This is a funny tomato plant, called Beta, sent to me by Andrey Baranovski of Belarus, a member of the Seed Savers Exchange and well known gardener in Europe.
Extremely early he said in his description. I’ll say, it was blooming and setting fruit in the plastic pot I was using to start it indoors. I’m pretty sure it’s determinate, so I didn’t want to pinch off the blooms for fear of reducing the harvest. The only solution was to quickly move it outdoors to it’s permanent home. Next year I’ll know not to start it so early.
I’m having a shortage of greenhouse space this year, so I’ve put it in a pot on my roof. Hopefully, it will produce tomatoes before late blight strikes, a common problem here.
Sounds great: my 150 varieties were sown around March 18, and aren’t flowering yet. When did you start your tomatoes?
I am like so totally jealous! My tomatoes aren’t even in garden yet, waiting until this Saturday. But sounds like that tomato might actually help with our thrip issues. I might have to get some seed next year.
Hi Lieven,
I don’t have very good notes, so I’m not completely sure. I think I started mine about 10 days before you, around the 7th or 8th.
What I understand from Andrey’s comments on his seed list is this one is very early, but otherwise not very interesting. It might make good breeding material for creating something else.
I’ll make sure to save lots of seeds if I can!
How do you tell if a tomato plant is determinate or indeterminate?
My Latah bush plants look exactly the same as my vine types at the moment, just starting the third or fourth pair of true leaves IIRC.
Hi Anna,
Some people can see by the way the plant grows, but I’m afraid I’m not that experienced. Maybe someone else can offer some suggestions here.
In my case I knew this was an early tomato, and most early tomatoes are determinate.
Vine types are almost always indeterminate. Bush types can either be determinate or indeterminate. Most wild or currant types are bush and indeterminate. Most ‘normal’ bush types are determinate.
Keep in mind too that determinate/indeterminate is not always a black and white issue, as there are a number of in-between cases.
Normally when you buy or trade tomatoes they tell you.
According to my Seed Savers Exchange seed listing, Latah bush is determinate.
Thanks! That helps, I think… 😉
I probably should have explained better though – I got some seed from Real Seeds which is part of a breeding project. It’s a cross between Latah and Irish Gardener’s Delight, and it’s been selected for a few generations aiming for something like Latah, but vine type.
They say that of the seeds I have, most will be vine but there will be some bush in there too. I have 8 plants, and they all look pretty much the same as my Latah plants (and to be fair, pretty much the same as my vines), except taller.
Having limited room, I only want to plant out the vine types.
Hi again Anna,
I’m sorry, I don’t have an easy answer. Irish Gardener’s Delight is indeterminate, and since you have a cross between both kinds you will probably have a lot of in-between situations. I don’t think there’s a lot you can do besides let them grow out and see what they look like when they’re bigger.
Tomato seeds are good for about 10 years, so you can grow out what you have space for this year and if you don’t find any good candidate plants to save seeds from, you can always go back to the original seeds and plant out more next year.
You could also sow another round of seeds indoors now, then plan on destroying a couple of unsuitable plants and replacing them with new ones in a few months.
Good luck!
hi patrick,
You gave me some Beta seeds at the Oxford seed swap and they’re by far the quickest into bloom! Glad I found this post as I wasn’t sure whether it was determinate or not …