Brag and drool lists

Here is my list of tomatoes for this season. Yes, there are a lot. No, I am not mad. I think.

Tomato – Becker's Blau
Tomato – Black Cherry
Tomato – Black Krim
Tomato – Cherokee Purple
Tomato – Dixie Golden Giant
Tomato – Earl of Edgecombe
Tomato – Golden Ponderosa
Tomato – Green Giant
Tomato – Grosse Violette
Tomato – Grub's Mystery Green
Tomato – Grusha Chyorhaya
Tomato – Heinz 1370F
Tomato – Huge Black
Tomato – Ida Gold
Tomato – Imur Prior Beta
Tomato – Jaune Flammee
Tomato – Kellogg's Breakfast
Tomato – Kotlas
Tomato – Krasnyi Velikan
Tomato – Lime Green Salad
Tomato – Marianna's Peace
Tomato – Mariette
Tomato – Milka's Red Bulgarian
Tomato – Moldovan Green
Tomato – Olomovic
Tomato – Orange Minsk
Tomato – Oregon Spring
Tomato – Peruvian Cherry
Tomato – Polar Baby
Tomato – Red Cloud
Tomato – Silvery Fir Tree
Tomato – Soldacki
Tomato – St. Pierre
Tomato – Striped Cavern
Tomato – Striped Turkish Monastery
Tomato – Sub Arctic Plenty
Tomato – Tasmanian Blushing Yellow
Tomato – Woodle Orange

I'm leaning towards the processing type this year. See how restrained I have been! I may abandon all hope and have to cull a few more. I've marked those I'll be saving seeds from. Maybe now we need a database of seeds in our caches?

Planting 2008
Annie (seed)
Black from Tula
Black Krim
Bonnie Best (seed)
Cherokee Chocolate (seed)
Cherokee Purple
Coromandel Russian Red (seed)
Crete (seed)
Cuastralee (seed)
Cypriot (seed)
Debarao
Druzba
Eva Purple Ball
Harbinger (seed)
Hillbilly (seed)
Le Casa di Apulia
Marianna’s Peace (seed)
Mortgage Lifter
Nebraska Wedding (seed)
Olomovic
Palmwoods (seed)
Pink Gaetano (seed)
Ponderosa Pink (seed)
Principe Borghese
Prue (seed)
Purple Calabash
Purple Russian
Rainy’s Maltese
San Marzano
Santorini (seed)
St Pierre (seed)
Sweet English
Tasmanian Blushing Yellow (seed)
Tatura Dwarf
Yellow Brandywine
PROJECT
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Pink
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Chocolate F3
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Chocolate F4
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Pink#2 F3
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Pink#4 F4
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Red #3
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Red #2
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Red #4
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Red #1
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Claret PL F2
Cosmic’s Tasmanian Claret RL F2

Oh for unlimited water! All those tomatoes to grow, and only half a lifetime left! This season, only two repeats from last season
Maules golden jubilee
Tommytoe

and new for this season
Black Trifele,
UK 2000
Kelloggs breakfast
Grubs mystery green (haven't heard from grub for a year or so?)
Rio Fuego Nana
Raff (already in bud!)
Cebrino
Riesentraube
Jaune Flammee
Rainy's maltese

A punnet of habenero chillies went in too,

and overwintering
Firecracker chilli,
'asian' chilli (i thinkits a birds eye, or a Thai
and a long black eggplant from the nursery that was a great producer.
T

Unlimited water? That would be nice. We are on rainwater - so it's very limited. Tomatoes get a water once a week in the height of summer - if they are lucky.

T, interesting list you have. Enjoy!

Gnome,
that's almost 40 toms. say a bucket a week for 16 weeks- 40X10X16= 6400 litres, yeah do-able i suppose
But don't you get stressed plants, and blossom end rot?
T

Templeton wrote:Gnome,
that's almost 40 toms. say a bucket a week for 16 weeks- 40X10X16= 6400 litres, yeah do-able i suppose
But don't you get stressed plants, and blossom end rot?
T

Interesting calculation, T.
However, the height of summer up here is maybe 4-6 weeks in a row where I will water weekly (a watering can with 8-9 litres). The rest of the time I water far less often and not even a watering can full (4-5 litres, maybe).

The plants don't get stressed as they are used to little water. I mulch very thickly, too. Also soil preparation is very important. I try to build it up very well (lots of compost, manure, etc.). So even on a very hot day at lunchtime, when you dig into the soil around the tomatoes, there will be good moisture in the soil.

Nice lists people. Grub has a new(ish) job. That and his little daughter consume most of his time these days I'd imagine.
I'll hang off posting my list until after they go into the ground. That should be in about 3 or 4 weeks. We've had summer like weather until today. Currently it's raining, windy and cold.

I'm not into growing heaps of varieties of tomato (takes away from space to put my roses ), but I do intend to keep four varieties this year. I have Hillbilly (seeds), Purple Russian(seeds), , and a Roma variety (seeds), to put in AND I have just had a germination from 8 saved seeds of a variety I believe you might find very difficult to get here in Australia called Island Red, brought back with me from Norfolk Island. I had a whole packet of them last season and sowed them too late... got tons of plants but only 2 tiny fruit and 8 seeds in total. They are a variety that yates was producing to distrubute around the sub-tropical and tropical islands that could cope with higher levels of humidity. Then I found out from Linda that Yates had discontinued them and friends out on Norfolk Island said there were no packets left tha they could find. After pre-germinating them this week I have a single germinant (think that covers my bragging bit LOL)

Now onto my main question... when growing different varieties together, where there are some very rare ones among them, how do you ensure there is no cross pollination to keep the variety pure? I'm interested in keeping Island Red going but if it's near Hillbilly, Purple Russian, or the Romas they could end up as anything I don't have a greenhouse to keep them in.

TasV,
by accounts on the web, (not personal experience) most toms are self pollinators - the flower structure means most toms pollinate themselves. You could be sure by buying some draw string gauze bags from a $2 shop - used for bridal gifts i think - and place over the flower buds before they open. This might prevent insect pollination. A way around that is to use a cheap disposable vibrating toothbrush about 6 bucks, and vibrate the flowers when they open. Manto taught me that one.
T

Tomatoes are generally self-pollinators but if you garden without chemicals you'll have plenty of insect pollinators, particularly the native Blue-banded Bee. If you want to be certain, then bag a blossom truss or two. Cut off any flowers that have already opened before enclosing in a bag of some sort. Kmart sell gauzy gift bags that work quite well. Don't forget to mark that truss so you don't forget. You remove the bag as soon as fruit are evident, usually when the petals start to die. Cut off any flowers that have yet to open. Voilà, you will have a few tomatoes whose seeds you will know are pure. Of course, if you happen to have some light gauzy material lying around just tie a piece around a truss rather than buying bags. An alternative is to bag an entire plant. I use this method for capsicums and chillies. Before doing so, identify a couple of trusses, remove the opened flowers, mark the chosen trusses (I use bright yellow gift ribbon), wrap the plant gently in your chosen material, remove when fruit are evident on your chosen trusses.
Hope this helps.

Interesting about the water. I know people round here who always grow tomatoes over the summer, but haven't grown them for a couple of years because of the water. I am a very slack gardener. I basically put things in a forget them. Just before going away to Qld last Dec (pre Christmas) I got the guilts about my tomatoes, lettuce and eggplant. I went and carted buckets of tank water to them - first watering since planting. Then I mulched them deeply (about 8") with loose pea straw. They got watered maybe 2 more times after that, then we got a bit of autumn rain. All up, each plant got maybe 20L of water for the growing season. We had a really good crop. No rot, a bit smaller maybe than usual, but excellent flavour. The crop was late, and lasted through until the end of May. Egg plants ditto.
The lettuce however, was a failure and went to seed. Sometime this autumn, eleventy billion lettuce seeds sprouted, and we have been eating lovely tasty green mignonette lettuces all year. To date they have only been watered by rain.
Cheers, Jan