The birds seem to be eating all our ripe tomatoes.

Karen

I have no ripe tomatoes at present - we've had so much heat. It was hot and dry all through June; then for a couple weeks in July we had thunderstorms nearly every day, and the tomatoes all split, rotted, etc. from inconsistent moisture. So now I have green ones I'm waiting on!

The ones we had end of June/early July were wonderful, though, and appeased my craving temporarily. :- ) (I set them out early under protection...)

Another excellent one for slicing is German Queen, my personal favorite. Big, meaty and very flavorful. I like the Cherokee Purple, too, but it has not produced as heavily for me as GQ (not even counting this weird year!).

Cherokee Purple is a favorite of mine as well. I didn't WS it this year, because my list was already larger than my garden, but then I picked one up at a plant swap. It's still in a container on the patio, because the garden is full, but it is starting to flower, so who knows ...

The tomatoes in the garden just started setting fruit this past week, waaaaay later than previous year's, so not sure if I'll have any tomatoes before the first frost. Hoping for a late first frost this year.

Bonnie

I'm also very fond of the darker tomatoes. CP is delicious, as is Black Krim and Black Cherry. There are many more and they're all very good.

lois - congrats on your WS tomatoes!
I don't have Cherokee Purple but my grape tomatoes are ripening faster every day. The Stupice tomatoes I WS are big and plump and plentiful but still green. In the meantime I'm enjoying locally grown tomatoes from a nearby farm--figure I'm supporting hard-working local farmers at the same time I'm enjoying totally terrific tomato taste.
Sure hope these Stupice toms are all they've been cracked up to be in the flavor department.

Hi Lois, we just had tomato sandwiches tonight. I had the Cherokee Purple and DH had the Brandywine. They were both terrific. I love them both and it was a pleasure just looking at them sliced and arranged on a plate. I filled the center with pretty slices of a tomato called Pineapple, a very pretty orange color. We just love these heirlooms.

Enjoy, Carol

We have mockingbirds and gray catbirds that go after our ripe tomatoes. They pecked a big hole in my first ripe one this summer, the rotten little varmints.

I started getting a sense of what shade of orange triggers the birds' interest and just picked the tomatoes at that point and let them ripen the last couple days on the counter. Another thing that worked was putting little stocking caps on all the tomatoes that were getting orange. I cut up a pair of stockings and fashioned little stretchy bags for the tomatoes to 'wear'. The birds just see stocking-colored blobs and never realized there was a nice, juicy tomato getting ripe in there.

Oh, I have tomato envy. Enjoy them. My wintersown tomatoes are taking their sweet time. None of mine have anything close to a ripe tomato.

So far I've been enjoying some of the wintersown flowers, but so many things are so far behind. I think next year I'll wintersow more selectively. Up here we have too much winter and not enough spring/summer.

I started one Tiny Tim indoors as a "control" and then planted it in a four-gallon bucket with two WS TT's. The indoor-started one gave me a couple of ripe ones early in July; the wintersown ones, only flowers so far. :(

My Stupice is loaded too, but the greenies are small yet. I just have to wait.

Meanwhile, since I was able to rent a community plot at the last minute, I do have additional non-WS tomato plants. I bought several at the farmer's market. Several more were donated to the community garden by local growers. Thanks to those plants, I've had ripe tomatoes off of five varieties so far. Two more had ripe toms, but the critters beat me to it and left half a chewed tomato on the vine for me to find. I think it's voles, so I have to find a way to prove I'm smarter than a rodent.

-Edie