We started our tomatoes yesterday. We’re a little later than usual but I think they’ll still do just fine.
For the last few years Matt has encouraged me to focus on growing what we know will do well for us and what we like the best instead of trying so many different varieties of tomatoes and other things.
It’s so tempting for me to want to plant every tomato I see, but I have followed his lead and it has certainly streamlined our gardening.
We did plant two new tommy-toes, well one new one and one that we haven’t planted in ages.
Here’s the list of what we started.
- Cherokee Purple: our favorite tomato by far. It produces really well for us and the flavor is just outstanding.
- Randy Hooper: I’m calling this one Randy Hooper, because he was Debbie’s (from Bryson Farm Supply) husband and she shared it with us. The seed goes back to the early 1900s. It is a large red tomato. We’ve grown it for several years now and continue to enjoy it. Hopefully we can keep the old tomato going.
- Black Cherry: a tommy-toe (small tomatoe) we’ve been growing this one for ages. It is so prolific and has a taste similar to Cherokee Purple.
- David and Carolyn Anderson: an orange tommy-toe shared by our friends years back. It is so good! And it produces well.
- Sungold: a very prolific tommy-toe with a great taste.
- Juliet: this is an oblong tommy-toe. Very prolific and perfect for drying. We’ve not grown them for the last two summers, but it wasn’t because we didn’t try. Somehow the plants never made it to the point of setting fruit.
- Yellow pear: another tommy-toe. We used to grow them ages ago but quit somewhere along the way. The seed is different and I’m hoping it’s as prolific as the ones we used to grow.
- Sun Sugar: a tommy-toe that wooed me even though I tried not to let it.
One more we will enjoy eating this summer is Matt’s Cherry. It reseeds itself and comes up in several places in our gardens each year. It’s a very small sweet tomato.
It usually takes a week or more for the tomato seeds to sprout and start growing. We will care for them in the greenhouse until true warm weather arrives in May. We have a small heater in the green house but only run it on the coldest spring nights.
Last night’s video: The Easiest Potato Planting We’ve Ever Done!
Tipper
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Miss Tipper, dear friend, My mouth is watering just thinking of all those tomatoes. We just set out several plants today. Hope the deer leave them be. LOL! Still looking for Cherokee reds seeds or plants or anything else that is a Cherokee Reds. Hard to find around here in Southern Mississippi. Hope all are doing well, just know I’m praying for each of y’all requesting prayers. May God bless each and every one of you and answer prayers for all. I do know He answers all prayers but not necessarily to our liking, but what He knows to be best for us. Thank God we have Him to turn to. May ya’ll Have a beautiful, and spiritual filled Palm Sunday. Praise the Lord! Love, blessings and prayers to all, today, tomorrow and always.
I see you grow a lot of tommy toes. Do you process them and can them?
I usually grow Better Boy becuase of the disease resistance, but never turn down a Cherokee Purple when someone offers me one!
June, I do 🙂 I’ve always added them into my cannings of large tomatoes, but the last few years I’ve used them to make tomato juice and we’ve really enjoyed it. It’s much easier to process them for juice.
I have my seedlings going too. Love those Cherokee Purples! I grow the Black Cherry and Sungold also. I have pretty good luck with Brandywines and German Pinks but love the Cherokee Purple best. I have also started my seasonal hoarding of Duke’s mayonnaise required for tomato sandwiches.
Watching yall plant potatoes and the sound of the tractor humming along sent me back 57 years when I was a 10 years old. I simply loved the planting time in spring.
when all the family on the farm came together and planted a huge garden and tater patch. Emm the good ole days.
I have seedings growing in my lil greenhouse but most of those will have to wait until after frost is over .
I made a grow box for taters and sweet taters ,carrots .I need those in the dirt but gotta get the soil in the boxes. sure would be nice to have fresh compost . I could get some from the woods shew its a long haul lol.
hope yall have a great day .
susie
Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of my wife’s death in 2018. Today would have been our 50th wedding anniversary. It’s a somber time but I won’t let it drag me down! Every morning God gives me a perfect new day. It’s up to me to keep it that way.
1st sorry for your loss …Thank you so much for your inspiring thoughts … I am going to keep and use them… daily in tines of trouble…
One of the true joys of summer is a fresh tomato sandwich on loaf bread slathered with Duke’s mayo. It just doesn’t get any better than that!
Hello – next week I’ll get started on all my seeds. Several years ago, after hearing all about Cherokee purple tomatoes I ordered some from Amazon and I sure haven’t been disappointed. I love the flavor! I also start San Marzano, I buy primo red and sunsugar tomatoes. This year I bought a ton of flower seeds so will also be starting those at the same time. It’s hard to get motivated to start the seeds because we still have a ton of snow on the ground and it’s so cold. Eventually we’ll get spring, lol!
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes are definitely a good choice. The guy who runs the greenhouse said he doesn’t grow any other variety at home. He loves to tell the story about how he made salsa for a party, and nobody wanted to eat it because it looked dark and could be spoiled.
If something don’t happen soon I won’t have any garden at all. I’m afraid to go out of the house long enough to get anything done.
Ammons, I am assuming not going out of the house because of your health, I understand. I asked my son a day or two ago if he was going to be home Saturday, I need to cut the grass around my sister’s house. It is about 100 yards from my home, I would not be able to walk back to my home if I had trouble with my riding lawn mower. After having tire trouble twice last year and not being able to change the tire I am afraid to go anywhere. I was lucky in being close to home and being able to get someone to take me home and wait on my son to get home and go with me to change the tire. I have good tires on all my vehicles, the problem is with the county landfill being close by and the roads being full of screws, nails and about anything else. Debris from the road is what happened both times.
When I see you write about “tommy-toes,” I keep thinking you’re talking about tomatillos, which can grow in the continental US despite its being a tropical plant (it just needs to be planted as an annual instead of being the perennial that it is in the tropics). It REALLY needs to be planted, later, after you’ve started them indoors. Some people think they’re too much trouble and that’s why you don’t see them much. My mother was of the opinion that they were actually peppers disguising themselves as tomatoes and would substitute them sometimes if she did a dish that involved onions and peppers. You can pick them slightly unripe to make salsa, or you can wait till they’re ripe and then dry them (like sun-dried tomatoes).
One can never have too many tomatoes! Tomatoes, peaches, and watermelons are best eaten fresh and local; we have them every day in season and they don’t last nearly long enough to get tired of them.
I thank everyone for your comments to me about gout yesterday. After drinking about a quart of tart cherry juice and taking some Advil, it seems to be a LITTLE better his morning-not well but better.
Good luck with your tomatoes! Unfortunately the acid in tomatoes hurts me awfully. But I still grow them for family and friends. Cherokee Purple is my favorite too. And yes, I’ve tried the acid free and do not care for any of them. A fresh tomato sandwich every now and again is worth some discomfort. . The first year I moved to the farm I grew a lot of heirloom tomatoes from Bakers Seed. They were beautiful but grow in bumpy shapes so didn’t make a good sandwich. . However the local Master Gardeners took some and made a beautiful picture to display. Heirloom tomatoes have beautiful coloring! Bakers Seed has amazing things but I try to support local seed companies too. Have a great day. ❤️
good morning friends, I don’t think I’ll even attempt to try to grow any tomatoes, last year the tobacco worm tore them up, got other responsibilities right now, thank you for praying and God bless you very much
None for me yet. I don’t start seeds indoors anymore; garden is too small. But I like reading your posts and the comments. I learn things. I did not know there is such a thing as the sweet jalapeno Ron mentioned. I would like to try them and my wife, like his, doesn’t like much heat. I’m glad you and Matt do not have my various pest problems. I sure hope you never get any of them. Guess I’ll have to stick with my old Better Boys for their nematode resistance. I do think maybe there are less of them now though. Maybe my planting resistant plants for several yrard has reduced them.
I’ve never had ANY success starting my tomatoes from seeds but between my local Ace Hardware and a nursery just north of Virginia, IL(about a 25 minute drive for me) I’m able to gather the varieties I like to plant. This year, a dear friend in a local garden club, is going to get me 3 or 4 Cherokee Purples. This will be my first time growing them. You and especially Matt, lol, have me supper excited about a mater sandwich made with this beautiful tomato. Fingers crossed I can do them justice in my small “yarden”. Good morning to all! Supposed to be a record breaking 89° here in west central IL before dropping back to a high of 51° tomorrow. Our roller-coaster March weather continues!
Good morning, Tipper and Acorns. I loved the Tater Planting video. I’m going to set out the Yellow Pear Tommy Toe. It is my favorite. I may do a Brandy Wine tomato. I’m like you and want them all. We used to plant our tomatoes using the tobacco setter on the tractor. We canned so many tomatoes it was wonderful. I have to watch how many I eat. I’m allergic to the skins and seeds. I love eating them from the can with green beans and cornbread.
I put some of my last green tomatoes las year in the freezer in slices. Just dipped them in a batter and tossed on some bread crumb powder and froze them on a cookie sheet then into a container. They are very good. I keep everyone here and up Wilson Holler in my prayers. I thank you all for praying for me and my son. I love y’all.
Her in Florida I just planted my Cherokee purple in the ground after harding them for a couple of days. This is the first year I have planted them. They looked very hardy so far.
Sun sugar is the BEST!!! So glad to know that y’all are just now starting your tomato seed. I’ll have to get mine started this weekend.
It was fun watching you and Matt plant the potatoes. The tractor is a blessing, for sure.
Homegrown tomatoes are worth the wait. I’m looking forward to enjoying a tomato sandwich even though I won’t be growing my own!
Y’all have so many delicious varieties of tomatoes to grow in your garden, I’m always impressed with them. I’m just going to grow my husband’s favorite which is beefsteak tomatoes, and my yellow pear tomato. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I walk through the nursery, but for now I doubt it.
I started seeds inside a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t intended to- just planning on buying starter plants at the nursery. But I ordered some seeds from Baker Creek and they sent us a free pack of Alice’s Dream tomato seeds. Plus, the eggplant seeds I ordered had to be started indoors. The little seedlings started life in a Burpee tray on a heat mat on top of the refrigerator but have graduated to Solo cups in an old refrigerator crisper drawer on our hearth, with grow lights clipped onto the side- on for 16 hours at a time.
It’s funny how I didn’t want to be bothered with seed starting but am now kind of emotionally invested in their wellbeing.
Yes tomato seeds. I bought my tomato plants at Lowes and Big Lots this year. I go with several cherry tomato and several small slicing tomato plants. Where we live off of 129 we only get about 5 hours of sun at any one given spot so growing anything is a challenge. These are located on or by our front porch while I plant my sweet and hot jalapeno plants on the back porch. I have been growing a sweet jalapeno plant for Diane because she likes the flavor of the pepper but not the heat while I like the flavor and the heat. Planted our potatoes two days ago in our raised beds or as we jokenly call them our Marianne (our three legged doe that lives on our property) buffet. By the end of the growing season we get potatoes but they are small but very tasty. Now the waiting begins before that first tomato sandwich. I get my love of tomatoes from my father as he grew them after he retired. Before moving in with my sister in Charlotte he was living in a senior citizen complex and was growing tomatoes for half of the residents there. Have a blessed day.
Question I thought Tommy toe was a name for a certain tomato, is it for a variety of tomatoes?
Sally it is a phrase used to describe small tomatoes, often called salad or grape tomatoes.
Yes, there are several varieties of Tommy toe tomatoes or also known as Cherry Tomatoes. They are heirloom, indeterminate tomatoes that are high yielding which grow one inch in diameter. I grew some Tommy toes called Atomic Bomb which were a purplish green pinkish small oblong shape, but they were not longer than a toe or 1 inch. Sadly, for me it had no flavor that I could taste, but were extremely fruitful. I’ll never grow it again. Yellow pears look just like tiny pears and are deliciously sweet, they are my favorite.. Then there is the basic red and even a steakhouse Tommy toe tomato. I’m sure there are more, but that’s the ones I’m aware of and have grown in the past.
My tomatoes starts are about an inch tall. I get carried away and plant way too many. I make everything and can it from tomatoes. Ketchup, salsa, spaghetti sauce, chili sauce, juice, and this year I will make barbecue sauce. Funny thing is, I can’t stand to eat a tomato in it’s pure form. I’m crazy I know. My daddy and I would go to the garden every year and he’d pick one off the vine and say this is so good, try it. I would and blah. I have tried them all. My brother’s favorite is the sun sugars. He gave me some and said I know you’ll like these and blah. It must be a defect in my DNA. I’ll just keep trying every year and maybe my taste will change. For now, I’ll keep making all our favorites. Love watching y’all garden. We are still a long ways from it here, but it’ll come.
You and the Deer Hunter are such an inspiration for the older and newer generation. I still miss Granny.
my aunt and I were talking a few days ago about how we are both hungry for a liver loaf sandwich with a fresh tomato—the odd thing is we never want one of these sandwiches until summer when fresh tomatoes are ripe….if I wasn’t already hungry for a good fresh tomato on a liver loaf sandwich (or fried bologna) then reading about your different variety of tomatoes would definitely have flipped my switch to longing for a good fresh tomato. My grandpa use to grow a yellow and a red pear shaped tomato that to this day nothing beats their flavor (as far as a good tommie toe goes) excited for you concerning your garden and got teary eyed myself las night listening to you talk about wishing your daddy had had the ease of planting potatoes like you and Matt experienced this year. God is so good–He keeps blessing those who are good stewards with what He has given them and you two have definitely been good stewards over everything you have and have had…His continued blessings will surely continue to be heaped upon you. Amen
Gaylia, your mention of liver loaf made my stomach do a flip flop. When I was about 5 years old, I made myself sick from eating so much fresh hog liver, I am now 72 and still won’t have anything to do with liver from any animal. I won’t even use chicken livers for catfish bait, I turn my head if I see it in a package at the grocery store! Grandmother tried to tell me, but I would not listen. As for tomatoes, I also look forward each year to my first tomato sandwich made with DUKES mayonnaise. I will always plant an Early Girl plant along with Cherokee purple and a few other varieties. The Early Girl will usually come in a a little bit earlier than the other varieties. I want to try mountain pride this year if I can find some plants, I have never had any luck trying to grow my own plants by starting them from seed. My father in law would simply buy several packs of seed, plant them in woods dirt in an old ice chest and cover the chest with two old glass window panes. I think every seed would sprout. He would plant these bare root plants in a long row, not stake them, and gather tomatoes by the 5 gal bucket fulls each year.