📌 Quick Diary Summary: Determinates vs. Heirlooms
- 🔥 Heatwave Survivors: During prolonged heatwaves (95°F+ / 35°C+), tall indeterminate and exotic heirlooms often drop their blossoms due to sterile pollen. However, gardeners are finding that compact determinate (bush) varieties keep setting fruit without dropping a single truss!
- 🍅 Early Determinates: Determinates are early producers, but some (like June / Iyunskiy) get a bad reputation for tasting sour. However, flavor is highly dependent on potassium and sun exposure. Pink Bush F1 and Pink Guy are top-rated for being both early and exceptionally sweet.
- 🏠 The Center Bed Problem: Planting tall indeterminate tomatoes in the center bed of a greenhouse is a classic mistake. The side beds eventually grow up and block the light, leaving the center bed heavily shaded and yielding tiny fruit.
- ✂️ Topping for Leaf Mold: If Leaf Mold (Cladosporium) attacks your greenhouse in July, aggressive pruning is required. Cut the tops off the indeterminates to stop vegetative growth and force the plant to ripen the existing fruit before the disease takes over.
I am completely without tomatoes this year! 😭 A couple of my bushes don’t have a single fruit set on them.
This is a lesson for me: in the future, I need to plant 75% reliable, tried-and-true seeds from my own collection that *always* set fruit, and only 25% new varieties. This year I did the exact opposite – about 40% old and 60% new. The heatwave just dragged on too long. We covered the greenhouse with shade netting, but the thermometer still reads 97°F (36°C) inside right now.
On the bright side, the strawberries became incredibly sweet, we are finishing up the last of them now.
Da4nica wrote:
I am completely without tomatoes this year! 😭 A couple of my bushes don’t have a single fruit set…
Katya, I will add to this: the exotic varieties and the orange ones are really letting me down this year. I’m going to plant fewer of them in the future. As I wrote before, the classic heart-shaped varieties are doing great. I’ll be planting more of those, especially the Minusinsk ones. The large red beefsteaks are doing well, the large pear-shaped ones, and hybrids like Sarra.
Honestly, next year I’m planning a “retro tomato year”!
And another thing: every year I have a problem with the center bed in my greenhouse. I plant two rows in it, but clearly, they just don’t get enough light. I drastically reduced the number of plants in that bed this year, but the result is the same: fewer fruits, and they are small.
Meanwhile, the determinate (bush) tomatoes I planted in the center bed of my other greenhouse are beyond praise! We’ve been eating them for a month and the fruit just doesn’t stop. I only planted 6 of them. It makes me wonder; should I just plant determinates in the entire center bed next year?
Aleksan9ra wrote:
Meanwhile, the determinate (bush) tomatoes… are beyond praise!
Luda, good evening! Which determinates are you growing this year? And which ones do you plan to grow next year?
Lyudasik wrote:
Which determinates are you growing this year?
Luda, this year I only have two determinates: Pink Guy (Rozovyi Gay) and Pink Bush F1. I was always pretty indifferent to determinates, but now I’m changing my mind.
I won’t even bother praising Pink Guy, everyone already knows how good it is. But Pink Bush F1 never ceases to amaze me; I would plant a lot more hybrids like this. It is a pink-fruited, incredibly productive, very early variety. It isn’t prone to disease, the bush is powerful, it sets fruit perfectly, and the tomatoes are quite large. But the most important thing: they are meaty, dense, and NOT SOUR! They have a very pleasant flavor and perfect shape. I will definitely be looking for more varieties like this.
Aleksan9ra wrote:
should I just plant determinates in the entire center bed next year?
Luda, how do the determinates even grow in a center bed? Don’t the tall plants on the two side beds shade them out? Or do you have something else planted on the edges in that greenhouse?
Da4nica wrote:
Or do you have something else planted on the edges in that greenhouse?
Katya, in that specific greenhouse, I don’t have tall tomatoes on the edges; I have peppers and eggplants! So it is very bright in there, and they occupy the prime spots on the south side.
But you are right, if I plant determinates in the center of a tomato greenhouse, it will probably be too dark for them once the tall indeterminates grow up. We think and we think every year, and we still end up stepping on the same rake! 😂
But honestly, it all comes down to the weather. Despite this crazy heat, the determinates are setting fruit, swelling up, and ripening without dropping a single blossom cluster.
I was just watching some YouTube videos and wrote down a few new, tasty, early-fruiting determinate hybrids to try. Has anyone grown these? Debut, Supernova (Casta), Mamako, Hapinet.
Aleksan9ra wrote:
Despite this crazy heat, the determinates are setting fruit, swelling up, and ripening without dropping a single blossom cluster.
That is so true. I have some random determinate growing from a mislabeled seed packet, and it is setting fruit flawlessly. If it tastes good, I’m definitely saving seeds from it.
Also, have you noticed something weird? On many of my tomatoes this year, a new shoot (with leaves and suckers) is growing straight out of the end of the fruit clusters!
Regarding sour tomatoes: some are just naturally sweet, and some are sour.
I no longer plant June (Iyunskiy), Duckling (Utenok), or anything like them. All of those varieties are horribly sour, so I gave up on them. However, Mongolian Dwarf really surprised me! It has a very decent flavor and the tomatoes are perfectly smooth, not lumpy. Those are my determinates.
As for indeterminates: last year I lost a plant tag, so I just named it “Productive, Red, Sweet.” This year, it confirmed all those qualities! I also really liked Brave General. However, Bloody Butcher was a bit sour, and so was Altai Orange. Right now, Zebra Apricot Heart is starting to change color at the bottom, I can’t wait to try it. Everything else, including Linnaeus Heart, hasn’t ripened yet.
gala7496 wrote:
I no longer plant June (Iyunskiy)… All of those varieties are horribly sour, so I gave up on them.
I actually planted June (Iyunskiy) for the first time this year (seeds from Angelina), and I absolutely loved it! It is compact, highly productive, and sweet! I didn’t even expect an early tomato to have that much sweetness. From now on, June will be my only early variety. It pumps out its harvest very quickly – finishing up right as the main-season tomatoes start to ripen. Superb!
gala7496 wrote:
…All of those varieties are horribly sour…
Galya, my June (Iyunskiy) isn’t sour at all! It’s just a standard, classic tomato flavor. I absolutely hate sour tomatoes, but June saves the day in early summer when there are no other tomatoes available… and it tastes a hundred times better than store-bought ones!
Yesterday was my first big harvest, mostly for processing/canning. I really loved Pink Guy (Rozovyi Gay) – thank you to Anina and Ninochka for the seeds! It is both tasty and highly productive.
Unfortunately, Leaf Mold (Cladosporium) has started in my greenhouse. I had to cut off a ton of leaves, and I chopped the main tops off all the plants (along with their flowers). There is no point keeping the tops of the large-fruited varieties anymore.
I really liked the Pozzano hybrid, but the root on one bush started to rot, so I had to pull it and let the green fruit ripen indoors on the counter. Even picked green, they turned out quite tasty! Yes, they are a bit firm and dry (it’s a paste tomato), but not sour at all.
👨🔬 Editor’s Botanical Note: Sour Early Tomatoes and Vegetative Trusses
1. Why Do Early Tomatoes Taste Sour?
The debate over the famous Russian ultra-early variety June (Iyunskiy) perfectly highlights how environment affects flavor. Early determinate tomatoes are bred to ripen in very cool, early-summer conditions. Because they develop during a time when the sun is weaker and the soil is cooler, the plant struggles to synthesize and transport Potassium (the mineral responsible for sweetness). If Galina’s soil is Potassium-deficient or heavily shaded, her early tomatoes will taste incredibly sour, while Valeriy’s exact same variety grown in full sun and rich soil will taste sweet!
2. Vegetative Trusses (Leaves Growing Out of Flowers):
Ekaterina noticed a very strange mutation: leaves and suckers growing directly out of the end of a fruit cluster. This phenomenon is called a Vegetative Truss. It is almost exclusively caused by extreme temperature swings and heat stress. When the plant gets confused by the heatwave, the hormones that tell the plant to make flowers get mixed up with the hormones that tell it to make leaves. If you see a leafy sucker growing out of a fruit truss, snip it off immediately! If you leave it, the plant will waste energy growing that useless stem instead of ripening the tomatoes.
