tomatoes..what ones.

angel1237b said:

i am wondering what kind of tomato plants to buy this year...i just want a medium size..i guess like the ones in the grocery store..and i would love to have ones that don't have too hard of a time to ripen...i totally lost it with my tomatoes last year...way too many...all green...never really got a feed or any i could say were good....thanks.

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Stupice

Stupice Heirloom Tender Annual 1-3-ounce (60-70-day) Bred in Czechoslovakia, this is an extremely early-bearing, dependable, prolific variety with exceptional taste. Dense, potato-like foliage on dwarf, indeterminate vines. Planting Depth: 1/4-inch Soil Temperature for Germination: 70-85-Degree F, day to Germination: 6-8 Plant Spacing: 2-3-foot day to Maturity: 60-70 Full Sun Moderate Water

This potato-leaf heirloom from Czechoslovakia is a cold-tolerant tomato that bears an abundance of very sweet, flavorful 2 to 3-inch, deep red fruit. A 1988 comparative tasting in the San Francisco area gave it first place for its wonderful sweet/acid, tomatoey flavor and production.

Tomato, Early/Container, "Stupice" Heirloom - Certified Organic Seeds

Heirloom Czech Variety
Early Bearing, Cold Tolerant
Richly Flavored Fruits on Short Vines
Great Tasting and Perfect for Containers

Days: 52
Size: Indeterminate
Color: Red
Season: Early-Season
Type: Heirloom

Angel, if you have a short growing season, you need a tomato that has 52 to 75 days maturity. Of course I guess you start the plants 8 weeks before you last frost, about 2 weeks before you set your tomatoes out, put down black plastic to warm the soil, I don't know how many tomatoes you set out but if its just a few, I would set them out about 10 days BEFORE your last frost. don't mulch yet..but make some cloches to cover the tomatoes with gallon jugs, 2 litter soda bottle, anything that will keep the frost off of the plant. be sure and chesk during the day so as not to get to hot under the cover. just keep the black plastic right where you started. this will keep the ground warm. when you have tomatoes and you see some are still green and the first frost coming, then about 4 weeks before a suspected frost, , "top' the tomato plant (indet) so it will stop growing up and producing flowers, this will force the plant to put all its attention to ripen the tomatoes . another way to get green tomatoes to ripen faster is to take a kitchen knife, about 8 inches from the tomato plant, put the knife in the ground about 6-8 inches deep and cut a half circle around the plant. this will not harm the plant but with a few roots cut, the plant thinks its life cycle is almost over and I assure you the tomatoes will ripen in a short time. An old timer (older then me and I'm 71) showed me this trick and it works and he is thought of in this part of the country a great tomato farmer and gardener
you might want to try a Tigerella tomato, its an heirloom, 52-58 days to maturity, indet, size 2-4 inches, is a very bright red with orange stripes, a very delicious and beautiful tomato. Sorry for being so long winded but I get excited when talking gardening
good luck
errol

angel1237b said:

what does heirloom mean? is it a type of seed?

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Heirloom

An heirloom is generally considered to be a variety that has been passed down, through several generations of a family because of it's valued characteristics. Since 'heirloom' varieties have become popular in the past few years there have been liberties taken with the use of this term for commercial purposes. At TomatoFest Garden Seeds we chose to adopt the definition used by tomato experts, Craig LeHoullier and Carolyn Male, who have classified down heirlooms into four categories:

Commercial Heirlooms: Open-pollinated varieties introduced before 1940, or tomato varieties more than 50 years in circulation.

Family Heirlooms: Seeds that have been passed down for several generations through a family.
Created Heirlooms: Crossing two known parents (either two heirlooms or an heirloom and a hybrid) and dehybridizing the resulting seeds for how ever many years/generations it takes to eliminate the undesirable characteristics and stabilize the desired characteristics, perhaps as many as 8 years or more.

Mystery Heirlooms: Varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of other heirloom varieties.

(Note: All heirloom varieties are open-pollinated but not all open-pollinated varieties are heirloom varieties.)

Where did the term "Heirloom" plants begin?
The term "Heirloom" applied to plants was apparently first used by Kent Whealy of Seed Savers Exchange, who first used "heirloom" in relation to plants in a speech he gave in Tucson in 1981. He had asked permission to use the term "heirloom" from John Withee, who had used the term on the cover of his bean catalog. John said sure, that he had taken it from Prof. William Hepler at the University of New Hampshire, who first used the term "heirloom" to describe some beans that friends had given him back in the 1940s.

The Importance of "Heirloom" Tomatoes.
In the past 40 years, we've lost many of our heirloom varieties, along with the many smaller family farms that supported heirlooms. The multitude of heirlooms that had adapted to survive well for hundreds of years were lost or replaced by fewer hybrid tomatoes, bred for their commercially attractive characteristics.

In the process we have also lost much of the ownership of foods typically grown by family gardeners and small farms, and we are loosing the genetic diversity at an accelerating and alarming rate.

Every heirloom variety is genetically unique and inherent in this uniqueness is an evolved resistance to pests and diseases and an adaptation to specific growing conditions and climates. With the reduction in genetic diversity, food production is drastically at risk from plant epidemics and infestation by pests. Call this genetic erosion.

The late Jack Harlan, world-renowned plant collector who wrote the classic Crops and Man while Professor of Plant Genetics at University of Illinois at Urbana, wrote, "These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine. In a very real sense, the future of the human race rides on these materials. The line between abundance and disaster is becoming thinner and thinner, and the public is unaware and unconcerned. Must we wait for disaster to be real before we are heard? Will people listen only after it is too late."

It is up to us as gardeners and responsible stewards of the earth to assure that we sustain the diversity afforded us through heirloom varieties.

Information source>> http://www.tomatofest.com/what-is-heirloom-tomato.html

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