Early Look at 2023?

[karstopography]

Right now, I’m at a floor of 15 tomato plants and a ceiling of 25, so down some from the 29 of 2022. Plan is to give each plant more space to aid in maintenance, pruning, etc.

I’m thinking about doing half in pinks and reds and the rest in assorted colors with 2 to 4 cherries.

I have roughly 50 varieties of seeds to choose from. Top pinks on the list are Polish, SOTW, Pruden’s Purple, Dester and Hoy. Reds are Big Beef, Beefmaster, Brandywine OTV, Aussie, and Delicious.

Yellow are Lillian’s and Hugh’s
Black are Carbon and Bear Creek and Black Brandywine
Bicolor are Gold Medal and Hillbilly
Might do a white and GWR
Cherries are Sungold, purple Rosella, Coyote and Matt’s wild
Might do Principe Bourgese for drying.

If this list does not get changed before seed starting time, it’ll be a miracle.

What’s in your crystal ball?

[Paulf]

Ah, but then Texas is about 4 months ahead of us northerners. Ask me again in March.

[wykvlvr]

DH says more beans, fewer tomatoes this year... nope I was polite and didn't laugh at him. I will just go ahead and plan and plant the garden I want. My garden is small and most of my tomatoes will go in grow bags in the front just like this year.

Current tomato list is short so I have room for surprises from the swap....
Pendulina Orange- this one surprised us this year so far the best of the basket tomatoes we have tried
Puck - Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds 2022 lovely green shouldered purple? rich complex flavor for us.
Northern Light - another from Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds - this one looks like a store tomato but wow the flavor
Big Hill - bicolor that was also a nice surprise flavor wise.
Artic Rose- will give it another try
Melon Ball- so far none of my seedlings have survived this is the last time I will try it.

Grin and to make DH happy all kinds of beans but these will go in the back garden
Dry Beans
Coco Rubico
Dapple Grey
Early Vermillion
Eden Valley
Nez Perce
Speedy Alpine Dry Bean Grex
Snap Beans
Provider
Buckskin Girl
Kishwaukee Yellow
Madelia

[PlainJane]

I’ll be growing around 35 varieties but haven’t started winnowing the list yet.

[Tormahto]

My crystal ball goes from purple, to green, to red, back to green, and ends with pink (poppies). I think I'll stick with mostly pink, in tomatoes and beans.

[Toomanymatoes]

Still figuring it out. Probably will prioritize varieties that I have not grown and purchased seeds for starting back in 2020.

Might also trial Tormato's double planting method so I can try more varieties.

I would love to try a few plants each from several sources for a single variety as well. Always been curious about that.

[Yak54]

Well for me the day has come when I'm forced to downsize my garden to just 5-6 tomato varieties and 4-5 pepper varieties because I'm no longer physically able to take care of my usual larger numbers of plants. And my biggest struggle is which tomato varieties do I drop and which ones do I keep. And there are 3 varieties on my bucket list that I need to try before it's too late. So I'll keep two of my favorites from past years (Brandywine Cowlick's, and Polish) and add Rebel Yell, SNFLA, and Prue. It's killing me that I can't also have my usual SOTW, Lucky Cross, and Dester but I have to keep the number of plants down so I can manage them properly. Oh well I'm grateful to be able to still do it and looking forward to trying out the new ones.

Dan

[habitat-gardener]

The name of the game is nematode resistance and (starting to think about) crop rotation. So far I have several nematode-resistant tomato hybrids (Purple Boy, Damsel, Chocolate Sprinkles, Bush Early Girl) plus Golden Guardian marigold and California Black Eye no. 5. Still planning to get in a cover crop of nematocidal Kodiak mustard, so I may try other tomatoes as well. This year, the Benevento F1, Start F1, and Polaris tomatoes, at least, produced ok even though their roots showed nematode damage.

Since I planted nightshades in almost all my garden beds in the past couple summers, I don't really have a place in the rotation for nightshades! But at least I can try different things next year. Corn, onions, garlic, and strawberries are the few nonsusceptible crops, along with marigolds and zinnias. And maybe grow fewer than this year's 64 tomato plants, 40 pepper plants, and 20 eggplant plants! I will continue to look for bush and pole beans that can do well here, and grow more of the Red Noodle long beans, which love the 100F+ summers.

[Tormahto]

Well for me the day has come when I'm forced to downsize my garden to just 5-6 tomato varieties and 4-5 pepper varieties because I'm no longer physically able to take care of my usual larger numbers of plants. And my biggest struggle is which tomato varieties do I drop and which ones do I keep. And there are 3 varieties on my bucket list that I need to try before it's too late. So I'll keep two of my favorites from past years (Brandywine Cowlick's, and Polish) and add Rebel Yell, SNFLA, and Prue. It's killing me that I can't also have my usual SOTW, Lucky Cross, and Dester but I have to keep the number of plants down so I can manage them properly. Oh well I'm grateful to be able to still do it and looking forward to trying out the new ones.

Dan

With SOTW, Lucky Cross, and Dester, I'd be looking for someone in town to adopt each plant, and later bring you a tomato or two as a thank you.

[Shule]

I haven't inventoried my tomato seeds from trades, yet, recently. So, after I do that, I might make some additions.

This is my current tentative growlist for 2023:
- Amana Orange (from saved seeds)
- Cal Ace VF (I'm planning to grow multiple plants.)
- Carolina Yellow (from saved seeds)
- Celebrity F2 (from saved seeds)
- Champion II F1 (last time it didn't prosper, but I think it was the soil)
- Cherokee Green Pear (from saved seeds)
- Cherokee Purple
- Cilantrovaya-A (from saved seeds)
- Early Cascade
- Early Treat F2 (from saved seeds)
- Gallop-A (from saved seeds)
- Italian Gold (I'm planning to grow multiple to several plants.)
- Jet Star F1
- Jubilee
- Manitoba (from saved seeds or not)
- New Yorker V (possibly from saved seeds)
- Orange Jazz (from saved seeds)
- Roma VF (from both saved and purchased seeds; I'm planning to grow several plants)
- Snacker-C (from saved seeds)
- Sunray
- Super Marmande
- Tangerine
- Tropic

[jmsieglaff]

As my years of growing tomatoes grows, the combination of favorites that I need to grow each year, new to me tomatoes that I want to try, and experimental stuff from crosses makes list building so hard. My 2023 list is already coming together. It is currently a bit heavy on the large fruited tomatoes and a bit light on cherries--so I'm going to need to change some things up.

Anyway, my 2023 tentative 'new to me' list I'm excited about include:
Cowboy from Karen Olivier
Benevento F1 from Fred Hampel
Uluru Ochre (dwarf)
Santiam Sunrise (planning on growing it next to Sungold)
Maybe Seek No Further Love Apple?

Returning after a few year absence is Aunt Ginny's Purple, I trialed this a few years back, it got the worst spot in the garden, but it had amazing flavored fruit. (I don't grow tomatoes in that spot any longer since it is shaded too much by a neighbor's tree.) The plant wasn't overly productive and impressively healthy, but I do wonder if that was mainly location, as the flavor was

I'm tentatively going to grow two F2s of an apparent bee cross I found last year. I had started seeds of Polish and 1 was RL. I grew it, pruned to a single stem in a 5 gallon bucket. Based on fruit size, shape, color, etc. it is very likely a bee cross of Polish and Cancelmo Family Heirloom (heart). The F1 was a RL pink heart, very productive, good texture and nice flavor. With the two parents, I'm excited to see what the F2 may bring.

[Spike]

My garden this year was a disaster so now I want to grow ALL the plants! I am really struggling trying to choose. Sadly I wasn't able to join in the MMMM this year which in a way is a blessing! I am all ready struggling and the over stuffed ravioli that Tormato sends out would do me in lol

[rxkeith]

still too early for me.

i try to weight myself toward earlier, so matina, gregoris altai, kotlas, kimberly, always play into the picture.
pervaya lyubov is alway planted as is uncle steve. then a mix of colors that have a chance up here.
there will be a mix of cherries, alston everlasting is one i like. redfield cherry that was supposed to be redfield beauty
should get planted again. it is a sweet pink cherry.
which one of my anna russian/unknown cherry lines do i grow out.
there is the lempi line one that sized up, and gave me a good tasting pink tomato that is f5.
or one of the f6 mama helen ones do i grow. the chocolate one that showed up last year or maybe the very large leaf
determinate one, or maybe the large leaf indeterminate one, or the largest fruiting plant of the line last year. all are pink.
there are other promising ones in the lempi line that are at f4 to explore, but when?
i add a few new to me varieties each year, and try to find room for them all.


keith

[AKgardener]

This is gonna be an off year as far as variety’s go I’m doing out of pure fun names this year since I’m growing mainly inside this winter!! My fun list and have never heard of or tried are

Pink Siberian tiger
Wolverine
Bleeding heart

Blood moon
Purple Smargl


These are varieties I found while looking for a certain variety and found these on the website and decided why not haha!!

[Yak54]

Well for me the day has come when I'm forced to downsize my garden to just 5-6 tomato varieties and 4-5 pepper varieties because I'm no longer physically able to take care of my usual larger numbers of plants. And my biggest struggle is which tomato varieties do I drop and which ones do I keep. And there are 3 varieties on my bucket list that I need to try before it's too late. So I'll keep two of my favorites from past years (Brandywine Cowlick's, and Polish) and add Rebel Yell, SNFLA, and Prue. It's killing me that I can't also have my usual SOTW, Lucky Cross, and Dester but I have to keep the number of plants down so I can manage them properly. Oh well I'm grateful to be able to still do it and looking forward to trying out the new ones.

Dan

With SOTW, Lucky Cross, and Dester, I'd be looking for someone in town to adopt each plant, and later bring you a tomato or two as a thank you.

If only it were that easy

[GoDawgs]

We're moving the tomato buckets in the garden to join the ones at the house for a better lighting situation. I'm not sure yet how many total there will be. For sure the annual favorites Bella Rosa, Creole Original, German Johnson, Homestead, SOTW, Purple Russian and Rio Grande will make the line up.

A few tried for the first time this summer will be getting a second chance; Amana Orange, Aunt Ginny's Purple, Estler's Mortgage Lifter, Fish Lake Oxheart, Dwarf Pink Passion and Dwarf Rosella Crimson.

Newbies will be Daniel Burson, Rosedale (if MMMM comes through), Chef's Choice Bi-color (brother's recommendation), new-to-me dwarfs, one or two cherries yet to be chosen and maybe Aker's West Virginia. Probably about thirty plants total.

As for the rest of the garden, we've yet to do a post-season analysis to see what makes the team this year and in what quantities.

[Tormahto]

Right now, I’m at a floor of 15 tomato plants and a ceiling of 25, so down some from the 29 of 2022. Plan is to give each plant more space to aid in maintenance, pruning, etc.

I’m thinking about doing half in pinks and reds and the rest in assorted colors with 2 to 4 cherries.

I have roughly 50 varieties of seeds to choose from. Top pinks on the list are Polish, SOTW, Pruden’s Purple, Dester and Hoy. Reds are Big Beef, Beefmaster, Brandywine OTV, Aussie, and Delicious.

Yellow are Lillian’s and Hugh’s
Black are Carbon and Bear Creek and Black Brandywine
Bicolor are Gold Medal and Hillbilly
Might do a white and GWR
Cherries are Sungold, purple Rosella, Coyote and Matt’s wild
Might do Principe Bourgese for drying.

If this list does not get changed before seed starting time, it’ll be a miracle.

What’s in your crystal ball?

When is your seed starting date?

[karstopography]

@Tormato likely mid January.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@GoDawgs; "Newbies will be Daniel Burson"

If your results are anywhere near mine, yer going to LUV the DB!
This beaut was 22.2 ounce/600 gm

thumbnail_IMG_1536.jpg

the vivisected view...FUGGGEEDDABOUDIT!

thumbnail_IMG_1554.jpg

The Gotch

[Tormahto]

@GoDawgs; "Newbies will be Daniel Burson"

If your results are anywhere near mine, yer going to LUV the DB!
This beaut was 22.2 ounce/600 gm
thumbnail_IMG_1536.jpg

the vivisected view...FUGGGEEDDABOUDIT!
thumbnail_IMG_1554.jpg

The Gotch

OK, I finally gotta ask.

Why do people cut tomatoes that way?

I can't figure it out.