Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🥧 Quick take: Fresh out of the winter garden diary: Tatiana shares her guilt-free, high-protein pumpkin farmer’s cheese casserole (classic Eastern European zapekanka). Made completely without refined sugar and using low-fat yogurt instead of heavy sour cream, this two-layer bake pairs a dense vanilla farmer’s cheese base with a velvety, cinnamon-spiced roasted pumpkin topping. Full … Read more
🍅 Quick take: In this continuation of a Northern greenhouse grow diary, growers debate the best rootstocks for grafting watermelons and melons. While many beginners start with the classic Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria), experienced growers are switching to professional F1 interspecific squash hybrids like Ferro, Cobalt, and Root Power due to superior vigor and plant health. … Read more
📌 Quick Summary: Thinning Pumpkins 🎃 Natural Fruit Abortion: You rarely need to thin (pick off) baby pumpkins. Winter squash vines are incredibly smart. If the plant lacks the water, nutrients, or time to support a new baby pumpkin, it will naturally turn yellow, shrivel up, and fall off on its own. ✂️ Pinch the … Read more
📌 Quick Summary: Planting Fresh Pumpkin Seeds 🎃 Straight to the Soil: Unlike tomatoes, pumpkin and squash seeds do not need to be fermented to remove a gel coat. You can plant them immediately after scooping them out of the fruit. 💧 The Float Test: Fresh seeds from a grocery store or storage pumpkin can … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Mid-April Greenhouse Planting Risks & Rewards 🍅 Early Tomatoes: Planting tomatoes directly into the cold greenhouse dirt in mid-April (Zone 4) is risky. Growers use heavy frost blankets, plastic film, and 1.3-gallon (5L) jugs of hot water placed near the plants at night as thermal mass to keep them alive. 🦆 … Read more
📌 Thread Highlights: Acorn Squash Shelf Life & Storage Rules 🎃 Real Acorn Squash Shelf Life (2 Months vs. 10 Months): While textbooks claim Acorn squash only lasts 4–8 weeks, our forum grower stored cured Paydon Family Acorn squashes all the way until May, June, and even August (nearly 11 months)! Instead of rotting with … Read more