St. Pierre

This old French variety is a great slicing and canning tomato; was donated to the USDA in 1963.  St. Pierre is a very popular tomato in the Paris markets dating back to the 1880’s.  The plant is regular leaf and indeterminate, producing red round fruit- 2-6 oz with an outstanding sweet flavor

This will be my first year growing this variety, I have grown Opalka and Amish Paste in previous years, but this year I will also give this variety a try as a canning tomato.  Must be good if its been a popular market tomato since the 1880's!

Galina's Yellow

Galina’s Yellow is a Russian heirloom from Siberia.  The seed was introduced commercially in the early 90’s, and is an excellent cherry tomato.  Very sweet flavor, about 1 inch diameter fruit, and is just a beautiful looking plant.  The plant is an indeterminate potato leaf and performs very well in cool weather, Galina Yellow is an absolute must.

  

Mama Leone

In years past I have grown, Amish Paste, and Opalka for paste tomatoes.  I did not have much success with Amish Paste, but did find Opalka to be good.  This year I am trying one called Mama Leone.

Mama Leone is a paste tomato that was offered to Seed Savers Exchange by Nacy Kirch from NY in 2005.  She had obtained it from a local nursery that obtained the seed from a customer who immigrated from Italy with the seeds.

Mama Leone is a great tomato for making sauce with excellent flavor.  Regular leaf, high yields of 3-6oz red fruit.

Caterpillar Tunnels

Over the years of growing tomatoes, here in Upstate NY; I noticed that the ones I grew under plastic vs. out in the field- did considerably better.  I remain blight free- very healthy looking plants and fruit with high yields, but very limited space in my high tunnel for the amount of plants I like to grow.

Friends of mine from Wind Flower Farm in Easton NY had suggested I try constructing what they call Cat Tunnels/ short for Caterpillar tunnels.  I guess they are called this because they kind of resemble a caterpillar once the plastic and rope is on?

So this year I am going to give them a try.  They are very easy to construct and much more cost effective than buying large greenhouse and high tunnel structures.  These Cat tunnels are temporary, and the plastic is taken off before winter sets in and the bents can be take down or left up.

Tomato plants do best with lots of sun, preferably the early morning sun to burn off the morning dew.  Which brings me to my next point; tomatoes should not be watered from the top.  Wet leaves and fruit following hot dry sun can lead to all sorts of disease and sun scalding.  Having the tomatoes grown under structures such as Cat tunnels protects them from rain and wind.  The best form of watering your tomato plants would be a drip irrigation system/ or manually water each plant down by the roots, not from up top.

Building material for the Cat tunnels include 20 ft lengths of schedule 40 pvc pipe, ¼ inch nylon rope, ground stakes, and a greenhouse rated plastic.  I am using a 4 mil 24X100 ft roll, but you can get 6mil and longer rolls if you need to.  I spaced each bent out at 5 ft but will most likely space out my next to tunnels at 6 ft.  The rope holds the plastic down and is staked into the ground.  You have to manually pull up and down the sides to vent the tunnels.  If a storm is coming with high wind- obviously pull down your sides, so that the wind does not catch underneath the plastic.  If it’s sunny and hot out, pull those sides up so that you do not cook those plants.

Here are some pictures of my first tunnel going up.

This one is actually being set up for cucumbers and peppers, if you where wondering about the trellising.