Which Tomato?

We may not have snow here in San Diego, but we have been having some very welcome rain over the last several weeks.

The only problem with that is that the ground is too wet for the resident gardener to get outside and do anything in the garden.  As Cindy says, farmers are never happy with the weather:  Not enough chill hours for the fruit trees, not hot enough for the sugars to form in the tomatoes, too wet for some things, too dry for something else.

So what does a vegetable farmer do when she can't be outside?  Well, she reads some of the endless avalanche of gardening and seed catalogues that have descended upon us now that that Christmas is over.  She also goes back through her gardener's journal, which she has kept diligently for several years now, to see what has worked in past years and what plants didn't work out so well.

Right now she's trying to pick out the tomato plants she wants to start for the coming year, so what will it be this year?  Carbon?  Black Krim?  Stupice?  I think we're done with the Mortgage Lifter--I don't know whose mortgage they lifted, but they've never really done much for us.

She usually tries to grow one variety of cherry tomatoes for salads, a medium sized tomato for cooking and sauces and a larger tomato for burgers and BLTs.

Past Successes, Future Anticipated

Unfortunately, our yard is too small to plant all the varieties she would like to try; it requires detailed planning to determine what to plant in our limited space.

She usually gets a pretty good variety  of tomatoes and we've been very happy with them.  They definitely beat anything you can buy at the grocery store.

Happy New Year!  May your garden grow and flourish in the new year.