No. Mine are 2-3 weeks slow, maybe a bit more. The hail slowed mine down, as well as cooler soil temps. I've been harvesting but wondering how many green toms will be there when frost comes. Talking to other parents at school finds most have slow ripening as well.

Dan

Our nights are now in the low 40's, and when it gets like that, its the equivalent of putting them in the fridge every night.

All ya'all might try my trick of picking half a dozen green ones, best with just a hint of rouge, and bringing them inside and on the counter, out of the sun. They ripen up just fine and taste just fine. Or pick more than half a dozen. I pick a couple dozen. But we got a lotta tomatoes.

But other than that, its been an off tomato year, to be sure.

Super slow. I picked the only red Stupice today, haven't tried it yet though. I cheated and bought the Stupice, Gregori's Altai and Oregon Spring as plants and those are loaded with green maters. The black plum paste and Wisconsin 55 that I started from seed barely have flowers starting.

My tomatoes are also slow this year. Hail set them back three weeks and now the cool weather isn't helping. They're close to five feet tall now with lots of green fruit and buds. I'm hoping we get some warm weather long enough to ripen them all up here soon.
I gave a friend some young tomato plants (I started from seed in March) two months ago which she planted in her greenhouse. She had her first ripe tomatoes on Monday. I started some tomato plants in my greenhouse a couple of weeks ago for Fall munching (in addition to cukes and beans) but fear I'll have to bring them all in if the weather doesn't cooperate. I have a portable heater for my greenhouse but I don't want to run it 24/7. I think we're all crossing our fingers for an Indian Summer in August.

Hope it's okay for me to chime in . . .

We are having a warmer than normal summer here. I could have done better getting a 2nd helping of fertilizer to the tomato patch - the plants are kind of skinny.

They've been getting water fairly well but the Gold Nugget cherries are on the outside of the dryside. They should be overwhelming me with early cherries but are small plants and struggling a bit.

Early Girl, of course . . .

A handful of this-and-that cherry every day (Sweet 100, SunSugar, Sun Gold, Red Pear). Bloody Butcher started everything out but I just had my 1st ripe slicers this week! They were Goliath, tasty and well appreciated.

Still waiting for Big Beef and a few others.

Steve

Mine were put in so late this year that I donÂt know if I can really compare them to everybody elseÂs!

I got one Thessaloniki at the Spring Swap and didnÂt have the tomato area turned over yet, so I put it in a deep gallon size pot (the size you get vines and stuff in). It grew well in there, bloomed, and set fruit for a couple tomatoes. I didnÂt get it in the ground until the middle of June, and it already had 2 small size tomatoes on it.

I couldnÂt stand not having more REAL tomatoes for a whole year, so I bought a couple more plants, a Better Boy, and a CelebrityÂjust because they were the best looking ones I could find by then. I planted them in the ground on June 25. That same day I started seed for Sungold and Juliet red cherry! CouldnÂt imagine a whole summer without cherry tomatoes either, and I figured I had nothing to lose but a few seeds! I donÂt remember exactly when I put the cherries in the ground, but it was sometime in mid or late JulyÂand they were very small!

This pic was taken on August 5th. You can see the three big onesÂwhich are twice as big already nowÂand you can see one of the cherries in front in the middle, just left of the dying dill! The full size tomatoes are cram packed full of green ones, but none starting to turn yet. The cherries are a little over a foot tall now and have flowers, but I donÂt know if IÂll get any tomatoes from them or not! Cherries develop quickly, so IÂm hopeful!

Oh! And the 2 tomatoes that were already developing on the Thessaloniki ripened and I picked them on August 6thÂalong with my first 3 wax beans! I just had the second of the two tomatoes on a BLT for dinner tonite! Is there anything as good as crispy bacon with home grown tomatoes!

So thatÂs the whole tomato story here. I hope to have some of the big ones ripening enough to take with me on my vacation when I leave on the 9th! And whatever doesnÂt ripen by the time we get a freeze will be hung in the garage again. I have LOTS of tomatoes, itÂs just a matter of getting them to ripenÂsooner or laterÂdoesnÂt really matter a whole lot when!

So mine are slow too, but I think itÂs mostly because they were planted so late. With our cool, wet spring, maybe it didnÂt make any difference that they were planted so late! I missed the cool, wet weather, and now theyÂre doing very well!

Skybird

Correction, correction!!

The 1st slicers from my garden were . . . Rainy's Maltese!

I haven't grown Goliath for about 5 or 6 years. I didn't remember them as being "pink" and ripening to kind of a rosy red.

Went back and read a catalog description, even went on the tomato forum and checked their FAQ for Goliath . . . no mention of pink.

This morning, I found the "sticker" in the garden: Maltese! Of course, the plants look different than those around them but it is getting hard for me to distinguish where 1 plant ends and another commences in the patch.

Just excellent and remarkably early, thank you Shelley!

Steve
Aren't tomatoes wonderful?!?

I am having the best tomato year ever. This is my first year with all of the varieties I am growing so I have no experience, but the plants are huge and loaded with fruit. Well - the plants are beyond huge. I bet they would be 12' tall without pruning. I have been topping weekly and they are still monsters.

My family taste test:
Nyagous - wonderful
Black Cherry - ok - not sure what the hype is all about
Galinas - bland - waste of garden space
Brown Berry - ok
Chocolate Cherry - ok
Sugar Lump - very good
Indian Stripe - ok - also not sure what the hype is all about
Peach Garden - wonderful
Blueberry - yuck - looks kind of neat
Snow White - wonderful
Giant Belgium - wonderful - 2lb fruits

Spotted my first turning cherry tomato today on all of my 38 plants so I'm crossing my fingers there will be many more to come now...finally...I was getting concerned. I'll bet these last few warm days have helped some...

My tomatoes are about two weeks behind because of all the cold nights. Black Cherries need to be really ripe for the flavor to be good. They should be a dusky purple when picked. The Kotlas, Matina and Abel have been coming for about two weeks and a couple of Azchoyka (yellow) and then the sun gold and sweet million. So far only 1 brandywine, 2 big beef and 1 big rainbow and 1 Neaves Azorean and several paste and yellow pear and black cherries. Only have 75 plants this year but planted those that are better producing and should have a lot of tomatoes in about two weeks. I cut all the new blossoms off the regular tomatoes this past week so that they put the effort in ripening the ones that were on. Didn't do the cherries as the still have time to make new tomatoes.

Down in Pueblo I am having a great year...even a 20 minute hailstorm has failed to dampen my enthusiasm. Over the last three weekends I have picked over 200# of various tomatoes, with a few over 2 lbs, and have canned over 120 pints of salsa using tomatoes, jalapenoes and bell peppers from the garden. My favorite still is Brandywine, although I haven't had much time to sit down and have a taste test. Indian Stripe is a variety I tried for the first time this year and my friends and I all enjoy it. It doesn't get real big but tomatoes close to 1 lb are numerous. Tried the SunSugar cherry tomato for the first time this year and its flavor is intoxicating...I usually find myself sitting on the ground picking and eating these golden orange tomatoes. Hope the weather holds out for everyone else and a bumper crop is still to be had for everyone.

George

Here is a link that might be useful:

IME 'Black Cherry' should go in the fridge for an hour or so to bring out the flavor. Yum.

Dan

Since we have the straw garden going and it is experimental for us. I thought perhaps it was it that was making ours slower..But the greenhouse tomatoes are also at the same stage,, just hitting the color changes.Even our 4th of July's are not there yet.The Cherry tomatoes started last week with the yellow pears..
Interestingly enough my family who all got their plants from me have had ripe tomatoes on both both cherry and regulars,, which is odd since I live in the more temperate area.However theirs are all bucket tomatoes as well.
Mary

This is the first year of my 4x8 raised bed garden so I don't have anything to compare to, but so far it's been great.

Early Girl - Seems so small now, still only 3-4', and have eaten probably 8-10 baseball sized maters, with about that many left still growing. All very tasty.

Husky Cherry Red - Producing several ripe cherries every day now for a few weeks, great flavor, plenty of zing. Need to get some stakes, as it is way over the little cage and now flopping over onto the cucumber cage with tomato weight. Would be 5-6' tall or so.

Beefmaster - Way outperforming my expectations, up over the 8' posts I added. Eaten about a dozen baseball to softball sized tomatoes slowly over the past few weeks, and now it has kicked into high gear and I have about a dozen that just blushed. Way more still growing, I bet I get well over 50 from it total. Most are really good, though a few were a touch lacking in flavor, perhaps due to water/rain frequency. Great BLT slicers. Also made salsa for the first time along with home grown onions and jalepenos yesterday.

Next year I'm going to try some heirlooms after reading all about them here.

I am a fan of the Giant Belgium as well. I've read some negative posts but I think it's making my must grow list. I brought some fruit to a neighbor and received a call this am praising the flavor and size. (The slices covered their BLT bread.) Perhaps that was a hint that he wants a plant next year??

I will start chilling the Black Cherry before we eat them.

My 22mo yells "Mama - Black" when we hit the tomato patch, so that says something!! Getting her little tummy full with the Black Cherry, Brown Berry and Chocolate Cherry leaves the Snow White for me:))

Today, Gardening Bear hit the mother lode.

Steve's digits

I'm glad Rainy's did well for you, Steve. I was sure it would. That's a nice mater.

My plants are finally giving a bit but after two bad hailstorms, including one at the end of July at 3 am (how odd!!)they have had to do a lot of recovering. What I have left are all dimpled and bruised but hey, they are maters. :)

Bloody Butcher wasn't first this year. That went to Kotlas, followed by H19 (KimberlyX(StupiceXSweetQuartz)). Buisson set some beautiful trusses before the early morning hail and is just now putting on a blush. The Siberians -- Otradny, Olga's Biggest, Grandpa's Cock's Plume, and Market Miracle are just loaded with dimpled babies.

We'll see. I have enjoyed a few different ones so far, but not many.

From the 'good' beds, I've picked at least a bushel of Carbon and Vorlon (cross between Marianna's Peace and Cherokee Purple). Hard to tell the two fruit apart, to be honest. The Vorlon gives a massive plant, potato leaves, while the regular leaf Carbon seems more well-behaved. I still have to pick them largely green because its just too cold at night now.

Nothing I've got is going to win prizes this year for flavor. We're having temperatures going from the mid-30's at night to record highs during the days, and now I have leaves turning on my trees and bushes, my okra topped out at 12 inches high, yet I have a basil crop that just won't quit.