Lake County gardener says 'It's Tomato Time'
August, and here come the tomatoes!
Though with the stress of no rain from middle of June to this week, the tomatoes have survived and thrived with watering and minimal care! In my search for better tomatoes, a co-worker Ed Niemiec and I started searching the internet in the spring of 2012.
I ran into a video of Dr. Klee talking about his tomatoes and others. I contacted him and visited him at the University of Florida campus in March 2016. I then started growing Dr. Klee's hybrids in the summer of 2016.
Garden Gem and Garden Treasure both produced over 80 tomatoes each. Easy for Garden Gem being a small to medium tomato but something unbelievable for Garden Treasure being a large tomato.
In 2016, I found a surprisingly tall volunteer in May which has since turned into Dale's Best. It is a multicolored heirloom currently sold by my friend Bill Best at his Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center in Berea, Kentucky. I believe the tomato is a mutant from Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, a tomato I have grown from Wild Boar farms, one of many great tomatoes Brad Gates the owner sells!
In 2017, Dr. Klee sent me seeds of his newest hybrid named just "W". It is a medium to large bright red tomato, determinate, while Gem and Treasure are both indeterminate.
Last year, W was grown in a pot as the majority of my plants have to be grown in fabric pots brand name
"Smart Pots" because of issues with a black walnut tree and it did good but not great. This year, in ground at my house (far away from the tree) and gardening neighbor's Roy Davis house, W has shown it deserves to be grown every year. In fact today, Roy said he liked the taste better than Gem and Treasure!
Hoping for good rains and good heat for rest of summer and a late fall like we had in 2016 when I picked all my tomatoes on Nov. 8! Last year picked all fruit before frost on Oct. 28!
This year, grew 27 varieties and over 150 that were given to friends for trial.
Hope everyone is having a good tomato year and are eating great tasting tomatoes now!