tomato advice please

[TEX]

Fall gardning is a must here as most stuff just flat gives up the ghost fairly soon. BUT our average first frost date is November 15 so we always try to have a fall garden.

Looking for heirloom varities of tomatos that can withstand the heat and yet don't take forever to mature

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[MEBrian]

Check out Johnnys Selected Seeds, they have a mess of heirloom varieties. Not all of the heirloom varieties are in the heirloom section. The small heirloom tomatoes are in the cocktail tomato section- mixed in with the hybrids.

Get a catalog, it's easier to see the one you want in hardcopy IMO. Look for the heirloom symbol.

BTW, they're good folks. They are maybe 10 miles from us and everyone we contact either over the phone or at the retail outlet is a gardener or commercial grower.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/default.aspx

[Skyking]

I live in zone 14 and didn't cover my plants in plastic like you see here and within 10 days I've gone from maters the size of my hand down to just brown vines. too much water.I use all OP varietie and this time will be more selective to use smaller round types with no crevises to catch water


For Heredia tomato farmer, the investment is 90-day bet
By Dennis Rogers
Special to A.M. Costa Rica


Tomato prices are high, and substantial areas are being planted around Santo Domingo de Heredia, but a local farmer only wanted to talk about the risk involved.

Jorge Chávez of San Isidro has a hectare of freshly planted tomato, while the large area around Santo Tomas and Los Angeles de Santo Domingo belongs to the largest tomato grower in the country, Javier Rojas. The latter has packing plants in Grecia.

Land is available since coffee is unprofitable over the long term and when plants need to be replaced it’s just as easy to grow something else. Some places have tomatoes on fairly steep slopes which have traditionally only been used for coffee. Considerable land in the Santo Domingo area is held by speculators who don’t mind if they can get some rent in the meantime.

Chávez takes his produce to the CENADA wholesale market. He also grows some stringbeans and other green vegetables for the local market.

Agriculture requires faith in the price that will be there when the product is ready for harvest, in the case of tomatoes in Heredia after 90 days. Chavez said that the elaborate setup for tomatoes costs about 1,000 colons per plant, with 10,000 plants per hectare. This includes the plants themselves, poles and plastic for the “semi-greenhouse” sheltering the rows, PVC drip-irrigation tubing and/or sheet plastic to maintain moisture in the soil, and wind blocks. The rows are oriented towards the prevailing wind which changes with the season in the area near the Zurquí pass.

Chemicals used are mostly insecticides for a tiny white moth that feeds on the sap of the plants, with various other boring worms that attack the stems and fruit.

In good conditions each plant should produce about five
http://www.amcostarica.com/tomatostwo062810.jpg
A.M. Costa Rica/Dennis Rogers

Young plants are ready to enjoy the drip irrigation


http://www.amcostarica.com/tomotosone062810.jpg
A.M. Costa Rica/Dennis Rogers

Plastic keeps the weeds down


kilograms of tomatoes over its lifetime, so the price received must be at least 200 colons per kilo to break even. At the moment the price for an 18-kilo tub at CENADA is 13,000 colons, or 720 colons per kilo.

[AzLoneRider]

Tex,
I live in the Arizona desert where temps are regularly 100+ degrees from June to September. The way we usually work it is plant at the normal time between sometime in mid April we then let the tomato's grow through a first harvest and if they reset fruit then we do the second harvest. In late July or early August we cut the tomato's back to between 8 and 12 inches. From there they grow again until December and we get at least 1 more harvest sometimes 2.

The types we use are:
Roma
Arkansas Traveler
Big Boy
Big Beef
Cherry

Hope this helps.