Growing tomatoes in our garden 2013

We grew four species of tomatoes in our backyard garden in 2013. As of now, October 16, the garden is still producing tomatoes. Many green ones are still ripening slowly. No frost yet this season. No real threat of a frost thus far this season, so I have not even thought about covering the plants.

We grew:

• Black Krim - small, brownish-red, heirloom tomato - my favorite tasting tomato. The vine did not produce many tomatoes, but they all ripened on the vine, and they tasted fantastic. I picked the last one on Oct 13.

• Amish Paste - heirloom plum tomato - the overall best one for many reasons: taste, productivity, vine-ripening, easy to corral in cage, workable size. I picked several more on Oct 13, and it's still producing. A few more are about ready to be picked now on Oct 16. I like the tomato size. Not too small like the cherry tomatoes and not too big like the ones mentioned below. This vine has produced a lot of tomatoes. While I think the Black Krim tastes better, the Amish Paste produced more. I would like to grow only this tomato next year.

• a round, yellow cherry tomato - very sweet and delicious, but I don't eat them often enough, for some reason. I like slicing tomatoes for a sandwich, to eat on a plate, or to use in pasta, and these cherry tomatoes are too small to fuss with slicing. The vines, however, produced a lot of tomatoes. It's still producing as of Oct 16, 2013. The cages are no match for the vines that grow very long and eventually spread across the ground and driveway. Tough to corral.

• "Mr. Stripy" - a heavy, large, roundish, striped, orange-red tomato. The weight of these tomatoes toppled the cage. Slow ripeners. We have a lot of shade in our backyard for one thing, and this summer was much cooler than normal. It produced well, but only one ripened on the vine. I've picked several that were still green. We ate fried green tomatoes. A couple others have changed from green to yellow inside the house. Several more large green ones still exist on the vine.

#todo - need to get the names of the last two tomato species listed above.

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