The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Tomato snobbery and septoria leaf spots

Gold Rush Currant tommy toe tomatoe reviewWe tried a new heirloom variety of tomato this year called Gold Rush Currant.

It was one of the first plants to show color, and provided the first taste of the year.

They tasted like store bought tomatoes. No flavor whatsoever and was the first to show signs of a septoria leaf spot infection.

We discussed our options and decided Gold Rush Currant had to go. Normally we'd just cut it out at ground level and leave the stem and roots to rot back in the ground, but the septoria leaf spots pushed us to be cautious and pull the whole thing up. We're not sure if that particular fungus can live in the soil, but we figured why take the chance of spreading it to plants that actually bring something to the table worth eating.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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I have never had much luck with yellow tomatoes. I once went to a tasting featuring some pretty good yellows, but I don't know what varieties they were. Would be interesting to see back when the yellow color "forked" from the more common red tomato ancestry!
Comment by Edgar Sat Jul 21 23:22:53 2012

It's disappointing when you give a whole season to a tomato you don't like. Violet Jasper was one I got rid of. Beautiful tomatoes with a texture so mealy and mushy it was inedible. I composted them without thinking and have them sprouting in my yard every year.

The yellow cherry tomatoes I have enjoyed are Sungold II, and Blondkopchen. Sungold II is my favorite flavored yellow cherry. I still can't find a full sized yellow heirloom that I like.

Comment by Dustin Sun Jul 22 12:16:18 2012

Edgar --- Personally, I tend to prefer the flavors of the reds because the yellows don't have enough acid for me. Maybe that's related to other issues with them?

Dustin --- Blondkopfchen is the yellow tommy-toe we've been growing, but it tends to get blighted quickly, so I thought I'd try another version. This one got blighted even faster, though, and didn't taste half as good.... Maybe I should try Sungold II.

Comment by anna Sun Jul 22 13:07:08 2012
There is nothing worse than a tasteless tomato. I have yet to try any of my new varieties this year, but Ive had nothing but problems with my Heinz Paste tomatoes. Lack of rain is wreaking havok on them in the form of blossom end rot:( I just trim them up and pop them in the freezer for a huge batch of green tomato mince in the fall:)
Comment by MamaHomesteader Mon Jul 23 10:34:11 2012
MamaHomesteader --- Yeah, I'm not too thrilled with my other new variety this year either. Everyone was singing the praises of Amish Paste last year, but it seems to be just like the San Rodortas I grew a few years ago --- huge romas, but extremely blight-prone and more watery than our favorite Martino's Romas.
Comment by anna Mon Jul 23 15:46:47 2012





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