Left to right: Golden Jubilee, Speckled Roma, some other Roma, Stupice, and a few pineapple tomatilloes
I ate the Golden Jubilee. All other tomatoes are green and still getting bigger. I don't believe the seed packets that tell you they're early season, mid season or late season, or that they mature in so many days. I think it depends on the microclimates in your garden. I planted everything from seed indoors in early February, put a few out under cloches in April and the rest out the first weekend in June. I never see more tomatoes than these before September no matter what I do and what variety, although there have been a handful of ripe Stupices here and there since July. The Golden and stripey ones are late season. They taste really good and in my four years of trying to learn to garden they've become a mainstay. The Golden Jubilees can show a little cracking because we've had heavy rains but are mostly plump and, um, meaty. The Speckled Romas get big for Romas and are dense with lots of flavor. Like all Romas they're more vulnerable to BER than others in the same container; the plant these came from doesn't show any, however. They are also the least resistant to fungus. I hope we're past that stage. Everything looks pretty lush and hardy (knocking wood). If you don't violate any of the Tomato Rules (don't plant too close, don't overwater, don't water from overhead, don't plant the same place you had tomatoes last year), the stripey Romas will produce lots of pretty fruit for you.
I wish I would grow tons of food and not have to buy vegetables at all, except the ones I don't want to grow because they take too much space (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower). Mostly I get a lot of tomatoes and squash. Here's the yield or potential yield so far:
-Tomatoes: 22 remaining plants (I culled one that looked like it was developing some kind of wilt), 19 actually busting out with impressive fruit.
-Eggplant, Japanese: 4 plants and so far only one eggplant big enough to eat.
-Herbs: basils, oregano, dill and chives; plus we made an her spiral out front and bought lavender, lemon thyme, sage and tarragon plants for it.
-Carrots: small and about 40% seed carrots, and they take all spring and summer to grow. Not the big basket of orange carrots for horses and people I was hoping for. Yet. I keep planting them.
-Parsnip/parsley root: see carrots. A few, not that impressive.
-Butternut squash: I can see at least 10 on our only plant. These are awesome. One seed is all you need and they store all winter without taking up space in the fridgelator (EG's pronunciation).
-Pumpkin: EG's pumpkin plant is sprawling and there are a few good specimens on it. It's the jack o' lantern kind, not the kind you grow for pie.
-Beans: Around 10 bean plants give us enough green beans for supper weekly. I like to let the black ones and the white ones keep growing and get dried beans from them, but for it to be enough to write home about you need more than I made room for.
-Greens: Swiss chard is easy to grow and we eat in salad or cooked, plus give some to the chickens and goats at the barn, and still always have some ready to pick. Spinach is doing OK.
-Peas: I never get a lot at one time. They are good either picked young or later with fat peas in the pod. I just wish we'd get a lot instead of 1 every other day.
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