Days elapsed since April 16 2026:

• 60 days: Monday, June 15, 2026
• 70 days: Thursday, June 25, 2026
• 80 days: Sunday, July 5, 2026
• 90 days: Wednesday, July 15, 2026 

 June 13:  Plants are growing vigorously with many fruit.   Several > 6 ft.  Already picked a few Sun Gold.  Disease seems very minimal.   A few plants have some yellowing and browning on the bottom branches:  notably the two HC, although not a lot and they have set a bunch of fruit.   Also:  the OS at the back left corner of the main plot has severe browning and wilting at the top of the plant - less so at bottom branches.  This plant is next to the corner slot that was "unplantable" due to ant nest! that killed two plants, planted successively in same spot, each within 24 hours of planting.  Maybe the ants are impinging on the roots.  

2026 planting map

 

Master list of my tomato variety 2- or 3-letter abbreviations: 2026 update

Full name / Abbreviation
46A2.3 y/y    46

55A7          55

Airyleaf      AL
Ananas Noir.  AN
Basinga       BA
Better Boy  BB (2026)
Better Bush  BB (Pre 2018)
Black Cherry  BC
Black Zebra  BZ
Black from Tula BFT
Brandywine    BW
Carbon        CA
Cherokee Purple   CP
Costoluto Genovese CG
Coyote        CO
Funky Bell   FB
Flamme        FL
Gogoshori Striped GS
Godzilla    GDZ
Green Zebra GZ
Hawaiian Currant HC
Ildi        IL
Indigo Rose IR 
Lucky Cross LC
Kellogg's Breakfast KB
Long Tom     LT
Mortgage Lifter ML
Mr. Stripey  MS
Orange Slicer  OS
Pink Berkeley Tie Die BTD
Pink Ping Pong PPP
Red Pear    RP
Reisetomate RT
Roman Candle RC
Roma        RO
Sunny Butter SB
Sweet Pea Currant SPC
Sun Gold    SG
Supersauce   SS
Tangerine Dream TD
Uluru Ochre UO
White Beauty WB
Zapotec Pink Ribbed ZPT

2026 varieties

2026 varieties

     year = when the seeds were prepared byt me or if purchased, the marketed season on the packet.

46A2.3 y/y F7 2025
55A7 F8 2025
BB = Better Boy, 2026.  Not to be confused with BB = Better Bush from years past.  (I just wanted a simple hybrid red beefsteak that was likely to be disease-resistant.)
BC 2021
SG 2017
OS 2016
SB "Sunny Butter" 2018 - a Kroger heirloom that I can't recall planting? but maybe I did?
GZ 2025
HC 2020
SPC 2021

Germination notes:  All of these germinated pretty well.  Even SG (2017) and OS (2016) both germinated 7/16 seeds and those were the worst rate of all these - the rest were >50% and 2020 or later were 90-100%.  OS is ten years old. !

2026 tomatoes are growing

 This year I am not renting a plot.  I decided to grow as many plants as I could in my backyard - all in the ground.  Because of last year's disastrous results, I planned more carefully!  Or at least, differently.

I sowed on March 12.   This year I decided to use a probiotic approach to thwart off disease.  The products I chose were (1) Hydroguard, a liquid that contains beneficial Bacillus spores, and (2) Mykos, which is a mycorhizzial funus in powder form.  Therefore, I did not add Daconil which is an anti-fungal treatment I have used in previous years.   Following germination, I added Hydroguard to the additional rounds of water when growing the seedlings.  

For transplant, the Mykos is applied by dusting the roots in the powder.   Although I've used Cowpots for several years for the first transplant stage, I always noticed that after a week or two they starting growing slimy pink-orange colonies on the outside of the pots.  Who knows what that was.  This year I just used plastic 4" square pots that come attached together in a 6x3 grid.  My thinking is that the Cowpots might be bringing in bad bacteria.  I brushed the seedling roots in some Mykos powder on a plate then planted in the transplant pots. Transplant soil was a mix of MiracleGrow mostiure control potting soil, leftover seedling started mix and a bit of peat moss.   Transplant was done around April 1-ish.   

Finally, I got the plants in the ground on April 16/17.   No buckets this year! (Except for one, see below.).  Fortunately, my neighbor removed some overhanging trees and now there's more sunlight in my old garden plot again.   I also tilled up two little separated patches of yard to squeeze in a few more plants.   So, I planted 18 in my big patch against the fence, and two little groups of 4 more each.   But one plant in the big patch died due to an ant colony! Never saw that before.  I even put in a replacement plant and they killed that too!  So:  17+4+4 = 25 plants in the ground.   Finally, I threw a few unneeded plants onto my compost heap, then discovered a week later some were still alive!  So I jumbled four of them into one old bucket.  

By 5/17/26 all the in-ground plants are thriving, about 2.5-3 feet tall.   Some of them in the big patch have some curling leaves but no discoloration (yet).     The list of varieties will be in the next post.

2025 thoughts

 2025 has been a weird year.  Including for my gardening.

I sowed about 20 varieties but got a late start, and due to communication errors on my part with my farm rental plot landlords I planted late too.  Did not sow indoors till March 25.  Did not get plants in the farm plot ground till almost May.   I planted about 20 plants at the farm, had 4 in buckets in backyard, and I put a half dozen extra plants in my backyard garden last, and did almost nothing to care for them.

This was way too late - should have been in ground before April 15.  Why does this matter?  For a few reasons .  1. the plants didn't have time to establish well before the warm weather really set in, and a lot of the plants looked fine for the first few weeks, but were hammered by wilt before they got nice and big.  I think having a better root establishment early would have helped.  2.  Consistent rain made for nice plant growth but prob contributed to fungal growth too.  3.  I spread wood chip mulch around the plant becasue it was free there, but I read later that that can spread fungus sometimes.  4.  Fruit set was a couple weeks late.

But mainly the wilt was terrible.  By July, about half the plants at the farm were dying off and were so stunted that they were done for.  They did not make enough leaf growth to shelter the fruit, so the fruit that they tried to make were few, sunscalded, and small.  Then, the heat came in July, and fruit set stopped.  By the third week in July - which is usually the peak of production - it was pathetic.   I'm not sure I picked more tomatoes than the number of plants!  

Some things to fight wilt next year:  1.  Put more anti-fungal in the mix when transplanting to larger pots.  2.  Maybe the cowpots I use are vectors for fungus or bateria that cause wilt.  Hard to know,  I do know that after a few weeks they start to grow colonies of bacteria on the outside - pinkish looking colonies.  Try different pots?  3.  Try adding a beneficial bacteria to the mix.  I did this once before.  4.  Don't use wood chip mulch.  5.  Start everything earlier so plants have time to grow bigger before they get stressed by more heat. 

2023 wrap-up

This year I had about 6 containers and planted about 14 plants in the yard.  My calcium tests showed mainly that calcium had little effect on end rot, but I think the watering regimen was probably the most important.  Basically if there is too much or too little, it's bad for end rot.   I think the containers exaggerate this here in Tennessee: they get so hot, come June, they dry out quickly,   Oh well.  Anyway I learned that calcium application doesn't rescue end rot in the containers.

My yard is so shaded by grown trees now that there is almost no good space for growing tomatoes.  A few plants wound up being in full shade almost all day.  They grew less and some never even set fruit.

Although my 55a7 x pBTD F1(2019) cross was a failure to obtain atv/atv + gs/gs (due to their linkage), I planted a few F2s anyway mainly in case I got a new purple or other variety that seemed nice.  So one of them does not have atv, but is nice: it has gf/gf and gs/gs and is not y/y.  It looks and tastes great.  The striping looks good on the not-y/y background - very deep orangey red stripes vs the green .  I like this better than gs on the y/y "pink" background e.g. pBTD.  This F2 is likely y/+.     I saved seeds because I liked it so much.   My shorthand for the 55a7 x pBTD F1(2019) cross is "55p".   So I will call this  "55-Stripe" -  has a nice ring to it.

My littlest tomato of 2023

 From the variety Sweet Pea Currant. 8/12/23

More calcium tests to prevent end rot

 This year I am growing 7 FL plants and testing some calcium treatment to see if I can finally reduce end rot in the Flamme plants.

I have 4 in-ground and 3 in buckets.

Plan: Beginning on Monday May 22,  administer calcium nitrate weekly each Monday either to soil as liquid or foliar spray.    I found a bulletin with data claiming Ca spray reduced BER.

Spray: 15 mM calcium nitrate + tiny bit of dishwash detergent as wetting agent.   For 2 plants in ground and 1 in bucket.

Soil:  500 ml of 50 mM calcium nitrate applied to base of plant. 1 plant in-ground, 1 in bucket.

Control: 1 in ground , 1 in bucket.

Control and Spray test plants also receive 500 mls water at same time.

I did not spray a control of any sort on the Control or Soil plants.

May 27 2023 update

 It's Memorial Day weekend 2023.  All plants are growing pretty nicely with no signs of wilt or disease, but that is typical through May.  From my past years' notes, signs of disease, if any - usually sudden wilt - emerge in the first week of June.   

Aphids:  Some plants have pretty noticeable curling and slender leaves, particularly younger leaves, and particularly on FL but not exclusively.  For example, the two 55p plants are unaffected (these are F3 plants from a cross, so maybe still enjoying hybrid vigor).    One possible cause is aphids which were quite noticeable on the plants over the last couple weeks - followed by aphid mummies indicating parasitization and natural control.   

Interestingly, the enormous oak tree which overhangs much of the backyard is I think the source of aphids.  All of the plants, and my patio picnic table and chairs, are speckled with honeydew.  (ew).  

It's 2023

 I did not blog much in late 2021.  In 2022, I did not grow tomatoes at all, for the first time in many years.

As 2023 starts, I discovered some unfortunate news about my 55a7 x pBTD cross that I began a few years ago.  My goal here was to combine purple skin and green stripe.  In 2021, I collected seeds from F2 fruit, thinking that 1/16 would be atv/atv ; gs/gs , but at least some of the atv/atv that were not green stripe might also be gs/+ and thus worth breeding out to F3 in order to homozygose gs.   

Well.  This is a fine plan under the assumption that atv and gs are completely unlinked.  What are the odds?  Turns out they are tightly linked on chromosome 7.    I got the genome locations based on close markers from separate publications.   

Green stripe:   SNP marker SL2.50ch07_63842838

(Liu et al. New Phytologist, 2020.  GREEN STRIPE, encoding methylated TOMATO AGAMOUS-LIKE 1, regulates chloroplast development and Chl synthesis in fruit)

atv:  within SL2.50ch07: 60999091–61004074

Cao et al/. J Exp Botany 2017 -  A putative R3 MYB repressor is the candidate gene underlying atroviolacium, a locus for anthocyanin pigmentation in tomato fruit)

These are about 2.8 Mb apart, which I estimate to be about 4 cM based on the Tanksley map from 1992 (Genetics).

So - this means that the F1 was atv-+ / +-gs for chromosome 7.

For an F2 to be atv-gs / atv-gs , it would have to inherit two crossover chromosomes from the F1.  Odds of each are about 2%.  Odds of inheriting both are 1/2500.

What's also bad is that although I saved some F2 atv/atv seeds, these are about 98% likely to be homozygous wild type for gs - so they are not worth breeding out to get gs phenotype.

I suppose I could plant some F3 from the largest F2 purple fruit, just to see if I can a big size purple - gf line that is bigger than my old 46A2 line.  Try #18 maybe.

2021 is underway

SOWING 3/20/21

F2s to grow out from 2018 crosses.  F1 fruit were obtained in 2019.

2018 cross #13:   55a7 x pBTD F1(2019): ~60 plants.

Sowed 72 x 1.  Germination was very high, about 70.72.

2018 cross #30: ZPT x GDZ F1(2019):  20 plants.  Sowed 18x2. Here I am simply looking to see if I get anything interesting.  Pure curiosity.   The F1 was likely a successful cross.  If so it proves GDZ is not dominant, but might be interacting with ZPT.   The F1 fruit had ribs and air pockets like ZPT.  

Assuming ZPT phenotype is a single locus, the F1 would be ZPT/+ ; GDZ/+.

If so, ~2/16 should be = either one or the other parental phenotype.  Some may be like the F1, some may appear more “typical” round.  But the interesting ones are ZPT/ZPT ; GDZ/GDZ – 1/16; , or, at least homozygous for one locus and het for the other, which will be around ¼ , combined.

Roma: 18 plants (2017) sowed 18x2.

Home:  2xCG (2015; sowed 2w x 3 seeds), 6xFL (on order), 2xBC (2015, 2wx2), 2x TD (2019, 2wx2), 2xHC (2020, 3x2). All germinated ok

"Original" 2014 cross 55a1.2 F6  - growing 2 plants

4/25/21 - planted 40 plants cross #13

4/30/21 - planted ~20 plants cross #13,  8 plants #30.

Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year

Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year

Calcium nitrate to prevent end rot

I did a calcium nitrate application test to see if Ca application would prevent end rot (ER).  It did, although I nearly killed the test plants by over-applying.  I had two test plants and one control.  The strain was Flamme, which is very prone to ER.

Soil: Miracle-gro potting mix.  Test plants had ½ cup of calcium nitrate mixed in the soil. Control had zero.

½ cup ~ 120 g ; x 0.19% calcium (according to label)  = 22.8 g calcium = 0.57 moles.   (Calcium is 24.4% of pure calcium nitrate by molecular weight, but the material is probably not pure calcium nitrate. )

Transplanted the plants into these, 5 gal buckets 5/10/20.

On 6/7/20 I supplemented with even more calcium nitrate.  This time I dissolved 120 g (½ cup) of the calcium nitrate in 500 ml water and applied it directly.

To the control, I added ¼ cup of 29-0-4 fertilizer to supply a similar amount of nitrate as the test.  Note this was a slow-release pellet form; not meant to dissolve quickly!  I dissolved it in 500 ml water as best I could, and added to control.

Well by evening, the two test plants were wilting. Of course, I should have realized that hitting them with a solution of 0.57mol/0.5 L, or more than 1 molar salt, would hurt!   This arrested growth of the test plants.  They did not recover their wilted appearance until ~6/28/20, 3 weeks later.

However – they did catch up, and by season’s end it was clear that the test plants had almost zero end rot.

Final results:

Test plants:  35 fruit.  34: no ER.   ER rate 3%.

Control plant: 53 fruit.   No ER: 27.  ER: 26.   ER rate 49%.

Interestingly, the control plant had much less ER after about Aug 15.

June-July 20:  Control had about 50% ER.  Test plants had no fruit yet.

July 20-Aug 15:  Control had about 50% ER.  Test plants had zero.

Aug 15- end of season:  Control and test plants had almost zero ER.

  

Conclusion:  It works, but don’t use such a concentrated calcium nitrate solution. Try much lower, like 50 mM, perhaps every two weeks.

Indigo crosses

I grew a few plants each of 55a1.2 F4 and 46a2.3 F5, and 1 of 28d3.3F4.

I saved seeds from 55a1.2F4 plant 2.  I will now call this 55a1.2F5.   

I previously thought 55a1.2F4 was not gf/gf, but it actually is gf/gf.

Since these are NOT y/y, it is hard to see the gf/gf from outside.  Sliced open it was obvious. (“identical to Carbon.”)

46a2.3 F5 are gf/gf;y/y and indigo.  These seeds were from 2 years ago and so I had already grown the F5 last year.  These were decent as before.  Were prone to sunscalding but I got started late in 2020 and that was partly why – in late July the heat and sun get really bad. Perhaps y/y is more prone to sunscalding?

28d3.3F4 did not have much at all purple.  A nice cherry, but prone to cracking with overwatering.  I sort of prefer Black Cherry which was very sweet this year.

Heirlooms

I derived Tangerine Dream from a store-bought orange globe “

heirloom”.  Seems to breed true and was a decent yellow-orange beefsteaky tomato.  Would grow again.

Flamme calcium tests

Flamme is prone to end rot.  I have three plants in buckets.  Two have each been supplemented with 1/2 cup pure calcium nitrate;  one with none as control.

Transplanting to 5-gal buckets

On May 7, 9, etc.  I starting moving the plants from cowpots into the buckets.  The plants are well rooted - roots are beginning to go right thru the cowpots.

I put a brick in each bucket to stabilize it.  Planting medium is simply Miracle Gro potting mix.

Crepe Myrtle branches:  I saved a bunch of pruned, fresh, straight branches, though after storing about a month in the garage they are all warping a bit and are not quite straight anymore.  Next time, to prevent warping after harvesting them, immediately anchor them on both ends to a T-post till use  (if possible, need to test this.).

2x  46a2.3 F5, 
2x  55a1.2 F4, 
1x:  28d3.3 F4.

2x CA
1x BC
1x HC  maybe 1 more?
1x FB
1x TD

Still need to transplant FL.  Will grow 4 I think; spike 2 with lots of calcium to test if helps stave off end rot.
Still need to transplant Roma.

Disinfecting last year's 5 gal. container buckets

On 5/4/20 I disinfected last year's 5 gal. container buckets as follows:

1. Rinsed off all dirt and debris as best I could with hose.

2. Made Disinfectant:  a 10:1 mix of water and 5% hypochlorite bleach; 5 gal of water + 2 quarts bleach, in a large white tub.  (Actually the bleach was "outdoor cleaner" from home depot, but it's basically 5% hypochlorite with prob a small amount of a detergent!)

3. I could place a bucket one at a time on their side in the disinfectant tub and roll it to cover all surfaces. Then placed the bucket upright in another tub while I rinsed the next one.  Let them stand a few minutes to disinfect.  

4. Finally, rinsed them by rotating them well in a separate tub of water.  Let drip dry in stacks.   

Tomato sowing - April 2020

Tomato sowing, 4/18/20.

For various reasons, I decided not to do a big grow-out this year from any 2019 F2 seeds.  Looking forward to doing that next year if all goes well.

This year I plan to have about 18 container tomatoes in the backyard.

They will be:

•46a2.3 F5, 55a1.2 F4, and 28d3.3 F4.

Each germinated well.

• Previous heirlooms: CA, FL (2016), BC, HC: also all germinated fine. HC had only 3 seeds left! but they all germinated.

Finally, I am growing two heirlooms I saved from Kroger!

• FB/Funky Bell :  a red, small-to-medium, bell-pepper-shaped tomato.  I guess the fruit weight was about 30 grams.

• TD/Tangerine dream:  a medium slicer, very nice globe/beefsteak with orange-y color.

I sowed into standard seed starter mix, heat mat.  Germination went fine.  Also sowed basil, cilantro, and banana pepper plants.

Sowing was 4/18/20.   Transplanted to cowpots, standard miracle-gro potting soil, around 4/24/20.   Hardening off, then fully outside around 5/1/20.

From August 2019

An assortment.

1. White Beauty

2. Mortgage Lifter

3. Carbon?

4. Black Cherry

5. Flamme

6. 28D3.3  F5

7. Uluru Ochre

8. 46A2.3 F5 ?

ZPT x GDZ F1s

I got a couple of ZPT x GDZ F1 fruit, which were interesting as they combined traits of either parent.  The fruits were not as weirdly fasciated as GDZ; however, the larger of the two fruits was pretty funky shaped.  Still it did not have any lobes that were totally separate, like GDZ and RT usually have. In other words the fruit was one unified body.   The smaller fruit was very similar in apperance to Costoluto Genovese, in having the ribbed appearance of ZPT and CG but flat like CG.  In addition, the seed blobs inside the locules were not very juicy and there was an air cavity separating the seeds from the outer rim of the locule, which is just like the ZPT parent.  This trait is seen in "stuffer" variety tomatoes, which are not very popular.  I have seen this trait in one other heirloom I have grown several years ago, Gogoshari Stiped.   It seems to be a dominant trait.

After consideration I think it's still possible that these plants could be from ZPT self-fertilization, i.e. the cross did not work as planned.  Wish I had more than 2 fruits on which to base the phenotype.  But my gut feeling is that they are not quite shaped like the ZPT parent - the first one seems to have the asymmetry of GDZ and the second fruit was too "flat".