Tomatoes in July

Red Zapotec Tomato

Our tomatoes are doing quite well. All plants have plenty of blossoms and have set more tomatoes than we'll probably really need this year.

In particular, we are excited about the Red Zapotec variety, with it's pretty pleats. Unfortunately we weren't lucky enough to get to try this one last year, because all of our plants died during the hardening off process, but luckily we have four Red Zapotec plants this year. While these don't appear to be producing as well as our other heirloom varieties, we have at least five on most of the plants, and knowing this will probably be a larger tomato, that's not too shabby.

Purple Calabash Tomato

The Purple Calabash plants, like the Red Zapotec's, are ones that didn't survive last year, but they are certainly doing well now! On just one plant I've counted over thirty tomatoes so far. These plants grow relatively short compared with the Red Zapotec's and Yellow Pear's, but they're really bushy, branching out into the pathways in the garden, weighed down by fruit. I had to tie many of the branches up, mostly to get the tomatoes off the ground, but also to create more room to walk between the rows.These certainly win on production, but I wonder, will they win on taste? We'll have to wait and see.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

One of our favourite tomatoes last year were the Yellow Pear tomatoes, and anyone who tried them seemed to agree! I've noticed that it's become a very common heirloom variety. In fact, it's so common that we've seen it in garden centres, and even in Walmart. It's easy to understand why, because between growing them this year and last year, they seem to be consistently excellent producers that keep producing, and they have such a tasty tomato. Between the four plants we have this year, we're probably going to have too many!

Green Zebra Tomato

This year we have three Green Zebra plants in the garden, and they seem to be doing just as well as last year. Between all three plants, I've counted over thirty tomatoes so far, but there's still plenty of blossoms, so I'm sure that will change.

Purple Cherokee

And last but not least, here's our Purple Cherokee tomatoes. I must admit that these weren't a favourite last year, but since we have the seeds, we wanted to give them another chance. I must say that these are doing much better than last year too! We only have two Purple Cherokee plants this year, but both are producing  a lot more heavily than either of ours did last year. We are really excited to see what these are like again, and to see if we've changed our minds about this pretty tomato.

Megan