A review of tomatoes in my garden (… or is it to-mah-toes?)

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know that the large tomato plants suffered a bit damage caused by the recent wind and rain. They’re about 8 feet tall, caged in, what I realize now is, a rickety support structure of bamboo and chicken wire. Next year I’m going to up the game and put in two rows of Florida Weaved tomato plants on either side of the yard — I’m still trying to get a privacy fence going to block out the neighbours.

Despite that, I’ve harvested a few, very beautiful, Early Girls. However it should be said that this one tomato plant was an impulse buy at the hardware store. I didn’t know anything about it but now I kind of regret the purchase. Turns out that the patent for this hybrid is owned by Monsanto. Not a company that I wish to have in my garden. In any case, I definitely won’t be saving any seed from these tomatoes.

Now, the Brandywines are either slow to flower and fruit, or just aren’t. I’m thinking it’s more of the latter than former. There are a few green tomatoes but not many. Given how many Brandywines I have (six?) I think I should have more tomatoes. On the bright side, I have a huge fruit that’s almost ripe and, fingers crossed, I’ll be able to pluck it without incident. If I’m able to get my hands on it, I’ll definitely save the seeds to refresh my stock. The original seeds came from a CSA basket tomato several years ago, back when I was still living in an apartment.

The two Tiny Tims are doing pretty well, though they seem way too big for their spot in the raised bed. They’re way bigger than the 12 inches promised on the seed packet and I “blame” the hoop house for that. I think the warm conditions really helped the Tims (and everyone else) grow larger than average. This development caught me off guard so I was late in trying to stake them. It was very difficult and I wasn’t able to get all of the branches off the ground. Still, I love how quickly the little fruit mature on these plants.

I’m already starting to think about next year and am looking for other heirloom varieties to try. I want to get into canning so Amish Paste looks like a good candidate. But I’m open to suggestions, got any?