Summer Vegetable Gardening 2014  

Fresh Salsa Hybrid

Salsa lovers, your tomato is here. You can chop this tomato into tiny cubes that recontent perfectly firm and solid in salsa recipes. Plum-shaped and "dripless," Fresh Salsa is all meat, perfect for recipes like bruschetta and light sauces. These tomatoes need at least one inch (2.5 cm) of water per week and prefer six hours or more of direct sun each day.

Neves Azorean Red tomato is a large beefsteak with bright red skin and bold, classic flavor. The fruits vary in size, up to 1-2 pounds. Fair production.

Tomato 'Neves Azorean Red' was developed by Anthony Neves, who brought the original seeds from the Azores when he immigrated to Massachusetts. He selected for large size.

The "Indigo Rose" tomato steps out this year as the first "really" purple variety to come from a program at Oregon State University that is seeking to breed tomatoes with high levels of antioxidants.

"It is the first improved tomato variety in the world that has anthocyanins in its fruit," he said.

Breeding for the antioxidant potential of the purple anthocyanins in the fruit is the most important goal for OSU breeders. "It will lead to a better understanding on how the antioxidants express in tomatoes and may contribute to human health," Myers said.

The Supersteak Tomato is a tremendous yielding tomato variety that is smooth, mild, meaty and ripens uniformly to a deep scarlet. Fruits weigh 1-2 pounds. One slice fills a sandwich or hamburger roll. Healthy productive plants are resistant to wilt and root knot nematodes.

80 days from setting out plants until first fruits mature. When raising transplants from seed add 6-8 weeks.

Lemony in Look and Flavor! - This heirloom is a zesty change of pace! 70 days from transplanting. Indeterminate.

For something pleasantly out of the ordinary, this heirloom tomato never disappoints! Looking just like mid-size lemons, these abundant fruits are low in sugars and high in acids, so they have a tart bite in keeping with their name. You'll love them, both for their charming plate appeal and their zesty taste.

Lemon Tree is a vining tomato that bears all season long, quite robust and heavy-yielding. The fruits reach about 4 to 4½ inches long, bright yellow with a point at one end and a plump center. Whole or cut, they look like lemons!

A huge pink beefsteak tomato with incredible heirloom flavor and very high yields. One of the all-time classic tomatoes is now even better. Brandy Boy captures all the rich flavor of the beloved Brandywine heirloom tomato—long the flavor favorite among heirloom tomatoes—with a more shapely form, tidier growth habit, improved disease-resistance and bigger, earlier yields. Our new hybrid produces loads of large pink fruits up to 5½" across. The fruits ripen evenly and share Brandywine's soft heirloom texture, thin skin and exceptional tangy-sweet taste. Tomato-lovers, Brandy Boy is for you. Indeterminate.

5-95 days Very large, up to 2 lbs. each. The yellow fruit has red marbling through the flesh and is one of the most beautiful tomatoes we sell. The flavor is very sweet and fruity; good yields!

A jumbo Tomato that doesn't compromise on flavor, this family heirloom from West Virginia bears a hefty crop of 1lb, heart-shaped fruits that ripen 80 days from transplant.

The pinkish red globes of 'Giant Syrian' are juicy and sweet with few seeds; great for slicing, sauce, and canning. Indeterminate.

Heirloom. The relatively small (2-3 inches) fruits have good flavor and are a rich golden green at maturity, with forest green stripes - hence the name. The vines are vigorous, but not that tall; we call them semi-determinate.

90 days. A heftier version of any San Marzano tomato that we have trialed with a magnificent, robust flavor to boot. Large, open, indeterminate plants produce enormous, meaty fruit measuring 2 1/2 inches wide and 7 inches long.

Ruby red tomatoes have green streaked shoulders and very few seeds. These giants will go a long way in sauce and salsa recipes.

75 Days. The Carolina Gold tomato features a unique golden-yellow colored fruit that is low in acid and uniform ripening.

This variety is very adaptable, and its strong, determinate plant produces mostly extra-large and large fruit throughout the season.

This is an extremely early-bearing red salad tomato with exceptional taste that does well even in cool, short season climates.

Bred in Czechoslovakia, this dependable, prolific variety has dense, potato-like foliage on dwarf, indeterminate vines. Staking is optional.

Dwarf Indeterminate

75 days. Indigo Blue Berries is as appealing to the palate and eye as its name implies. Indeterminate plants produce trusses of the delightfully delectable little, 1-2 ounce, cherry tomatoes. Taste testers blissfully describe the flavor as sparkling. The green fruit quickly develop purple tops and crimson bottoms, ripening to a midnight black tone with deep, maroon-colored bottoms.

Not only are they extraordinarily colorful and tasty; they are extra nutritious. Developed with traditional breeding techniques, the fruit of these unusual varieties contain high levels of anthocyanin, a naturally occurring antioxidant found in blueberries, and is reported to combat disease. Anthocyanin reveals itself in the vibrant indigo pigmentation of the fruits.

Our favorite super size tomato-with most fruits weighing in at 2 lb. Burpee bred, this is the original with "beefsteak" flavor and meaty texture.

Seasonality: Mid Season

Fruit Weight: 2 pounds

Fruit Bearing: Indeterminate

Days to Maturity: 80 days

Sun: Full Sun

Height: 36-40 inches

Sowing Method: Indoor Sow

Spread: 18 inches

Early Season – Start producing ripe fruit 67 days or less from the time of transplanting.

80 days. Lycopersicon esculentum. (F1) Plant produces good yields of very large 6 lb size tomatoes. Tomatoes turn glossy red when mature. Developed by Minnie Zaccaria of New Jersey by crossing two heirloom varieties.

It won the New Jersey Championship in 1995 and 1997 and won the Week's Giant Growers Contest in 1998. Excellent for sandwiches and salads. Try growing the biggest prize winning tomato you will ever see. Disease Resistant. Indeterminate.

Attractive tomato resembles a peach with its color and slightly fuzzy skin. This heirloom variety produces an abundance of sweet,juicy 2- to 4-oz. fruits that have a mild fruity flavor.

Produce until the first frost and will keep for several weeks on the kitchen counter.Indeterminate. 75 DAYS.

This heirloom variety is simply one of the best tasting, best producing gold-red bicolors we have ever grown. On top of that, the tomatoes are stunningly beautiful and enormous, weighing at least 1 pound each.

Golden yellow beefsteaks are colored with red stripes that turn into a ruby blush on top of the golden fruit. Flavor is sweet and rich, and harvests are abundant. Indeterminate. 80 days.

Cherry Tomato - Bi-Color Cherry - Lycopersicon esculentum

Tender Annual Indeterminate. Heirloom. Look for the flush of red on the blossom end of these orange fruits. They range in size from 1"-2" and offer juicy, exceptional sweetness on a vigorous plant.

Soil and Water: Tomatoes love fertile soil rich in organic matter. Add plenty of compost prior to planting. Soil pH is preferred between 5.5-7.0. Mulch to preserve moisture. Avoid wetting the foliage when watering.

According to the literature, Spoon tomatoes are an ancient form of tomato, related to the earliest tomatoes, from Peru. I say they are tiny, micro-currant sized bits of tomato goodness.

Related to the ancestor of all tomatoes, from Peru. From Jeff Curtis who got this variety from a seed-saver "down south." The name was coined by the Park Seed Company years ago when they offered the seed for a short time.

Somewhere between a grape and a Roma tomato is Juliet, the delectable saladette-type tomato that won top honors from the All-America Selections in 1999 and has been a home gardener favorite ever since. Plump, deep red, ultra-sweet yet meaty little fruits just 2 inches long and about 1½ inches in diameter, they hold up to 2 weeks on the vine, resist cracking, and offer nonstop production all season long!

Juliet is a larger version of the old favorite Santa, but it greatly improves on Santa's flavor and yields. You can expect clusters of a dozen to a dozen-and-a-half fruits all over this plant, which grows vigorously and bears right into autumn in warm climates. It's not unusual to find 50 to 80 tomatoes at once on the plant, so you can imagine what your total yields will be!

Exceptionally sweet, bright tangerine-orange cherry tomatoes leave customers begging for more. Vigorous plants start yielding early and bear right through the season.

Tendency to split precludes shipping, making these an exclusively fresh-market treat. The taste can't be beat.

A very large chocolate cherry, Sunchocola is a beautiful and unusual tomato with an excellent juicy texture and low acid, very tangy, sweet taste. Perfectly round, very uniform sized fruit.

Clusters of 8-12 fruit on short internodes off a vigorous dark green plant. Ripe when a red blush emerges on the chocolate brown, lightly striped fruit. Much bigger than the other Sun varieties.