Blight resistant tomato experiences

[ChocolateMouse]

@rjohns39
Well, like I said I have almost exclusively grown paste tomatoes in the past....
But I have found Mr Stripey is indeterminate and has some serious disease resistances and is supposed to be a top notch slicer. I've grown it before with moderate success. They've got a really big size and sweet smell to them... My dog tried to eat one that was still green right off the plant once. But they aren't strictly red, as they are stripey.
I'm sure other people are more experienced with slicers than I am.

 

[R2elk]

I'm in the same boat. When I grew tomatoes and peppers in VA, I had beautiful plants that produced great until the first hard freeze, which was generally Jan/Feb. Here in TN I lose my plants by Mid to Late August. My local extension agent told me that indeterminate plants (which I prefer) aren't resistant to the issues we have here in TN. R2, I'm going to try the Gladiator, any suggestions for a nice big red slicer and an early fruiter? I typically plant 12 tomatoes. 3 big beef, 2 early girls (I'll root a couple suckers from the beefs and add them to replace the early girls when they putter out), 6 Roma and one cherry.

Because of my short growing season here, I am limited to what I can grow and have it produce before the freezes shut down the garden.

Unfortunately the hardiest tomato I have grown is no longer available. Northern Exposure was a Burpee's exclusive and they decided last year to discontinue it and no one else picked it up. It is a semi determinate that produced 1 lb. tomatoes that were 4" in diameter.

I did like the Brandywine, especially the pink version, for a nice big slicer but it needs a longer growing season than I can give it. My mother preferred Big Boy as her go to tomato.

Super Sauce is a magnificent Roma tomato but unfortunately it is not very hardy for me. It is said to be able to produce up to 2 lb. tomatoes. I have personally had many 1 lb. and several 1 1/2 lb. tomatoes over the year. It is a Roma tomato that is big enough to use as a slicer and still an excellent canner. For me I have to be careful with it to avoid blossom end rot and in certain spots in my garden it will not thrive. I keep planting it because when it produces good it is awesome.

 

[lcwmt]

I'm in Montana with a short growing season. The indeterminate varieties have a lot to offer, perhaps.
Also worthy of consideration is rotating plantings in order to keep the nightshade cousins from setting each other up for failure:
Tomatoes, Peppers, Potatoes, Eggplants should not be planted in the same spots as their cousins one year to the next. Blights and blossom rot can be passed amongst the family members.
it's a challenge when one has limited garden space and challenging climate.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I have a lot of garden space and rotate but given that tomatoes are our main crop for eating (we eat a lot of tomatoes in a lot of things, curries, pizzas, pasta, salad, chili...) usually we can only rotate about half of it into different areas.

Interestingly; my potatoes and peppers were extremely robust and held up well even while my tomatoes 1' away were dying to blight. My peppers produced a massive haul last year even after groundhogs ate them down. There were several pepper varieties too, so it's not like it was one conveniently resistant kind. Two kinds of bells and three hot peppers.

 

[WthrLady]

Oh man, I'm doomed! http://www.reimerseeds.com/tomato_711.aspx <<<<<ONLY USING this site to search for varieties NOT to order seeds from!

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Oh man, I'm doomed! http://www.reimerseeds.com/tomato_711.aspx

Oh wow! They have a lot of kinds... And these ones especially are SOOOO pretty! I might have to order them too!

http://www.reimerseeds.com/indigo-rose-tomato.aspx

Edit: Oh but this company has SO MANY years of bad reviews! I hope I can find these somewhere else...
https://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/1681/0/#b

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Oh! How exciting! My usual seed company carries them, so I can order them through there!
https://www.highmowingseeds.com/organic-non-gmo-indigo-rose-tomato-a.html

 

[Al Capon]

Check out Totally Tomatoes and Seeds n Such.

Both have tons of tomato varieties. IMO, Seeds n Such's catalog is better than their website. Kinda difficult to narrow your tomato choices down on their site.

 

[WthrLady]

Oh wow! They have a lot of kinds... And these ones especially are SOOOO pretty! I might have to order them too!

http://www.reimerseeds.com/indigo-rose-tomato.aspx

Edit: Oh but this company has SO MANY years of bad reviews! I hope I can find these somewhere else...
https://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/1681/0/#b

I'm just using reimers for their sorting skills on that page. By variety, type, climate, ultimate use. Then I'll find them at a well rated seed saver.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

So looking into these I found a wee snag which was the cost of some of the seeds. for example, I found Mountain Magic seeds were most commonly priced at $8/10 seeds. Not like, .10 grams or something, just 10 seeds. Which is crazy and I'm not playing nearly $1 for a single seed of a tomato plant.

Seeds'n'such has neutral reviews, though, and priced their mountain magic seeds at nearly half that ($2.79/5 seeds) and their other packets were similarly inexpensive, so I will be giving them a try and ordering about 3 varieties of seeds from them for a total of $11.

I will also be ordering Romas because they've moderate disease resistances from my normal seed supplier at $2,95/1/16th of a gram, which was comparable to the price on Seeds'n'such.

Ultimately I will be spending about $15 on tomato seeds this year to only get about 150 seeds, 100 of which will all be one kind (out of four). I'm hopeful they will grow and thrive.