Tomatoes Have Been Planted!

On Sunday I headed out to Stillman's to buy tomato plants. They're a farm (we were members of their CSA a few years ago), but they also have greenhouses with veggie and flower plants for sale in the spring. Over the winter I noticed that they had an insane number of types of tomatoes available for preorder on their website. I was hoping they'd also have a huge variety on hand for walk in traffic, and I wasn't disappointed! They actually had quite a few that weren't on their order form - and they have 151 varieties listed on the form!

All those plants on the left are tomatoes!

With the help of my first grader, I picked out eleven plants.

I ended up with:

Beauty. Indeterminate, 75 days. While named for its beautiful scalloped appearance, this variety is best known for ts great flavor. Manageable plants produce an abundance of large very sweet fruits.

Black Krim.  Heirloom: Indeterminate, 75 days. Hailing from Russian origins, this tomato is named for the Island of Krim in the Black Sea. Productive plants, yielding slightly flattened fruits of a rich deep purple color with almost black shoulders. Superior full tomato flavor.

Eva Purple Ball. Heirloom: Indeterminate, 70 days. A German selection, plants yield huge quantities of round juicy fruits. A great slicing variety for salads and sandwiches

Fireworks. Indeterminate. 60 days. Known for its combination of earliness, large size and eating quality, this is an exceptional selection. Productive plants.

Reisentraube. Heirloom. Indeterminate. 80 days. A German Heirloom. Reisentraube literally translates to "giant bunch of grapes" for the grape like clusters fruits are borne on. Great large tomato flavor.

Yellow Pear. Yellow pear type: indeterminate, 70 days. Vigorous vines bear loads of small, lemon-yellow pear shaped fruits. Very mild, light flavor.

Aker's West Virginia: These organic tomato seeds produce a vigorous highly productive, regular leaf, heirloom tomato plant that yields an excellent set of large, 10 to 16-ounce, deep-red, slightly flattened tomatoes in clusters of 2. Delicious, robust flavors.

Red Zebra. Plant yields huge amounts of 2-inch, red fruit with light yellow striping (or as some say, yellow fruit with red striping).

Old German. Big regular leaf plant yields 1-2 lb. beautiful fruits. Fruit color is yellow with red mottling and striping on the outside and throughout the flesh. Best color of several strains of this heirloom. 

Bush Champion. Determinate, 65 days. This big and meaty fruit grows on compact (24 in, 60 cm) plants that flower extra early. It resists Gray Leaf Spot and Alternaria well. This slicer produces 9 to 12 oz (255 to 340 g) fruits.

Sioux. Heirloom: Indeterminate 70 days.  Don't be fooled by this tomato!  Extraordinary flavor can exist in a round red tomato.  Originally released by the University of Nebraska in 1944, this variety is still popular today because of its reliable yields and exceptional flavor

Violceum Krypni Roz. 80 days. Prolific pink purple scalloped fruits.

I also had one tomato plant, planted from seed on my own, thrown into the tray with the ground cherries and tomatillos (I had more than one but I trashed them when they were tiny. I'm kind of regretting that now):

Brandywine: Heirloom indeterminate, 78 days. Considered by many to be the "best". Brandywine is the original beefsteak tomato, producing large, pink fruits with a loud tangy sweet taste. One slice covers the whole burger!

Along with the tomatoes, I also planted two hot pepper plants I picked up from Home Depot on Monday, and had one sweet pepper planted started from seed. I also planted one tomatillo plant (I ran out of room or I would have planted more!) and six ground cherries. I still have my mind set on ground cherry pies and jams galore. I had room for only four ground cherry plants in my main bed, but I tucked two more into empty spots in my raised beds, one with the peas and one with the garlic and arugula. It's kind of an experiment. We'll see how they all do in their different spots.

10 tomato plants in the left section, two tomatoes, three peppers, one tomatillo and four ground cherries in the middle. The right area is reserved for green beans. 

Ground Cherry with the peas (in the spot where my failed over-wintered spinach was going to seed)

Ground Cherry (on the left) with garlic and arugula. He's looking a little droopy. Maybe the garlic's too stinky for him.