All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.
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Located in inland southern California, zone 9b.
[Image description: split image, the top photo is four tomatoes on a cutting board, the bottom photo is hundreds of multicolor heirloom tomatoes covering a kitchen counter.]
Omg that's a lot of tomatoes. I wish my garden was half as productive as that!
So does OP this year.
I'm in zone 6a and envious! All I have are flowers and pea-sized green cherry tomatoes.
7b, same here. I'm eagerly awaiting late July, when I might actually have something to eat!
I’m in Southern CA (Zone 10a), too. Still don’t have any ripe tomatoes. Everything is super slow this year.
These are so beautiful and I am obsessed. When you expecting to harvest the same amount from last year?
Well I put the seedlings in 3 weeks later this year, so between that and the delayed heat, I'd say I'm about a month behind.
I just checked, and I harvested my first tomatoes on May 24th last year, so yeah a month tracks.
I'm jealous right now. A tomato seedling just sprouted mysteriously from a vase I put outside a couple of weeks ago, it's a see onion who's been in my room for a few years, I have no idea what tomato variety it'll be or how this seed got there, but I'll take it as a sign.
Once that seedling is big enough I'll put it on the ground and we'll see what it is.
Wow! What a dramatic difference. We have like five tomatoes plants and all are producing fruit but they're ripening slowly, imo. (I'm also in socal). Hot weather is coming this week though so hopefully we both have better luck 🤞
Omg, what did you do with so many tomatoes?
Desperately try to foist them on friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, passing dog walkers, the mailman... anybody who'd take some 😆
Beyond that, we'd eat tomato based meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we canned dozens of pints of salsa and sauce (that we're still eating!).
What my family did was make liters and liters of tomato sauce and then freeze them, so for the rest of the year we had really good tomato sauce.
Well then ur neighbors are so lucky because those look really good. I imagine they taste far better than any you can find at the store
Oh they certainly do, once you've had homegrown, store bought will forever taste bland. And there's such crazy variety, some are intensely sweet, others tart or savory.
Is there any variety you recommend for its taste in case I ever decide to grow my own tomatoes? I'd never seen as many different ones as in your picture lol. I'll eat tomato mostly in salads. Also, I live in Southern Europe so our weather should be pretty similar to SoCal.
My favorite for overall tomato-y flavor would be Brad's Atomic Grape, but a solid second place for a sweet beefsteak would be the Golden King of Siberia.
Thanks! I'll consider them if I ever decide to grow my own tomatoes. It's insane how many different varieties with different flavors exist and yet we get the same identical, insipid versions in stores. As someone who really enjoys trying new foods and gets tired quickly of eating the same stuff, I'd be willing to pay more to get different fruit varieties. I guess it's just not profitable for them, so they'll just grow whatever lasts longer in shelves...
Omg a LITERAL mighty harvest!!
When I see something like this, my mind also adds chopped shallot soaking in olive oil, with salt and pepper. Slice one of those yellow tomatoes, spread the shallot on top, then put on a salad or a pizza before reheating.
Yesss, that sounds delicious. My favorite is sliced with mozzarella, basil and balsamic glaze on a slice of toasted sourdough rubbed with garlic.
I live in LA county can I be your friend?
Hah sure, head on out to Riverside and I'll give you a garden tour!