The Ultimate Tomato List of 2016

I'm back after a too-long blogging break! I'm ready to step it up in 2016! Last year the count was 98 varieties of tomatoes, and this year I am crossing over into the 100 club. Click here to check out last year's tomato list post, and to see a full list of the varieties for 2015. I'm thinking right now that even if each plant only produced 1 perfect tomato, that's still a ton of tomatoes!

My New varieties for 2016

Hana

Blue Keyes

Don's Double Delight

Black Stripe

Tonnelet

Marvel Striped

Bandelier

Henderson's Pink Ponderosa

Tiny Tim

Apricot Brandywine

Banana Legs

Blush

Fred's Tie Dye

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Joffre

Marizol Magic

Orange Cream

Pertsevidnyi Polosatyi

Pink Tiger

Rainbow Cherry

Sarandipity

Selwin Yellow

Uptown Funk

Pineapple Pig

Faelan's First Snow

Which brings me to a grand total of 123 varieties for 2016, with the possibility of more, as I often do some trading and get extras from seed companies. I'm pretty consistent with my selections, focusing on stripes, bi-colours, deep purple-chocolates and some classic stunners of colour like Cream Orange and Tiny Tim as a novelty in size.

I'm probably most excited for Blue Keyes, an indeterminate from the breeder Michael Keyes. It's a cherry-sized pear form in a deep deep blue, nearly black with a deep ruby red bottom when ripe. Absolutely stunning! I really think all of my tomatoes are stunning, but some do indeed stand out more than others. Tonnelet is a very unique tomato with incredibly distinct stripes and everything I've ever purchased from J&L always does fantastic in my garden, wither it be yield, taste and hardiness. Fuzzy Wuzzy is a weirdo of sorts, with its fuzzy silver foliage and pointed fuzzy-striped fruit, it's another novelty that I hope to grow in a planter amongst some complimentary herbs and blooms.

"Fuzzy Wuzzy"
Photo from the Blog: yourapplesaremyoranges.blogspot.ca

A more mature plant on a patio - a truly bizarre plant.
Photo by the German site: www.gaertnerei-bluetenmeer.de

I can say it until I'm blue in the face - I love unique vegetables and I love tomatoes! Why grow the average or plain when you can grow something absolutely amazing, and as my dad says "You can't get in the grocery store." You can't even get these at your average market! I can remember a moment when I knew I absolutely wanted to step up my tomato game - back in 2012 I visited southern California and walked to a local market. This market was amazing - fresh seafood, flowers, orchids, rainbow eggs (another visual inspiration, look at me now!), they had beans and herbs and crazy carrots and this one particular farmer had an entire table spread of heirloom tomatoes.

This market spread above is what really turned me on to tomatoes. 

Another tomato goal I've set is to stay on top of the blight in my area by doing a spray treatment one to two times a month. Blight always seems to ruin the last 2 months of the season. This past year, we had a very raining two weeks followed by hot and humid days in between and despite my late season spray treatments the blight took over. My tomato plants themselves grew to such monstrous sizes, they eventually bent the support cages and couldn't help but sag completely to the ground. In a perfect-ideal scenario I would have my tomatoes in a greenhouse with red landscape tarp and an irrigation system and just beat the blight that way... keep the fruit and leaves dry and have those indeterminate tomatoes get 13ft tall.

I have added a few more dwarf tomato varieties, so I hope to get those going very fast and have them give a full yield before any kind of blight pops up. The chances of NOT encountering blight are impossible without a super dry summer in which other plants suffer, I'm also not sure what this relatively mild winter will effect. If the spring heats up quick and we have an early frost date this can only be good because I'm only ever affected by late blight, and sometimes Japanese beetles.

Beyond just growing some tomatoes I would really like to win some fair competitions in my area. I have my eye on a few regional fairs and some of the specific categories, the more you win the more chances you have to win an overall ribbon. It's all about the ribbons, I've never won anything other than school distinctions and a plethora of sports awards and championships. Winning a blue ribbon for my garden would be fantastic, we shall see what happens! I will talk more about specific tomato varieties in upcoming posts, as well as peppers and other gardening plans.