As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
My children, this is a treatise on tomatoes, and for that matter all manner of fruits, vegetables and fauna, which I have addressed in parts previously, but mention it here again as it is a matter of survival, your survival.
If you happen to watch some generation ago American television or read older books, you will notice at times people mentioning how no one could grow African Violets, like Aunt Bea from the Mayberry RFD program after Andy Griffith and Opie Obama took a happy days powder.
The same is true of tomatoes, as in all honesty, not over 100 years ago not many people could grow tomatoes.
That may sound odd, due to the work of the pioneers in plant culture, but even corn in the yellow dent form was unable to be grown west of the Mississippi River, as plants used to be that niche oriented.
I mention tomatoes in this, because it was mentioned to me, and I desire to inform the kind people, like all of you kind people, that you never put me out or put upon me in questions or notes. Besides the interaction with God, this is the other thing I enjoy about this blog. I do not feed on being a celebrity nor in being the best blog online, but what I find pleasure in, is learning from God, and from just conversations in assisting people, as I have been where all of you are growing through.
As I was being poisoned by all the canned tomatoe sauces, I decided I had to grow my own sauce tomatoes. That sounds easy, and I ordered with the few dollars I had a selection of them, and none of them produced tomatoes, in fact some were not even the varieties. In complaining to the old duffer in California, he just disappeared like an ass in refusing to refund my money.
I happened upon a San Marzano which grew at least one crop, was good, but had problems with rot on the inside of the fruit. It was in just slugging it out, that I came across a RIO ROMA tomatoe, which surprised me in producing not just a big crop, but the seeds in one location to remove them as no one likes tomatoe seeds in sauces, and this Rio actually produced a follow up crop.
I am assuming this is a Texas type tomatoe and for whatever reason, it worked in my location where the Amish Pastes to Polish Plums failed.
It bothers me greatly in the always experts in the tomatoe world or any other place, when people ask for assistance, that they being always idiots never answer questions, and come up with something like, "Well just grow a regular tomatoe as that is what I do for sauce. That type of idiocy solves nothing.
Texas is a niche location as not tomatoe alley no more than Idaho is a squash farm. It required me numerous years in the brier patch to learn how to just grow cantelopes and other like crops, and things like sweet potatoes will not produce no matter what I try.......although I found a purple variety which did put on huge tubers, which tasted to me like fish. Not exactly my idea of Thanksgiving fare. I do have plans though for a raised hot bed to conquer this when I have funds, but in some situations you have to change what is the "norm".
For example raised beds were all in vogue in the wet eastern areas. Try raised beds where it is arid, and all you do is spend the summer watering plants as you can not compete with nature.
It hit almost 100 here for a few days, and the container planters I had been growing vines in, drank over a gallon of water. I could literally watch the water disappear in the reservoir.
What I am getting at in this, is tomatoes "like" an 80 degree type weather of arid conditions. If it is humid, the pollen will cake up and you will not get pollination. With bees now dying out in all forms, I have a practice of taking my middle finger onto my thumb and flicking the blossoms a few times on my flowers, just to make sure they pollinate and mimic what the bees did.
I tried all sorts of things with tomatoes, to putting them into huge plastic bags in greenhouses, and by the 4th of July I had huge plants with blossoms, and in taking them out, there they sat for a month as the correct temperature was not there, so all my work, was wasted as I could not change climate.
There is a pretty citrus scented yellow tomatoe called Azoychka out of Russia which has produced early. Another called Silvery Fir Tree produces early too, but the bugger in this is, tomatoes need heat to make a tomatoe taste good, so Silvery Fir Tree in cold temperatures gets you a grocery type tomatoe.
Last year, I tried Burpees Table Talk, as that was a cool name. The result was Table Talk grew there doing nothing all summer, while Big Boy produced. The Table Talk did not start producing until September as it did not like the temperatures in my location most of the summer. I mention this, as my brother and his friend tried growing Big Boy in a semi mountain location and that tomatoe will not produce there at all.
That is why Big Boy became a standard, even if it was not a rich tasting tomatoe. It was because the breeder Shifriss or whatever that Jewish man's name was grew a tomatoe which produced tomatoes in most locations in America, so people all thought they could grow tomatoes in that illusion.
I discovered in trials, that for God only knows why, that the Crimean, Slavic etc... type fruits do well in my location. I have trialed most of what I care to now, as I no longer have the finances to invest in this, but I did very well with them as in the Black Krim.
Glenn Drowns has the best seed catalogue there is, as it is a treasure of varieties, and is why I support him when I can with orders. He gives a free packet of seeds, and one year he gave one called Backfield, a tomatoe he sows directly into his garden plots.
I planted it, and it is a lovely semi determinate variety which produces huge and plentiful red tomatoes all at the same time, which do keep for some time on the vine. The first year I grew it, we had intense heat, and it produced the best tasting tomatoes ever.......the next season it was cool, and the tomatoes were not that special. I will grow this variety again when I can, but it is a matter that things will prove what they will when you attempt things, because every year is not a tomatoe or fruit year.
Good fruit requires just the right amount of moisture, nutrients and heat. Mess that up, and you get yucke fruit.
I will apologize for what comes next as I can not remember the variety, but long ago in researching for paste type fruit, I came across a well known type, that the person said they grew in Texas, and it had like a 30 foot vine on it, and it produced allot of tomatoes. It was not what I was looking for, so I discounted it, but I think this was the one that I read of people having grown it for generations, and in different locations it mutated into a different variety.
Heirlooms are finicky things, but then the modern Super Fantastic might produce, but you end up with chit that looks pretty, but has no flavor. I can still see my relatives Supers out in the garden, having hung their for like 6 weeks without rotting.....they were bland and it just made me wonder what the devil was in those fruits to make them not rot normally.
A tomatoe in my taste, as that is what I grew up with, should taste acidic. I do not like "smokey" or what I term cellar mold flavors as in the Brandywine. It is amusing now in the wasted time of it, but the last commercial variety I grew tasted with no taste, but a colleague of my Mom's when she dumped them on her, said how great they tasted.
To that I grew Brandywine and was horrified after all that work, that this was that musty fricking tomatoe I was first exposed to as a child and hated tomatoes from. My next venture was a Rose tomatoe, out of the Amish horticulture which is a fruity and lovely tomatoe. I was led back to Big Boy which Glenn Drowns has as an open pollinated variety and that is what I term is a tomatoe.
In stating that, none of these might do well in Mexican infested Texas.
Glenn Drowns in his catalogue states he never plants tomatoes in Iowa until late, as he then avoids early blight, which is a yellowing of the bottom leaves. This is a fungus or something due to conditions both cool, wet and warm. It rained a great deal in Texas early and that is most likely the reason for the yellow leaves.
I have relatives in Texas, and they inform me it is hot there 25 hours a day into the night. Nothing really can grow in that kind of conditions, unless it is genetically marked to it. I used to know some heathens from Louisiana who were as wild as a coon ass storm, and they busily were planting purple hull peas and things in February, which was a marvel to me to garden like that, but in that reality, they had to, as it gets too hot in that country in summer.
In that I do not think that soils might be the problem, even if in Florida I read long ago that it is so hot there, that dry matter is burned out of the soil due to the heat.
The Holy Ghost has been whispering to me Richard and Stephanie since I started writing this about that tomatoe, and I kept thinking "Chicago" and rejecting it, and my mind was running to steaks, and it just came through the 486 now that the tomatoe I read of was PORTER which grew in Texas.
Yes Porterhouse Steak, hence Chicago, the old hog butcher to the world in that disgusting poem.
Perhaps that tomatoe might be something to research, although it is not a beefsteak type if I remember correctly.
Honestly, all I had access to here were Roma's in the store, and I have no idea what they will produce in this deck location. They did not like the brier patch in the least, and I just needed something to grow to make me feel like I was doing something creative.
The nice thing about tomatoes is they are a weed really. Even if they did not produce, if you leave them sprawl around long enough, you might hit the temperature where they will produce something. Texas without stating the obvious has a kill zone of heat and cold, in both summer and winter which has to be gardened around.
In reading the old gardening books, the east coast experts were stating to make cold frames and put things like cauliflower into them in the late autumn, letting them sit all winter in slow growth, and in spring harvest the best heads possible. That would not work in Maine or Minnesota, but the cold frame would work in Texas for these types of vegetables..........which again I plan on doing when finances appear.
I would attempt to either get my tomatoes over the summer kill shot, and attempt to let them get into Texas autumn warm to see if they would produce or try to time it so they would have that 80 degree semi dry temperature coming into summer.....knowing of course that blight situation which really does not hurt tomatoes that bad in the early type.
I am so thankful the Holy Ghost stuck with it, and remembered that Porter tomatoe for me.......that has been bothering me for over a year now in what that variety was. The thing is America is not wonderful California in most anything grows. There is the mountains, the northwest, the plains, the humid south, the wet midwest, New England with frying pan hot areas in Florida, Texas, Arizona and if it happens North Dakota will have a week to six weeks of 100 degree Texas weather scorching things.
The breeder's choice varieties usually grow in most locations, but the Americans breed for looks and shipping, so they taste horrid, or are frankenfood poison. In that the Europeans are superior, as they breed for flavor first and then shipping and appearance.
That is about the best advice I can give on Texas tomatoes without being there. You though already have the million dollar knowledge in what is not producing in a wet Texas season, along with squirrels digging up onions. As I stated, any damn fool can raise a garden in a paradise, but it requires Inspiration and diligence to raise gardens in most locations, as much as God.
I have puzzled over stories in the Dirty 30's, where in that drought people always had gardens. Yet in the 1970's in that severe drought, gardens burned up, and gardening has become a great deal more difficult in most of America, since Jesus was given the boot for Obama's image. God fed people by miracle in the 30's, because it had to be done as there was not a Walmart to go buy food from.
I would not though waste a great deal of resources, meaning labor and money on cold frames etc... I would just find some suitable construction throw away stuff, and put it together on small scale and see how it goes.
I do wonder about the new paving stones for foundations, how that thermal mass would work for a cold frame....dark colors in winter to absorb heat. Long ago I invested in turned tractor tires for raised beds.....worked very nice when wet, but lacked in all other performances.........alas I will use them as farmers intended as stock feeders when I get them emptied of dirt.
I am not up to not admitting that I am snoppy as hell. As TL can attest, I am non stop looking what people, animals and plants are doing. If I see a garden with fruit in it, I catalogue it, and at least know something will produce there. I frequent enough querry the old neighbor here about things in passing as she is a native. For example, I was looking at this "elm" seed which was sprouting "elms", but I knew it was not the elm I was familiar with, so I asked here......and she said it was an "elm".
I knew something was wrong, but God led me to a dollar book on trees, and researching it, I concluded by smooth leaf and larger seed pod, that this was a Slippery Elm, which happens to grow in this river country like weeds. That is the thing I do not like about here, in the brier patch I invested years in knowing every insect and weed, and here I am without reference, except something looks like something......so I learn in reference sources, as honestly most people have no idea what the blessing anything is.
In a dutch bulb pot, I noticed some tree has sprouted in the potting soil. It "looks like" an ash, but it has no compound leaf......so I am letting what God grew to manifest. One gets dirt from God knows where across the fruited plain and all kinds of new weeds appear. TL has some crotons in which I am letting this little weed grow that is very pretty as it covers the ground, but I have no idea what it is....but it grows.
Local gardeners have usually experienced enough failure to know what will grow in a location as a start. The dumb ass county agents in the farm section might have some dumb ass suggestions.......although Texas is more intelligence in that arena or at least it did from that Ag man Hightower a generation ago. Online you can search what grows in God forsaken Mexico besides Mexicans, and then just do what everyone else does in trial and error.
I was amused this year in I kept hearing reference about German Johnson........a fine tomatoe I am told, to which my brother and his daughter were planting from the greenhouse........problem was my brother mentioned they were not potatoe leaf this year. Yes, someone was selling things which were not what they were supposed to be.
I have grown potatoe leaf Brandywine tomatoes and it is an experience to see the leaves, but that is another genus of tomatoes to attempt. Texas is more a pinto bean, blue corn, hot peppers and those fares. It will sort out in time, but it requires some time to do it as not everyone lives in sunny California or Indiana where everything seems to grow.
I could give a list of things from Minnesota Midget muskmelons to Cherry Belle red radishes which refuse to grow in the brier patch no matter what I do. Instead I grow Petit Gres Rennes, which is a little French melon and white radishes.
It never though is failure, but is instead the million dollar knowledge. Is why I save seeds, as in about 3 years, I get an acclimated variety which likes my conditions..........with help of coffee cans (I would like to try large plastic pipe cut into those type of sections) which I then water my vines in, along with fertilizer to keep it on location of the roots, so I exactly know what the plants are receiving when it is dry.
I learned that wires formed in hoops over these coffee cans, with a plastic bag tied on top for a little greenhouse, works for cool weather, and at least in my experience in what I would think was 90 degree bake oven temperatures outside, the plants were not cooked which I was horrified was the case the first time this happened.
I could be wrong, but I would not be concerned so much about raised beds in warm Texas, but in watering with nutrients, and then dealing with the kill shots of heat and cold. A lattice type shade might prove a solution in summer heat with daily watering.....mulch might cool the soil enough, but if one is in New England or the north, mulch cools the roots too much.
I hope that helps, but it is a matter that the world has numerous niche gardens, and one solution does not fit all, as much as one variety fits all.
Texas Tomatoes 1
Texas Tomatoes 2
agtG
