Kansas Farm Girl,

Thank you for the information about the Homestead. I was looking at them because they are supposed to be able to stand hot/dry weather conditions. I'm always looking for tomatoes that can take the hot/dry weather. I can't always keep my garden watered when it needs to be and when the drought returns I like to have something that I can depend on.

Be careful. Homestead is "heat tolerant" in the sense that it bears fruit when the temps get high. You're looking for a "drought tolerant" tomato. Check this out --- http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomatoes-for-hot-dry-climates.html . Homestead is among them, but there are many many others that are tastier, more prolific, and more immune to diseases.

Except for early in the season, I didn't water Pink Berkeley Tie Dye at all in 2017 (with almost no rain), in our semi-arid climate (which is very hot in the summer), and it produced well, with plenty of large, juicy fruit. Sweet Orange Cherry is another good one there; also, Mountain Princess.

PBTD doesn't have much hang time, really, though (but more than Paul Robeson had for me in 2015).

Shule ..... that's interesting. The last time we grew PBTD it didn't have much hang time (2015). The last time we grew Paul Robeson (2016) it did well and the hang time was decent. PBTD is right up there with the shortest hang times of any of the varieties we've ever grown.

Shell 6A

It's possible my Paul Robeson seeds didn't breed true, since I got them from wintersown.org (fall, 2014), who probably received them as donations. Plus, it had very unusual growing conditions. Whatever the case, it didn't have any hang time at all! Well, maybe a few hours after ripening. Then the tomatoes would liquify and burst. It was the only variety like that out of about 20 to 30 that year. They did taste quite good, though (I managed to taste at least one or two). The plant was in nearly clay soil (probably a little alkaline, especially as I gave them quite a bit of extra rockdust and potassium—which of course I don't recommend unless you're growing muskmelons), and it was partially shaded by some elderberry bushes, which I also don't recommend. The fruits were small for what I've read about Paul Robeson. They were pure brown. I had another PR pant in another location with more sun (the soil was not anything like ideal); it produced similar fruits, but I don't recall their hang time. Both plants were very drought-tolerant (in that the plants didn't wilt for a long time after the soil went dry; I don't mean regarding production in this instance) before the transplant, and seemed about average in that regard after the transplant. Actually, the second plant I mentioned was a cutting of the first, if I remember right. We had record temperatures at the end of June, too, that year. (I don't think it set fruit until the heat went down to 89° F. on occasion in the middle of August.) We probably had ripe fruit in September. I probably transplanted them in May. They were started way too early, indoors, grown with fluorescent and window light.

That was pretty much my first experience growing tomatoes from seed and transplanting them out afterward. I experimented a lot. We usually used store-bought plants before that. I do things a lot differently now, but I still experiment.

One reason for starting the plants so early that year was so they would be long enough for my experiment in planting them super deep. Plus, I wanted to take cuttings in time to transplant the cuttings. Plus, I wanted to see what difference it had on fruit setting.

My conclusion was that starting them really early helped plants that take a while to flower (based on how long they took to flower indoors) to flower outdoors as quickly as earlier-to-flower varieties of the same age (so it was helpful for Black Plum, which takes a little longer to flower, although it was pretty quick to set fruit and ripen compared to most that I grew that year); the depth seemed to make the roots too cold and slow the plants, but it did seem to have possibly long-term benefits that might be good in a longer season. I learned a lot about cuttings (from a number of plant species: at least tomatoes, peppers, melons, watermelons, tomatillos, and cucumbers).

I'm thinking although conditions weren't ideal, I might have had better results had I kept the PR plant with a megabloom (which it bloomed indoors). It got severe, scary-looking edema indoors, and I was scared it was a contagious disease, since I didn't know what edema was, and I didn't find anything that matched its description at that time (so, I threw it away, unfortunately). The plant I transplanted didn't get any megablooms. I had a feeling I should keep that one.

As far as Homestead goes, I've read that it does well in humid heat, like in the Carolinas and Georgia. It has its followers. I wasn't aware of the drought-tolerance mentioned. I have seeds, but due to it not being early or particularly large, I haven't grown them yet. I might grow it this year.

Then there's Homestead 24, which has some differences (from what I read, I'd rather grow the original Homestead, but I don't remember the reason).