Between my two Cherokees I have 15 +/- tomatoes plus quite a few flowers. A couple of the fruits are very large.

My Julia Child plants sound like yours... Not much foliage. Each one has a couple fruits (and I gave a couple away and the people who have them have said the same thing). So that sounds about "normal" from my limited experience.

My Julia Child is a potato leaf monster! It's easily the biggest, most lush plant I have (out of 20). It has a ton of blossoms, but they mostly just drop.

There are about 4 tomatoes on the entire plant, so I hope they are tasty.

I grew mine from seeds I received from TomatoFest.com

I probably will not grow this variety again.

I got my JC seeds from tomatofest, too. I don't want to give the impression it isn't healthy. The stems are sturdy and both are very tall, just not many leaves.

I double-checked after my first post and it looks like one of the JC plants has a couple small tomatoes just coming out of the buds.

I have two Aunt Ginny Purple plants that look almost identical to JC, but one of those two has set a bunch of fruit.

I have grown four Cherokee Purple for the first time this year, two in a self-watering container and two in the ground. The two in the container are taller and thicker than the ones in the ground. I did have some BER with the very first fruit set in the container, but now they have lots of healthy small tomatoes on them. The one's in the ground don't have nearly the number of fruit and are skinny, but what is on them looks healthy. Can't wait to get that first ripe one to try. Haven't tried the Julia Childs.

Lisa, I have 4 purple cherokees. They are about 5 feet tall, unfortunately too close too each other and other tomato plants. They all have 2-3 large fruit each, with a few small ones, all green. My purple cherokees are way ahead of my stupice and bloody butcher, what a surprise. I can't wait for them to ripen, they look gorgeous. Good luck with yours!

I have three CP plants in the ground and they are all doing great.

One plant has/had 19 tomatoes on it and in the past week I've picked seven of them. All of them are quite large with the largest weighing in at 1 lb 4.3 oz. Haven't cut any of them yet as they still need a day or two.

Cindy

The CP at my folks' place are only a few feet tall and just now producing flowers. Now while I did get the seeds started later than I usually do, this goofy weather is definitely not helping matters. Thus far this summer, there have only been a few days in the upper 70's to 80's and there have been quite a few in the 60's and low 70s. Low temps like that do tend to really slow toms down.

I got my seeds from Tomatofest as well. I've never grown a tomato like Julia Child before - long branches and very few leaves. Just was wondering if that was normal! There are a few small tomatoes forming, but not many. I probably have around a dozen fruits between the 3 Cherokee Purple plants - most are tiny and just starting to form, but a couple are medium sized - we're waay behind around Boston. Well, my garden is behind anyway!

I usually stick to maybe 3 tomato plants and end up giving a lot away. This year I expanded my garden and I have 11 plants total between the 5 varieties I'm growing. I thought I'd have them coming out of my ears and was really looking forward to having tons to eat and freeze. I'll be happy just to get a taste at this point!

btw - I see the terms regular and potato leaf all the time. Just what does that mean?

Lisa

I am growing Cherokee Purple for the first time. I have had about 5 or 6 tomatoes off of it so far and they have been very good. The first one was just short of two pounds! The rest have been right around a pound. The flavor on all of these are rivaling the Brandywine OTV that I am also growing, though the production of the CP has seemed to slow a bit after the first batch were picked.

Steve

I am growing Cherokee Purple for the first time. I have had about 5 or 6 tomatoes off of it so far and they have been very good. The first one was just short of two pounds! The rest have been right around a pound. The flavor on all of these are rivaling the Brandywine OTV that I am also growing, though the production of the CP has seemed to slow a bit after the first batch were picked.

Steve

hmmm, seems quite a few got their Julia Child from Tomatofest and experience the same thing, long langy plant, lots of flowers, but few leaves, and only about 5 tomatoes setting. I am seeing the same thing and thought it was just me and my ineptitude.

btw - I see the terms regular and potato leaf all the time. Just what does that mean?

*****

Potato Leaf foliage, PL, has leaves that look just like potato leaves, meaning that the leaf edges are smooth as opposed to regular leaf foliage, RL, where you'll see the normal ragged leaf edges that most varieties have.

If you go to the top of this first page and click on the FAQ link you'll find a FAQ on the different leaf forms that one can find with different tomato varieties, and pictures accompany them.

I think you may enjoy reading about them and there are several other FAQ's there that I think most folks might take a look at if they're fairly new to tomato growing.

FAQ's such as how to start from seed, BER ( blossom end rot) and how to prevent cross pollination for those who save seeds .

Carolyn

After a few poor years of growth and production (i.e. 3-3.5 foot plants, 2 to 7 tomatoes per plant), the second consecutive summer of poor weather seems to put cherokee purple at the top for the second year in a row (out of 20 or more varieties each year). Two plants are already over 6 feet, probably 130-140 green fruits total on the 4 plants (if not more). Even the brandywines seem to be doing ok, two plants have more than 20 each, the other has 15-20. This is despite the fact that the weather seems to have put our area 2 to 3 weeks behind where it normally is at this time. No large varieties are even close to blushing, fingers crossed that we get a few months of hot days and warm nights to let everything grow well and mature before frost.

One of my CP plants is small (maybe 4 ft), but it does have a few large tomatoes.

The other one is huge (I'm 6 Ft tall and I'm looking up at it), but much later flowering. However, now that it has... it looks like it will be productive.

My Cherokee Purple is about 5.5 feet tall. Many many flowers- I've yet to get any fruit. Looks like a few are coming soon. The plant is very healthy though

Some background on the variety Julia Child.

Gary Ibsen at Tomatofest asked me if I had a great tomato variety that I hadn't distributed seed for that he could name and offer in honor of Julia Child. But he wanted exclusive rights to it.

It turns out I did have a great variety at the time, but I don't give exclusive rights to anyone.

At the time the variety had been called Perry's Teasum b'c I'd been teasing folks here at GW with how great it was but just couldn't get enough seeds, thanks to the deer, to list in the SSE Yearbook or to distribute here, when I used to do my seed offers here.

When I had enough seeds I decided to share with others what goes into naming a variety and started a thread here and gave all the background information I had about the variety and 22 folks posted in that thread and I sent seeds to all of them as a thank you.

The name that we came up with was Neves Azorean Red, which indeed has become a very popular variety.

I don't know what variety Gary ended up with that he named Julia Child.

Carolyn

I've been a Julia Child fan my entire life and even tho I got the basics from my Italian mother in cooking, I really feel I learned how to cook from watching The French Chef and from her Mastering the Art of French Cooking books. So I just couldn't pass up a tomato named after her!

I really hope it doesn't end up being a dud! What a shame if it is!

I'm so looking forward to trying a Cherokee Purple tomato! With everyone's descriptions about how good it tastes, I'm drooling in anticipation.

I truly do not eat tomatoes all year long - I only eat my garden tomatoes. The ones in the stores are a waste of chewing energy in my book!

I will check out the FAQ section as well - probably shoulda done that in the first place! Doh!!

Lisa

Wherever Gary Ibsen found the tomato that became Julia Child, he obviously chose the correct one. Everyone who's grown it seems to describe it as tall. I'm assuming that the relatively few leaves emphasizes the height.

That's only right for a tomato named for a woman who was 6'2"!

You might consider giving your Julia Child tomatoes some extra potassium and phosphorus, and not giving them as much nitrogen (fish emulsion and lots of other stuff like that may be high in nitrogen; so, be careful). Then see if that changes anything production/leaf/stem-wise. I don't know if it will, but I wouldn't be surprised.

This is the 2d year I've grown Julia Child's. 1st year in the ground, 2d year in a pot. The plant is HUGE with lots of leaves and about 100+ blossoms, but only about 4 fruit. I pollinate with an electric toothbrush. Any ideas on how to pollinate this plant so it actually produces fruit?

The tomatoes are delicious, but barely produces so probably won't plant next year

Tomato flowers are hermaphroditic. You shouldn't need to pollinate them by hand, if they're outside, but hopefully it won't hurt. The problem is more likely temperature, amount of available soil, nutrient balance, pests stressing the plants, and/or light levels.