Heirloom tomatoes, clockwise from top left: Odessa, Black Brandywine, Green Zebra.
It was a dismal year for tomatoes in Vancouver – mostly due to the lack of a real summer. Unlike the heat waves and droughts experienced on other parts of the continent, we had almost autumn-like weather – rain and cloud interspersed with random life-saving days of sun.
All of this equalled bad news for tomatoes growers. I planted five heirloom varieties – Green Zebra, Odessa, Black Prince, Black Brandywine, and Black Sea. Only three produced enough to be declared successful; the other two gave me a few tomatoes, but I don’t know that I’ll grow them again.
On a positive note, this was the first year in a long while that I didn’t get tomato blight, despite the rain. Probably because I had them under an overhang, and used a ground-level drip irrigation system.
The three winners are shown above. Odessa, a small, early, deep red determinate variety, was very prolific and had great flavour. Large and lumpy Black Brandywine was a moderate producer with a deep rich flavour. And Green Zebra produced loads of small, sweet and tangy salad tomatoes. I’ll definitely be saving the seeds and planting these varieties next year.
Delilah says
I’m so interested in your drip irrigation! What and how? You installed it yourself?
Andrea Bellamy says
Hi Delilah!
We bought the pre-packaged deck watering kit from Lee Valley Tools, although you can buy all the parts separately from Home Depot or someplace like that. It was easy to install: just measure out the length of hose you need, install corner joints, and insert feeder hoses for each container. Each one has a little dripper on the end that you can set anywhere from a slow drip to a full-on shower. We also bought a timer so that it would go on automatically early each morning – it was a lifesaver! You can go away on vacation and not worry about getting someone in to water. Highly recommended.
Here’s a link to the deck watering kit: http://tinyurl.com/2shc8u
Bill & Sandi Bellamy says
We also enjoyed the Black Brandywine and will definitely grow them again next year,
Andrea Bellamy says
Just the Black Brandywine, Mom? I really liked the Green Zebras, too. Did you have any luck with the others?
Sue says
Hi – this is an invitation to join the Garden Bloggers Retro carnival. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across the concept of a Blog carnival – if not I’ve explained it in detail on my site today (Oct 1). But basically the idea is to revive an old post which you think is worth rereading, or which you think new readers might enjoy. Send me the link to the post, and in November I’ll publish a series of posts describing and linking to all the posts people have nominated.
I hope you’ll join in and we have a fun carnival!
Sue