It’s beyond common to hear folks in my area say mater for tomato. Usually the word mater is in reference to larger tomatoes instead of the small tommy-toes that are used in salads and eaten out of hand.
Our maters are almost gone for this year. Well the ones we planted back in May are almost gone.
We grew our favorites: Mountain Princess, Arkansas Traveler, Cherokee Purple, Sun Gold, Juliet, Black Cherry, as well as some new varieties we wanted to try.
The new varieties were so so, but not nearly as good as our favorites.
For the first time ever we planted tomatoes in late summer. I bought four plants and we started some from suckers of the ones we planted in May.
The four I bought (Celebrity) have blooms on them and one even has a couple of tiny tomatoes. Two of the suckers lived and they have blooms on them too.
It’s sort of strange seeing the bright lush growth of the late planting of maters right near the ones that have almost died out. But it’s certainly a sight I can get used to—especially if the late planting actually gives us maters and tommy-toes on up into fall of the year.
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It is a month and a half until frost so it seems too early for maters to be gone, but it happens to us every year. It seems like in the”good old days” tomatoes bore longer
A problem for us in having late tomatoes is remembering to start them. About the time you are looking for the first ripe tomato is probably when you need to start the seeds (early July here). The when you get the plants ready, you need to find a place to put them, and then keep the weeds fought off.
My parents raised a tomato named Late Keeper, maybe purchased from Parks Seed Company, and they did keep a long time when picked green or slightly ripe before frost. but you still had the same problem of getting them started and set out at the right time.
The last several years we have gone to a commercial farm on the mountain above Dayton, TN in October. They let people pick in the fields that have been harvested or are not going to be used. They charge 6 dollars for a 5 gallon bucket full, green or ripe. The problem is that it is such a bargain and they are so pretty and nice, that you tend to pick more than you can do anything with. My wife put out about 100 tomato plants this year, so I doubt we will need to go up there.
M&M sandwiches! Maters and mayonaise.
Neighbor gave me a Cherokee Purple this summer. Best sandwich I had this year.
If you have green tomatoes on you vines at the end of the growing season try pulling the vine up by the roots and hang it upside down in your basement. My late sister had me do this with some of her vines in an unheated basement a few years ago, and the vines looked dead, but the tomatoes continued to ripen, although they did gain any size.
Sad to have to wait a year for this garden treat 🙁 We have practically lived on “maters this Summer………plenty canned juice for the hubs and frozen for cooking, but nothing quite the same as straight from the garden…….♥♥♥
Tipper do you can soups of any kind, I’d like to try my hand at that. Maybe vegetable or butternut squash. I look so forward to the garden work y’all do on the weekends and usually eat an outshine popsicle with you, they are so good. Have a good week.
Tammye-the only soup I’ve canned is tomato 🙂 So glad you enjoy our gardening!!
So funny to hear you say this, Tipper (& others) as I just picked my first ripe tomato about 5 days ago! We get a late start here in NY. I have a bunch of green ones & I’m certain they will ripen in time. If not, into a sheet of newsprint they will go & down into the cool, dark cellar. I have had some of the best cabbages this year, of all things! I have made batch after batch of kraut & we’ve been eating coleslaw fresh. The biggest cabbage I ever grew, weighed 11 lbs and made over a gallon of kraut all by itself!!!! My biggest one so far this year has been about 6 lbs. But I figured out the trick to getting perfect ones – diatomaceous earth, dusted on them while small to get rid of the cabbage worms & I spread a shade cloth over them while developing. I have magazine worthy cabbages this year. Is it a sin to feel that proud over a cabbage? Like its your own child or something. LOL. Guess gardening does that to folks, doesn’t it.
My favorite eating tomato is hands down the Cherokee Purple! For canning tomatoes I’m not at all picky, anything that’s ripe. It will be interesting to see how your late tomatoes do. I’m sure you will be thrilled if they work out.
All my tomatoes had splits in them. What did I do wrong. Never had this problem before.
Your tomatoes are beautiful, BTW.
Liz-I’m not sure. Sometimes they say wet weather can cause splitting.
Thanks.
A heavy rain (or overwatering) after a dry spell causes the insides to grow faster than the skin can expand. Thus, the skin cracks to accommodate all the extra water content inside. If the forecast calls for rain right on the heels of a dry spell, go pick any that are just about ready. Be careful not to overwater, then go long periods without watering, & then overwatering again. Inconsistent growth.
Thank you, Patty.
I am still getting alot of tomatoes due to them being on the small side when I planted them. It was my first time to plant from seed and I was running a little late. They are sure pretty though especially the yellow/ orange ones. They give the Cherokee purple a run for its money in beauty. I think they are called Dr. Whyche or something like that.
My green beans this year have produced very little in comparison to other years. Same kind of seeds too. Strange. It could certainly have been the extreme heat we have had here in Tennessee a while back.
Tipper, thank you so much for taking us with you through your Sumner garden adventure & I certainly look forward to your Fall garden adventure as well. Your videos are always so soothing & peaceful to me.
Randy, I enjoy ALL of your comments-no matter how many you send. Praying your eyes get better real soon.
This is the first year out of the last twenty that I didn’t have tomatoes to can or dehydrate. I planted twenty-four Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and Akers W VA. That’s about half as many as I planted last year. My garden is too far from the water faucet to run a hose during the hot and very dry summer. We carried water in five-gallon buckets and milk jugs to keep the garden alive. A guy I used to work with always said that old city water will keep the garden alive but the plants won’t produce nary thang. My maters produced okay while they rotted on the vine. If I picked ten, I threw away five. It’s a bad year to have a failed crop as the news is saying a store-bought can of tomatoes will cost plenty if you can find them.
My Cherokee Purple tomatoes again would not ripen this year. Only one did and a bird tore it up before I could pick it. My cherry tomatoes growing out of a five gallon bucket went crazy and are great tasting….I think they are called sweet one hundreds or something like that. I had good luck with green beans as well.
I got ONE, one lonely peach tomato (tiny 1 1/2″) peach tomato from my large tomatoes (many plants and many varieties). I did get some small cherries from 7 plants of Edox but they also were stunted and small fruit. The heat stunted and shriveled so many. From the look of things we may need to invest in hybridizing more heat tolerant varieties! I broke down and bought about 80 large overripe tomatoes from a farm store and eight fat pints of some very sweet cherries for roasting. I want to try canning a roasted tomato soup for winter eating. As I sat looking at this huge mess of food that needed putting up, my brother called and said he had a bumper crop of very ripe grapes and I could get them. Yea, I did it. Now I’m staring at the lovely mess and wondering what in the world was I thinking. I just missed my garden harvest so much. Here’s hoping we all get a great harvest next summer!
Hello Tipper still enjoying watching your videos. We too are just about done with the tomatoes. We have been growing ‘celebrity tomatoes for about the last 4 years. We grew Romas for years and canned a huge amount in sauces, tomatoes for soup. We bought the Celebrity by chance 4 years ago. I was so impressed how uniform and solid they were, we continued with them. They are perfect for soups and stews. I still use Romas for salsa and spaghetti sauce. I think this year we have already put up 30 quarts and probably will have at least a dozen more by the end of the season. Anyway, hope all is well with you and yours, keep those wonderful videos coming. God be with you
You have such beautiful ‘fruits’ of your labor. I was trying to find the Matt’s tomatoes, the ones that reseed, and cannot…do you remember where you got the first seeds??? Next year I am going to try to replant the suckers, maybe it will work for me. Thanks again and God Bless.
Glenda-thank you! I think this is the same thing although the seeds I purchased years ago didn’t have the wild part in the name: https://www.southernexposure.com/products/matt-s-wild-cherry-tomato/
Tipper, ANYTIME for tomatoes to grow or even have hope of growing- it’s worth it!!! You can’t get a tomato at the store that’s not a “Frankenmater” looking all weird inside. Once (just out of curiosity) I had one lay on my counter about 2 months without rotting. That’s when I thought (well I’m sure you have an idea of what I thought and it wasn’t positive….) I hope you enjoy every day in the garden til it’s all harvested and have fresh slices of tomato for a while to come!!! Just yummy on the Cherokee Purple- great choice!!! I’m gonna go and let you get to the garden, lady friend!!! Have a great day to a fantastic lady!!!
Yep, mine are looking rough as well. The plagued leaf-footed beetles sucking on them kinda put us off of them about now also. The Big Boys are still blooming though. I usually have green ones to pull to save from the frost.
I have never planted late tomatoes. Hope you let us know how it turns out. I hope you have pollinators to. That will be part of the experiment. You may have your own crop of green ones to save from the frost.
I have garden ready for cool season vegetables; broccoli, cabbage, kale, etc. Hopefully I’ll find plants but it is always a struggle. I have to scrap around four or five places and usually still do not get all I’m looking for. Guess the lesson is I need to start my own from seed but when I only need 6 to 12 it seems marginal. I do think I figured out a way to start seed outside though, just cover a seed with a clear plastic water bottle with the bottom cut out and water through the cap. I am doing that with azalea cuttings right now and it works almost too well as they will try to outgrow the bottle before I can out plant them about April.
Fresh tomatoes from the garden are so wonderful. I’m always sad to see them fade for the season. Their tasty goodness gives us something to look forward to next year. I hope your late tomatoes do well. Many years ago, I worked with a man that planted tomatoes almost from too early to too late in the season. He took great pride in having tomatoes before and after anyone else.
My maters are gone. Keeping an eye out for any that might still have some.
Might not be able to read this, I did something stupid yesterday, I was feeling a lot better and decided to cut my grass of about 2 acres. It has played the devil with my eyes. My maters have been gone for several weeks, here it has been hot and dry all summer. They came in all at once and that was it. My son has already pulled the plants up. Deer took care of the few other things we planted, they got inside a 6ft high chicken wire fence I have around my garden spot.
I know there are two types of tomatoes determinate and indeterminate. They first comes at one at one time and the other is spaced out over a longer period.
I need to do better, over the last days I have been posting too many comments, those steroids I have been taking for my eye problem have really jacked me up and have me looking for a horse to eat. Nothing sitting still is safe from me wanting to eat it.
Randy-glad your eyes are improving! And your comments are great 🙂
Thanks, I go see my regular eye doctor tomorrow morning. I hope there will be no bad news. The bright sunshine light is the thing that bothered me yesterday and sure caused it to be painful through out last night. My eye is real sensitive to light. If I hold my eyelid open things almost seem normal. As I have already said I am gonna get me a piece of duck tape and tape that sucker up-or open. Give an old redneck country boy a roll of duck tape and he can fix about anything!
Randy, you might be able to use a set of clothespins on your eyes? My mama wanted to duck tape my brothers ears back to his head when he was a newborn. He was such a fat baby (over 10 pounds) that the fat roll on his neck made the bottom of his ears stick out & she was afraid they were gonna stay like that. Did your parents ever tell you not to go outside with an ‘ugly face on” or it might freeze that way? Mine did & I”m wondering how cold it must have been that day. Ha ha ha ha. Hope your eyes get feeling better. I will be praying for you to have no bad news!
My tomatoes died out way earlier than they normally do, but then they struggled this year with blossom rot and horn worms. I was thankful for the tomatoes that survived this year, but for the first time ever, I’m glad they are done. I’ll miss having fresh tomatoes, but relieved I don’t have to fight trying to keep them growing. I think my land is telling me it needs a rest and so do I.
May God bless you with a bountiful harvest from your fall garden!
I heard of a trick to help with blossom rot, tried it this year and had no problems with blossom or end rot. It was to put a couple of rolaids, or tums tablets in the hole when setting out your plants. Dry powdered milk would work too. The extra calcium in these type of items help stop the end rot. Don’t have any suggestions for the worms. The lady that told me this sets about 50 plants a year and a slice of her tomatoes will hang over the edges of a slice of loaf bread. Everything else she grow is of the same quality, Like Tipper, she cans, or in someway preserves everything from her large garden.