I thought a month after planting would be a good time to update you on how the different tomatoes are doing in the Demo Garden. All the plants are very healthy, so there is little differentiation with regards to disease and such as yet.

Roma Tomatoes

Mariana –  flowering

Golden Rave – tallest of the Romas, lots of suckers, one 1.5″ fruit, several smaller fruit

Margherita – flowering, several fruit set

Purple Russian – small leaves, wilty, no flowers, barely beginning to bud

Super Marzano – few flowers

Cream Sausage – small leaves, wilty, flowers, beginning to set fruit

Roma VF – V. healthy, appears somewhat compact?, buds but no flowers

Green Sausage – small leaves, wilty, flowers

Family of 4 Garden

Both Fabulous and First Light are beginning to flower. The plants aren’t huge, and don’t seem to be growing as much as the romas or cherries. They may do better once the cabbage is gone from amongst them!

Cherry Tomatoes

Chocolate Cherry – flowering; a few fruit set

Italian Ice – budding, flowers barely opening

Sweet Chelsea – flowers, some fruit set

Ildi – lots of flowers, no fruit set yet

Suncherry – a few fruit set, lots of flowers

Sungold – flowers, beginning to set fruit

Green Grape – small plant, few flowers, no fruit yet

Juliet – smallest plant, some fruit set, some flowers

Overall the tomatoes are doing great! Warm weather will hurry them along, while today’s cooler temperatures will slow them down a bit. The cherry tomatoes seem to be at about the same stage, except for Green Grape lagging slightly behind. We will probably have more cherry tomatoes than we know what to do with!

The roma tomatoes seem to have a bit more differentiation in terms of earliness. We have a couple plants with some fruit set, and a few that are just beginning to flower. Purple Russian seems to be the “late bloomer” with buds just beginning to appear.

That may be a bad combination with Kansas summers, because I know Purple Russian is prone to cracking. The later it sets fruit, the more likely it will be exposed to extremely high temperatures, resulting in worse cracking. I think the key for this variety will be picking when it has developed some color, but before the tender skin yields to the weather conditions.