What happened to Chicago area Tomatoes

Maybe its just me but the last couple of years I have not been able to find the oustanding tomatoes usually in abundance this time of year. When I lived out of state I would always bring back tomatoes along with Italian Beef and Pizza whenever I visited. I tried growing them this year but ended up with (the ones that survived the animals and insects) the same tasteless mealy tomatoes I get at the local market.

Any thoughts?

My personal take on my garden is that the first half of the summer was great, but once those August storms hit, the weather has been too wet, then too cool, then too dry for the tomaters

I had about a 90% miss rate in buying tomatoes at farmers markets this year, including heirlooms. It got to the point that so many tomatoes were bad that I just stopped buying them altogether.

Best,
Michael

Hmm, I've actually gotten some decent ones recently, but not until the last 2-3 weeks. I swear that you can never get as good ones in Illinois as my dad used to buy 20 lbs. at a time in Kansas, though, and I don't think that's nostalgia, I think the climate here just isn't as good for them.

I have nine plants, eight of which have turned out a stellar crop, so much so that I've been leaving five pound bags on neighbors' front porches for over a month now. I planted in what I believe was virgin ground, conditioned the soil well, weeded and watered a lot, and ended up with a lot of excellent tomatoes; didn't need to buy any.

Hi,

I once went to a Master Gardner conference in Orlando, Florida. I learned tomatoes like hot days and cool nights for ripening. The weather in Florida is not conducive to tomatoes because the nights are not cool enough.

We have the right climate but to produce good results you have to nurture them like Hammond did for his.

Regards,

I picked a perfect tomato from an alley the other day. Didn't even get out of the car. I'd been stalking this rouge plant in the public way since Spring. And tending it with my own water on many occasions. I will check it again tomorrow to reap more bounty. Aarghh!

-ramon

Ramon wrote:I will check it again tomorrow to reap more bounty. Aarghh!

You must still be celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which was on Wednesday.

Like Mr. Hammond, I had outstanding results this year with my tomato plants, both with regard to quality and quanity, up until disaster struck and our entire garden was destroyed. In fact, the tomatoes from our own garden this year were far better than in the past two years. I've also gotten (since the disaster) some excellent ones from farmers' markets, most of which were grown in nearby parts of Indiana.

Tomatoes produced in New Jersey are very well known as being of especially high quality and I had some excellent ones when I was out there recently for a visit. Jersey beefsteaks have in my experience no match in these United States.

Antonius

As an aside, has anybody noticed that it's nigh on impossible to get real tomatoes in a market of any kind (excepting farmstands and farmer's markets) any time of year? When I was a kid, regular grocery stores used to carry real tomatoes in season. Five or ten years ago, Marketplace on Oakton would get decent tomatoes in season - but now it seems like everything is the same mushy, watery, flavorless tomatoes we have year-round. What's up with that? I'd pay more (and have gone to WF against my better judgement to do so!)

The moment when it really struck me how removed our grocery stores and their distribution channels are from reality was in Marin County last summer. I had some great basil and cheeses from the Ferry Building but I didn't want to buy tomatoes because I just didn't see them surviving shlepping around the city with the kids for a few hours. So when we got back across the bay to Tiburon, I went in both of the little grocery stores. Here we were, 15 minutes from the location of the famously great Marin County farmer's market, a half hour from where fantastic tomatoes are doubtless grown-- and all they had was overpriced styromatoes from Mexico. And these were grocery stores with Treasure Islandish pretensions to gourmetdom, but I might as well have been at a Safeway in upper Saskatchewan for how far the stuff had traveled.

David Hammond wrote:I have nine plants, eight of which have turned out a stellar crop, so much so that I've been leaving five pound bags on neighbors' front porches for over a month now. I planted in what I believe was virgin ground, conditioned the soil well, weeded and watered a lot, and ended up with a lot of excellent tomatoes; didn't need to buy any.

I have a front porch in Elmwood Park.

Actually I picked up some decent local tomatoes at Caputo's today for .49/lb.

I echo eatchicago's comment: I've found a lot of disappointing tomatoes lately in the stores and in the farmers' market I frequent. I've just about given up getting any good tomatoes for the rest of the year (too bad, too, since I just bought two pounds of bacon from Costco).

I did see what looked like a nice variety of good-quality heirloom tomatoes at the newly remodelled/reopened Dominicks at the corner of Half Day and Buffalo Grove roads the other day. I was already too tomato-demoralized to buy any, though. Maybe I should go back -- could be my last chance this year.

My plants are still producing, but I suspect it's only going to be green ones from here on out. And I have YET to get a pepper from my red and my cubano plants. The Habanero, on the other hand, is still going strong!

I've bought a few wonderful tomatoes from the farmer's market, and our CSA gave us a few great (tiny) tomatoes, too. But our plants out back have been a bust. Early in the season the cherry tomatoes produced a handful of nice fruits, then withered and died. Then our large plants, grown from seeds, did indeed get huge, but each mysteriously bore just one fruit, and even then only now have any of them begun to turn red (!). A few fell victim to squirrels, too, but they're not too picky when it comes to tomatoes to ruin.

So all in all, a bummer season for us. That's perhaps two in a row, if memory serves. Our peppers are doing OK, though.