Mid-Summer Tomato Report

Show Transcript

406 TRANSCRIPT Mid-Summer Garden Tomato Report

Farmer Fred:

In this episode of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, we talk with Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis California, about the problems, successes and failure’s in this year’s summer garden. 

We share info about the tomato winners like Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Cupid, and Chef's Choice Orange, while addressing challenges for many gardeners this year such as blossom end rot on tomatoes and effective watering techniques. 

Don offers insights about various new tomato cultivars, including promising crosses of hybrids and heirlooms. 

We also discuss the trend of growing peppers as perennials.

 Take lots of notes, refer to the transcript, or check out this week’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter to get all the great garden tips that we have to offer. Or, just listen to this episode over and over! 

We’re podcasting from the Barking Dog Studios here in the Abutilon jungle in Suburban Purgatory… let’s go!

MID-SUMMER GARDEN TOMATO REPORT CARD

Farmer Fred:

It's mid-summer. How's your garden doing? Well, it really depends where you are. It depends on your weather. It depends on a lot of things. So we're going to do a little report on what's happening out here in our own gardens, but we're going to be talking about a lot of things that just might be a problem where you are in your summer garden. We are talking with Don Shor. He owns a nursery, Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. So he's going to be telling us the sad tales of the gardeners in his area and the problems they've been facing this summer. And Don, let's face it, this is probably the nicest summer we can remember in a long time.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, I hate to brag because people in the rest of the country have been struggling through extraordinary heat. My kid lives in New York City, and there was one day when it was 98 degrees at 98% humidity, or at least that's what she said. And I think she might have been close to that. We've had one of the mildest July that I can remember. May and June weren't bad either. And the number of days over 100 degrees in the Sacramento Valley, it depends on where you are, of course. But we've had, according to the CIMIS weather stations in Davis, two days. It's August 13th as we record this, and we've had two days over 100. Dixon, three. Woodland, four. Winter is seven. And Fair Oaks, ten. So I don't think any of those are particularly high for the time of year. I think most of them are quite low. And I think where you are in Folsom, you probably haven't even had 10, have you?

Farmer Fred:

I don't think we have had 10. And if it got over 100, it was barely over 100. Whereas last year, it was temperatures over 110 for like a solid week in July. And that just played havoc with people's gardens. But this year, things have been very pleasant. Well, let's put it this way. I took a big load, 50 pounds of tomatoes, to the local food bank yesterday.

Don Shor:

Hmm. Okay. That was good of you. And so you've saturated all your neighbors and friends. You're now giving them to strangers. That's amazing.

Farmer Fred:

Well, they need it. They're hungry. And the tomatoes here that were doing fabulous were my old friends, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow. And one of your old friends that's just gone gangbusters here, Chef's Choice Orange.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, the Chef's Choice series is phenomenal. And then there are some interesting results with different varieties this year, as we expect. That's why I keep track of these things. There's the tried and true ones that are doing well. There's some that have surprised me this year.

Don Shor:

 Customers, let's talk about the negative first a little bit. A lot of comments about blossom end rot, which doesn't surprise me. We've been not just cooler in terms of daytime highs, but back in late May, early June, we had a number of night temperatures that were surprisingly cool. We actually got below 50 at one point, 48, 49 degrees. Well, that may not sound like it would make a significant difference. We do know this much about blossom end rot, which is that mushy thing that happens on the bottom of the fruit, where it's rotting on the bottom. It's not a pathogen. It's not an insect problem. It's just browning on the bottom. It's an internal physiological disorder of the fruit, and we know it correlates with low temperature and uneven soil moisture. Of course, we can't control the low temperature, and that was happening. End of May, even middle of May, end of May and into June, where the night temperatures were getting colder than we prefer. None of us were complaining, but the tomatoes were apparently affected by it. So a lot of people coming in over the last two to three weeks, bearing in mind, it's about seven weeks from blossom to fruit picking in the case of Early Girl, somewhere in that range for most other varieties, seven to eight weeks. So when someone comes in with blossom end rot, I know there was a problem five, six, seven weeks ago. And that's just about right in terms of some of the nighttime temperatures. They're looking for magic products that are going to fix blossom end rot. We know from every bit of current research that it's not a deficiency. It's not a problem that you can solve with a product. Water deeply, water more evenly, and whatever you can do about the weather, we'd appreciate taking care of those nighttime low temperatures.

Don Shor:

The next fruit that sets is usually fine. Certain varieties are famous for having problems with blossom end rot, Roma in particular. So there are some varieties that we would perhaps stay away from. Usually the plants outgrow it. We get into normal temperatures. It's not a problem going forward. But I would say more comments, more concerns about it than usual this year.

Farmer Fred:

Well, this is why I admire people like you who own nurseries and have to deal with the public on a daily basis. My impulse would be, how many years do I have to tell you about watering tomato plants? This is all your fault.

Don Shor:

That's right. I don't blame the public. Watering issues are definitely a problem. I would comment that we started the year dry. And because of mild temperatures, perhaps people don't remember this, that we didn't have extremes of high temperature, May, June, or July. We had our last really significant rainfall in March, and we had one storm in April, and really not much came out of that one. So the soil was dry to start the season. More of a problem with trees and such that people were planting, but definitely a problem with tomatoes as they went in as well. If they just planted them and then set their drip system, boy, are the drip systems a problem in this regard, set their drip system for, I could give you 10 different settings I've heard over the last couple weeks that have caused me to maintain a poker face as we have the conversation, so I don't say what I'm actually thinking. Who came up with four minutes a day at an appropriate setting for a drip? Who came up with seven minutes three times a week? I don't know. But things like that are not what the plants needed, especially at the start of the season when they were going into soil that was relatively dry. A deep soaking at the time of planting really made a big difference in terms of getting the plants off to a good start. And then consistent deep watering for those of us who are fortunate enough to have garden beds out in the open, you know, right out in the garden, deep watering as infrequently is reasonable. And for those of you with raised planters like Fred, watering as frequently as necessary. And it's two totally different conversations, unfortunately, with respect to how to water.

Farmer Fred:

 Now, I have to say that over the years, I won't say I figured this out, but I have made progress on this and the progress is in the off season is adding organic compost and worm castings, and covering it with six inches of leaves, dead leaves, oak leaves, leaf mold, whatever you want to call it. But all those oak trees around here, the leaves start falling come October, November, they're going to be in my yard. And I want them in my yard.

Don Shor:

 You go around to your neighbors and knock on the door and ask if you can take the leaves that they've piled up?

Farmer Fred:

 No, I just rake them up.

Don Shor:

 Well, they make a huge difference. And if you can grow a cover crop, that's fine. Fava beans or whatever you want to grow, mulching with leaves, putting in compost, adding things that have some slow-acting nitrogen. Worm castings are great in that regard. Whatever you can do to make that stuff you brought in that wasn't soil more like soil can make a big difference. 

So raised planters have special issues that require some consideration, especially as you adopt your irrigation practices for the season. You put in your drip lines and you turn them on, and you just filled it with the fanciest soil you could buy from that rock yard and you're basically growing things in potting soil. So it is going to probably be necessary the first year, the second year that you have raised planters to water daily. That's just, it's frustrating to have to tell people that. When I say daily, I don't mean three minutes, seven minutes. I mean 35 or 40 minutes each day with a drip system that distributes properly. And I believe you discovered, for example, that a four foot wide bed needed more than four lines going down it.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah, woe to those who have only one or two lines in a four-foot-wide bed, but I basically space my lateral lines eight inches apart, so it's usually five lines in a four-foot-wide bed.

Don Shor:

 And roughly how long do you run it typically?

Farmer Fred:

Well, the weather has been pleasant so far, but probably an hour and a half, three or four times a week.

Don Shor:

Yeah, so you're getting a real thorough watering when you do, and this is really the key. People tend to just not water their vegetables deeply enough, or in the case of raised planters, frequently enough. So, that'll be a factor in tomato blossom end rod because you're not giving them a deep enough water. More to the point, you really need to get those plants off to a good start, get some good vigor on them.

 Get them blooming in May, and that way you'll get the yield that you're expecting in August. But the conversations I'm having with people about irrigation have been frustrating. Oftentimes, I find myself saying, okay, try this: Go home. You know how to bypass your timer, right? Okay, go out to the knob, turn on the drip system, and let it run all afternoon right now. What? All afternoon? That's overwatering. Well, first of all, that's a term we should just stop using because it doesn't have any specific meaning. Second, you need to get the soil back to field capacity. All right, I've jumped into soil science jargon there, but you need to saturate the soil completely, let it drain out, and then go back to the perhaps lighter irrigation pattern you had been doing. They all forget that the first part of drip irrigation is bringing the soil to field capacity moisture. So sometimes when they bring in a sample of a plant that's showing clear drought stress, I'll say, I just want you to soak the heck out of your whole area. Not just the raised planter, soil around it, the shrubs nearby. The beneficial insects will appreciate it.

Don Shor:

 Just give everything water. Pretend we're having a three inch rainstorm in the middle of June. Then you can go back to relatively light waterings if you have to do that, but you don't, you didn't bank enough moisture at the beginning of the season. It's really what it comes down to. Those of us with open garden beds, we can deep water because soil just goes as deep as we want. So I can go out there and set a drip line and run for two or three hours and give a really good soaking. And I don't have to do that again for three or four days, sometimes even longer, depending on where you're listening, what your soil is like. But raised planters, you do need to give it a very thorough watering and you have to do it more frequently. So that's the first thing right there. That's the negative part. People aren't watering enough.

Farmer Fred:

 That's why modifying the soil in a raised bed is so important by adding that compost, the worm castings, and the mulch. That mulch does a lot to preserve soil moisture.

Don Shor:

 Yeah. And the other thing I do is I cut plants off, this is just a little trick I learned years ago, rather than pulling them at the end of the season, I'll pull one or two to check the roots. I like to look for nematodes and things like that. But the rest of them get cut off, and I take the top and pile it up. I don't have a formal compost pile, but if I did, it would go into that. Then the roots just disintegrate on site. They break down and make macro pores. They make actual channels that water and nutrients can go down further. So this is a simple method of building your soil the easy way. Rather than turning it, which we don't think is a great plan, mulch heavily, like you're talking about with leaves and let the roots break down naturally in situ and the plants will benefit in the spring as they explore the newly enriched soil that you created by fall and winter mulch.

Farmer Fred:

How many tomato plants have you pulled out of the ground already?

Don Shor:

 I haven't pulled any. First of all, I cut them off…

Farmer Fred:

 Okay, okay. hold on. I was quizzing you.

Don Shor:

 There's a couple that I'm probably going to go ahead and cut off at this point because they just, honestly, I didn't like them that much. I don't want to single anybody out, but there's some of these blue and, Purple tomatoes that I'm just not finding all that great. I'm talking about the old-fashioned ones with the high anthocyanin content. Let's see, Cosmic Burst is one of them. It's a very blue tomato. It to me tastes astringent. I've had 50 or so off the plant already. I'm done. I'm going to use that space for something else. But this is when a lot of people are past their first peak of production. They may have planted a determinate type that tends to produce all at once, like Oma, Principia borghiza, some of the others that people like to use for just, you know, process and you're done. So they may be taking them out to make space for their fall and winter vegetables. Indeterminate types, the ones that keep on growing, Champion and Rugby and the others, they'll continue to flower right on through August. They'll continue to set fruit through August and into early September. And you'll be harvesting good yields off of those in the months of October, late September into October, if you water deeply, if the plants are healthy, they'll give you a good late season crop.

Farmer Fred:

 I purposely took out a early planted tomato variety because it did its job. Bush Early Girl. I planted that back in the first week of April. It was done by the last week of July.

Don Shor:

 Yeah. This is a great plan for people who are limited for space is to look for some of these compact types. There's bush versions of Champion. There's even a bush version of Celebrity now. These are compact versions of old favorites. And of course, there have been determinate tomatoes around forever. Principia Borghiza is a great one for drying and for sauces. These are ones that you can plant and I think you turned me on to Jetstar. Yeah, it's a small plant producing tons of fruit. Looks like it's kind of done setting fruit and they'll be ripening over the next couple of weeks and I'll probably take it out.

Farmer Fred:

Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. No, leave it. Jetstar, you'll be surprised. Jetstar will be giving you December tomatoes.

Don Shor:

 Okay. I'm happy to leave it in. I've got room. So we are having conversations for people who are limited for space. They might be ready to take some of these out. I really think people should be a little more strategic about this. I love it when people walk into my store and buy 25 tomato plants in the spring, but they may not know exactly what they're in for. They might want to do a bunch of early types where they know they're going to process them and freeze it and can it and whatever, freeze them whole if you need to. You can do that with a lot of varieties and then leave a few indeterminate types to just continue right on into the fall. And anybody who's grown tomatoes in the Sacramento Valley or interior parts of Southern California or the East Bay can brag about the time they've had tomatoes for Christmas because we often have weather that's very suited to tomatoes ripening all the way into to October, November frequently, and with a little strategic harvesting, they can be sitting on your counter for Christmas dinner. That gets into another thing, which is harvesting the fruit, to avoid weather problems and avoid injury from various predators, you know, getting out there and picking them just when they're beginning to ripen rather than letting, trying to let them go fully ripe on the vine. Get into October, November, the nights are getting colder. You're probably better off picking some of those and bringing them in and ripening them on the counter.

Farmer Fred:

Let's talk about Cupid. Now you told me the last time we talked that Cupid might be a bit precocious. It's a cherry tomato. Cupid is a thug.

Don Shor:

 It's a monster. It's a monster.

Farmer Fred:

It is. It has totally consumed a four by four bed that I have.

Don Shor:

There's always one every year that does this. Cupid did it for me last year. Tim's Taste of Paradise also did it last year. So that was two monster cherry style tomatoes. We're talking 12 foot vines here easily. And Cupid, everybody loved it. I would pick them, by the way, they're easy to pick, which I know that sounds like a weird trait to promote, but the fact that they just tumble into your hand and go into the bowl, you don't have to tug them like you have to do with the Sun Gold. That has some advantages.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah, but you might lose a child. They mmight get lost in those branches, taking over your yard.

Don Shor:

. It's a meatier type. So while it's sold as a cherry tomato, it's got more firm meat to it. So you could actually throw those in a crock pot and make a good salsa out of them. I mean, unlike most cherry tomatoes, which are just for fresh eating. Cupid has really impressed me two years in a row. So it goes on to my highly recommended list. If you're looking for that style of fruit, it's right up there with Juliet as one that I know is going to do well and produce more than you know what to do with. But be aware, you definitely need to cage that one. I would say a six foot cage will barely contain it.

Farmer Fred:

I was thinking of building walls (of reinforced concrete wire sheets) around the four by four beds and go up about 10 feet. That might do it.

Don Shor:

 So Cupid is a fairly new one. And I only did it for the first time last year, I think it was the year before. And again, I never fully recommend a tomato until I've grown it twice and preferably even three or four times, especially if you have a weird year like this in terms of weather. Every year is weird in terms of weather, but whether it's cooler or hotter than usual, does it perform under those conditions? Yes. Cupid has been very, very good in that regard.

Farmer Fred:

You turned me on to another tomato, and I am very pleased with it. It's called Saucy Lady. Did you tell me about it, or maybe it was a freebie I got from Seeds and Such?

Don Shor:

Maybe that was it. I've grown that one, and I'm really impressed with what all the tomato breeders are doing with the sauce and cooking-type tomatoes. We talked about Rugby a couple years ago. That's just been a phenomenal producer, Saucy Lady. And Inca is one that I got as, again, a freebie from, I think, Totally Tomatoes. Totally Tomatoes and Seeds and Such, both of those companies, like to throw free seed packets in when you order from them and they've sent some really good ones out and the the Inca is a good example of one that i'm growing for the first time this year. It’s a compact plant, heavy production sauce style, no blossom end rot for me, so i'm hoping that that will be the case for others because we plan to grow more of that one next year. Inca has been a very good producer for us. And the one that they sent out probably five or six years ago is now being sold under the name It’z a Keeper that's been a very good performer. It has about 30 fruit on it right now and this is one that just keeps churning them out. They keep ripening and they stay firm even when they're fully ripe. So again the name tells you this is one that's going to hold well on into the fall and winter even sitting on your counter for as much as 10 to 14 days after you harvest. So look for some of these new ones and i think we'll definitely be pushing Inca along with Rugby next year. And then that saucy…, what'd you call it?

Farmer Fred:

 Saucy Lady. Yeah.

Don Shor:

 Good performer.

Farmer Fred:

 It is a determinant hybrid, excellent flavor, very suitable for making sauces and paste. I'm impressed with its size. A lot of the literature about it talks about it being three to four ounces and mine are more like five to six ounces.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, it's a big one. And the Rugby is the other one we've talked about many times. Seed has been hard to source on that one. So I'm always looking for ones that are like it. Rugby was bred in Bulgaria, and the company that sells it sells to North America through a Canadian distributor. So the seed's been a little challenging to get this year. We hope we'll have plenty of Rugby in production next year, but that one, again, five to six ounce fruit. So people are telling me they're taking what should be a sauce tomato and slicing it and using it as a sandwich tomato. So it's a multi-purpose.

Farmer Fred:

Because it's an oblong-shaped tomato, you can cut the slices long ways and they fit fine on a sandwich.

Don Shor:

There you go.

Farmer Fred:

I learned my lesson about Rugby. I had old seed and new seed. So I figured, what the heck, I'll try some of each. So I planted some old seed, planted some new seed. The old seed plants got yanked by July 1st. There was only one tomato, no flowers, and it was just a foot tall. Now, this is from a plant that went in on May 12th and it got yanked on July 1st. Whereas the new seed version of Rugby, is doing fine. It's doing great. It's producing a lot.

Don Shor:

 I wonder what the problem was. 

Farmer Fred:

Old seed. 

Don Shor:

 Well, that's the only trade-off I can think of, yeah. Rugby's been a very good performer. This is one where I did a little experiment this year. Mid-June, I planted out some very overgrown quart pot tomatoes. They were three feet tall. They were ones that I hadn't gotten transplanted, hadn't sold them, hadn't thrown them out. So I thought, you know, I'll stick these guys in the ground. And I dropped them down, as usual, about 16 inches deep into the ground, and they sat there and they sat there because they had been terribly rootbound. And so I gave them a little boost of fertilizer. I don't normally have to do that, but I went ahead and gave them a little bit of liquid fertilizer that we sell. And they're taking off now and they're flowering and they're going to be a great late crop for me. So Rugby has great potential for those of you that are looking for a late season processing tomato. It's a really good tomato in general, but in this particular case, I got it in late and it's going to be a good late performer for me. So once again, Rugby comes to the rescue for the late season.

Farmer Fred:

Where Don lives over in the Davis area, in Yolo and Solano counties, that is the prime processing tomato growing region in California. And seed development is a big deal in that area. And so you see a lot of tomatoes are coming out of Northern California that are being developed down the street from you.

Don Shor:

 Well, you see a lot of tomatoes lining the highway on-ramps at the moment. Yeah. They're harvesting, and it's, yes, it's number one crop in both Yolo and Solano counties, where I am. And they're coming out of the ground right now. Yes, there's breeders over here, and there's a whole lot of good varieties coming. Well, you like the Chef's Choice series. Those are not from the Davis area, but the breeder is up in Maxwell. Where? Maxwell? Huh? Colusa County up there. And I think that's the only thing in Maxwell.

Farmer Fred:

No, they have a baseball diamond and a meeting hall and a volunteer fire department. I know because we went up there to play a softball game when I was working at a radio station in Sacramento to play their volunteer fire department. They put on one heck of a feast, I want to tell you.

Don Shor:

 Well, they have the best delicatessen on Interstate 5. Now, I do want to mention a couple of varieties that have done very well for me this year, but I got to be cautious because, you know, it's an unusual year. I went back and planted one that I hadn't grown in over a decade. Carmello.

Farmer Fred:

 Carmello.

Don Shor:

 Carmello. And it's two L's. I cross-checked this on the line. C-A-R-M-E-L-L-O. This is a French hybrid from the 1930s. So is that an heirloom or is it a hybrid? Hard to say. But Gary Ibsen, who is well-known in tomato circles, Gary Ibsen has the TomatoFest website and is well-known for his promotion of open-pollinated strains, he took this French hybrid and dehybridized it.

Don Shor:

 So the process they go through where they save the seed, grow the seedlings, pick out the seedlings that are the plants from those seedlings that are most like the parent, grow them again. After four or five, six years of doing that, you have seedlings that have fruit that's so much like the original hybrid that you can't tell them apart. And they now have an open pollinated version. So Carmello, which was a French hybrid, is now an open pollinated.

Don Shor:

I guess it's an heirloom because they did this in the 1990s and the hybrid was from the 1930s. I don't know what category to put it in, but you know what? Carmello has got 50 fruit on it right now. They're about 8-ounce fruit. Some are bigger, 10 to 12-ounce. It's a beautiful red tomato. I'm not sure why I stopped growing it, except perhaps that there's so much competition in that medium-sized red fruit category that it just fell by the wayside. This year, it's going to be one of my top performers, obviously. It's got a lot of fruit on it, really good flavor. Good for slicing when i say that when we see that as a marketing term - good for slicing, great slicer - lots of that connective tissue that means you can slice it and the slice will hold together so it's good for your sandwiches and things like that. Great flavor and looks like one of my top performers this year. But again, we had cooler weather this early summer, so i'm not gonna say everybody jump in and grow Carmello next year. But i will grow it next year and i'll give you a full report after two years of production, see how it does. It gets a lot of comments and compliments from folks gardening in the Pacific Northwest. So that tells me that it's actually good for those kinds of climates.

Don Shor:

 But I had grown it in the past with good results, very, very good results this year. Carmello, one to look for. We don't know for sure when you buy it at a garden center, whether you're getting the old French hybrid or the more recent open pollinated dehybridized version of it. In either case, I suspect you'll have good results. Carmello.

Farmer Fred:

I went down this Italian tomato rabbit hole today. It's all because of Google AI. You know, when you go to Google and you put in a search term and the first thing that pops up is an AI overview. And it was giving me some info about Saucy Lady. But down there, in the box below, it says people also ask, what is the best tasting tomato of all time? And I go, well, okay, I'll click on this just to see what this is.

Farmer Fred:

And it was Pantano of Rome, Lazio. Lazio, I think, is like a precinct or a district in Italy near Rome. Pantano of Rome. And it took me to this website called Learning with Experts. I'm very suspect at this point. And it was an article called Six of the World's Best Tomatoes. And it was written by a guy that is sponsored by a seed company. So he's not necessarily unbiased. Well, it's a sponsored post by Franchi Seeds.

Don Shor:

Oh, sure. I know Franchi Seeds. Yeah. They are the main company selling tomato seeds from Italy to American consumers.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah. And there are American outlets where you can buy most of these seeds, which just so happened to have Franchi Seed packets. But the names included one of your favorites, "Coeur de Boeuf".

Don Shor:

 Good job, thank you.

Farmer Fred:

Your other big favorite Principe Borghese is on the list.

Don Shor:

 Principe Borghese which is actually a great little sun drying tomato. It's a determinate one. It's got wonderful flavor. It's actually one of my standard tomatoes for growing for processing and whether those are the best flavored how would you even determine that the flavor profiles of Tomatoes? They range from somewhat acidic with high, rich tart flavor to very sweet tomatoes, low acid. They sometimes use that term. And people do have strong preferences in that regard. I do remember that the winner of a taste trial in California many years ago, Sunset Magazine did a taste trial. The winner of their taste trial was an Early Girl that was grown without irrigation or what they called dry farmed from Napa Valley. And also, the very famous chef in California, Alice Waters, who had essentially started what is known as California Cuisine, was asked, what's the best flavored tomato? And her comment was, a dry farmed Early Girl tomato from her friend's farm in Napa Valley. Now, bear in mind, Napa Valley gets more rain than we do. So, they have a better start in terms of growing things without irrigation.

Farmer Fred:

 They get more fog, too.

Don Shor:

Yeah. Yeah, it gets cooler and they get just as hot during the day, but they have a little more coastal influence, a little more like where we are over on our side of the valley than perhaps other parts of Sacramento Valley. But her comment sparked a renewed interest, this is 30 plus years ago,

 a renewed interest in the old Early Girl variety, which had become very popular in the 1970s. And people jumped into this dry farming idea. You're not going to get great yields if you do that. You've got to understand what we're doing here when you do dry farming. You're essentially growing a determinate crop regardless of the nature of that particular variety. But the Early Girl, the well-known variety hybrid from the 1970s, was considered the best flavored tomato when grown with reduced irrigation on two separate trials. I would agree. Early Girl has wonderful flavor. And I think in general, tomatoes that are grown drier will probably have more concentrated flavor. But there's different styles to tomato flavor. I've had customers who find that they prefer yellow tomatoes because they think they're sweeter and less acidic and they find they can digest them better. I don't know if that's actually true in terms of the digestion part, but they like the lower acid nature of certain of the yellow fruited tomatoes. Or they'll ask for Ace because it's often described as being a low acid tomato. It's a very good tomato for this area. It does extremely well. Compact plant, good sized fruit, sweeter, milder flavor. So it's hard to say what's the best flavor of all. But I think that any tomato you grow to full ripeness in your own garden will be the best flavored tomato.

Farmer Fred:

 Well, if people are interested in this Franchi tomato, the Pantano of Rome Lazio, that this guy calls the best tomato ever, I'll read you his description of it. He says, “simply the best tomato I have ever tasted. On the larger side, fruits can reach 250 grams (8.8 ounces). It may keep its green shoulders, but they're ripe and not green. Tasty and crunchy. This tomato is sweet to the taste, pulpy, and has a rare character and quality seldom found these days. It's a cordon variety, C-O-R-D-O-N, a cordon variety, and would do best undercover in cooler areas to extend their season because they are larger tomatoes. They are very meaty, heavy, fleshy, with a thick skin, but still not a tomato full of pockets of seed and of low acidity. I cannot recommend these enough. A real cracker,” he calls the Pantana of Rome, Lazio.

Don Shor:

Okay. I'll have to get some seed and try that next year and subject it to our rigorous taste trials, which means I take them in and see what the staff thinks.

Farmer Fred:

 Well, looking at the tomato, it's got green shoulders and that right away makes me think of, well, that's a summertime problem in our area, except the shoulders are yellow.

Don Shor:

Yeah, green shoulders is actually a comment I saw about the Carmello that we were talking about earlier. I haven't personally had that experience, but it just means that they don't ripen evenly and uniformly, so it's not ever going to be a commercial variety. It should be fine for home gardeners. And this is, you know, tomatoes that don't have perfect even ripening would generally not make it in breeding programs for that reason. They don't look right, but they may have the flavor that we're after. This was a big part of the appeal of heirloom varieties for years. Well, now some of the companies have been hybridizing heirlooms. We want to confuse the public. Hybridizing heirlooms. Now what do we call them? But there are some that I tried this year. These heirloom marriage varieties. And a good example is one called Genuwine. Well, it's producing a lot of fruit for me. It's got 30 or 40 on it right now. It was one of the later ones I planted, end of March. And they're good size. They're beautiful fruit. And it's a cross between Costeluto Genovese and Brandywine.

Farmer Fred:

Oh, okay.

Don Shor:

 So the Costeluto Genovese part is fine. That's always done very well for me. It's an Italian heirloom and loves the heat. But Brandywine, no, that's one that I don't recommend at all because they generally, let's say I've been skunked by tomato varieties occasionally where I planted a plant and gotten zero or one or two fruit on a vigorous plant. Brandywine's done that to me every time I plant it. It just does not take the heat. So I was a little skeptical, but I figured I'll give this one a try. It has done very well, and it looks like it's going to be a very good producer this year, 2025, with a relatively mild summer. It's looking like a very good possibility. And it looks like a good slicer. It's got great flavor. And so I have good hopes for the Genuwine, one of the heirloom marriage types. Ball Seed Company seems to be the introducer on these, although I don't know if it's their product line. they're the ones that i got the information from so that looks like a good one. And then there's another one called Marzinera, Well, what is Marzinera? Marzinera is a cross between San Marzano, one of the best-known sauce tomatoes in the world, and another variety that I've never heard of, Cream Sausage is the other one.

Farmer Fred:

Oh, yeah, I've had that. I've actually planted that, yeah.

Don Shor:

 Okay, and it's a firm, I gather, firm, meaty sauce-type tomato. So far, Marzinera is one of my top producers this season. Smaller fruit, Roma style, San Marzano style. The thing about San Marzano is that it's a skinny fruit. It's kind of hollow. It's got a lot of meat, but not a lot of juice. And so it takes a lot of it to make a sauce, but it's got a legendary reputation. I mean, it's been around forever. It's actually a special variety. You can only label your cans “San Marzano” if you're from a particular part of Italy, that kind of thing. This is a more useful fruit to me. It's got more meat to the fruit and it's got really good flavor. So Marzinera looks very promising in this heirloom marriage product line.

Farmer Fred:

 Going back to the Genuwine tomato, since one of its parents is a Costeluto Genovese, one of the problems I've always had with the Costeluto Genovese is it gets soft on the vine very quickly. You have to go out there and squeeze it every day to figure out if it's ripe or not, and then don't leave it out there, but bring it in.

Don Shor:

 And use it right away. It has to go right in the pot. Yeah. So this one looks firmer than that. It looks like it's got more of that Brandywine parentage in that regard. So I'll definitely give you,  in a wrap-up program in the end of the fall or in the beginning of next spring, we'll talk about this one. But it looks real promising. It does not seem to have that quick softening characteristic of Costeluto Genovese, but it has the flavor and it has the rich appearance.

Farmer Fred:

Well, let's talk about the purple elephant in the room, the Norfolk Purple tomato, year number two. So your friends over there in Davis that developed this tomato, it's a through and through purple tomato. It looks pretty. It's purple all the way through. It looks great in a salad. Last year, oh, you couldn't find very many happy people with purple tomatoes, that one, because they were kind of bland. 

Don Shor:

 Production was great, yeah, but the flavor was mild. I’ve talked to the guy at the company yeah they're here in davis and they're down at the farmer's market this is genetically engineered genetically modified they've inserted a gene from a snapdragon that makes the flesh purple all the way through, whereas all other blue and purple tomatoes basically the blue purple part is the skin this one that the difference is that doesn't have the astringency that a lot of the other purple and blue tomatoes have. I’m not a big fan of them in general. I don't like the flavor profiled most of the blue and purple tomatoes that come on the market from conventional breeding. And they're just normal looking tomatoes on the inside. This one is beautiful. And the first year, he acknowledges, they were, let's say, mild flavored. I joked with them, their company is originally from England. So maybe these are an English style tomato where they are accustomed to mild flavored fruits. But each year he knows that they're working on higher sugar content. I said, you also need to bump up the acidity so that you get that balance of flavor and tartness that people actually expect in a tomato. This year's fruit are better, and they're getting up there, and I think they're on their way to having, in two or three years, perhaps one of the best-flavored blue or purple tomatoes on the market because it won't have the astringency, and they're working for more sweetness. So each year is better, and I think they've got something very promising. Also, it makes a great sun-dried tomato.

 One of my staff, when we had tons of them last year, I brought in a whole bowl of them. So she took them home, cut them in half and dried them and said they were great flavor and beautiful when you do the sun drying on them. So you can also do it in a regular dehydrator. You don't actually have to use the sun for this purpose. You can you can use electric power if you wish. And they actually are great for that as well. So the company knows that they've got some work to do on flavor profile, but they do have a beautiful fruit and they're on their way.

Farmer Fred:

 Have they solved the cracking problem?

Don Shor:

 No, no. We'll discuss that in the next go-around. All right. Now, I got to mention one heirloom that has just each year now, again, Cherokee Purple, speaking of purple tomatoes. I've got about 40 fruit on my plant. Two years ago, it was one of my top producers. I never promised that with an heirloom tomato. I never say to you, this is going to be the best producer in your garden this year. But it was two years ago. Last year, it was fine. And this year it's on its way to being another high producer. So of the heirlooms, which I'm always a little leery of, the two that have done well for me in general, Mortgage Lifter and Cherokee Purple. I didn't happen to plant Mortgage Lifter this year, but once again, Cherokee Purple is going to be a high producer. People really like it. It does soften pretty quickly. You've got to take it and use it fast. But it's an interesting sort of a brown-purple color. Looks like another good year for Cherokee Purple.

Farmer Fred:

 It's a pretty good size tomato too, isn't it?

Don Shor:

 Yeah, 8 to 10 ounce and some of them bigger. And the only problem I'm having with it is that the turkeys seem to like it. So if you've got an answer to that problem if it doesn't involve lethal measures. let me know.

Farmer Fred:

Before we run out of energy or time, whichever comes first, what are the hot vegetables that were sold this spring and summer at your nursery that weren't tomatoes?

Don Shor:

 Well, peppers, there's an interesting trend towards mildly hot peppers. People seem to be really enjoying that. And also the fast-yielding ones like Shishito, which 10 years ago, I probably sold one flat of Shishito all season. Now I sell flats and flats of it. People just love Shishito peppers. They like them green. They like them ripe. They like the fun facts that one out of 10 is extremely hot and the rest of them are sweet. I have one out of 10 plants. So you never know. It's a little bit of Russian roulette there when you plant Shishito. They're like Pimento de Padron peppers. It's that characteristic that some of the seeds grow to plants that have high Capsaicin content, and the others are just a sweet pepper. So that's been something I've enjoyed watching more and more: novice gardeners planting Shishito. And I'm glad because it's a reliable, high-yielding pepper for this area. And peppers in general are selling better and better, and more people are buying them right on through the summer. If you come into my nursery right now, you'll find one-gallon peppers with fruit on them, and they're flying out. People are buying them all summer long. And we talk about this. We want you to understand this is a subtropical plant. I'm not promising it will get through the winter, but they frequently do. More and more as the years are going by for reasons that I think scientists could possibly explain, more peppers are making it through the winter and people are growing them more or less as perennials. And you can do this. You can take the plant, move it up to a big container, pull it up closer to the house, and you can at least harvest all the way in through December and into January in a normal winter here. And very commonly, you can get them right on through. So, peppers or smaller fruited types are probably your best bet. You know the kind of peppers I'm selling fewer and fewer of? Bell peppers. Because they're just a hassle. They burn. They sun scald. But you know, Gypsy, The Marconis, the Shishitos I've mentioned, the Anaheims for a slightly hot pepper. I've got one Anaheim right now that I'm looking at out my window. It has got 12 fruit on it, one single plant. And they also take very well to container culture, which is much more of a problem with tomatoes. Tomatoes are just too big for containers in general. But peppers are great. You can give them plenty of water. They do like to be fertilized or go into a very enriched potting soil, but they do very well for me. So I would say the trend towards peppers is one I'm happy to see because they're just like there to give people good results, especially now that they've gotten away from having to have a bell pepper and going to more peppery peppers.

Farmer Fred:

If one wanted to grow a pepper over the winter and maybe grow it in a container and move it closer to the house or even inside on a really cold day, What size container should it be in?

Don Shor:

 Five gallon is going to be the minimum for most of them. Something that's a little bigger than that might be even better,  seven gallon or 10 gallon. And  spend your money on good potting soil in this case, because they love an enriched soil. And then you can just pull it up close to the house and have it under an overhang until we get into the really cold weather in late December into January. You might need to bring it in. But the main thing is that you can get fruit ripening on them all the way into at least early winter. And in many cases, you can get it through. The other area where I'm seeing a lot of interest is the new basil varieties that have come on the market. The Tower basils, which are great. The Emerald Towers is a Genovese-style basil. They've crossed Ocimum basilicum, the regular basil, with another species of Ocimum, which is the genus of basils. These interspecific hybrids don't flower. They grow and grow.

Farmer Fred:

 They're plants. They got to flower. 

Don Shor:

 Well, they haven't for me so far. They've been on the market four or five years now. And every year I plant them and I plant regular sweet basil and I plant Genovese basil and all kinds of others. I like to grow them all. And this one, they just plug along. And last year we got into December and freezing weather and the plants finally died. They had never flowered all season. They just got taller and taller. The name Tower refers to the fact they have this very columnar habit. They look like a little boxwood plant as the season goes along. Slower growing than conventional sweet basil, but much longer production. You don't have to pinch them. You don't have plants that are just kind of fizzling out as the season goes along. So they're great. And I really recommend that people plant both, plant the regular sweet basil for your early crop, and then let these slower growing, steady pace of production grow right on into the fall and winter. So the Tower series, and there's now a Tower version of the Thai basil as well. So these are great for people who want a steady supply all season long and don't want to have to worry about basil plants flowering and having to pinch them and snip them all the time. The other end of the spectrum is the Magic Mountain, which is grown just for the flowers, basically. It's a Thai basil that has got very showy blooms, purplish foliage. I'm looking at one out the window right now, and I can see bees all over this thing. I see a swallowtail coming to it right as we speak. And it just blooms like crazy. Yeah, you can use it if you happen to like Thai basil. It's in that kind of more astringent flavor range that people who use Thai basil prefer.

Don Shor:

] But it's really a great garden plant. And this is one that continues to, it flowers quickly and flowers all season. It goes right on into freezing weather as well. So the Magic Mountain basil, the Tower basil for production, the Magic Mountain basil to draw pollinators and beneficials into the garden.

Farmer Fred:

Well, hold on a second here, P.T. Barnum. According to one of the seed distributors of the Tower basil, all they say is “this cultivar holds off flower production up to 12 weeks longer than other types of basil”.

Don Shor:

 So eventually, it will flower. So they say. Hasn't happened to me. Well, it's only August. So it was a long time. How's that? Maybe you wanted to go through the winter and flower the next spring. Yes. And by the way, the flavor is the same. There's the Tower basil that we're all selling, Emerald Towers, the Genovese basil type. And Genovese, to me, there's a lot of basils out there, just for the record. It gets a little confusing to people. There's lemon basil and cinnamon basil. I have no use for those. But the Genovese is the one that people really want. That's the flavor that makes classic pesto, and that's the flavor of the Emerald Towers basil.

Farmer Fred:

 There you go. One vegetable that did great this year, and I'll be planting more very soon, is the Bodega Red Potato.

Don Shor:

 Yeah. Yeah, this is an heirloom.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah, from the north coast of California. It was the official  potato of California at one point.

Don Shor:

 This is part of the slow food movement where they're reintroducing old heirloom varieties. And one of the master gardeners out of Sacramento contacted us and asked us if we wanted to be one of the first in the valley actually selling this. Yeah, we grabbed a bag of them, and we've already signed up to have a bag next year. Great feedback on that one. It's been in California about 100 years, something like that.

Farmer Fred:

 Oh, it goes back further than that. I think some guy on a Russian trawler jumped ship at Sebastopol and had the potatoes in his pocket.

Don Shor:

 Well, that's important. You know, if you're going to land, you better bring your food crops with you. You've got to have your source for vodka. That was probably it.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah.

Don Shor:

 Yeah, that's been very good. And the other whole category that I've just been really impressed with this year is cucumbers. They took off. They've loved this mild weather. I've gone entirely to burp-less types, burp-less and Persian types, because they never get bitter. The one exception to that category is that I always grow a lemon cucumber because it's just a personal favorite. But those people who grow regular green cucumbers are always complaining that they get bitterness on them. And if you go into the average nursery, they'll say, oh, that's the way you're watering. It's uneven watering. No, no. Regular cucumbers get bitter here when it's hot. When there's stress, they get bitter. and it has nothing to do with your watering. Well, if you're watering wrong, they'll be even worse. But even when you water correctly, we have a heat wave, you get bitterness on them. It's not a problem with the burpless types. And this is a term we use for the ones that have very small seed cavities, reduced seeds in many cases. People burp because of the seeds in cucumbers. Burpless types don't have that. They're sweeter. Theoretically you can eat the peel. I don't, but you can. And they've been phenomenal for me. So I've gotten away, completely away, from regular green cucumbers and just entirely doing either burpless types or the Persian ones, but you got to move fast on those. You see them five or six inches long in the morning. By the end of the day, they're too big. So you got to harvest them more consistently. But in general, burpless cucumbers and my old favorite, the lemon cucumber, just for the flavor. A great year for cucumbers in general because of the milder weather, is my assumption.

Farmer Fred:

 And the milder weather has produced a plant in my yard I've never grown before. Rhubarb. It's coming up. It's growing.

Don Shor:

 Rhubarb.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah.

Don Shor:

 Rhubarb is one of those plants where people from the Midwest will walk into my nursery and say, why are you selling that? It's a weed. People here really fuss at it. If it goes more than three years, you've done well. So it's a plant that apparently prefers Midwestern, I don't know, humidity, cold winters, some combination.

Farmer Fred:

 Both, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the Crimson Red variety. I planted it on January 17th, and it just sat there and did nothing. And then finally it sprouted, I think it was in April or May, and now it's growing.

Don Shor:

So you'll have rhubarb, have you got your strawberries planted so you can have strawberry rhubarb pie next to you?

Farmer Fred:

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this.

Don Shor:

 Rhubarb is something that's a little tricky to grow here. My best results would have generally been when I had it on the edge of my orchard, and it was getting watered deeply and fairly infrequently, because it seems to be pretty easy to rot rhubarb, especially going to about the third and fourth year. A raised bed would probably make a big difference for that, because you get the drainage away from the crown. So congratulations on growing rhubarb successfully after 57 years of being a gardener.

Farmer Fred:

 And now all I have to do is make a rhubarb pie, I guess.

Don Shor:

Yeah, there you go.

Farmer Fred:

I think we have planted and harvested the garden so far in 2025, here in mid-August. Now we could get another hot spell, and we could be singing the blues in four weeks.

Don Shor:

 You never know. The hottest temperatures that we experienced in the last few years were in September 2022 when it got to 116 degrees for two days, then 110 for two days, then 106 for three days. We still see effects on trees and shrubs from that extreme heat event. So September can be very hot. But also, you can get really good yields here from your vegetable garden if you deep water in August and early September. One thing I would add is a little bit of fertilizer, especially on the peppers, eggplant, cucumbers maybe, but especially peppers and eggplant to keep them going can make a big difference. Whatever you prefer to use, liquid fertilizer, fish emulsion, your favorite granular fertilizer that they sell at the local garden center. Those are all fine. You don't generally need to feed your tomatoes to keep them going. I don't really push nitrogen for tomatoes, but for the peppers and eggplant, and I would say the cucumbers, light feeding mid-August is actually very beneficial to get that late season crop that we've been talking about.

Farmer Fred:

 A very good tip to end on here in mid-summer in 2025. Don Shor is with Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis. By the way, he has a podcast.

Don Shor:

 That's true. Davis Garden Show, and it's got its own homepage and everything.

Farmer Fred:

Give it a listen.

Don Shor:

 There you go. We'll talk in October about which tomatoes you're still harvesting.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. We'll be talking about canning and freezing and dehydrating and all that stuff, too. Don, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Don Shor:

Great to be here.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred:

While editing today’s Garden Basics podcast, I was taking copious notes, about all the great garden tips Don Shor and I discussed. In fact, it was the most notes I have ever taken for any episode. Were you taking notes, too, while listening? If so, I hope you weren’t driving. But I’ll make it easier for you: check out the transcript of today’s episode, especially the more accurate transcripts that you’ll find at our website, garden basics dot net, or at our podcast uploader, Buzzsprout. Or, just refer to the Friday, August 22  edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, where I will expand on those garden tips mentioned today that really hit home for me.

Find a link to more information about the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in today’s show notes; at our home page, garden basics dot net. Or just do an internet search for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter.

And thank you for your support and encouragement to keep the good gardening conversation going. 

FARMER FRED’S RIDE FOR THE KIDS

Farmer Fred:

I'm fundraising on behalf of the 2025 Sac Century Challenge on Saturday, October 4 to raise money for the Sacramento Children's Home Crisis Nursery, and I could use your support. Here’s the link.

On that date, I’ll probably be riding my new (and probably last) bike, the FRED OTL (a custom Haley titanium bike, NOT an e-bike). “OTL” - in bike race parlance - stands for “Outside Time Limit”…participants who were sent home for being “dead ass last”. I never said I was fast. But I do persevere to the end.

The journey of 100 miles along the Sacramento River is to help out the Sacramento Children’s Home Crisis Nursery. I’ve ridden 100 miles in one day plenty of times…when I was younger. 

But at 74, and with a few health setbacks in 2025, I could use some moral support, and the Sacramento Children’s Home Crisis Nursery can use your pledge money. 

So, how about it? Maybe pledge 10 cents a mile (that’s $10) along with a hearty, “You go, Fred!” Or a more generous one dollar a mile ($100), to give me the mental endurance for the entire ride, to dodge the pothole-filled levee roads and pedal harder in the ferocious headwinds that makes this ride a real challenge!

The Sacramento Children's Home Crisis Nursery is the only program of its kind in Sacramento County and directly prevents child abuse and neglect by supporting families with small children at times of crisis. The nursery allows parents to bring their children ages newborn to five for emergency hourly or overnight care during difficult times, with the goal of keeping families together and reducing the number of children entering foster care. To care for our community's most vulnerable children, we rely on support from community members like you. By donating, you empower us to provide a safe haven for children throughout the Sacramento area, offering respite to parents during times of crisis, and building a strong support system for the future. Your support helps provide a safe place to stay local kids in need. 

Again, here’s the link to make a donation to the Sacramento Children’s Home Crisis Nursery.

Thank you for your support, and say "Hi!" if you see me pedaling like crazy out there on Saturday, October 4th!

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday. 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.