Saturday, August 06, 2011

Tomatoes and science fiction

The tags on the plant in your garden center read like a Ray Bradbury novel.
Science Fiction.
Little on these tags is true, very little can be counted on as reliable information. One garden center I went thru this year, had the same tag for every daylily.
"21" tall, beautiful in the garden with Phlox and perennial geranium"
WoW
Couldn't that describe half the plants in my border??
The same is true with the plant catalogs, in my opinion. Here's the description:
Bush Champion II VFFA Hybrid #2768 (30 seeds) $3.70 
This special variety was developed to honor the occasion of Ball Seed Company's 100th year anniversary. While the compact plants grow only 24 inches tall, they yield plenty of big, meaty tomatoes that weigh in at 8 to 12 ounces. Their flavor is excellent, and the plants thrive in almost any type of climate. Determinate. 70 days.



Hey, that sounds like a tremendous tomato! I want that one! 
Here it is, folks:


I don't know if you can tell, but the plant is half dead, from the bottom, up. Those tomatoes you see in this photo are NOT from the described plant. Those are from a cherry tomato volunteer. Volunteers have fruit before the larger tomatoes do, in my garden. There are about ten volunteers that i have finally let take over, because this Bush Champion is not going to give me any tomatoes. So, let him try to fight it out, but he's not even as tall as the tomato cage. Good luck, slacker.
Here's another variety I have grown:

Tomato Tomatoberry is a new variety that has unique strawberry shape fruit that have a super sweet taste and aroma. The plant produces high yields of shiny, deep red, one-bite fruit that are each about 1" long. It is disease tolerant to Fusarium Wilt Race 1, Nematodes, and Tobacco Mosaic Virus. A fantastic tomato that is a must try! Indeterminate 80 days
Here it is:
This plant is over 5' tall and has 100s of tomatoes on it. It has taken down the commercial tomato cage every night. The fruit is incredible, looks almost fake:
We all know what the Bush Champion looks like:

I do have Early Girl, out there, (somebody please tell her it's August!!??) and there are fruits on that one, but I have been eating and LOVING the cherry tomatoes for almost one month now. I don't think I will grow the bigger tomatoes at all, next year!
The next photos are for May. She emailed me and asked for pics of the stuffed peppers Cass and I made last week!
Wrapped and ready

400* for 20 minutes
We were going to pick raspberries at the U-pick this morning, but a rain had come thru overnight and it's muddy. We can wait till next week, I guess. 
I hope everyone of you has a wonderful weekend, spending it just the way you want to!
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5 comments:

  1. I'm still laughing in agreement--science fiction indeed! Catalogs, plant tags... all of them are to blame, I think. I've been known to actually take sharpies and cross off some offending (read: blatantly incorrect or misleading) information on some of the plant tags that we get in at the garden center. Ugh.

    I WANT one of those tomatoberry tomatoes, by the way! Where did you find that?

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  2. @Blackswamp_Girl We sure have seen some good ones, working in the garden centers, haven't we, Kim??!!

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  3. How sad it is when the plants don't grow as the packet says they will. I think it's great that blogger's can tell the world about these duds.

    I am glad you at least have some cherry tomatoes that you love.

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  4. I love getting the catalogs mid-winter---You know the ones--everything is BIGGER/BETTER/NEW AND IMPROVED and lets not forget the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
    Science fiction---you got that one pegged!
    :)

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  5. Anonymous7:24 PM

    My Early Girl tomatoes don't know it's August either, but there is a red one out there, so we're close! Sissy, I think you really need to visit the sunset coast of Michigan some day, because you are going to be surprised how beachy and coastal it is! Remember, these are no puny little lakes. The Great Lakes are more like a sea!

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