The FRIENDS OF SAN MARZANO, SAN MARZANO APPRECIATION SOCIETY, LEAGUE OF SAN MARZANOANS, THE UNITED S
Posted by monte morgan on April 15, 2018, 1:36 pm
It is post-end of the season wrap up for Los Marzanos. The FRIENDS OF SAN MARZANO, SAN MARZANO APPRECIATION SOCIETY, LEAGUE OF SAN MARZANOANS, THE UNITED SAN MARZANO FRONT REPORTS are as such:
By and large, it appears that most of the fruits of this year's gardening experiment seemed to be undersize with one exception. Some reported having produced fruiting plants within un quadra de la playa, which is great news as it is indicative that this variant of solanacea has a tolerance to salt air at least to some degree.
The mother plant from which approximately 25-30 clones were derived produced around 50 fruit plus or minus. Yet late season the plant fell prone to plagas of multiple sorts. None of these fruits exceeded 2” in length. It was suspect that perhaps the parent seed stock was not of the variety that more typically produces 3-4 inch fruit.
A loyal bearer of the San Marzano flame spontaneously acquired for two packages of new seed stock for the San Marano Social Experiment. (you know who you are!!!!) Muchas gracias. Many other reported in with generally same results, with prolific fruit of smallish size. Yet!!! and drum roll please!! A champion gardener of many years experience from El Rebalsito reported in excess of 150 fruit of 3-4” size from a clone from the mother plant. After 150, they stopped counting. The most heartening aspect of this is that under best conditions these tomatoes are adaptable to growing in this climate and region using “organic” growing techniques. Further in the good news department is that there are lots of seed for next season.
“don't complain about the price of food with your mouth full”
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Re: The FRIENDS OF SAN MARZANO, SAN MARZANO APPRECIATION SOCIETY, LEAGUE OF SAN MARZANOANS, THE UNITED S
So I'm the lucky one who got a mega amount of San Marzanos. I usually prune my tomato plants, but didn't prune this one. I thought all roma type tomatoes were determinant (produce one main crop and then a smaller second one). By the time I found out that San Marzanos are indeterminant it was too late to prune.
The plant got well over a meter tall and I had to stake all the branches separately.The soil was very well prepared in the early summer and then surprise, I had a volunteer crop of watermelons that were delicious. One weighed 15 kilos!
The soil had lots of regular compost, worm compost and juice, seaweed (lots washed up after a series of huge waves - that's only happened once before in the 20 years I've been living in El Rebalsito), manure, etc. Basically lots of good organic stuff - all topped with a thick covering of leaves.
Hope I have the same good fortune next year!
BTW I also planted slicing tomatoes in the same plot and they did ok, but didn't produce like the SMs.