Gabriola tomatoes
These tomatoes are at the honour stand on North Road near Colleen Road – that stand seems to be a new one.
If you grow tomatoes on the island, what varieties do you like? This year we grew Kastalia, Sugary, and Sasha’s Altai, which is a short-season variety from Siberia.
A few weeks ago I was determined to grow only short-season tomatoes in future, because it seemed that summer was over, and so many tomatoes were still green. But now we’ve had sun and sun and more sun, so hmmm.
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 6 Comments so far
6 Responses to “Gabriola tomatoes”
John Peirce on 07 Oct 2012 at 9:17 am #
My favorite tomatoes are Salt Spring Sunrise, which produces an abundance of medium sized tomatoes every year. From Dan Jason at Salt Spring Seeds.
This year I also grew Stupice, a Czech heritage variety, on the recommendation of Shirley, who used to run the gardens at PHC. This year they were quite small (twice the size of a cherry tomato) but sweeter than anything I have ever grown before. Also supposed to be resistant to Fall blight, but it has been so dry that that has not been an issure this year. Also available from Salt Spring Seeds.
john switzer on 08 Oct 2012 at 8:27 pm #
I find that improving the growing environment is the best way to get tomatoes to ripen. I use a poly tunnel to extend the growing season both in the spring and fall. The tomatoes in your photo are Big Beef. I have 6 other varieties that are all doing well in the poly tunnel.
Gabriolan on 08 Oct 2012 at 9:15 pm #
John Peirce –
I haven’t tried the varieties you’ve mentioned – will keep an eye out for them. I have ordered scads of things from Salt Spring Seeds over the years, though. That’s a really wonderful company Dan has there.
Gabriolan on 08 Oct 2012 at 9:18 pm #
John Switzer — ah, welcome! Fine tomatoes you’ve got there. Thanks so much for the tip about the poly tunnel. Maybe I’ll try one of those next year.
Laurie MacBride, Eye on Environment on 17 Oct 2012 at 1:50 pm #
We grew 10 (or actually 11) varieties this year:
-Siletz (definitely one of our favorites, does well in containers, produces early & continues over a long season)
-Gold Nugget (also does well in containers) – very tasty & productive cherry type
-Brandywine – yum! prone to a bit of blossom end rot, but its tastiness more than makes up for that
-Yellow Brandywine – even yummier!
-Rutgers – reliably good
-Early Girl – nothing fancy, but reliable
-Yellow Pear – very productive cherry type, great in a light saute over pasta
-Black Cherry – distinct, almost smoky taste – very good
-Polish Linguisa – a new one for us this year, which we’ll definitely repeat. A paste type, very productive, large tomatoes & flavourful.
-Juliet – the only hybrid we grew; a roma type, productive & reliable
-”Mystery” – the seed came from a Brandywine seed package but it clearly wasn’t that. Not sure what it was, but it produced huge, delicious tomatoes that might have been Big Beef.
My blog post today just happens to be about our tomatoes if you’re interested!
Gabriolan on 22 Oct 2012 at 8:28 pm #
My stars, Laurie – that is a lot of tomatoes! I like the slow ripening technique you mention in your blog post about tomatoes. I must try that.