Juliet tomato

I really like the Juliet variety tomato, even though it is a hybrid and not an heirloom, and even though I am not normally a big fan of cherry tomatoes. I first tried the Juliet variety two years ago in my first real summer garden, and I loved it, mostly because it is so versatile and prolific. The fruits actually look like pint-sized roma tomatoes.

As such, I used them for everything - snacking, slicing, in salads, cooked with fish, and most importantly, added to the romas for tomato sauce.

This year, I only planted one, and now I regret it. In the future, I thinkI'd like to plant several to supplement my sauce tomatoes, because really, this beauty produces so many tomatoes! It's such a great option for when the sauce tomatoes don't do that well. Or if, as in my case, I decided to only plant half as many sauce tomatoes as usual, and the heirlooms I planted instead (brandywines) aren't doing too fantastic just yet.

The only real problem with the Juliet is that I can't keep up with pruning it, and it takes over the garden. I gave up trying to prune and stake it, and instead I sunk another stake at the end of the row and I am wrapping twine around the two stakes, and trying to keep the plant tethered in the middle. I think that will be a reasonable way to grow them in the future - between two stakes.

Now I'm already looking forward to next year's garden.