Cranraspberry’s plot in 2024

[JRinPA]

There was a thread on this tomato a few years ago. "a hybrid better than big beef" or some such. You should post in it. So who all is in on this seed sharing deal, I would like to try them as well, can mail stamps or whatever for buy in. I'd like 10 seeds of it.

[Cranraspberry]

@JRinPA if I didn’t just jinx everything I will definitely be posting about it! Let me just make sure it doesn’t do something weird in the next couple of months.
I’ll message you about the seeds when they arrive, we’ll figure something out.

[JayneR13]

I'm trying to PM you about trading seeds. Please let me know if you're interested. Not sure what's up with the messaging on this platform.

[Cranraspberry]

Cherokee Purples coming in pretty big! I’m actually surprised by how well the plant is doing. It’s not as big as some of the others, but no signs of disease (just jinxed it I’m sure), lots of fruit and even some fruit set in the heat. Will definitely be planting again.

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[Cranraspberry]

Kosovo seems to be battling off fusarium fairly well - it’s starting to show some potential signs, but given that the Rose de Berne next to it is 75% dead that’s still pretty good. One thing I don’t understand is why the fruit on it aren’t ripening. It’s the only plant that has yet to give me a single blushing tomato.

Ramapo might be the winner of the three Jersey types this year (Moreton and Rutgers Select were the other two). Starting to get pretty yellow, but lasted a while, tons of large fruit, decent “old time” flavor that’s a touch more on the acidic side and the only plant of the bunch that has virtually zero cracking and very pretty fruit. Might be a good one for the donation plot next year.

Chef’s Choice Pink and Rutgers Select are very disappointing flavor wise. Not sure if it’s fair to judge them based on this season - both got fusarium pretty early, but they are barely a step above grocery store tomatoes. They are also quite small. Basically not even good enough to give away.

Made my first batch of roasted tomato sauce this year!

[Seven Bends]

Cherokee Purples coming in pretty big! I’m actually surprised by how well the plant is doing. It’s not as big as some of the others, but no signs of disease, lots of fruit and even some fruit set in the heat. Will definitely be planting again.

Very nice! I'm growing Cherokee Purple for the first time this year and just picked my first one (not quite ripe) yesterday. It came in at 19.6oz and may be entered into the Ugly Tomato thread if I get around to it, though it's not quite ugly enough to be a winner. Some catfacing & bulges but no splitting.

My experience so far matches yours -- plant is on the smaller side but extremely healthy, and it set fruit straight on through the heat wave. I planted it on 5/23 and picked the first one on 7/20, so 58 days to harvest, maybe 60 days to eating -- earlier than I expected. The rest of the fruits look like they're pretty far from ripe, though.

I should add, I can't be entirely sure that what I have is really Cherokee Purple. The seeds came from MMMM. I planted two seeds and got one RL and one PL plant. Only had room for one, so I planted the RL. If it tastes good, I'll save seeds for myself but won't distribute it as Cherokee Purple in case it's not true.

[JRinPA]

Roasted sauce is so good...I use it mostly for sausage sandwiches, so I jar it in pints, not quarts.

[Cranraspberry]

@Seven Bends great to compare notes! I’ve had such bad luck with heirlooms that I was expecting it to perform like the Brandywines in our first year - produce two fruit each (that get eaten by squirrels) and then start withering away from all the diseases. I definitely didn’t expect it to be so productive. It’s actually doing better than the Cherokee Carbon I tried last year. We’ve had a few smaller ones so far and they were very tasty! The core is definitely very large though.
If you ever need additional seeds please let me know! I have a fairly large packet that I bought on a whim.

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[Cranraspberry]

@JRinPA I so wish we had the space for storing canned produce! Unfortunately small kitchen and no pantry, so the sauce goes in ziploc bags which get stacked flat in our small apartment sized freezer. I did buy a small food mill this year that made the process so much easier though. Blanching and taking the skins off one by one was always such a pain and time suck.

[Seven Bends]

@Seven Bends great to compare notes! I’ve had such bad luck with heirlooms that I was expecting it to perform like the Brandywines in our first year - produce two fruit each (that get eaten by squirrels) and then start withering away from all the diseases. I definitely didn’t expect it to be so productive. It’s actually doing better than the Cherokee Carbon I tried last year. We’ve had a few smaller ones so far and they were very tasty! The core is definitely very large though.
If you ever need additional seeds please let me know! I have a fairly large packet that I bought on a whim.

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Such a gorgeous color! I may take you up on that seed offer this fall, thanks. Maybe I can trade you something that does well in my garden.

[JRinPA]

updates
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[Shule]

Had my second one today and can’t wait till more ripen. Surprisingly small core too.

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Those look really good.

[Cranraspberry]

Well that ended up a doozy of a year for personal reasons (divorce, job search, now furlough - good times), so the garden got pretty abandoned later in the season, but I thought I’d jot down some notes.

2024 was definitely the year of the pepper. I don’t think I did anything differently, but we had a crazy harvest and could barely give them away.

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Gold medal goes to Hot Sunset X3R. That one plant produced so much fruit that I don’t think I’ll be planting it again! The peppers are quite spicy, so there was only so much we could eat, and none of our friends wanted them because of the heat. This year I want to try its sweet cousin, Sweet Sunset X3R.

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Top 3 tomatoes for flavor, production and disease resistance were Cherokee Purple, Kosovo and Mountain Rouge. Mountain Rouge was an absolute standout for me. It scoffed at all diseases, including fusarium. It set fruit into November. The picture below is Mountain Rouge blossoming on November 12, after first frost, when I finally took it out. It produced like crazy, and the fruit were delicious, second in flavor only to Kosovo.

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Cherokee Purple didn’t show many signs of being affected by fusarium, which really surprised me. Lasted well into late fall also. Taste was great, but did have some issues with splitting and larger cores, but I will definitely be growing it again.
Kosovo was a real surprise. Flavor-wise probably the best tomato I’ve ever grown. Got affected by fusarium fairly early on and looked almost dead by late summer, but somehow survived and fully recovered once things started to cool down, so we got a handful of fruit from that “second flush” which was a nice treat. Growing again this year!

Not returning are Marzito (disappointing flavor and thick skin), Chef’s Choice Pink (meh flavor, poor production, succumbed to fusarium way too quickly for something that’s supposed to be resistant), Moreton (died from fusarium almost instantly), Ramapo and Rutgers. Ramapo actually did well in terms of fusarium resistance, and produced a lot of very pretty tomatoes that barely had any issues with cracking, but unfortunately the flavor just wasn’t there.
In the “maybe” category are Black Cherry (I have yet to find the perfect cherry, going to try a red one next year) and Rose de Berne (incredibly tasty, but died very quickly).

With everything else going on, this coming season I’m going to be scaling back and focusing on non-fussy varieties to try and keep gardening as enjoyable as possible.

[PlainJane]

Yikes! I hope life takes a better turn for you.
It is indeed tough times.

[Cranraspberry]

@PlainJane thank you! Things are pretty bad in the DC area right now (mass layoffs and furloughs galore), I suspect that a lot of people will be turning to gardening for its therapeutic effect this season, similar to when Covid hit.

[bower]

Indeed, I hope this is a better year for you personally, and a great garden too.
Those were some mighty peppers!
I must say I got deeper into the tomatoes and other food gardening during the recession fallout, and it's been so worthwhile. It takes one big stress off the economic hard times, when you have top quality fresh food in hand. Therapeutic in more ways than one.

[JayneR13]

I'll add my sympathy for your troubles! The entire country is going through hard times right now. We really haven't had a normal year since 2019, just before Covid hit. My garden has been a real blessing, both for the food and the stress relief.

I grew Cherokee purple quite a few year's back when I first started gardening in this house. What fruits were produced were large and ugly, but very good for sauce. Two years ago I tried a cherry tomato called Black Strawberry, which is a compact plant and very prolific. The fruits were large for a cherry, about 1" in diameter and quite tasty. Baker Creek probably has them, or I can send you some seeds. Shoot me a PM if you'd like some.

Interesting to hear that the disease resistant variety didn't do that well. I'm planning to try some of the Mountain series this year, along with a few others. Thanks for the head's up.

[Cranraspberry]

@bower thank you! It can be a frustrating hobby at times (how am I still discovering new diseases every season??), but overall I find the grounding effect to be so beneficial. When it feel like everything is spiraling out of control, it’s great to see that seasons continue to change and seeds continue to grow.

@JayneR13 thank you for the kind offer! After sitting down with my inventory I think this year I’m going to try some grape varieties, since I have a few of those on hand (Bronze Torch, Blush, Maglia Rosa), but I really appreciate the recommendation and will keep that in mind for next year! I am one of those strange people that aren’t crazy about Sungold, so maybe my cherry expectations are unreasonable.

[JayneR13]

Don't feel bad! I'm not a huge fan of Sungold either, or cherries in general. We don't grow them at the pantry because they're a pain in the neck to pick, and I don't grow them at home because they always try to take over the universe. Black Strawberry is the best I've found yet for being compact, prolific, tasty, and easy to use. Just let me know! Good luck with the grape varieties. Brad's Atomic Grape is fun!