping the
seeds and I'd do business with him again.  All my seeds germinated at over
90%.


I'm going to try these varieties again next year and hopefully, we'll get
some better sun here by the beach.

I hope this helps.


Greg