383 The 2025 Tomato Preview Show!

Show Transcript

383 TRANSCRIPT 2025 Tomato Preview Show

Farmer Fred:

If you’re a tomatohead, this is the episode for you!

We dive into the world of tomatoes with Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We discuss our favorite tomato varieties to plant for the 2025 gardening season. What’s new and intriguing? What’s old and good? Plus, Don has tips for choosing reliable varieties if you are new to tomato gardening, as well as good advice to get those young plants off to a healthier start. It’s Episode 383, The 2025 Tomato Preview Show!

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

THE 2025 TOMATO PREVIEW SHOW! Pt. 1

Farmer Fred:

 Well, it's just about that time. In fact, if you want to get tomatoes in the ground for summer harvest and you want to grow them from seed, you better order some seeds pretty quick. But what are you going to order?

Farmer Fred:

 Hmm. That's what the whole show today is about. It's your 2025 tomato seed preview, tomato variety preview. Don Shor is here. He is the owner, proprietor, and tomatohead at Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We like to talk tomatoes and Don, we are of the same ilk, you might say. We we like to grow what has succeeded in the past but we also like to try things that are new. So what are you growing that's new this year?

Don Shor:

 There are two that I did last year that I want to test again because I was very impressed by them and they're in the small tomato category. So let's just start with those. Cupid and Tim's Taste of Paradise. Have you heard of either of those?

Farmer Fred:

You talked about Cupid the last time we chatted on this program. And so I ordered some Cupid seeds and I guess that will be my official small tomato that I'm growing this year.

Don Shor:

 It is extremely productive. It's bright red, very pretty. I mean, that's kind of important. Great eye appeal. One characteristic I like about smaller tomatoes, is when they pick easily and you don't have to tug and, you know, yank them off when they just detach readily and stay intact. They don't burst in your hand and get juice all over you. And it's a really good flavor on that one. It's one of those kind of meaty, small tomatoes. This is a category that people are calling saladette, the elongated, firmer, textured tomato. Juliet is a good example in that category. And I did real well with it last year. But, of course, you know, we have a rule here. You can't recommend a variety until you've grown it two years in a row and had good results. And so I'm going to certainly give that one a try again.

Farmer Fred:

Is this the second year for Cupid then?

Don Shor:

 Second year that I'll be growing it. We'll be growing some to sell, as well. But if you want this one, you're not going to find it on a seed rack. And there can’t be a lot of nurseries that have it. So you better put that on your “order this seed” list. I got Cupid from Seeds and such, which is one of those proprietors of tomato seeds out there. Another one that you might have to look around for the seed or maybe just wait for the plants is that one, Tim's Taste of Paradise. And we can thank Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms for bringing this variety back into production. It had nearly gone extinct, as he puts it, probably back in the 1990s. And somehow he got a hold of it and he grew it. And I grew it last year and it was the most vigorous plant in my garden by far, probably a 12-foot vine. And I was pretty carefully counting fruit on all my different tomatoes last year. I thought I'd be very meticulous and scientific. And when I got to about 500 on that one, I just said “too many.” We were no longer counting above that point. Extremely productive, easy to pick, really good flavor, sort of a classic small cherry tomato. And just the high, high yield was really, really impressive last year.

Don Shor:

 That's going to be in the Brad Gates Wild Boar Farm series. So you'll either order the seed from him or you'll wait and find it at the nurseries in the area that carry Wild Boar Farms tomatoes.

Farmer Fred:

How the heck did you trellis a 12-foot vine?

Don Shor:

Well, I didn't know it was going to get to 12 feet. So I put my usual six-foot cage on it and it went up and arched out the top and went back down to the ground and then became a ground cover. So the answer is, with some difficulty, I trellised it. But my standard training technique is just a six-foot cage made out of concrete wire And I keep shoving the branches back into the cage until they reach the top and then they're on their own. So that was, I would say, an eight foot cage might be more apt for that one or whatever method you like for a completely indeterminate and very vigorous tomato variety.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah, I think I'd put a trellis up on the side of the garage or something for that.

Don Shor:

 It could be. That would be one way. Or just, you know, what I do like to do since I have space is make sure my plants are at least six to eight feet apart. And that way, when one of these outperforms my expectations, it's not going to grow all over the next tomato over. That also reduces pest problems and  harvest problems. So I do recommend wider spacing on tomatoes. We can get to that in a moment. But fortunately, this one was way down at the end and it had that whole corner to itself.

Farmer Fred:

You're right about that. Also, my 2025 garden resolution is to give the plants more space. Plant them not so close together. Give them room.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, and go as vertical as you can. I mean, if you've only got a four-foot cage on a tomato, that'll hold it until about the middle of June. And then you've got three more months of it to grow. So unless you're carefully growing shorter types, either determinate or dwarf indeterminate types, you better give them a six- or an eight-foot cage. And as I say, four to six feet minimum is my preference. I realize I have lots of room. So that's kind of my luxury. You're a little more tight for space. So I think you probably look around for some of those more compact growers.

Farmer Fred:

You're right about that. That's for sure. One of the new ones that I'm planting this year is a smaller tomato, three to four ounces, called Saucy Lady that I got from Seeds and such. And that was a throwaway by them thanking me for an order. “Here, try these out.” And so I'll try it out. And according to their Playboy Playmate of the Month-type description here, “Saucy Lady vigorously produces high yields of medium-sized three to four ounce, extremely firm, crimson red, oblong fruits that perfectly cook down into some of the smoothest sauces and pastes you have ever tasted.” It is a determinate tomato, so that'd be perfect for canning. It supposedly gets four to five feet tall. And three to four ounce fruit size isn't bad. It's a fair amount.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, that's like a Roma tomato  that's bigger than the San Marzano. And you know, the sauce tomatoes, by the way, for listeners who aren't well familiar with them, I have found in general, they're very good choices here in the valley. They seem to take the heat better. They're generally a little bit tougher skin, so they don't sunburn as much. Overall, in general, sauce tomatoes are very successful. And if you get a determinate one, you can do something where you can plant a tomato, let it grow to its full size, make one big harvest, process those, you know what? You're done with that plant. You can take it out and put in your Brussels sprouts in mid-July like you're supposed to. So it gives you, for those of you with a limited space and who like to process, freeze, can, whatever, even sun-dry tomatoes, that's a great way to go. I think determinate and semi-determinate, dwarfing determinate, and bush tomatoes are actually excellent choices for a lot of home gardeners that might be limited for space.

Farmer Fred:

 I was pursuing catalogs waiting for us to begin our chat. And I found some interesting offerings by certain tomato outlets. One of those outlets is one you know here in California called Tomato Fest. And they specialize in the Dwarf Tomato Project whch are heirloom seeds with a lot of interestingly named dwarf tomato plants.

Don Shor:

 This is a fascinating program. It's an open source. You know, they're not being proprietary about it. I think a lot of breeders are working on that one. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

 And there are volunteers who are putting all these varieties together. And that's very intriguing. And I'm curious to see how some of those come out. I didn't buy any, but if anybody is growing any of the Dwarf Tomato Project heirloom seeds this year, let us know how they how they did. Yeah.

Don Shor:

 I've done a few. There's a grower over in Santa Rosa, Sweetwater Nursery, that we work with that does some of these very, very, very compact, I'm not even sure what to call them, miniature tomatoes. I've got so many customers in the Davis area who are living in apartments or have no actual yard or a very, very small side yard. They can't possibly plant a 15-foot tomato vine, but they want to grow a tomato. Some of these look really intriguing for that. We really need to try them, see what kind of yields we're talking about. Two that I grew, and I honestly can't even remember the names at this point. 12 to 14-inch plants, little thumbnail-sized fruit, great tangy flavor. It's the kind of thing you could stick it in a barrel with a bush basil and maybe a shishito pepper, and there you have your salsa.

Farmer Fred:

 There you go. Or something for the kids.

Don Shor:

 There you go. They're very cute, and they ripened well, and the whole plant was pretty much done by early August, which is the nature of a lot of these smaller fruited tomatoes. That doesn't mean you're done with tomatoes at that point, that particular plant is done. You could plant another one in as late as, I've done this, as late as mid-July. Where we live, you could be harvesting those in late September, October, you know, it's summer-like here all the way into the middle of October. The very latest I planted a tomato last year, I did four of them on August 1. Four different varieties, two heirloom and two hybrid, and each of them produced about 20 fruit in mid-October. And they were very good and they had ripened fully by then. So we have a long season here. People get really nervous, thinking they will be too late planting. They're coming in in late March, early April.  Folks, this is tomato country. We have a very long tomato growing season.

Farmer Fred:

 Who are your survivors? What was the last date you picked tomatoes on?

Don Shor:

 Early December. And it was a very familiar one that you and I both got from Seeds and Such a couple years ago. Itz a Keeper. I planted  it on July 15th, four of them. It had very healthy foliage. The plant completely filled a four-foot cage by late August. So in six weeks, it filled a cage. Now, by the way, I was watering it daily because of when we planted it. And it set fruit very well in August. And my note says that I picked a total of 40, that's four, zero, fruit from that in October. And there was still some hanging on there. It's a very firm, solid tomato that's got a good, reasonably tough skin. So it actually held into the first week of December.

Farmer Fred:

 The survivors over here made it all the way to December 18th, and they were Jetstar, Principe Borghese, and Rugby.

Farmer Fred:

 And I harvested ripe, I harvested green, and the breaking. And breaking is just a term for when a tomato goes from green and you start seeing a slight tint of yellow or pink or red. And those lasted in my ersatz root cellar all the way to i think it was two weeks ago when we finally ran out.

Don Shor:

 Oh my goodness.

Farmer Fred:

So this was great having having homegrown tomatoes in late February. That was nice

Don Shor:

 As a slight side note, that breaker stage is actually a really important thing for home gardeners to learn to recognize. And you can find pictures of tomatoes at different stages of ripening. The reason I think it's really important to know is last summer is a good example. Pretty much the whole month of July was a heat wave. Technically, it was three heat waves in a row, but the gaps between them were only a day or two. In the entire month, the average high temperature in Davis was 97 degrees for the entire month of July.

Don Shor:

 And that meant that a lot of tomatoes weren't doing super, super well. More to the point, as you go into one of those extreme heat events, you might want to walk out there and look at your tomato vine. And if any of them have reached breaker stage and they're on the west side of the plant, pick them, bring them in, line them up on your counter, not in the refrigerator, not in the windowsill, just right on the counter. And you can watch them ripen correctly from breaker stage to fully ripen in about seven or eight days. And the ones out in the garden that are going into a heat wave facing west, you're very likely to get sun scald on those, which is just a sunburn on the fruit that ruins them. It's even worse with bell peppers, but in particular with tomatoes, if you're getting close, any bit off of that dark green, so breaker stage is just beginning to turn yellow, it will ripen in your counter just like it does going to the grocery store.

Don Shor:

 And it'll have better flavor than what you would buy at the grocery store. And you will have at least conserved the ones that might have been burnt during one of those heat events. And we had a lot of those last summer. I had a lot of people saying, “well, it was a terrible year for tomatoes”. No, it was a terrible July for tomatoes in particular. And if you just pick as they're getting close to ripening, you can actually save that fruit.

Farmer Fred:

 I noticed while perusing which catalog was that? I think it was the Johnny's Selected Seed Catalog. One of their new entries is a number, STM 2255. And for some reason, I fall madly in love with tomatoes with numbers. STM 2255 is supposedly a widely adapted fruit, according to Johnny's, with 8 to 12 ounce fruits. It's determinate. And it says it has “good heat setting ability, though, not quite as good as Jolene”. So all of a sudden I'm falling in love with Jolene. 

Don Shor:

 Cue the Dolly Parton song.

Farmer Fred:

 Please. Exactly. Yes. And so Jolene, what's the story on Jolene? So I had to go to that page to find out it's an F1 hybrid and it says it's “a smooth, deep red beefsteak that sets fruit in heat when other tomatoes will not. Round, clean, 8 to 10 ounce lightly ribbed fruits for mature green and vine ripe markets. Improved plant health production and fruit quality over Grand Marshall, which it replaced”. And now we have a new virus acronym, especially for you growers down in the Deep South. This tomato has strong T-Y-L-C-V resistance, which I guess means tomato yellow leaf curl virus. Yep.

Don Shor:

 There you go, which is not an issue for us as far as I know, but if you have a problem with that, if you're having trouble with late blight on your tornatoes, if you're having trouble with some virus, go ahead and peruse these catalogs. Because I can tell you breeding for disease resistance is really a big trend. And late blight in particular is a big problem back east. It's not something that we deal with all that much here. I've seen it, but it rarely wipes out the whole crop. But that's a big issue where you have summer rainfall. Something we're not real familiar with here.

Farmer Fred:

Along with humidity of 90% or more.

Don Shor:

 Correct.

Farmer Fred:

 So, I've put Jolene on my list of things to try in 2026.

Don Shor:

Oh, the sound you heard was me grabbing a pen and writing it down real quick, because I'm going to add, that's my production for this year. So, Jolene, in honor of Dolly Parton, I will get that one out in the garden.

Farmer Fred:

 Now, it says, you know, it's a great tomato for the South. Does that mean it won't grow in lesser humidity? Hmm.

Don Shor:

 We'll find out. Yeah, good question. Yeah, high temperature is usually our issue. And one of the things I noted was in your description you were reading was that infamous adjective, beefsteak. Yeah. Beefsteak is a variety. It actually is an official variety. And we generally talk people out of beefsteak tomatoes because the variety beefsteak and its direct derivatives like Beefmaster and Super Steak don't take high temperatures well. Well, they don't pollinate well. So they grow fine and they flower. And then the flowers that appear above about 85 degrees fall off. But long ago, all these companies, Burpee especially, but all of them learned that beefsteak is also a marketing term. And so all that tells you is it's got connective tissue and it slices well. It doesn't mean that it's an actual derivative of the old beefsteak variety. Beefsteak is one that I will generally talk people out of for the reasons I mentioned. But don't let that deter you when you're reading a catalog description as necessarily meaning that this is some progeny of beefsteak. Beefsteak itself, great for the Midwest, apparently, I'm told. Not here in California with our high temperatures and low humidity. And I assume it's the temperature, but it could be both for all we know.

Farmer Fred:

 And for those of you listening in the far-flung reaches of the world, remember all gardening is local and trust your local independent nursery to steer you in the right direction when it comes to tomato varieties that will grow best in your area.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, and also local growers. I mean, this is the thing. I've got Fourth of July as a good example. I never grew that for years. I didn't know anything about it, but one of the folks out here, Dr. Robert Norris, who advises the Master Gardener's program, kept mentioning it and mentioning it. I thought, okay, I've got to try this. This guy knows what he's talking about. Four to five ounce fruit, great in the heat, bright red, produces extremely well, just very, very reliable variety. And that was just getting the information from a Master Gardener or, again, just that old guy down the street who always grows that one type of tomato. I don't recommend always growing just one type of tomato, But you might add his to your current repertoire.

Farmer Fred:

All right. The early girl, there's a popular tomato everywhere. And now, tomato grower supply company, their new one for 2025 is Early Girl Plus. Plus what?

Don Shor:

Plus more fusarium resistance?

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah, exactly. I think it's three F's and two V's. Three fusarium resistant strains and two verticillium resistant strains.

Don Shor:

 Well, those are things we do have here. Yeah. So those are definitely California and even especially perhaps Davis-Woodland issues because it's tomato country over here. Well, Early Girl has actually finally got some contenders to her position there on the throne. Early Girl was introduced in the 1970s. I think it was Seminis Seeds that owned that one, and Burpee had an exclusive on it for several years. It quickly became one of the most popular tomato varieties everywhere because it sets early, it holds early, they ripen properly. I almost never get blossom end rot on it in spite of lower temperatures at the time that it's setting. And, of course, the flavor is outstanding. In fact, it's considered one of the best flavored tomatoes around. But New Girl has come on, and I've now done it side by side with Early Girl. And I especially last year did them literally side by side with exactly the same watering and care. It set better into the heat. It held better into the colder weather as we got into fall and even into early winter. And overall, it produced about 50% more fruit than Early Girl. And I can't tell the fruit apart. They're both four to six ounce, up to eight ounce fruit, very good flavor. And I think New Girl may be a contender for Early Girl's dominance of our industry.

Farmer Fred:

 I think it is. I talked about the three plants that I harvested on December 18th. On December 14th, the New Girl tomato plant blew over in a windstorm. And that's the only reason it didn't make it till the 18th. So I harvested those green and breaking tomatoes and enjoyed those all winter.

Don Shor:

 You know i mean Early Girl has been such a reliable variety. I’ll certainly sell it, i'll certainly grow it. i'll do this test again this year side by side maybe in a in a hotter part of the garden or something like that and see how it does, but i've been impressed for four or five years now i've been growing New Girl i didn't ever do it in such a systematic way like you know literally plant it the same day kind of thing well i did that and New Girl won this time. Again i have a rule - it takes two yearsfor a trial before i ever make an absolute recommendation. consider this an early recommendation.

Farmer Fred:

Oh, yeah. New Girl definitely is going in my garden again. By the way, a correction on Early Girl Plus. From tomato grower supply company. Their claim to fame is not V's and F's. It's TSWV resistance, tomato spotted wilt virus resistance.

Don Shor:

 We do have that in this area. Actually, that can be a pretty common problem in Yolo County, and it wouldn't surprise me in Sacramento County. So that is something to be aware of. It doesn't significantly affect yields or anything like that, but it makes an unsightly appearance on the fruit. So that is one thing to be aware of. That might be worth trying. I better get some seed of that one. I'm making a quick note here as we speak.

Farmer Fred:

All right. Another Early Girl going in my yard again this year is Bush Early Girl. And it is part of my succession planting scheme where I'm going to plant the bush early girl. The seedling's already up, but probably on April 1st, April Fool's Day. I'll stick it in a barrel where I've got some winter greens growing now, it’s in a very sunny spot. And I know, because it's a determinate, it's going to set most of its fruit probably by late June or early July. I will harvest that fruit. The plant gets pulled out because it's a determinate. It's going to set most of its fruit at one time. And I'll put corn in there or something else. 

Don Shor:

 Or you can just leave that open for the fall vegetables that people never have enough room for because their tomatoes are still producing.

Farmer Fred:

Yes, indeed. Yes, yes. I know that. But, yeah, that's very important. 

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THE 2025 TOMATO PREVIEW SHOW, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

Another one we both like, too, and that's getting another run in my yard this year, probably yours, too, is Rugby.

Don Shor:

 Oh, yes. Rugby is, everyone who grows it comes back and raves about it. It's being marketed as a sauce tomato, which is unfortunate because it's really an everything tomato. Extremely productive, disease resistant, reliable, heat was no problem. It really is going to be a keeper. The only problem is that it was bred in, I think it's Bulgaria, and the seed sources are few and far between, and it's not on any seed rack, and very few garden centers actually sell it, although we will. But it's one of those ones where you better look around for it now and be prepared for a little sticker shock. I think it's one of those 10 or 20 cents per seed kind of varieties. Definitely worth it. Absolutely worth it in every garden. And so far, every year I've grown it, it's been one of my top performers and people rave about the fruit. My notes say 100 fruit last year. Set early, kept setting somewhat during heat, lots late season, just another great year for this new variety, top rated variety for sure.

Farmer Fred:

And it's a quick producer as well, 50 to 70 days, the fruit weigh up to seven and a half ounces. i see they do have it at the in the totally tomatoes catalog by the way i'll have a link to all these catalogs we're mentioning in today's show notes if you want to try your luck. and i was doing long division in my head it's 15 seeds for four dollars and 65 cents so i guess that's about 30 cents a seed i guess.

Don Shor:

 Yes yes indeed it's a little high priced up there but definitely worth it. The seed keeps reasonably well so if you a packet of it,  we find  that seeds lose some percentage of germination year to year don't buy way ahead don't stockpile but it does you know if you have 10 seeds left over next year I'm sure at least five of them will probably germinate.

Farmer Fred:

 I planted two rounds of Rugby tomatoes this year from the packet I had from 2023 and a new packet 2025. and they all germinated. so I'm happy. let's talk about a tomato company that's down the street from you Thank you. Yeah, the Norfolk tomato company or whatever they're called. They're the proud proprietors of the Norfolk purple tomato, the first home GMO tomato that is truly purple.

Don Shor:

 Yes.

Farmer Fred:

 Inside and outside. It's beautiful.

Don Shor:

 It's a little one. I think you got one in the garden and I planted one. These were not cheap, but they're like one or two ounce fruit. I didn't know that when I planted it. I thought they were bigger. So it's really a cherry tomato size fruit. Mine did grow very well. Some people had better results than others. By the way, what was done with this one was they inserted a gene from a Snapdragon that created the purple flesh. Because there have been purple or blue or black tomatoes forever, but they were purple, blue, or black skin. Just the peel, not the flesh. This one is purple. I mean, beautiful color all the way right through to the center. And everybody who tasted this first one that came out said, “oh, that's beautiful. Flavor is kind of mild.” That’s polite. Yes, mild. Insipid was the term that I took to using.

Farmer Fred:

 I like bland.

Don Shor:

Bland works too. but it’s beautiful chopped into salads and things. And one of my employees actually sun-dried it, and it sun-dried great. She just cut them in half just like she does Principe Borghese and some of the others, and sun-dried it. And that made for a very nice concentrated flavor. They are breeding, and I happen – the company is right here in Davis. I did happen to talk to someone from there, and they said they're – He acknowledged the flavor was mild. 

Farmer Fred

Oh, did he? That's good. 

Don Shor

And they're working to get better flavored ones. And this year, it'll be a richer flavor. And in fact, our little garden center is selling the seed of these new ones, of this particular tomato. But you want some sticker shock? $2 a seed.

Farmer Fred:

 $2 a seed. But you're not selling it by the seed.

Don Shor:

 No, it's by the packet. So for a packet of 10, it's $20. I'm not going to see them flying off the shelf, but we've already sold several packets because people are interested in this.

Farmer Fred:

It's getting the publicity around here.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, it's getting a lot of good public relations, and they're aware of the need to improve the flavor on this. It is a beautiful fruit, so there's no question that it might catch on. In the past, my general experience with blue and black tomatoes is I haven't liked them. Their flavor is kind of harsh. So when I would bring them in, and there's a bunch of them out there. I don't need to go through all the names. They were generally not really top rated by my staff or customers who took them. They were just, isn't that interesting? But really not, to my way of thinking, the kind of flavor we're after. This one was definitely sweet, but it didn't have much acidity to it. And while people don't like that term when I say acidity, oh, I don't want a sour tomato. You do want a balance of acid and sweet. You do want those two characteristics commingled. So you get the flavor profile that people really expect. Just sweet isn't really what most people are after.

Farmer Fred:

That's for darn sure. Now, one variety I'm planting this year, and probably because you plant it just about every year and rave about it, is Chef's Choice Orange.

Don Shor:

 Yes, absolutely. And that whole series, but that one is the best of the series. The Chef's Choice Tomatoes, I think they've all won all America's selection, or at least most of them have. And there is almost every color on the list now. But one of the first that came on was Chef's Choice Orange. The company was out of Maxwell, here in Northern California. And they came out with that one and then Chef's Choice Pink and Chef's Choice Red. And I think I've grown all of them now. And still, the orange is the one everybody raves about. Flavor is very good. Texture is firm. It slices great. It's got beefsteak-type slicing capability because it has the connective tissue. But it cooks down really nicely for a really interesting, beautiful kind of sauce. The chef's choice red is very good, but the difference is that the fruit softens very quickly. And anybody who's grown a lot of tomatoes knows that if you've got a one-pound fruit that softens quickly... You might want to pick it a little on the underripe side before you just reach in and pull on it on the vine. Yeah, but it's very good flavor and it cooks well. You can slice it, but still it's a little softer. And the chef's choice, pink likewise. Both of these have typically produced anywhere from 40 to 80 fruit per vine for me. And the fruit is generally close to a pound apiece. So it's very productive, very large fruit, very good quality. But I do keep coming back of all eight colors. I think it's eight now. Chef's Choice Orange is still the best of the batch.

Farmer Fred:

All right. I don't know if you planted this last year or not, but I did. And it was one of those that made it all the way to the end, to December the 18th. And that was Jetstar, which produces eight-ounce fruit. It's an indeterminate variety. It has resistance to fusarium and verticillium wilt. Have you grown Jetstar?

Don Shor:

I have not. So I've written it right under Jolene. Okay. I've got that to my list for this year. And you've mentioned it a couple of times and apparently does very well. And another that you've mentioned is Gardener's Delight.

Farmer Fred:

Yes, Gardener's Delight.

Don Shor:

Yeah. And I've had customers grow it. They've asked me about it. I've never personally grown it. So that's going to be on my list for one to make sure it really deserved the Fred Hoffman seal of approval. I think you said that one's very good flavor and very productive.

Farmer Fred:

Well, unfortunately, it didn't have a long lifespan here. It was one of the ones that got yanked early. It wasn't the earliest. I started yanking tomato plants that were unproductive back in August, on August 18th, and out went the Norfolk purple tomato, Thornburns yellow blush. What else? The Thornburns lemon blush and the purple tomato and something called Red Delicious Mystery. So those disappeared. Then a month later... Four more were all in decline.

 But I think I'm going to blame that on the summer heat wave here because by mid-September, these were just looking really sad. Sweet Million, Bodacious, Super Fantastic, and Gardener's Delight, they were all in decline. So I'm thinking we're going to have heat waves.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, we are. Yes, we can count on that. And July was very hot, but August, on our side of the valley, it did cool down enough that we had a very good fruit set mid to late August on many varieties that I had been ready to pull out. So good news is that I was tracking the numbers as we went, July harvest, August harvest. If I had gone by what was happening in August, I would have pulled out pretty much all my heirlooms.

Don Shor:

If they had had 10 fruit by then, they were doing well. And that goes from Mortgage Lifter and a couple of the others, Arkansas Traveler, Hillbilly.

Don Shor:

 Pineapple, ones that I've grown with good results in years past. Fortunately for them, I was busy doing other things and I didn't pull them out. And we had that cooler spell here where we got enough coastal influence for them to set. And each of them pulled out 20 or 30 fruit by the time we got into October. But the heat definitely took its toll on the heirlooms. And that's often the case, frankly. This is not really the best place for heirloom tomatoes. But also, that July heat in particular, many people found their tomatoes were beginning to peter out. Many of our conversations with them, though, started to revolve around watering it. They just weren't watering deeply enough, or in the case of someone like yourself, who has mostly raised planters, frequently enough. I mean, the tomatoes, and when we were having a heat wave in July, and the heat wave that we had, it's three of them in a row, the water used by plants was up anywhere from 10% to 30% above average pretty much the whole month, depending on where you were and exactly what part of themonth you're looking at. And if you had been watering like usual, it wasn't enough.

Don Shor:

And what I prefer is for people with like normal gardens to water more deeply, you know, run another cycle of your drip system on the same day if you can do that. But if you're in raised planters, as you are, you may be watering more often. You may be watering daily in some of those hot spells if you have raised planters and you brought in fancy, fast, draining soil. So as we would talk to people, they'd be using Netafim drip systems, running them for 15 minutes a day. And I would say, you know, that's a coffee cup of water per plant. Let's see if we can bump that up a bit. So how long, Mr. Hoffman, do you run your drip system on your raised planters?

Farmer Fred:

 Let's see. That's on circuit number four. And they are set to run in the heat of the summer three days a week for two and a half hours. 

Don Shor:

Wow. Okay. So you're not having to do it daily.

Farmer Fred:

No, because I have adapted a strategy of preserving soil moisture with lots and lots and lots of oak leaf mulch.

Don Shor:

 Oh, there you go. Where do you get oak leaf mulch?

Farmer Fred:

From the oak tree next door. I rake the leaves. I keep them. I grind them up. I put them in my 100-gallon compost sack. And come summer, I spread them four to six inches deep around the plants.

Don Shor:

So for those listening, you don't have to use oak leaves. Any leaves are fine. But if you happen to have a free source of oak leaf mulch, great. Straw is something I've used simply because I have a lot of grassy stuff on my property, and I can mow that and just spread it around the tomato plants. Mulch of any kind. Shade that soil.

Don Shor:

 Watch it break down and improve the soil. Anything you can do to get raised planters to hold water. This is a common challenge for us as we're talking to people. We realize halfway into the conversation, oh, you have a raised bed. Okay, everything I just said about watering, we're going to start over because they don't hold water. It drains out thanks to gravity, and the roots will get down eventually, but only if you help them there by giving the occasional deep soakings that you're talking about. A lot of people find with a raised bed, they have to water daily, at least the first year or two when they have the raised bed because of the type of soil they brought in. But if you mulch, mulch, mulch, and just grow cover crops in the winter, Here's a key tip. Cut plants off rather than pulling them out at the end of the season so their roots can break down and help to build the soil. You can improve the water holding and the nutrient holding capacity of your soil. And most of our conversations about raised planters are you're not watering enough and you need some source of nitrogen carefully applied so that you can keep those plants growing. Out in the open ground, that's much less of a problem because the roots can go as deep as they want to and you aren't dealing with basically potting soil. Most a lot of the problems come from the type of soil that people are bringing in because you can't buy anything with any density. So you basically have to start with a nice fancy topsoil that might have some compost in it and start turning that into real soil.

Farmer Fred:

When customers come in looking for tomatoes and they mentioned they're growing in containers, I'm sure you get into a conversation with them about the size of the containers they're growing in. But what varieties of tomatoes do you point them to?

Don Shor:

 That's where we get into the determinate types. Roma is still very popular for that purpose. Principe Borghese, if they're looking for a really reliable, small, drying, or soft type of tomato, is a great one for containers. Anything indeterminate is just going to outgrow even a 15-gallon container. Although I have tested this, and I can tell you, for those of you who are considering this, one and a half cubic feet of soil is the absolute minimum soil volume that I would use to grow a tomato. So that's a 15-gallon nursery can. The kind of thing a tree comes in. And I've done that. And I do find that by early July, they're needing water every single day. And you do have to augment the nitrogen, you know, through the season just to keep the plant growing. But I would look for a truly determinate one, such as Principe Borghese, or these new bush versions of old varieties that you remember, like Bush Champion, which has actually done very well for me. The bush version of early grow would probably be a very good choice. And there's others out there. Aroma is still popular for this reason. So, you know, it only grows two to three feet and you kind of harvest it all at once. Also, that gets you done by mid to late July. So you can stop watering every day. You can put something else in that container at that point.

Farmer Fred:

And be sure your container has drain holes. Yes.

Don Shor:

 Oh, yes. That's important. They're not bog plants. Yeah. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

We've been there and done that. But yeah, I would think that people would want, though, even though they're small plants, they would want a full size tomato or something reasonably full size, like eight ounces or so. And the Bush Early Girl fits the bill for that just fine.

Don Shor:

 Yeah and the Bush Champion which i grew for the first time last year so again i'll try it again this year. it did very well. it didn't produce as many fruit as i would have liked partly because of when it went in in the heat. but it gave me  20 or 30 fruit on a plant that only got to about four feet tall and it's a good one. One of the things about champion that makes it popular it's got a little tougher skin. i know that sounds like that wouldn't be desirable, but actually it is in some ways. It resists weather injury. It hangs on the plant even into, you know, colder weather. And it has good flavor. It ripens early and then holds well. And it's just a very successful all-around variety with good disease resistance. But it's a big plant generally. This bush version of it is actually something a lot of gardeners should consider.

Don Shor:

 Bush early girl, bush champion, some of that crowd.

Farmer Fred:

 There was a tomato that was developed right here in Sacramento at the Campbell Soup Factory that has become a staple of sales throughout the state. And I bet across the country, and that's the Ace Tomato. The newest thing is the Ace 55 tomato, which I think was developed back in the 1960s. Some consider it an heirloom. It depends how you define heirloom, but it is an oldie but a goodie that a lot of people will turn to when they're establishing maybe their first tomato garden or just for something that's kind of dependable for our area, the Ace 55.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, this gets back to our standard recommendation that we always want to get out there, which is to get some diversity in what you plant and try different ones, try new ones and old tested ones. And Ace is absolutely reliable. It's a relatively compact plant. It might usually get about four feet, five feet tall. It's described as determinate, but like most determinate tomatoes, it will keep producing. I mean, if you don't pull it out, you'll get a few more fruit by the end of the season. It's a good large one. It's what I call low acid, although technically it's just a sweet one. A sweeter style of fruit. And so it's very popular for that reason. It's slices as well. It's just a really good all-purpose tomato. It's been around, as you say, for 70, 80 years. I guess that makes it an heirloom. If it's older than you and I, then it's an heirloom, right?

Farmer Fred:

 Well, then darn it, we don't pass.

Don Shor:

 There you go.  And within the heirloom category, because I have this conversation so often with people, if you're planting, let's say you're planting six tomatoes, which I think would cover most family's needs. Get a cherry tomato in there. Get a good hybrid in there. Try one of these bush types. Do a determinate one and so forth. Then you choose one or two heirloom types. And don't put all your eggs in one basket by planting nothing but heirlooms. I know that was a mixed metaphor, but the heirlooms, some years they're great and some years they aren't. And I've had a couple that have been consistent, like Cherokee purple gave me 80 fruit two years ago. Last year was more like 30 to 40, pineapple, Arkansas traveler, mortgage lifter, those have generally done reasonably well for it, but not absolutely consistently and not something that I'm going to say, yes, plant nothing but this one and you'll be happy with it. I'm very concerned when people focus on the heirlooms because most of them aren't from here.

Farmer Fred:

 Right.

Don Shor:

 They're from back east or some other place like that.

Farmer Fred:

But the Ace is from here.

Don Shor:

 Yes, very much from here. Yes. And the Ace is a good one. And it's, although I think we can technically call it a hybrid. You can certainly rely on that one.

Farmer Fred:

Well, the one heirloom I will be planting this year is one that has done well for me in the past. And I haven't planted it in a few years. And I kind of miss it because I really like it. It's one of those big ones. It's the Dr. Wyche’s Yellow.

Don Shor:

 You've mentioned that one before, and I'm going to add that to my list here. I am always a little nervous about very large fruited varieties. It just seems like more things can go wrong as the fruit is developing. I mean, I have to wrestle turkeys and ground squirrels for some of these fruit. If I've got some giant pound and a half fruit developing out there, which I believe it's in that category, I'm getting a little nervous as it starts to ripen that that's going to be the one day that the 35 turkeys on my property discover that tomatoes are edible.

Farmer Fred:

Oh, yeah.

Don Shor:

But it's one you've talked about before is having great flavor and actually being reliable.

Farmer Fred:

 And I think one reason it does survive the summers here is it has a lot of leaf cover. So that helps. It helps keep it cooler and it helps keep the sun off as well, especially on the south and west sides. It's an heirloom tomato. It gets up to about 10 to 16 ounces in size. It's an indeterminate. And it is very tasty. It is the best tomato to put on a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich.

Don Shor:

 Adding that to my list like I need another variety. Dr. W-Y-C-H-E, right?

Farmer Fred:

Correct.

Don Shor:

 Dr. Wyche’s Yellow. Okay. And that's only going to come from a seed company online. You're not going to find that on a seed rack or in a garden center.

Farmer Fred:

 It is available at Johnny’s Selected Seed.

Don Shor:

 There you go. Garden centers focus on the ones you've heard of. And so if you want to get those unusual ones, you either have to look around to places where we like to try and start weird tomatoes or go ahead and get the seed in now. Now, it's March. I can hear it right now. “Isn't that too late to be starting tomato seeds?”

Farmer Fred:

 No. Mine germinated quickly. And, of course, I gave them bottom heat,  but I didn't soak them or anything like that. And they all germinated within five days.

Don Shor:

Yeah. And they come up quickly and they grow fast. I mean, it's not like peppers where you plant them and wait and wait and wait for them to do anything. Tomatoes just go. And people starting them in January, they were coming in looking for tomato seeds and starting stuff, starting supplies. I said, you can do your peppers now. You can do your eggplant now. I wouldn't do your tomatoes until, frankly, we're just starting them in our little greenhouse at our nursery now. And that's for early sales because they are up and saleable so quickly. I don't want to sell overgrown tomato plants. However, having said that, if you go out and buy overgrown tomato plants, it can work out as long as you follow the rule that I've been putting out there now for a few years because people keep giving me really good feedback on this. Keep them moving. Keep them moving. You buy one in a four-inch pot, move it up to a one-gallon can. I mean, I have a table set up now. It's already set up by my greenhouse because as the tomatoes come home, I just go right out. Before I do anything else, they go out of the pot they're in, whether it's a six-pack, those are getting more and more rare, or a three-and-a-half or four-inch pot. I shift them into a one-gallon containers in the richest potting soil we sell. You know, that stuff that's designed for the cannabis trade, that's great for this project. And you just grow them on up in those gallon cans, and then you've got a nice big soil volume. You've got enriched soil in there. The plant's two, three feet tall when it goes in the ground, but it's strong and it's sturdy and it's got deep green color. It may already be blooming for all you know. And then you plant it on Fred's birthday.

Farmer Fred:

 Thank you. April 28th. Yes. That's here, because all gardening is local.

Don Shor:

 Correct. Yes.

Farmer Fred:

For most people, I bet it's more like Mother's Day.

Don Shor:

 Well, it's when the night temperatures have been hitting 50 degrees absolute minimum. That's when the soil temperature is 60. I'm finding those are useful to real gardener types. You know, one little metric that I've given people that they can relate to, when it's hit 80 degrees once or twice, then it's probably safe to start planting tomatoes. 80 degrees tells you that the soil is probably getting up to that 60 degree temperature and your night temperature is probably in the 50s.

Farmer Fred:

Hey, it hit 80 here last week.

Don Shor:

 Well, yeah. Almost 70 something. It sure felt like 80.

Farmer Fred:

My thermometer said 80. But I'm not planting anything in the ground now.

Don Shor:

 Yeah. And tomatoes, you know, I had a long conversation with a nice young gardener the other day. And she said, why don't you have tomatoes yet? You can plant tomatoes now. And I said, well, here are the rules that we go by. And she said, “well, I planted them in mid-March last year and they did great”. And I thought, okay, please define great, but I didn't ask that. “But I did cover them a few times” she said. Right. Okay. That's kind of what you have to do if you plant in March because we can have frost in March, but more to the point, we can get cold enough to injure them, not just frost, but just to set them back. As we're speaking, there's frost in the forecast for this coming week, 36 degrees and the possibility of frost a little bit later in the week. So if you bought some tomato plants, I would suggest that you bring them inside at night if it's getting below 40 for sure. And if you can't do that, at least find that one side of your house that faces east or south and there's an overhang where the sun gets on them first thing in the morning and they'll probably be okay. But when you do get cold exposure to tomato plants, it sets them back due to each exposure by several days. So, I don't know what this person gained by the early planting when you're having to cover them and you're really not getting fruit earlier or really good growth earlier. You just don't gain that much in my opinion.

Farmer Fred:

 Let's reinforce the move them on up plan, because that is great advice, because people will go to a nursery, a garden center, a big box store, and they see all these plants out there in front of the store and they start buying these plants. And they say, “we'll get to this maybe today”. No, they sit at home, probably outside on a table, hopefully in a protected area or even inside in a sunny window. And they sit there for a couple of weeks and they start bending towards the light. Or if they're outside, they start suffering from the cold weather or the too windy conditions. Pot them up. If you turn it over, if you've got plants sitting in small pots, turn them over. Are there roots coming out the bottom? Pot them up. Move them up to one gallon containers.

Don Shor:

 Keep them moving. Keep them moving into one-gallon cans. You can probably find some used ones that your local garden center will probably give you or sell you. This is the one case where I would spend some money, as I said, on the most enriched potting soil that they sell. Because then you don't have to even put fertilizer in the ground when you plant them. It's already in that potting soil. For the most part, that would probably be enough for a tomato to get through the entire season. Don't overfeed your tomatoes, but keep those seedlings growing deep green. And don't let those roots get as bound. You know how root-bound a four-inch tomato plant will be after just two or three weeks in the container. So just take them out, tear them apart a little bit, drop them down.

Don Shor:

And it's another thing. You can drop them deeper in the pot. I'll put an inch of soil in the bottom, drop the four-inch tomato in there where I've pulled apart the roots that might be bound up, and I fill it up with soil. And I'm covering one or two or three inches of the stem. Now, there's many plants where I would strongly urge you not to do that. But in the case of tomatoes, they have adventitious roots, which will come out from the stem right on into that soil. And they'll get even bigger, stronger root system going into the ground in late April, early May, mid-May, early June, or even as late as the 4th of July.

Farmer Fred:

And you're not even stripping the leaves off the lower branch.

Don Shor:

 No, I'm not bothering with that. But what this gives me is a plant that's two to three feet tall that's going into the ground. And that means that I can drop it, as I like to joke on your show, below the gopher zone, 12 to 18 inches down. And I've still got a foot or two sticking out of the ground. So it gets a good deep start. You do have to water really thoroughly when you do this to make sure you're putting on enough water to get all the way down to those roots, which is important to do every time you water. But that plant will just won't even miss a beat. It'll just go right in the ground and start growing, and you'll get a stronger plant that way. I think a lot of people are aiming for really early fruit. and I would just aim for a good, strong plant. And a lot of fruit early in the season is great, but in our climate, My best harvests are always in September and October. That's from a strong plant that I've caged up off the ground, and I've given fertilizer only early in the season. I've given 10 to 12 gallons of water a week to each plant for each indeterminate tomato plant, half that for a determinate one. And I keep them growing, even when they're not setting in heat, even when it seems like the season should be over based on the temperatures. Nope, you're going to get that second wind on them. And we have that big advantage here that we're getting that great late summer, early fall harvest, and in some cases, like Fred, all the way until Christmas.

Farmer Fred:

All the way. And then those green ones and breaking ones are riping in the ersatz root cellar, and we're enjoying them in January and February.

Don Shor:

Yeah, certain varieties will take that just fine. And others, you're going to have to eat right off the plant because they soften quickly. And that's where you should make notes, just as we've been doing for a year, which ones have done well, which yielded well, which ones held up well. And I just have to throw one more out there, because it just surprised me so much last year. Lemon Boy produced over 100 fruit, according to my notes. It produced all the way up until end of November. It's a bright yellow, nice, sweet-flavored tomato. And it's one that I've grown for years. You've probably grown it before. Yeah, nice, pretty yellow tomato. Over 100 fruit last year. So it was my top performer in terms of how long it produced, you know, all through the season, all the way till the end, and the total number of fruit for a good size, six to eight ounce fruit.

Farmer Fred:

And that is one you can find at most nurseries, garden centers, and even the big box stores.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, the Lemon Boys are out there. And it's a very good one. And if you're only planting one tomato, here's your version of purgatory. If you're only planting one tomato, Fred, which one would it be?

Farmer Fred:

 Oh, man. You know, right now, it'd either be New Girl or Rugby.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, I would definitely agree with both of those. The one that I'm calling my empty nest tomato for my older customers who used to grow a lot of them and the family, you know, the kids have moved on, but they got to have one tomato plant. I say the one you should plant is Juliet's because I can guarantee it will do well. You go travel for two or three weeks, they'll still be hanging on out there when you get back. They'll keep producing all the way into the fall. And there have been years when it's been by far my biggest producer. And it's one of those ones where they pick easily, they're meaty, so you can use it like a cherry tomato, or you can cook it into sauce. I've told a lot of people that's where you just harvest them, put them on a cookie sheet, put them in the freezer until they're frozen solid, put them in plastic bags. You can use them right on through the winter, and they peel really easily when you do that. So if you're just doing one, let's say you've moved into a place, you've only got room for one tomato, Juliet would be a really good choice for that.

Farmer Fred:

 All right. Have we left anything out of this?

Don Shor:

Oh, well, we need recipes, man. What do you do with all these?

Farmer Fred:

 We'll do that in the summer.

Don Shor:

 What do you do with all those tomatoes? I get people asking me that question. What do you do? You grow,  35 varieties? What do you do with them all? I never generally have a problem giving away tomatoes. It's not like zucchini, where they turn and run when they see you're coming.

Farmer Fred:

 All right. I'll wrap this up then. Well, Don, the adventure begins again. Tomato season ahead. and I think we're both looking forward to it.

Don Shor:

 I've added three varieties to my list for this year just by talking to you, Fred, so thank you.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah, well, thank you for all the good advice over the years, too. You're going to end on that note?

Don Shor:

Well, I do urge people to make notes to keep track of what they've grown, what did well. We can expect summers will get hotter. I think that's a safe thing to say,

Don Shor:

 so let's keep an eye on which ones take the heat better. And in our case, where we are here in Northern California, in the Central Valley, where tomatoes grow like crazy, which ones continue right on until practically the holidays?

Farmer Fred:

Don Shor is with Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. Don, thanks for talking tomatoes with us today.

Don Shor:

 Always great to be here. Thanks, Fred.

Farmer Fred:

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday and it's brought to you by Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, visit our website gardenbasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.