I only grew cherry tomatoes this year since I can never seem to get the full size to get anywhere near full size. I grew one that I had planted before, Galena, a yellow cherry. Like most yellows, it is milder, less acid; but it still has a good tomato taste (this is my Mom's favorite) and is very prolific.

Tried two for the first time, Sweet Millions and Bambino. Sweet Millions I grew sort of as a fall-back; you know, just an ordinary, red cherry. But I liked it a lot. Good taste, good production, still going strong.

Bambino was a new tomato that I think I got from Territorial. It was expensive, something like $6.60 for a packet of 25 seeds. First I should qualify this by saying I got my plants out very late this year due to an injury, and this one I put in a container. Anyway, small plant, not anything like the growth on the other two varieties, and the tomatoes themselves were smaller, too. (Hence the name Bambino, I guess). However, I will be growing this again next year because this tiny tomato has a big taste.
Next time I will get it out earlier and put it in the ground because I have a feeling I failed this plant more than it failed me.

All in all, a delicious tomato year.

Because of the extreme heat we had this summer I had a lot of tomatoes. Still picking. The ones that really perform early for me are Kotlas-small ping pong size earliest red. Abel a little bigger. Big Rainbow a large bi color slicer and of course Gold Nugget, sweet million and sun gold. Isis Candy doesn't seem to produce a lot and Black Cherry does but is late. I really had brandywine produce early but havn't had such luck on cooler summers. I am willing to share seeds.

I only planted 3 plants this year... a yellow pear, which we love in salads. I put this in a pot on the front porch because I wasn't sure how if the tomatoes in the new garden would get enough sun. But now that I'm harvesting, I can see that if I'd planted the yellow pears in the garden I would probably would have harvested a lot more. The plant was really stressed for water - no matter how much I watered it.

In the garden I had a Bush Celebrity, which I had grown in Washington and produced well, so I went with a known variety. It did very well. I've made a couple of batches of sauce where the recipe calls for 6 tomatoes - so I was able to harvest that many in 1 day - twice!

I also planted something the nursery labels as "Black". I've looked on the internet and think it might be a Black Krim. It's a great slicing tomato, hardly any seeds. Some of the fruits quite large - 4-5". Steve has been eating these on there own for lunch. I like as a Caprese salad. This plant is also produced a ton of tomatoes - at least for my standards. I've been able to give several away, and I have to admit I've thown away a few where I had a few slices but didn't finish soon enough.
I'll plant this one next year!

Ten gallons of SunGold, David!?! Might well be worth the work. Oregon Spring - - that's what some folks around here swear by as insurance against cool, cloudy Spring weather. I've felt like it is insurance that I don't really need. After July 4th, the weather always turns hot and dry - even this year after a very cool May and June.

I tried Yellow Pear for something like 4 years trying to make the wife happy. I doubt if 10% of the fruit escaped cracking. Ildi sure is pretty, sounds productive and tasty!

Large Red Cherry has long been a garden workhorse but this year something strange happened. For some reason, we didn't save the seed and ordered it - cheap, common, OP seed. It isn't BIG and that was partly what made it special (good freezer, too)! I've ordered them from Totally Tomatoes in the past . . . won't save this seed and will need to try a different supplier. Galena may be of similar size, yes? Might be really fun to have 2 big cherries - 1 red, 1 yellow.

Is Big Rainbow really early enuf for you, Margaret?!?

Gold Nugget must be the earliest tomato I've ever grown!! And, for a few weeks, I had absolutely NO complaints. But, I haaate to see the determinates die from the blight every single variety, every single year! Shelley (Jaliranchr) was talking about Mountain Spring as a STRONG determinate - please note, David, may be a better "Spring" choice than the webfooted variety.

October 22nd, Steve!! Never . . . (sniff) never . . . ever.

Alice, you should ask about "Black" on the tomato forum but it seems to me that there is one that is just called "Black" and is distinct. A search would be tuff (is that a "black tomato" or a "Black tomato" ?) and it is not on the tomato FAQ. Here's a little advice - - save . . . the . . . seeds!

digitS'

I have a 32 foot length of hog panels, which are what, almost 5 ft high, and along that are 6 Sun golds that cover the thing completely, drooping over the top. Its almost solid tomato, most just falling off. I eat breakfast there, and get stuffed without moving a foot.

I hopefully will be able to pick some and dry them, but right now I'm busy with too many other things, bigger tomatoes to fry.

Black Carbon, Black Sea Man, Black Prince, Black from Tula, Black Krim, Black Russian. Oh, my ......

Black Cherry was absolutely my best cherry this year. Outstanding for taste and production. Loved it! Thessaloniki did well here too, Digit. It will be back next year. Neves Azorean Red will also have a slot next year. Big Beef for pure dependability. Kellogg's Breakfast was good too. For sheer numbers and the tangy taste I like Skorospelka, Sheyenne and Bloody Butcher. Black Prince really grew on me.

Stinker that will never return? Persimmon. I have seeds if you want to try it. It might have been my fault, but that ain't coming back in my garden.

Shelley, I've been curious about that Sheyenne spelling but I see that it must be a North Dakota native so they're likely to know something about the spelling. North Dakota, huh?

Skorospelka is a real mystery to me.

Bloody Butcher would certainly require a name change in our kitchen !!?! But, what a

Thessaloniki (Niki's tomato ;o), a couple of typicals. Oh, and Niki is a Greek heirloom. This is just real good . . .

Steve, if you would like to give skorospelka a try, I got my seeds from Seeds of Change. I really, really liked it. All my family and friends did too. I've pretty much committed most of my seeds to this one, but if I have some extra, I'll let ya know.

Bloody Butcher was the early tomato I showed a pic of in late June. It started producing extra early and is still pumping them out. Small, but man do they taste good and you can't argue with the abundance of fruit it puts out. Highly recommend this one for an early and reliable one. I should have some trades when I get organized. As I recall, cnetter was intrigued by this early one. :)

Just found out from a chap in Australia that my Sheyenne might not be the real Sheyenne. He described what I had to a tee and said it was not the real thing. I'll pursue this further, but what I had was absolutely YUMMY! So I guess until I get this figured out it should be Faux Sheyenne. :)

I got some flower buds, but not a single tomato.

Also no zucchini, melon, broccoli, or cauliflower.

Stinker that will never return:

I think I'll have to go with "The Ultimate Opener!!" Go with it to the gate, that is, and give it the boot.

Released in 2006, it was being sold this year as "flavorful," "excellent flavor," "the flavor . . . is nothing short of marvelous," and "THE NEW CHAMPION OF EARLINESS!"

"The Ultimate Opener!!" only looks good; the flavor is all but nonexistent.

It is NOT earlier that Early Girl and it does NOT have more flavor. I'll give it this - the yield is substantial and the fruit is larger than EG.

Big Beef also has high yield and larger fruit. Early Girl and Big Beef have some flavor - "The Ultimate Opener!!" does not.

And, that is my Sunday afternoon nasty comment. I will now go have my nap.

d'S'

Okay, I feel better . . .

It isn't a stinker but I'm disappointed that I really can't grow it - and, that's Red Star. A real cute tomato - I posted a picture of the weirdest one that looked either like a butterfly or an orangutan.

Many had the shape of a tiny beefsteak. If you didn't mind being a little rude - you could get one entirely in your mouth in a single bite.

With lots of ruffling on some of them, Red Star would have been a terrible tomato if the skin had been tough. Trouble is the skin is a little too tender - splits, splits, splits (probably 90% :o(. Mild flavored and a nice little tomato but I guess it can't grow where the humidity is so low. Ah well.

The jury is still out on Prudens Purple. Meaty heirloom, productive and of a really nice size - it has been encouraging that many ripened on the vine. Lots of misshapen fruits and a little late-ripening for a more normal year, however. Still, the flavor was great! They are wonderfully productive! Don't know, just don't know . . .

Mountain Spring will be on next year's short list and I may have come up with an alternative name for Bloody Butcher (shudddder) and that's the only thing standing in that one's way. I'll do a little more exploration on some of these others . . . .

d'S'

Goodness! So many different tomatoes out there. I never knew. I guess it's because I've only shopped the nurseries, and they seem to carry a lot of the same.

I will check out the tomato forum though and see what I can find out about my Black tomato - and how to save the seeds and grow. I've never done that!

I guess I've been pretty lucky too. Outside of some funny lines that run in a broken ring around the stem on my blacks I've not had any splits on any of my 3 tomatos. Including the yellow pears. And I don't know what tomato blight is and hope I never find out!

Big Rainbow is a bicolor beefsteak size that came in with the early tomatoes timewise. I had a few that had green fingerlike projections on the blossom end but produced all summer. I think it was earlier than Azchoyka which is a nice yellow. I have grown Taxi before and it is a tennis ball size but skin so tender that they don't keep much more than a day or two and are hard to handle. I try to do a couple yellows for those who have a hard time finding them. I also grow yellow pear, sungold, isis candy and gold nugget in the cherry size. Most cherrys need to be picked a little early or they crack.

Hmmm, I may not grow bushels of 'matoes, but I'm planning on growing more than two kinds next year!
I marked the post about the ildi ones because they seem to have a short growing season (or whatever that is called).
Are there any suggestions for super short "times"? I'd like to be a little more careful about what we grow next year...darn frosts.

OK, so I saw the tags for my two tomato plants in the garden yesterday, and they were: 'Husky Red' cherry tomatoes and 'Better Bush' for the bigger ones.

I would say the Better Bush was starting to disappoint in August when all the fruit was still green, but since about four weeks ago, it's produced well. I don't know if it takes too long to ripen or if I just planted them too late (I think it was early June when I planted them).

The Husky Red ripened pretty quick and has been a good producer.

I have noticed this year, though, that both bushes didn't look very healthy -- they got brown leaves and then the leaves fell off on the lower two-thirds or more of the plant. I think this was because I water them with an automatic sprinkler system, and I've heard tomatoes don't like that. But in past years, it has always been fine, so I figured that tomatoes weren't really as finicky about watering as others thought. Guess I was wrong! I actually thought the 'Better Bush' was going to die a month ago, but it just kept on producing and ripening.

Any others experienced this with tomatoes? I don't know if I really want to convert the watering system in that area, since the sprinklers work well for the strawberry patch and the raspberries that are in the same area. But if some tomato varieties can handle overhead watering better than others, I should probably stick with those.

Every year, the lower leaves on my plants get yellow spots that turn to brown, and the leaves fall off. It doesn't kill the plant, or affect the flavor. What problem I do get, and I'm still not sure what it is, is "Sudden Wilt", where one morning, the plant looks like it needs water, but that isn't going to help. At that point, its best to pull the plant up, because even if the tomatoes turn red, they taste just awful.

I get this when the cooler days / nights of June are suddenly replaced by the hot days in July. Hotter the heat wave, the more the carnage. This year I lost about 20% of the plants.

The main thing I grow tomatoes for is to make and freeze lots of sauce for pasta. Because of that, and the fact that we just don't eat many raw tomatoes, I now grow only paste tomatoes. My favorite variety is San Marzano, from Italy. I forgot to start seeds in the winter, so we just had a generic plum variety that didn't produce as well. Plus - my blunder of mixing green tree mulch into that bed didn't help the situation either!

My favorite thing to do with tomatoes and zucchini (which I always seem to have too many of!) is a really simple gratin. Slice the tomatoes (plum-types work best for this since they are small) and zukes about 1/4 inch thick. Lay them out in a single layer, alternating and slightly overlapping, in an oiled glass baking dish or pie pan. Salt and pepper to taste and add fresh/dried basil (or other herb of choice), drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle freshly-grated parm or romano on top. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so. Easy, pretty and yummy! But after reading Charlene's tomato dish, I'm thinking balsamic and goat cheese would be pretty great too, instead of parmagiano...must try that next time!

Tunny reminds me, since she's from Utah, about the Olympics and zucchini: a lot of commemorative trading pins were made for the 2002 Olympics, and Utah County, where I live had officially commissioned several, including a zucchini pin. They said it was an official symbol of Utah friendship. One of the county commissioners said something like, "If you see someone buying zucchini at the store around here, you know they either just moved here or they have no friends!"

LOL Steve! I heard there was a jello pin but didn't know about the zucchini pin. It makes perfect sense though - when I told people here that I was growing zucchini, they all made jokes (and only half-kidding) about neighbors leaving piles of zucchini on their front porches and then sneaking away! ;)

Hubby and I are actually transplants from back east. We moved in the spring right after the Olympics, which I have mixed feelings about. We figured it would be best to miss all the craziness, but I bet it was a pretty exciting time to be here too.

Hey, I sell zucchini! If I was in Utah, they'd be picking on my customers!

I grew Husky Red Cherry last year and liked it a whole lot. Nice healthy little plants covered with tomatoes. The only problem was that it was so late that few ripened on the branches (I won't say vines because these plants grew like a little trees covered with round ornaments :o). They turned red in the kitchen and tasted real good, however.

Charlene's and Tunny's ideas are similar to the green tomato parmigiano recipe I tried a couple of times last year. It was okay but my decision on that was that it would be better with RIPE tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes seem to me to be bland, bland, bland. I guess I'm really not a fan of green tomatoes.

Alice, saving seed is super easy for me. Some can make it extremely complex if they've a hankerin' to. Sluice boxes, special bottles, water baths, etc. all that isn't for me.

I just take the tomato, cut it in half and squeeze the pulp onto a paper towel. The paper towel goes in the kitchen window. It gets a couple hours of sun there every day.

After the seeds have been there for a few weeks, the paper towel is folded and put in a cardboard box and onto a self in the dry part of the basement. The name of the variety is written on the towel. It's a bit difficult to pry the seeds off the paper towel but I sometimes plant them with a bit of paper - doesn't seem to make any difference. Anyway, this has been a successful approach for 20 years and germination levels are good. There could be problems with molds but that's never happened that I can remember. I always try to make sure everything is really dry before putting them away for the Winter.

Margaret it is amazing to me how inconsistent information on days-to-maturity is for the heirlooms. I see Big Rainbow at 80 to 90 days and Azchoyka at an impressive 60 days in the catalogs!

J, I once lived where I felt that I couldn't get any variety to ripen except Sub-Arctic. There are new varieties from Russia which may be well worth a try. However, I notice that Sub-Arctic is still the standard by which others are measured (see pdf linked below). It has been about 30 years since I've grown it and it's been around longer than that - apparently it stands the test of time.

I've also grown Kootenai (long time ago) and Stupice (last year), both trialed by U of A. Actually, I'd be kinda interested in how the newer Prairie Fire would work in real short-season areas.

Also, it is my understanding that Early Girl was developed as a tomato that could grow at 40°F. Remember J, everything benefits from added attention to needs. Short-seasons and low temperatures are tuff on tomato plants so a little extra protection would probably help enormously.

digitS'

Here is a link that might be useful: Univ. of Alaska - tomato trials

Here's an example of "added attention to needs."

Every once in awhile I drift over to the Northern Gardening forum to see what they are talking about.Scroll down past the complaining about bad weather, past the pics of sad, sad tomato plants and read what Cordel has to say.

She gardens in an area near the Quebec line, north of all the Great Lakes except Superior. Actually, about the same distance north as I am but above the Ontario "banana belt."

digitS'

Here is a link that might be useful: Northern Gardening - GW

Stevation, my Bush Celebrity and mysterious "Black" tomato got overhead watering for the most part. Either from the sprinkler system, or on off days from a stand alone sprinkler. Sometimes I would use the hand held sprinkler though, and just aim for the root zone. I didn't see any issues with die back.

Digits, I like that seed collection idea. Very simple. Therefore not intimidating and I'm likely to try it. Thanks!

I only grew one sad looking tomato plant this year, and mine did the same thing Steve described, with the leaves gradually browning from the bottom up. The few of tomatoes that it produced were bitter. Mine came from Walmart too, so maybe therein lies the problem. Think I should start from seed next year?

Like Tunny, I was growing them mainly for cooking. We eat a lot of pasta, and when it's cooler things like chile, but no one in my family cares for raw tomatoes. If I have a better crop next year, I'm planning on trying Tunny and Charlene's recipes. Do your kids eat that too? The only thing out of my garden that the kids ate this year, was sliced cucumbers and carrots dipped in Ranch dressing. Oh, and we had enough beans for a couple of dinners.

My veggie patch is tiny, so I need varieties that can be grown in a container, or that will promise not to take over my garden.

High, we are without kids so I can't help you there. But I'm sure I wouldn't have eaten that as a kid! LOL...I was always a pretty picky eater (still am, in some ways). And I'm guessing the kids who would eat anything with balsamic vinegar and goat cheese are very few and far between!! I didn't even like balsamic vinegar until about 10 years ago. But I never met a cheese I didn't like.

Drat, drat, drat! You people are going to make me try full size again - so many interesting suggestions!

J, for the Russian tomatoes digit mentioned, take a look at seedstrust.com in the high altitude section. They have a lot of good short season types.

I was "exposed" to a lot of cows and a lot of milk and a lot of cheese as a child (even tho' we didn't make cheese ["made" butter, tho'] :o). Strangely, I even liked stinky cheese by the late teens. And, green vegetables were always better when splashed with apple cider vinegar.

I was NOT exposed to the sweet, sweet cherry tomatoes now available. I didn't care too much for the big, tart tomatoes but slowly came to appreciate them. I think that some of these cherries would be appreciated by most children. The names might also help . . .

Sun Sugar sounds good and IS! It takes more dedication than I have to be a good container gardener but Sweet Baby Girl was very appropriate for container growing and wonderfully sweet and flavorful.

Windwhipped, there are so many cherry varieties that you could spend decades exploring them. And, there's only a small step up to the sizes of the Sub-Arctics or Margaret's Kotlas Russians (which I see is available at Seeds Trust). Wow! Seeds Trust has an enormous number of Russian (& Siberian) varieties!!

Petters Seed Company in Riddle, Oregon (about an hour's drive from where I grew up :o) seems to also be tuned in to short-season tomato gardener needs. There's a link below.

digitS'

Here is a link that might be useful: Early Tomato Seed

Thanks all!! I am saving, er, clipping this post so I can remember which tomatoes to try. We had an explosion of fruit flies yesterday so the tomatoes had to go back outside and now the leaves are dead :( 'sokay, most of the tomatoes were done and the last few we clipped off and tucked away before spraying. I did, however, loose the two clippings I'd made of each plant, which had been stuck in the soil of the pots. Oops.

Hi everyone! It frosted pretty hard here this morning! I haven't been out there but assume the tomatoes (& many other things) are toast . . .

It was a nice long season. I pretend that the 1st killing frost will be October 7th but it has only been that late once or twice. Nevertheless, it allows me to push the envelope a bit and sometimes something that shouldn't have worked - - does!

I realized that after I'd said how pleased I was with Thessaloniki that this unusually long and warm growing season could be unfairly influencing my thinking. All of the larger fruit was harvested as it began to turn red. But, could I get half coming off as vine-ripened in a more normal year? And, if this very mild and delicately flavored tomato is picked green, will it still develop that flavor?

To test the second question, I've segregated some of the 'Niki tomatoes on the kitchen counter. After a couple of weeks I will know whether a green 'Niki will be as pleasing as the tomatoes from earlier in the season.

While I was fiddling around rather than checking frost damage, I came across Tomatofest's "Tomato Varieties for Cooler Climates." I think the guy's a little too optimistic but probably he's talking about coastal zones. There are quite a few short-season varieties, pretty pictures, AND there's one called simply "Black," Alice!

I'm including the link even tho' it doesn't have Thessaloniki . . . I guess one that holds up so well to the sun, heat, & dryness wouldn't make it onto a "cooler climates" page.

digitS'

I happened across the Valueseeds website last night. They don't have a lot to choose from, but they ARE cheap, and they happened to have 'Sungold' and 'Sweet 100' seeds for $.99 a packet. Since those were two of the ones mentioned on this thread, I went ahead and ordered them. I've never bought from them before, but my understanding is that they are owned by the Thompson & Morgan folks.

Bonnie

And cheap isn't something one can say about that Tomatofest company, Bonnie!!

Of course, if you find an Open Pollinated that you like and you save the seed, it will always be free. At some point, the seed companies will probably consider OP so valuable they won't be willing to sell 'em . . .

d'S'

That's my tomato Digit! I'm still getting raves from the neighbors I'm giving these away to. And it's still producing. Looking at the forecast it seems like we might get at least another week of frost free weather here in Fort Collins - so I'll still be pickin' tomatoes!

I also saved some seeds as you recommended. If you like I'd be happy to send some to you or anyone.

There's a note from a Pacific NW gardener (someone I have respect for) saying that all his large black tomatoes are watery and bland.

So, you and your neighbors, Alice, are not going to agree?!?

DigitS'

Ok, now that the integrity of my black tomatoes are under attack, I guess I'll have to figure out the Photobucket, post a picture thing. You all will regret it though. Once I figure out how to do it, I'll probably drive you all nuts with pictures!

At any rate Digit, I attribute the deliciousness of these tomatoes to the growing conditions here in Colorado... hot & hot! And I'd never say these were watery. In fact, some slices cut are almost solid meat!

Stay tuned for photos... next 1/4 lb fruit is due off the vine today or tomorrow.

Well, Alice, the first couple of Black Prince that I had didn't impress me. That's not unusual for the first fruit off a vine, but as the season progressed, I came to really like this sweet black tomato. It was a very good one and I say that as someone who prefers tart tomatoes to sweet ones. I didn't find it overly watery at all, but enough so for fermenting seeds.

See how "seeding" a little controversy can motivate people? Pictures, Alice! We want photographic evidence!

Here's the problem I have with Pacific NW gardeners despite my proximity: The reason his tomatoes, of whatever sort, are watery is probably because of all the WATER!

You're likely correct Alice, hot and dry will make 'em nice. I bet that's the same with my Thessalonikis. Can't imagine their flavor holding up on the wet side of the Cascades.

Every year, the first tomatoes on ALL my plants are a little bland, Shelley. Kinda scares me . . . but then . . . magic happens!

digitS'

And look, Tomatofest has a 64-day black cherry...

Windwipped, Black Cherry is a wonderful, absolutely wonderful, cherry tomato. If you would like, I could send you some seed for an SASE. Be aware, BC are notoriously slow to germinate, you almost give up and then they finally decide to wake up.

Either I need another cup of coffee this morning, or I must have read another tomato thread somewhere, because I jotted down the names of a couple paste/sauce tomatoes and when I went back to check who had mentioned them, I couldn't find it anywhere.

I ordered seeds for Sun Gold, and Sweet 100's in hopes of getting my kids to eat more fresh veggies (or fruit, depending on who you ask), but I want to have one tomato plant that I can use for spaghetti sauce, or chili, etc.. I wrote down the name Opalka, and also San Marzano. So I checked T & M, and Park's, neither one of them carried these. I found Opalka at Seed Saver's Exchange, but not the San Marzano, and Tomatofest has a $15 minimum order, which is way more tomatoes than I can fit in my 60 sq. ft. garden.

Is there another source that I'm overlooking? A minimum order is okay, if they have other types of vegetable seeds that I could purchase. Or does someone here have seeds for a good cooking/sauce tomato?

Thanks, Bonnie

One of my favorite places to order seeds is Sand Hill Preservation, who have all kinds of tomatoes as well as other heirloom seeds and poultry.

You can request a catalog at the name run-togeather.com, as well as see the kind of things they have to offer. The seed packets are very generous.

They have an 'alternative' attitude towards marketing, in it more for the preservation part, none of that credit card stuff or web order junk for them, just a check in the mail, thank you.

Be forewarned that it takes a while to get your order as well, I think they fill them on weekends or something, so I order from them in Jan-Feb.

Bonnie, Totally Tomatoes (which isn't "totally" tomatoes ;o) has all 4 of those varieties.

Their handling charge is $4.95 and there's no minimum order. I've purchased from them (1st owned by ShumwayÂs, then Jung's) for years and years. They sometimes seem to mess up a little but I'm happy with 'em.

Oh, and you can buy LOTS of peppers and a few other veggie seeds. They've got my Tasty King cukes, for instance.

d'S'

Thanks for that link, Steve! They are very reasonably priced, and have a good selection. I have earmarked that site.

David, I checked out the Sand Hill site as well. They have quite a selection! I'm one of those instant gratification people that love to order online, but their prices may make it worth the wait. Thanks for that info.

I'm already looking forward to next year's garden!

Bonnie

With Sand Hill, the last time I ordered tomato seeds, it was $1.50 a packet with supposedly 30 seeds, and if you ordered 5 packets, then shipping was included. When I got the order, there were 60 - 100 seeds in a packet, and they threw in a couple of freebees as well. They may have increased this as postage rates have gone up.

All right, with any luck here are the pictures of my Black tomato.

Here's the Black in the foreground with a Bush Celebrity in the background. No laughing at my lame attempts to tie it up once it outgrew the cage!

Two views of a large Black tomato picked September 13th.

And now, the proof in the pudding, so to speak. A small Black tomato just sliced today for a BLT. Very meaty!

And finally, in the sandwich for size reference.

Sorry I haven't been around much lately---but here are the results for my tomatoes---which I covered during a snow fall last Saturday and pulled the crispy blankets off of them Sunday morning---they are still alive. They have some frost damage here and there, but not too bad.

My favorites for canning this year:

Campbells 1327---bright red, round fruit that resists cracking, and can handle sitting on the counter for several days. Flavor is good, good as a slicer, but since it can sit around it makes a great canner. Determinate

Heidi---very productive bright red paste type, no BER, good flavor fresh, medium size. Handled the heat. Determinate

Rio Grande---very productive large oval shaped paste type, no BER. Determinate

Aker's Pink Plum---beautiful pink paste tomato, smaller than Heidi or Rio Grande, but peels easily and the perfect size for canning whole.

Yellow Bell---pretty pale to bright yellow fruit with good flavor, about the size of Aker's Pink plum---on the smaller side, but got a little bigger later in the season, also easy to peel.

My favorite slicers:

Kellog's Breakfast: This tomato is so beautiful! It is large and tasty and very meaty! It started producing fairly early and is still producing huge bright orange beefsteaks.

Burracker's Favorite: my first bi-color---stunning. It ripens to a deep golden color with a red blush on the bottom that extends in striped about half way up. When you cut it open it is golden with red marbling. Very large! Quite productive.

Earl's Faux: a pretty pink beefsteak. Very tasty!!! Potato leaf variety that produced better for me than Brandywine. The fruit ranged in size from baseball to soft ball size.

Consoluto Genovese: A small, bright red slicer that is fluted/scalloped and looks like a flower when you slice it. Very productive---no larger than a baseball,kind of flattened---looks like a red mini pumpkin. Good flavor and started producing early on---tolerated the heat well.

Azoychka: A bright yellow, small beefsteak that is very early. Good flavor---a clean, tart flavor, but not too tart.
Productive, fruit ranged in size from ping pong to soft ball sized, with most of the fruit in the middle.

Noir de Crimee: A Black tomato a strain of Black Krim. Earlier than Cherokee Chocolate and a bit more productive. Great flavor, a very juicy tomato and beautiful to look at!

Coustralee: a large red tomato---later than I like, but earlier than Big Zac, good flavor. It didn't produce very good for me, but I'll give it another try in a better spot.

I'll have to do this in installments. Maybe I'll post a link to some photos too. I grew around 25 varieties this year!

Later,
Tyffanie

jaliranchr, thanks so much for the kind offer of seeds. I actually have found Black Cherry at Tomato Growers Supply along with a pepper and eggplant I want to try, so I might as well just get them all in one swoop. Appreciate the info on slow germination though; my tomatoes are usually up fast so I'm sure I would have been wondering what went wrong. I'll try to be patient instead.

alice, great pictures. If I ever managed to get a tomato that big I think I'd bronze it. And the sandwich looked good too.

Magnificent Black tomatoes, Alice!

And that bacon/lettuce/tomato sandwich, the lettuce is . . . where?

No, no stop - it took 4 tries to load this page as it is - the ISP timed out repeatedly . . . !

One thing, we'd better start another "installment" so that Tyffanie has a chance to tell us about the other half of her varieties!! I think I counted only 12!

Looks like you may have some ideas there for paste tomatoes, Bonnie. And, personally, I am so tempted by the Kellogg's Breakfast - Tyff seems to be quite enthused by it and there are some others that have warranted her praise! Not only will she need to make another installment but I'll need some time to take closer looks at these on the web and in the catalogs.

And, now for another thread!

digitS'

In my "recipe" for BLT the T goes on last. There was a thread about how to make a BLT and I think that goes against official procedure, but there you go. I'm a rebel. So much so that when I was younger I didn't like raw tomatoes so I ate BLTs without the T's!! I didn't post that on the BLT recipe thread for fear of being flogged. So please be gentle. I've seen the error of my ways.

And I have to ask again... Tyffanie, what do you do with 25 varieties of tomatoes. Particularly all those slicing tomatoes, which I assume you don't can. Do you sell your tomatoes?

I can everything, even the slicers, and give some away. I only planted one plant of each, so its not too terribly bad. I have a bunch of tomatoes sitting in the garage that need to be canned. I've been having some trouble with my thyroid and am way behind on everything. I have a great recipe for salsa I got from the Harvest forum that I can a lot of and also canned some whole tomatoes, tomatoes with zucchini, and some crushed/stewed tomatoes. I have 2 cases of quarts and 2 cases of pints and I need to do a couple more batches, or find new homes for my tomatoes. I'll continue on in the 2nd Tomato Patch thread...

Tyffanie

I'm about to do another thing to do with slicers, once I get some fresh baked bread (right after this post):
One slice of bread, slices of fresh mozzarella, enough fresh basil leaves to cover the moz, and then slices of tomato.
This is one of my kids' favorite meals.

Alice -Beautiful pic!!! And yummy sandwich! You inspired me to make that for a meal in the next day or two.

With no hard frosts yet I've left all the tomatoes on the vines so far and they are all ripening. I didn't plant anything fancy but the early girls are still cranking them out and they are pretty darn big. Need to pick by Friday as a cold front is coming in and lows predicted around 33 this weekend.

I planted about four Large Red Cherry palntsand we've been eating off of them all summer. They're huge! I'm going to pick a bunch to dry in the sun tomorrow and pack in olive oil.

Bonnie-my kid does not eat the tomatoes or any recipe with them even touching anything. Every year I try to entice him "just try thiisss cherry, thiisss one is soooo sweeet - better than canddyyy." He never agrees. Maybe someday, hopefully.

Today's lunch was tomato salad with large red cherries, yellow pears sliced in half with basil, little parsley, feta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little leftover thinly sliced steak.

Cnetter- sounds yummy! I asked Santa for a breadmaker for Christmas.

I never get sick of tomatoes.

Charlene