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In this episode, Farmer Fred connects with Don Shor of Redwood Barn Nursery to reflect on the 2025 tomato growing season, sharing their experiences and insights while evaluating the performance of various tomato varieties. Farmer Fred ranks his 2025 tomato season as one of his worst, only second to the scorching summer of 2022, yet he notes that the overall weather conditions this year were quite favorable.
Don shares insights from his own experience, noting that several of his trusted varieties, such as Rugby and Bodacious, underperformed this year, likely due to the dry start to the season affecting irrigation practices. They delve into critical topics such as soil moisture levels and root development, emphasizing the importance of watering practices in achieving healthy tomato yields.
As the conversation progresses, they discuss the other plants in their gardens, including peppers, onions, edible pumpkin seeds (Pepitas), and cucumbers. Don highlights the successful lemon cucumber, which flourished without issues of mildew, noting the significant yields from this variety. They also explore the common pitfalls of cucumber cultivation and the importance of managing watering strategies to ensure plants remain productive through the growing season.
From irrigation practices to soil health and the excitement of trying new varieties, this episode offers an engaging and informative wrap-up of the tomato growing season. Farmer Fred and Don conclude with hopeful notes for the next planting season, reinforcing the lessons learned and anticipating the joys of gardening and fresh produce in the coming year. And as always, a transcript of the podcast is attached for paid subscribers.
2025 Tomato Review Show…and More! TRANSCRIPT
Farmer Fred:
[0:00] So how was your 2025 tomato year? Well, you get to hear my sob story, and you can hear about all the successes from Don Shor of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California, for the next few minutes. And we’ll talk about other plants as well that did well or didn’t do well in the way of peppers and cucumbers. And who knows which way the conversation will go, but we’ll certainly cover tomatoes. I have to rank the 2025 tomato growing season in my own yard as the second worst ever. Don, you may remember the first worst, which was that summer two or three years ago when in September it got up to, what, 115 degrees?
Don Shor:
[0:40] Yes, two days at 116, two at 110, and three at 106 over here in the Davis area. That was quite epic in September 2022. We’ll talk about that one for a long time to come. Yeah, it did impact yields late in the season, that’s for sure.
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CHEF’S CHOICE ORANGE TOMATO
Farmer Fred:
[0:54] And this year, the weather here in Northern California was excellent. It didn’t get too hot for too long. I’m sure it got over 100, but not by much. And there weren’t extended days of over 100 degrees. It was a very, very nice summer. But I see in my notes here, the first full size tomato I took out of production was on September 27th, the Chef’s Choice Orange Tomato. I harvested 30 ripe tomatoes, but it was the end of production, and I needed the space anyway. But let me tell you about one success, though, and it’s a thing that you told me about to do, and it really works. One of the tomatoes I planted this past year was the Bush Early Girl, that I grew in a container, and I started it (from seed in the greenhouse in early February) and planted it outside on April 6th. And it produced early and often, come June. And by the end of July, it was done for, but it gave me those early tomatoes. And I think that’s a great idea to get an early ripening tomato off to a good start in an area that has warm soil to begin with, like a large container, like a half barrel, and just enjoy your harvest until the big boys come home to roost later on in the summer. But yeah, I’ll give the Bush Early Girl an A for its production. And Chef’s Choice Orange, well, I think that’s going to get an F since it came out in September. Sorry about that.
Don Shor:
[2:23] It’s not an F. Wait, wait, wait. It gets a C. You took it out after harvesting 30 tomatoes.
RUGBY TOMATO
Farmer Fred:
[2:26] All right. Yeah, I know. Okay, I’ll change that to a C because it did produce some very beautiful Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes throughout the season. And they were very tasty. And we ended up making some relish with it. So it’s very pretty, too. One of the surprise failures in my yard this year was the Rugby, which up until this year has been doing great. But it went kaput as far as production goes on October the 8th.
Don Shor:
[2:55] And generally, it’s a good, generally a good late producer for us. I had good results with Rugby, but it was middle of the pack in terms of total yield. Yeah, this was a mediocre year for a lot of people. Obviously, I don’t give everything an F or a C or an A, but there are a lot more lower graded fruit in terms of total yield.
BODACIOUS TOMATO
Don Shor
Bodacious, for example, which I’ve done very well with for several years, only gave me about 15 or 20 fruit. Yes, they’re wonderful. They’re big, they’re firm. They were for slicing. I went out there, there’s three on there right now. We are recording this in early December. So, okay, I’ll brag about that one a little bit. But overall, in terms of the total yield, it wasn’t spectacular. And I think it goes back to actually how dry things were at the start of the season. We had our last significant rain fall on our side of the valley, first week of March. We had another light storm in April. But when people went out to plant, the soil was actually drier than usual. And all of our conversations with people who are having trouble with their tomatoes, not all of them, but let’s say 98% of them had to do with how they were irrigating. I’m reasonably sure that you know how to irrigate. So I don’t think that was your problem necessarily, but a lot of people use a drip irrigation system, they set it, and they leave it that way. And then we get to ask 20 questions with them. How often are you running it? How long are you running it? And they were not watering deeply enough. And in particular, this year, the tomatoes just never got their roots down in some cases. The soil was dry down further. And ordinarily, when you plant in March, well, you shouldn’t be planting in March. But when you plant April or May, there’s still enough moisture from the winter rains down there. And if you give them a good soaking, get them started, they can tap down and tap into some of that stored moisture. It just wasn’t there this year. So we were having a lot of conversations about plants that weren’t growing vigorously.
CHARLIE’S MYSTERY RED DELICIOUS CHERRY TOMATO
Farmer Fred:
[4:44] This is only the second year where I have not had tomatoes on the Thanksgiving dinner table because I ended the production of the Jetstar and the Dr. Wyche, back on October the 29th. The last full size tomato to go out was Cupid. Plants were cut out. But the one that lasted the longest was a gift seed from our friend Charlie in Brooklyn. It was his mystery red delicious cherry tomato that hung on until mid-November. But for us not to have a tomato on the table on Thanksgiving is a defeat. What really broke my heart, too, is that I did harvest some breaking tomatoes, the ones that are turning yellow after being green for a while. So, you know, they’re going to ripen. And I harvested those in early November and I set them way back in the corner in the kitchen counter, hoping to preserve them until Thanksgiving. But somehow they all managed to get used before Thanksgiving.
Don Shor:
[5:46] Oh, I see. The problem wasn’t that they spoiled. The problem was that your household residents ate them.
Farmer Fred:
[5:51] Yes.
Don Shor:
[5:52] Okay, well, that’s a problem to have, yeah. Well, I just went outside earlier, getting ready to have this conversation with you, and there are six in my garden that are still fruiting. Admittedly, the turkeys and the squirrels are helping themselves to the ones down at the end of the garden.
MARZINERA TOMATO
Don Shor:
[6:08] But I’m going to mention one that, boy, I was really impressed with this year, Marzinera. And there’s probably a dozen fruits still on this plant out there. Marzinera is one of the, Heirloom marriage tomatoes, these are where they’re hybridizing two heirloom varieties to get a, well, now it’s a hybrid that hopefully has the characteristics that made each of those heirlooms so desirable. And Marzinera, part of it is San Marzano. Now, San Marzano tomato has its own following, no question. But it’s got some issues. To me, it’s not the most useful tomato. There’s better sauce tomatoes. It’s kind of hollow and skinny and yields well. I mainly stock that one as a retailer just for my old Italian customers. But there’s Marzinera. He’s a bigger fruit, firmer, meaty. It’s a lot more like Roma, but on a plant that is indeterminate and extremely productive. And it was one of my first to produce. My notes through the season show it is good production. And there’s still probably a dozen that the turkeys haven’t gotten at out there that I could harvest right now. So that’s one that I’m watching for next year. I’ve never grown this one before. But these heirloom marriage tomatoes are kind of fascinating me. I did two of them this year. That one in particular did extremely well and is still producing late in the season.
Farmer Fred:
[7:18] Whenever I think of San Marzano, I immediately think blossom end rot. How did that do?
Don Shor:
[7:24] Well, that was one of the comments on many of the online resources about Barzinera. I did not have blossom end rot problem with it. I don’t generally get a lot of blossom end rot, and I think that’s partly because I water deeply and relatively infrequently, but nothing ever gets drought stressed in terms of tomato watering on my property. And I did not have that problem, But it has been noted, as I say in the comments, whenever you look this one up on various websites. So I’ve only given it one year. I also have a two-year rule. Am I recommending Marzinera? Not yet, but I’ll definitely be growing it again next year.
Farmer Fred:
[7:58] I want to point out that the Marzinera, that is a cross between, as you pointed out, the San Marzano and the Cream Sausage tomato, which I’ve also grown in the past and thought it was okay, but it really didn’t stick in my brain for very long.
Don Shor:
[8:13] San Marzano produces very well for me. I just have never found it as useful as, well, some of these old guys absolutely swear by it. My father loved San Marzano, did very well in coastal San Diego. So it does have a pretty wide range of adaptability.
Don Shor:
[8:25] But, you know, there’s an interesting book out there called Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one. It came out about five years ago. So he gives a whole history of the San Marzano tomato and the whole region of Italy where it’s almost like French wine. You can only grow it here, and it’s this kind. It was bred for fitting in cans. It was bred to be skinny and for canning and all meat, and that’s what it is. It’s a great cooking tomato. But I get a lot of customers saying, I can’t really do anything else with it. Well, this one is meaty enough and thick enough that you could actually use it for salsa and other purposes. So I don’t know if it’s going to replace San Marzano because those old Italian customers, you know, they know their favorites. But my guess is Marzinera will be one of the heirloom marriage tomatoes that will catch on.
GENUWINE TOMATO
Don Shor:
The other one I grew that’s in that category is Genuwine, and it impressed me early. Good early production. It’s a really good flavor. Now, this is a cross between Brandywine and Castelludo Genovese. So you’ve got two really good flavored tomatoes involved there. But when I see Brandywine as one of the parents, I get nervous because I know that one is not particularly heat tolerant with respect to fruit production. But this one did well early, did okay mid-season, and gave a pretty good crop late. So my guess is for this practice that you’re adopting here and there of planting an early producing one that you’re just going to harvest and process and be done with it, Genuwine might be a good one in that category. Again, first year for it, haven’t tried it a second year, so it’s going to be on my list absolutely to try next year. So those are two of the heirloom marriage tomatoes.
Farmer Fred:
[9:55] I want to know the ones that you can go out to your yard and pick right now in early December.
CHAMPION II TOMATO
Don Shor:
[10:02] Champion. Champion won again. Once again, it’s a well-named tomato. Now I’m only growing Champion Two. That’s pretty much all I’m getting from my growers. I haven’t grown Champion side by side with Champion two. What the breeders are doing is breeding in better disease resistance on these new improved versions of Early Girl, Celebrity, Champion. So I’m assuming that the growth, yield, and productivity is all pretty much the same and that all I’m gaining is that disease resistance package with the new ones. Champion two got off to a slow start i didn’t even plant it until the end of june, and it was growing along great and set real heavily August, early September and I was picking very well off of that one in October there’s still some nice looking fruit out there and one of the advantages of Champion this is also a little bit of a drawback from the eating standpoint but it’s got a tougher skin and so my experience is even if we get rain, even if we get let’s say a week of very gloomy weather, such as we just experienced here before the broadcast, the fruit will still hang on there. It won’t just spoil right away. So it’s a good one for late production. Champion is a little more tart flavor. It’s one that definitely benefits from a little extended ripening on the counter. If it’s bright red, it may not actually be fully ripe. That’s something I’ve been mentioning to my customers, and they’ve been finding that three or four days on the counter, it actually gets sweeter and softens up a little bit. So Champion is a good one for your Christmastime harvest.
Farmer Fred:
[11:26] There are more.
Don Shor:
[11:28] What’s that?
Farmer Fred:
[11:28] Aren’t there more? I thought you said you had six that have survived until now.
JETSTAR TOMATO
Don Shor:
[11:32] Oh, yes. One that you recommended to me, Jetstar. I have been very impressed with Jetstar and I only grew it for the first time this year. I don’t think it was on my notes from last year. Produced early, stopped mid-summer. I’m used to this with some varieties where it gets hotter and they stop production, but I don’t take them out. I deep watered it and it flushed out some more growth and it gave me some bloom in September and there’s still some fruit on my Jetstar. That’s one that I believe you introduced me to originally a couple of years ago. Where’s that one from? Do you know?
Farmer Fred:
[12:04] Oh, where did I get that? I’ll look it up (Harris Seeds) while you tell me some more that are going to make me hungry. What else is available in your garden right now?
PORK CHOP TOMATO
Don Shor:
[12:13] All right. This is Wild Boar Farms, Brad Gates’ introductions. And one of his that goes way back to his very first product line, probably 25 years ago, was Pork Chop. Pork Chop is his yellow tomato. It’s, in my opinion, one of the best yellow tomatoes on the market. It does soften quickly, so you need to use it pretty much right away. But Pork Chop, every year I grow it, consistent yield, 40 to 50 fruit, good-sized fruit, and it seems to take the heat reasonably well. I know it’s from a few years back when we had a very hot summer. I noted Pork Chop that yielded well for me.
RED FURRY BOAR TOMATO, COSMIC BURST TOMATO
Don Shor:
One of the Brad Gates Wild Boar Farms tomatoes that really impressed me this year once again is his Red Furry Boar, which is an old one that goes way back to when he first introduced the product line, also did very well for me. But one of his fairly new ones that impressed me and my staff love the flavor once we figured out when they were right is Cosmic Burst. And I don’t know if you’ve grown this one, but it’s one of these really pretty. He really likes fruit that has stripes and different colors. And honestly, the only issue I’ve had with those is figuring out the first time you grow them when they’re actually ripe. A lot of times they turn color and you can’t tell whether that’s really the full final color. This one is a gorgeous fruit. It’s striped. It’s got gold stripes in it. And it’s got a really interesting, rich, tangy flavor. It’s a two to three ounce fruit. So it’s one of those that’s bigger than a cherry but smaller than an Early Girl, consistent production been very good this year and i’m definitely going to grow it again next year and the description he has is great fruity flavor with a less acidic bite. i agree with that it’s sweet it’s rich it’s you can use it early if you want to but it’s going to be a little more harsh with that flavor some people seem to like that when i took them in fully ripe everybody on the staff is really raved about this one comment does decently in cool weather but does well above average in heat. So that’s a good one for the Valley and did very well for me this year.
Farmer Fred:
[14:09] And is it still producing?
Don Shor:
[14:11] It is. I have some out there. I’ll be taking them in.
Farmer Fred:
[14:14] All right.
Don Shor:
[14:15] Cosmic Burst is one to watch for.
Farmer Fred:
[14:17] Besides the ones you just mentioned, you mentioned the Jetstar, and that was from Harris Seeds.
Don Shor:
[14:24] Yeah. Okay. They’re easy to order from.
BADA BING TOMATO
Farmer Fred:
[14:27] I was talking with Diane Blazek from the All-America Selections winners recently and talking about the 2026 AAS winners. And there is a new tomato on the 2026 list that is described as a cocktail tomato. It is called the Bada Bing. The Bada Bing. So it’s a small tomato, about an inch and a half wide and bright red. And they really like the Bada Bing enough to say that it would be a winner across most of the country.
Don Shor:
[15:05] Yeah, the All-America series, what’s great about those is you know that they’ve been tested in quite a range of areas. Yeah, Bada Bing here it is. 2026 edible vegetable winner. Unprecedented protection against septoria leaf spot, early blight, and late blight. What’s interesting is tomato varieties are now coming with this complete alphabet soup of disease resistance that’s on the label. I find myself having to explain this to people a lot. And a lot of the things that are on there are not a big concern for listeners here in the Valley. We don’t have a lot of problems with late blight or leaf spot diseases. What we typically are concerned about is verticillium, fusarium, and tolerance for nematodes. But there’s extended breeding now for a lot of these blights, and they do happen. You know, if we have a wet spring, we can get late blight or septoria. But this one, yeah, this looks great. I’ll definitely be adding this to my list for this coming year. Bada-bing. Manageable, 40 inches tall.
Farmer Fred:
[15:54] Yeah, I like that.
Don Shor:
[15:56] Does that mean it’s determinate?
Farmer Fred:
[15:58] No, it’s indeterminate.
Don Shor:
[16:00] Okay. So it’s a dwarf indeterminate. Got it.
Farmer Fred:
[16:03] Yeah. How often do you see that?
Don Shor:
[16:06] Well, let’s see. Well, it’s an increasing category, that’s for sure. The dwarf tomatoes, the miniature tomatoes are really an area of breeding and introduction. There’s a whole lot of new ones out there. I’m just beginning to try them because there’s so many to work from. There was a dwarf Brandywine that came on the market and I grew it. And guess what? It gave me one fruit.
Farmer Fred:
[16:25] Oh, yeah. By the way, what is the difference between a grape tomato and a cocktail tomato?
Don Shor:
[16:32] Marketing.
Farmer Fred:
[16:34] Okay, then what cocktails do you put a tomato in?
Don Shor:
[16:37] I think that’d be a Bloody Mary. That’s the only one I can think of.
Farmer Fred:
[16:40] Yeah. But anyway, so it’s a small tomato. It’s, like I said, it’s only about an inch and a half wide.
Don Shor:
[16:46] Yeah, to me, that’s a cherry tomato. But cherry tomato has a connotation. I have learned people expect them to be tart and juicy. And so if it’s not in that category, they’re sometimes disappointed by them. The cherry tomato, the classic red cherry, and the others like basket packs have been around for years and years, all had a particular pretty high acidity to them. And so that’s the expectation with cherry tomatoes. So it may be that these are sweeter. Maybe that’s the difference, a little lower acidity. Maybe, but again, I suspect it’s mostly marketing. I can see I’m going to have a lot of fun explaining what a dwarf indeterminate is if we bring these in and grow them, but we will do so if we possibly can. Good disease resistance, good garden performance, and unique and reliable, they say here. So why not? Let’s give it a try. I do have great respect for the All-America program. And I know that if they’ve gone to the trouble of putting this in there, it probably grows well pretty much anywhere someone is listening.
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Farmer Fred:
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