I Will Grow Eggplants: Checking In - Tomatoes, Peppers, and Squash

It's a hot, sunny, dry day here (33 degrees C). It seemed like a great time to post an update on the tomatoes, peppers, and winter squash. (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Japanese Black Trifele

Dwarf Speckled Heart. The plants are along the back of the raised bed in the second picture below.

Gold Dust. Very productive plants.

Rozovyi Myod - the first one ripened by the end of July! Another two - large ones at the base of one of the plants - are beginning to ripen now.

Reinhard's Chocolate Heart - this is my third year growing RCH. It seems a bit late in developing this year, though the plants have produced lots of fruit. I think they preferred growing on the south side of the house to their current location in large containers beside the driveway.

Linda (a dwarf - some sites say microdwarf - variety). It is quite productive. Smooth, egg-shaped, blemish-free tomatoes.

Tomatoes (Scotia on the right, Linda beside it), jalapeño peppers, and Early Charm asters.

Velmozha - I have 5 of these planted in-ground, 1 in a pail, and 1 in a raised bed. They are very productive plants, wispy and somewhat sprawling. Semi-determinate, about 3.5 - 4 feet tall. Unfortunately, BER has impacted some of the ones planted in-ground. Though there are relatively few tomatoes on the one in the pail, they are the healthiest looking ones of the bunch.

Dwarf Audrey's Love - I only have one of these on the go. Maybe it dislikes the spot where it's planted (the south-east corner of the East garden). It is lopsided, a bit spindly, and only has ~6 tomatoes on it. They are sloooow to develop. They look cool, though. Descriptions online say that it is normally a productive variety with an 80 DTM. I'd like to try these again in the future, in a more hospitable spot.

Dwarf Firebird Sweet - I have two of these on the go. Unlike Dwarf Audrey's Love, these plants seem to like their location (one of the raised beds). If the number of flowers on them is any indication - if most of them set and grow well - these plants will produce plenty of tomatoes. Fingers crossed.

Dwarf Roza Vetrov ("Wind Rose") - I have grown this variety twice before; the last time was ~5 years ago. This year, it is performing really well. The plants are producing abundantly and the tomatoes are generally larger than the first two times I grew it. Dwarf Roza Vetrov will go on my "grow again soon" list.

Ropreco Paste - I groaned out loud when I typed the name. I am not ready to declare this year a disaster for Ropreco, but they are not doing well. This was a variety I'd counted on to be abundant and reliable, a "don't think twice" variety. However, many of the tomatoes on the in-ground plants - 5 of them! - are small and have BER. (I grew Ropreco once before, in medium-sized pots, and they suffered BER that year, too.) The one Ropreco planted as an after-thought in a pail has, ironically, the largest and healthiest tomatoes! All the pictures below are from the "pail plant".

Guido - For the last few years, I have tortured myself by attempting to grow big, delicious, red beefsteaks. In general, the red beefsteaks I've grown have ended up cat-faced and on the small side, the plants unproductive. Oddly enough, the black/purple varieties have done quite well for me (e.g., Black Krim, Paul Robeson, Black from Tula, Cherokee Purple). The orange (Amana Orange) and marbled (Striped German) beefsteaks in past years did fine, too.

This year, I have two large red beefsteak varieties on the go: Guido (below) and Mrs. Bot's Italian Giant (not pictured). I knew they were late varieties, but it didn't really impact until they just began setting after the earlier varieties were already loaded with tomatoes. Each plant (3 Guido and 2 MBIG) has a few tomatoes that finally set.

Ajvarski peppers (this is a sweet, red variety)

Burpee's Butterbush squash. These generally don't get going until mid-August but then produce well, usually giving us 3 or 4 squash per plant. They've just begun to produce some male flowers.