Part 2: Tomatoes in Southeast San Francisco, 2024

A truth about tomato genetics: Blight resistance means just that, resistance, not immunity.

In a year that has had perfect conditions for a bad case of late blight, all four of my late blight resistant tomato varieties got it. And, all four gave me excellent crops. The plants could keep producing healthy fruit even while they became more and more infected. In other words, the plants didn't go from green to blechy-brown in a matter of days. Instead, it's taken months for late blight to impact my plants. I don't spray my tomatoes with any antifungals, even organic-approved ones, but I do remove as many sick leaves as I can and dispose of them in the municipal compost. 

August 10th: Late blight has arrived.

Right now, I have loads of fruit. I'm putting away jars of tomatoes for use later when they're no longer around in my garden. I've dehydrated cherry tomatoes to toss in savory scones, salads, and pastas. I've delighted in thick juicy slices on sandwiches, and work lunch salads based primarily on tomatoes. This year is the best year for tomatoes I've had in San Francisco, and it's largely because of the hybrid varieties I've chosen to grow. (I wrote more about choosing and starting these varieties in Part 1.)

Here is more information about how each variety performed this year:

Abigail F1:

The first ripe Abigail arrived on August 4th, weeks earlier than Plum Regal or Strawberry Fields. It was, for me, a day of great excitement.

August 4th: First ripe Abigail.

August 20th: Three Abigails all in a row.

The fruit are beautiful in the ugly/sexy heirloom way: big, asymmetrical, and lobed. Unfortunately, at least from my garden, they don't taste like an heirloom. Many, though not all, of the fruit were mushy. While relatively low in seeds, the pulp sometimes didn't have the slippery firmness of an excellent tomato, but just fell apart. Fruits tended to taste better underripe rather than dead ripe. The mushy tomatoes ended up in the sauce pot, where they excelled in adding sweetness and zip, and their texture didn't matter much. The not-mushy ones ended up in salads and sandwiches.

August 20th: The mushy interior of an Abigail.

August 24th: The two cages in this photo are Abigails. Their last fruit is ripening and they're badly hit by late blight. I pulled them out on September 6th, after the last fruit ripened.

Each of the plants produced 15-20 fruit, most of them large. They set lots of fruit early, then didn't set any more as the large crops ripened, even though the plants kept growing and blooming. Late blight arrived in the beginning of August, but the plants were able to ripen all of the fruit they held before I pulled them out in the beginning of September.

While the size and beauty of Abigail were exciting to see here in San Francisco, the quality was inconsistent, with far too many mushy fruit. It isn't good enough to grow again.

Strawberry Fields F1:

Unlike other varieties I've grown, in which the early tomatoes are large and the later ones are small, this variety started out with small little tomatoes, about three times the size of a cherry on both of the two vines. Once Strawberry Fields finally seemed to settle in and start setting fruit for real, the size increased to regular diameters of about 3"-3.5".

September 6th: The six Strawberry Fields tomatoes in this photo are under the clipper blades and just to the right of them. Notice the variety in size between the one on the right of the blades versus the others.

September 10th: Fruit ripening is finally picking up on Strawberry Fields. Let's hope it outpaces the rapidly advancing blight.

The fruit are pretty, classically tomato shaped, round, pinkish red, and shiny. They're late producing, the first ripe small ones arriving on August 20th, but the normal sized ones just beginning to ripen in the last week or so. Late blight has really struck these plants now that they're loaded with good-looking fruit, but my fingers are crossed that they'll hang on long enough to ripen what they're holding, about 25 pretty round fruit per plant.

They taste great, reminiscent a bit of Momotaro, that sweet and delicious Japanese slicer. They're larger than Momotaro, and though the fruit has a pink tinge, it is more red than pink. I really like this tomato.

If most of the fruit ripen before the end of the plants' lives, I'll grow this one again.

Plum Regal F1:

I have three Plum Regal vines and they're poppin'. They didn't start ripening fruit until the end of August, but they're everything I hoped for out of a plum tomato: firm, easy to peel, productive, and flavorful. No, they don't taste like the best slicer you've ever had, but cooked, they're fantastic: sweet-tart and fragrant.

We are regular pizza eaters in this household, and we use Marcella Hazen's tomato sauce recipe on our pizzas. The sauce I made this weekend with a batch of Plum Regals was incredible. With the jars of tomatoes I've been putting away, I foresee many more batches of Plum Regal Marcella sauce. We also have enjoyed them greatly in Tacolicious's famous Roasted Tomato-Mint salsa.

September 9th: A bowl of Plum Regals.

September 10th: So much for keeping the vines off the ground; it's impossible with sprawling Plum Regal.

The octopus vines are impossible to train upward, so some fruit does end up lying on the ground as it ripens. The oldest, interior leaves are dying off from late blight, but the plants are still vigorously growing with lots of dark green, sturdy leaves. I know I will have to pull these plants out for fall and winter crops before they're done producing, so I'm open to green tomato recipes. Share ideas with me!

I will definitely grow this variety again. It is providing so much pleasure now, but will also do so for months to come, long after the vines are gone.

Cherry Bomb F1:

I ate the first ripe Cherry Bomb tomato on July 17th. Since then, I've popped many more in my mouth, dressed them in juicy salads, given bowls away, and filled dehydrator trays with them. One night, I filled a sheet pan with a single layer of them, threw in a few cloves of garlic and small shallots, then set Italian sausages, a slice in the case of each to allow juices to flow freely, on top of the veggies. I put the whole tray in a blazing hot oven, and not-too-long later, pulled it back out, cut the sausages into chunks, tossed fresh basil on top, and had a gorgeous, juicy sauce for pasta. All the eaters in my house went back for seconds.

September 10th: A few of the older, internal leaves have late blight, but most Cherry Bomb foliage stays healthy.

September 10th: The tomato cages are six feet tall and the Cherry Bomb vines tower over them.

The plants are unstoppable, even with a little late blight on their older, more interior leaves. They taste great, they ripen early and across a long season, and they tolerate imperfect conditions while still going strong. It's hard to ask for anything more out of a tomato plant. That's why it's my second year growing Cherry Bomb, and I will continue to grow this variety in future years, too. 

Since each of these are F1 hybrids, there isn't much point in isolating flowers and saving seeds. It is a little painful not to be able to save seeds and expect the same plants year to year, as I have in the past with tomatoes and do with many of my other garden plants, building a microclimate-specific seed bank. Saving seeds is important to me, yet in this case, the trade-off is worth it. Growing these hybrids allows me to have tomato plants that produce reliably here in San Francisco, a place famous for failing tomatoes, without any spray or other fungicide.