The last long tomato chat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTsj0ijd9og&t=2706s
Wild Boar Farms tomatoes: https://www.wildboarfarms.com/product/roots-refuge-2/
WHERE TO FIND US:
– read my writing on substack: https://jesssowards.substack.com
-Our Website: https://rootsandrefuge.com
-Miah’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@miahsworkshop
-My Cooking Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@The_Farmers_Table
– Sign up for our newsletter: https://rootsandrefuge.com/yt-signup
-Order Coffee & Tea from our roaster: https://www.beulahroastingco.com
-Our Amazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/SFA0IZHZRCOZ?ref_=wl_share
-The Roots and Refuge Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/roots-and-refuge-podcast/id1669328823
-Merch sales: Real Food Comes Dirty Shirts: https://roots-and-refuge-farm-shop.fourthwall.com/products/real-food-comfort-color
-The music in this video is by Daniel Smith
PRODUCTS I LOVE AND SUPPORT:
Greenstalk Vertical Gardens: https://rstr.co/greenstalkgarden/roots10
The white beds in my tea garden (Birdies Beds from Epic Gardening): https://shop.epicgardening.com/ROOTSANDREFUGE
BootstrapFarmer Site: https://shrsl.com/3w46t
The Roots and Refuge Shop: https://roots-refuge.myshopify.com
Order our T-Shirts and Sweatshirts https://roots-and-refuge-farm-shop.fourthwall.com/collections/all
Dramm Watering head: https://amzn.to/3Djs9yF
Long neck Dramm watering wand (for more established plants): https://amzn.to/41xxcoH
Heat mats: https://amzn.to/3QCyhVX
Grow lights: https://amzn.to/41yscAd
(Some of these thinks are affiliate links which means I make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Using my affiliate links helps me buy seeds and soil and goats, so thank you.)
29 Comments
Instead of paste tomatoes, which can be small, I've enjoyed Oxheart tomatoes. There are several colors out there, they hsve small cores and are very meaty. Basically a jumbo roma!
I'm trying Dr. Wyche's for the first time this year in your honor.
Now I’m craving your brown butter tomatoes with all the colors!!! I tried a new one last year Gin Fiz (it’s a F1). It’s a yellow with red/orange stripes. Trying them again this year to compare with Kellogg and Dr Wyche. I’m in NC. Love Paul Robeson. Abe Lincoln (I kinda use that as a large paste…my biggest was 2 lb 5 oz!). I purchased a Wild Boar pack after the last video…not sure which ones I might try of those this year.
Jersey Devil Tomatoes are huge beefy paste tomatoes that I love for making sauce.
The way you described the 5 layer tomato sandwich sounded like a love letter to tomatoes 🥰♥️
The way that you whole heartedly embrace life’s simple treasures is awe inspiring ♥️
I'll have to come back to this video after this tomato season to give you a full list. lol one that I love and get asked for is the blue beauty! It's prolific for me, I trellis in ground on cattle panels that year and pruned hard. This year here in Texas, my gardens are going to be the Hunger Games as in the survival of the fittest for sure! We were freezing a couple days ago and now later this week we will reach near 90 degrees with little rain.. the greenhouse gets hottt in the day and chilly at night.. so the peppers will be duking it out to survive, too. Thankfully, the onions I had already started last month hung through the freeze and are ok. Anyways.. lol, yeah, I can't wait to see who shows out the best. Those that survive should be the best tasting and most stressed tomatoes I've ever grown 😂
Dr. Wyches and Black From Tula have been great tomato varieties for me in a cold, short season, climate. I live in Alaska, so tomatoes are a challenge and a lot of people will tell us we just flat out can't grow heirlooms here.. I'm SO happy I found Jess and decided to try growing them anyways! I do grow mine in 10 gallon grow bags, in a greenhouse and they are pretty productive and will ripen on the vine before my first frost, which is the biggest challenge I've found playing the "are you going to ripen in time" game. I first tried them about 7 years ago and will grow them every year until the end of time now. 😂
Great white tomatoes are my absolute favorite
Jess, if I could only grow two tomatoes, I would grow the cherokee purple and kelloggs also. I did start some doctor witchy. I'm looking forward to seeing what the difference is. And for cherry tomatoes, I think it would be pink bumblebee, and black cherry. I am trying sungold this year. 😊 I grow a lot in a little space. But you have inspired me😁 I love this video Jess!❤
I love these tomato conversations so much! Your love for heirlooms has my wheels turning- would you consider doing a video talking about the stories behind some of the heirloom seeds?
Thorburns Terra cotta was my heaviest producer last year in eastern WV. It was crazy how many of those I got. Especially after trying to grow them for years is southeastern NC and getting only a few.
YES on Abe Lincoln. The only red indeterminate beefsteak I’m growing this year.
Growing in Southern Ontario, Canada, where the hottest temp we get in the summer is around 30°C/86°F. Our average is more like 23°C/73°C. Tomatoes can't get planted outside until mid May, but they grow right through till first frost in late Sept or early Oct. One of my most memorable tasting tomatoes was called Hawaiian Pineapple, and I've wondered if it's the same as the pineapple variety you talk about, Jess. This plant would give 2 to 3 pound fruit, deep yellow with orange streaks. Often catfaced with multiple cores, but so worth it in flavour. Sweet and tangy balanced perfectly. The only downside was that it only produced a handful of fruit in a year. One year I only got 2 (giant) tomatoes from it. For a garden giant that takes up space to grow, that alone made me stop growing it. I do miss it sometimes, though. The flavour was the best I've tasted.
I've also tried varieties bred for cold climates to try and get my plants out earlier and get a harvest earlier, but i haven't loved the flavour of any of them (Siberian was one, Scotia was another.). I'd love to know if anyone has had an amazing tasting cold tolerant variety!
NW Georgia here, zone 8a. I grow in raised beds. I’ve given up some of the beds to growing flowers because I enjoy them more now that I’m older. Thanks to you, I started growing Dr Wyche’s tomato and it’s a favorite. I also love Pink Berkley Tie Dye and the cherry tomato I love is Citrine, an F1 from Johnny’s, a better version of Sungold, that doesn’t crack like Sungold.
Another couple of dwarf tomato project tomatoes that are very, very tasty. Very similar. I think a little better than the Tasmanian chocolate is Rosella, purple, and Boronia. Similar size fruit to Tasmanian chocolate, the same thick stock stature. 3 to 4 feet determinate yet they keep producing well in the season. I always start Rosella purple several weeks before all others and put it out a little earlier because it’s very cold resistant and it will be one of the first fruits of the year.
I thought I was done buying seeds for the year but….
A few years ago I got Thorburn’s Terra Cotta as a free sample packet from Baker’s Creek. It’s one of my favorites! It’s so unique. I grow it every year! Barry’s Crazy Cherry is one we grow every single year too! Insanely prolific! So much so that you might have to support the fruiting trusses.
This is 6th generation growing my Chicken Yard tomatoes. They’re a grape style tomato that volunteered in my chicken yard. Oddly enough, they’re elongated, have a pointy end, and remind me of a chicken toe. 😂 They’re meaty and delicious! Third generation for Orange Delicious, I made that name up too. 🤣 It was originally a start I picked up at the nursery that was evidently labeled wrong. It had to have been a Dr Wyche’s or Kellogg’s breakfast. Either way, it’s delicious and by far mine and my daughter’s favorite. Last year I picked one that was almost 2lbs. I’m growing 3rd generation of my own Black Beauty and Surprise Salad tomatoes as well.
I remember seeing a scientific analysis of tomato flavor some years ago and a large amount comes from the ‘gel.’ Make of that what you will.
We love pineapple tomatoes, but last year they did terrible for us. (Northern Indiana)Luckily the farm stand down the road has success with them. Our new favorite for taste is Mushroom Basket. They did amazing for us and the taste was our favorite last year.
Try Cherokee Carbon … best of both worlds and more productive!
Thank you for another great video! About Roma style tomatoes- have you ever tried the Tachi? I live in a similar climate as you and have struggled with paste tomatoes in the past, but the Tachi has preformed well for me. I get mine from Hoss Tools.
I'm growing Cherokee carbon this year. I'm excited to see how they do.
My mother-in-law started me on the Sweet 100s which are a cherry tomato. Here in Eastern Washington they grow sweet (like tomato soup) and prolific. These are grown in an 8 gallon pot.
You introduced me to Dr. Wyche and Kellogs Breakfast, which I agree are very similar. My problem is I haven't ever had the space to grow them at the same time. I need to pick one yellow tomato given the space I've got 🙁 I usually trellis them in a small 8×4 raised bed up a cattle panel and the fact that I am the only tomato eater in my house.
I loved that you also grow some of my all time favorite varieties. Cherokee Purple, Pineapple – my all time best favorite, Roma, Amish Paste – another great favorite. I also grow Mr. Stripy – along the same bi-color as Pineapple. My favorite grape type cherry tomato is Juliet. Its larger than a standard grape tomato and smaller than a Roma. Great flavor, meaty and makes great bruschetta. Zone 6, SE Pennsylvania.
Best tomato i have ever had was black Sea man. Oh my gosh! Amazing
I grew roadster and red snapper last year in Georgia for the first time. They were really good for sauce and slicing on sandwiches. They also froze well for me. I'm growing them again this year. They stayed healthier longer. In the wet warm spring conditions we have here south of Atlanta. Looking forward to a second year. Most of my other tomatos this year are all new to me except the Cherokee purple. I'm excited to see how they do. I bought patio tomatos from hoss, they had a bundle of 3 colors and the plants are supposed to get only 18 to 24 inches tall and be good for small spaces. I'm looking forward to seeing how they grow.
The Pink Brandy Wine is one of the ones I attempted to grow and did relatively successfully when I moved up here with my wife. I saved some seeds from the largest tomato I grew that year and it gave over 180 seeds from the entire tomato. It had great flavor btw and had the high acidity which I'm not really a fan of. Maybe that's why the Hossinator won me over when I grew it, also because it produced so well in my garden the first year and even the second. By the third year it didn't hardly produce anything in my garden, but also I heard it was a hard year for a lot of folks that year.
Now, My Dad and my grandmother both were diehard Rutger tomato plants. They'd say it was the absolute BEST tasting around, but the Rutgers back then are not what you'll find now days and I've heard that particular strain of Rutgers has long been gone.
Now, German Johnson is the plants my Dad grew the biggest tomato I believe I ever saw. He dug a hole and filled it that year with some Horse Manure that he'd gotten from a farm down the road and that's where he planted his tomatoes. He was so proud of that tomato and carried it around for a few days bragging on it showing it off and was told by several folks that he needed to put it in the fair. But Nope, Dad told em that he was going to eat it. And he did. That one tomato made 7 tomato sandwiches and it had about an inch or two hanging off each side of the bread. LOL. But yes, he ate the entire tomato over several days.
I've tried to grow the Abe Lincoln years ago, without success. But I did grow a LOT of the Oregon Spring tomatoes and they had good flavor to me, but they were small tomatoes. Big for a cherry tomato though. And here I am, Rambling about Tomatoes again. Jess, you get me to my BEST when it Comes to talking about tomatoes, but also my worse when it comes to talking about tomatoes. LOL
God Bless
We grow Juliet tomatoes here in my northern Va zone 7a garden. Super prolific and robust plant! We grow them in ground and use them to eat fresh and make sauce. It’s a great tasting hybrid tomato we got from Johnnys.