Ernie's bodacious tomatoes

12/23/2025

At the end of summer we were in contact with a young couple who quit the pot growing business and was moving to Florida and needed to get rid of some 500+ nursery containers. We ended up buying all they had just before they left town, now we are the ones with stacks of pots.
We are thinking of planting up the first, biggest, strongest and best tomato and pepper plants into these 3 gallon pots and selling them either here or at Redwood Nursery at a bodacious price . . . what else for a bodacious plant.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all of you!
Trudy, Ernie, our dogs and chickens.

11/07/2025

The seeding of next springs Tomatoes, peppers and asst veggies is coming up as next January is right around the corner. My seed vendors are the same as last spring, no surprises, just the varieties we paid for with very high germination rates. Our seed suppliers are all family owned growers/suppliers with 30-40 years of supplying private farms, growers and family's with their quality seeds.
We look forward to seeing you next spring.
Ernie

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10/18/2025

Well it appears we've settled on next season's line up of tomato varieties to offer. Unless there is an outage of bulk seeds the following is our 2026 tomato varieties (Quart, Gallon & 2 Gallon sizes):
Shackelford's Giant Pink
German Yellow Stripe
Cherokee Purple & Chocolate
Brandywine
Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Reds
Mediterranean
Beefsteak
Gold Medal
Better Boy
Early Girl
Mortgage Lifter
Black Krim
Green Zebra
Black Pineapple
San Marzano
Jersey Devil
Roma
Super Sweet 100
Sun Gold
Japanese Black Trifele
Tumbler (Hanging Basket)
Please weigh in on the selection for next season, as you can see it has grown in numbers as well as some new exciting stuff.
Thanks again,
Ernie

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10/03/2025

I grew 19 varieties of tomatoes for sale this season, I planted 12-14 varieties in my vegetable garden some I planted 2 of for a total of 21 tomato plants. The varieties that produced the most/biggest were (in descending order):
Shackelford's giant pink, not really pink
Burpee's Porterhouse
Mediterranean, heart shaped
German Yellow stripe
Red Mortgage lifter, round to heart shaped
Andrew Rahart's Jumbo
I would pick tomatoes maybe every other day or just for dinner, rarely did I pick and not end up with a Shackelford giant or 2 in my bag. I used leftover 6' fencing for my cages, early on the cage around the Mediterranean plant started to buckle at the bottom, simply too many really large tomatoes in the lower 2-3'. The Better Boy tomato plants (my favorite) grew consistently firm, medium sized and very tasty fruit which this variety is known for.

10/01/2025

Now that the growing season is pretty much over or at least seriously winding down I thought I'd report on my vegetable garden, what worked and what didn't work quite as good as expected.
Starting with my pepper plants, the Italian long red (grilling peppers) and Poblano both did very well, the long reds had to be staked up they were so heavy with peppers as were the Poblano's. My red bells didn't perform so well, plenty of small peppers and those that did mature got sun scalded . . . kind of a bust! I'll be replacing them with another sweet long red originating from So. America most likely.
My tomatoes did well so there will not be too many changes in our offering of plants this coming spring and there were some surprises regarding which performed and which under-performed. I'll give a more complete accounting in my next post.
Thank you so much.
Ernie

08/22/2025

Picked more tomatoes yesterday and we 3 close to or over a pound each, the big guns were Mediterranean's and a Germen yellow stripe. Check out the pics

08/18/2025

Because of the hot weather our tomato crop started ripening quickly, a friend came over to help pick the ripe fruit . . . 30- 40 lbs.
An Andrews Jumbo Red became our biggest to date @ 1lb 4.8oz.
Some of our Italian Sweet Red peppers were ripe as well, seed suppliers say 6-8 inches but the pic tells a different story, 8-11 inches.

08/11/2025

Well, we have been eating our own fresh tomatoes from the garden since July 1st. So far the Shackelford's giant pink has given us the largest tomato @ 1lb 4oz with other varieties coming in over a pound. Many varieties are good eating but "Better Boy" is truly the best tasting we've grown this year.
This year we added the Italian Long Red grilling sweet pepper, they have outgrown the red bells so far, the bells seem to be prone to sunscald but not the long reds and coming in between 6" to 10" long and sweet.
I've added some pics of this years harvest so far. Let me know how your tomato garden is doing.
Thanks for your support, this Selma/CJ community is the best.
Ernie

06/26/2025

I'm looking for ongoing reviews of your tomato garden in regards to the varieties you bought from us, how well they are doing, did you try something new this year? Our best surprise is the Genuwine tomato, how fast it is growing and putting on fruit ahead of my favorite Better Boy.
Soon I'm going to post a suggested offering of tomato plants for the 2026 season and would like to have some input and suggestions.
Also, I've been putting thought into larger pots providing bigger, more mature tomatoes for your garden giving you a shortened time frame to get fresh tomatoes into your kitchen especially with the cost per pound of tomatoes and then there's the issue of how good to retail store ones taste?!
Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.
Ernie

06/24/2025

Of all the tomatoes we planted in our garden the new one "Genuwine" if out pacing all the others with the most tomatoes and one is about 4" across. As usuall the Early Girl wasn't the first to have fruit on it but seems to be growing fast so I'm sure they will be the first to ripen. The race is on between Better Boy and Genuwine as to which will have the best harvest . . . I really don't care, just want to sink my teeth into one of those fresh and great tasting beauties.
Let me know how you garden is doing!
Thanks again.
Ernie

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06/11/2025

The greenhouses are empty until next February when we start all over again. Based on sales we have already started selecting varieties for the 2026 season. Some of the bright spots that sold out early were: Cherokee Chocolate and Purple, German Yellow Stripe, San Marzano (definitely outsold Roma) and lastly . . . "Genuwine" a new hybrid that combined Brandywine and Costoluto Genovese, in my garden this variety already has the most tomatoes and the largest for this early in the season.

We wanted to thank all of you that bought your veggie plants from our little nursery on Crooks Creek Rd.

There will be more to come!

Thank you again, Ernie

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05/25/2025

Today and tomorrow only all our gallon tomato and pepper plants that are regularly $6.99 or 2/$10.00 and on sale for 4/$10.00 while they last but, we have over 500 to choose from. We are at 744 Crooks Creek Rd., Selma, open 11am - 6pm and we look forward to seeing you. Thank you, Ernie