Monday, September 16, 2013

Harvest Monday

Today I have a gathering of harvest photos going back to mid August. Harvests have been good since my last post but they have started to wane now. Our first frost generally hits in mid October, at that point all I will have in the garden is rutabaga, celery and possible broccoli if it starts producing again. I'm wishing I put in more cool season crops at this point.

I have already started planning for next year, in particular about tomatoes. I planted two hybrid paste tomatoes and four heirloom tomatoes this year. The hybrids look great and are pumping out the fruit. The heirlooms on the other hand are covered in blight, even the fruit is covered on a few. This winter I am going to find a few hybrid slicing tomatoes to replace half the heirlooms. There has to be a hybrid tomato that tastes as good as an heirloom, so far I have looked at Pink Beauty F1 from Johnny's. Anyone have any suggestions for a good tasting and disease resistant F1?

Here are the photos in no particular order:
Tiger's Eye Beans. They have done well this year. I planted them
a few years ago and they hardly produced. This year I planted two
four foot rows and they produced almost a pound of dry beans.
 Crenshaw Lily F1. Smelled amazing but it was not
very sweet. I just don't think my yard can grow melons.
There is one more developing, hopefully it will be sweet.
Kellogg's Breakfast Tomato. Very large, sweet and productive.

14 comments:

  1. I planted hybrids this year, due to losing so many heirlooms last year, and even with their disease resistance I lost most of them. All of my (8 plants) Celebrity died, but 3 of my four Super Fantastic grew well and disease free. I still think the best tasting were the Brandywines you sent, as well as Kellogg's Breakfast. I'm tempted to try heirlooms again, but go back to planting them in the bottomless buckets.

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  2. Sorry, I can't help with a tomato variety, I've not grown an F1 variety. Plenty of other F1 veggies in my garden, including 2 of my eggplant varieties, but no tomatoes. Good luck with your search.

    The beans look great and it looks like your cucumbers did well also.

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  3. Your harvest looks beautiful! I don't have much help with the tomatoes either. I hope you find something that works well!

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  4. Those Tiger's Eye beans sure look beautiful! I tend to plant a mix of both heirloom and hybrid tomatoes. My tomatoes always develop disease early on and I can't say I've noticed a whole lot of difference between the two types. Despite the disease, my Roma plants produced a lot of good sized healthy paste tomatoes this year.

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  5. I plant a few heirlooms each year in hopes I get one or two slicers from them. Besides their susceptibility to disease, they tend to be shy producers of tomatoes. You could try experimenting with grafted plants. The grafting grants some resistance to soil-borne disease but is useless for air-borne diseases like late blight. A hybrid you might check out is Big Beef. A lot of people praise it.

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  6. I have difficult in growing heirloom tomatoes, they either don't produce or they died of diseases. I'm looking for some small size good tasting hybrid for next year,

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  7. Your photos are gorgeous.
    Good luck finding a hybrid that tastes as good as heirlooms. Nothing has EVER beat Brandywine for flavor. Though I rarely get one (due to my short season) , I plant them every year.

    I'm still trying to find a hybrid that tastes good to me. Hubby likes Jetstar. I despise their watery insides. But the taste is "passable".

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    1. A couple of years ago I went to a tomato tasting festival. We did a blind taste test on 77 varieties, both heirlooms and hybrids. Each was identified by only a number, and after the tasting we were given a paper that matched our numbers to the names of the tomatoes. My two picks as the best tasting? Celebrity and Super Fantastic. Yes, I actually picked them over Brandywine and a bunch of other heirlooms! I posted about the experience, and the entire list of varieties tasted here:

      http://tinyurl.com/k8la5ox

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    2. Thanks , AG!!!
      You're the sweetest!

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  8. We have some winter onions and garlic to plant.

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  9. Beautiful harvests. I wish Tiger Eye would give me that high of a yield on beans. They never give me much, but I so love their texture.

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  10. I don't have as much problems with Heirloom tomatoes as I do with cucumbers here in T.O I loose every year to powdery mildew. Thats a VERY healthy looking harvest! Interesting how at this time of the year your thoughts automatically start considering next!

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  11. What's a zone-sixer got that I ain't got? 2 months more growing time! *jealous*.

    Those Kellogg's look delicious. Do they live up to their seedless reputation? Must give them a go. As usual, nice harvests and photos!

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  12. Great picks of your harvests. I grew ultra sweet beefsteaks this year and they were delicious and healthy all year. Large and fleshy.

    Liveintheyard.blogspot.com

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