Planting More Tomatoes - More Heirlooms

In my post on March 25th (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-tomato-starting-time.html), I described in detail my tomato planting process.

Since it has been about 10 days since I planted them, I have some good news and bad news:

As you can see, some of the tomatoes are coming nicely, however, quite a few haven't sprouted.  So what is a gardener to do?  The only answer really is simple:  replant.

Sometimes seeds can be finicky, even if they are the current year's seeds as these were, except for two of the peat pellets I planted.  By the way, the seeds I planted that were from 2103 didn't sprout, but some of the ones from 2014 didn't either.

So I used my last Jiffy seed starting tray and planted again.  This time, however, I chose some different varieties that I found locally since I had used up all the seeds that I ordered from Park Seeds and Jung Seeds (Rainbow Heirloom Blend and Artisan Blend).

The varieties I planted are as follows:

San Marzano - a plum tomato considered to be one of the best in the world.

Big Rainbow - the flesh inside is marbled with red in the bottom half of the fruit. It has a big, lumpy beefsteak shape with a very mild and sweet flavor. It's a knockout on a platter with slices of other tomato varieties. The large fruits (often 22 oz.) are borne on tall plants.

Pink Pounder - this 16 oz. shiny, pretty pink beefsteak has gourmet-worthy creamy, sweet, pink flesh and superb flavor.  Note - this is a hybrid.

Cherokee Purple - an old Cherokee Indian heirloom, pre-1890 variety; beautiful deep dusky purple-pink color, superb sweet flavor, and very large sized fruit. Try this one for real old-time tomato flavor.

Mortgage Lifter - this huge heirloom beefsteak (up to 4 lb.; average 2½ lb.) consistently wins taste-tests. Developed in the 1930s by a gardener who planted the four biggest varieties he knew and crossed one with pollen from the other three. He did this for six seasons and created a variety that produced immense, tasty fruit. He sold the plants for $1 a piece and paid off his $6000 mortgage in 6 years.

Crimson Cushion - a very old late-seasoned, wilt-resistant beefsteak variety. The fruits are large, fourteen to sixteen ounce, deeply ribbed, irregular, bright scarlet, juicy, yet solid and very prolific. Nice balance of tart and sweet. A real nice slicing tomato.

Finally, the weather has been slowly improving over the last week or so.  I have been putting my onion and leek plants outside in the greenhouse on sunny days.  I still am bringing the plants in at night since the temperatures have still been dipping below freezing most nights.  Next year it will be time to purchase a new greenhouse since the zipper on the left side has "blown out".

Speaking of the improving weather, hopefully we can say goodbye to winter,  Below are some photos I took last Sunday night, March 30, 2014.  We had 8 inches of snow that night:

Until next time.