I hope you are right Tony, they are starting to put on quite a few blooms now. They look the best, along with the Rose and I just treated them again with Mycostop and I will treat the roots of the new transplants tomorrow. I think the ones I treated with Mycostop are about 90% of the ones that are still alive, only the Paul Robeson plants still seem to be struggling to live

Today's pics:

Some of the deck tomatoes, all are Bolseno
(what I call the indestructible tomato plant -- the most productive
(60+ lbs per plant), super juicy and delicious, and the most disease
resistant I've ever grown!) -- loading up and hoping for the first ripe
ones 4th of July. They do grow well past 10' tall.

Tony

1st ripe tomato from the ones planted outside -- Patio Choice Yellow VFT.

This cherry dwarf plant was seeded 3-13-2018 and planted outdoors in a 10 gal pot on 5-05-2018.

Won't commit right now on flavor complexity and taste, since it's too early in the season, and tomatoes here are usually at their best starting late July. So far it has good points -- thin skin, crispy rind and juicy. A bit mushy flesh, but, we'll see how it fares later in the season. Taste right now is OK.

Tony

Tony those are some beautiful Bolseno tomatoes-I only have two on mine now and they are almost as tall as me. I have a lot of blooms and fertilized blooms. The Sun Gold are really very tasty and sweet, but the skin is a little thick-jalapenos are hotter than usual (it has been a very hot dry year)-ghost peppers are brutal and the white summer squash has been great. I have now had a few pepper plants die from the southern bacterial wilt-so they are just more resistant. the bad thing about peppers is they start to go bad as soon as the plant starts to die, while tomatoes are usually still in perfect condition albeit still green. The bottom two plants are Bing Cherry tomato plants and the one by the fence is isolated with a Paul Robeson because it had one in the container with it that had the wilt that I cut out about two weeks ago and it is still alive.

6-22-2018 update -- today's little harvest.

Tony

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Patio Choice Yellow cherries, jalapenos and first sweet banana pepper
(this is after I gave my neighbor a dozen of jalapenos and a dozen ripe
cherries).

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Patio Choice Yellow -- in 10 gal bucket. Taste is so-so, but, it was EARLIEST I've ever grown (seed started 3-13, planted outside 5-05, first ripe ones 6-15 !!!)

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First blushing tomato of the larger varieties -- TRIBUTE VFFA HYBRID
-- surprisingly the supposedly much earlier ones (Bush Early Girl,
Valley Girl) are well behind it. All were planted in a raised bed on
4-23 under domes.

It has been super dry here this year even for Texas and the brutal wilt had almost disappeared, but it just rained 8 inches in 3 days and it came back again and got a couple more plants yesterday. I think I only have about 4 or 5 plants left that I treated with actinovate-all the rest have died, while I don't think any of the ones I treated with Mycostop died, so I am going to have to say Mycostop is at least 3 times as effective and maybe it will prove to be even better-I just treated all the plants with it although it appears a root dip is the most effective and only guaranteed method of keeping plants alive past 3.5-4 feet in height. The cherry tomatoes are producing fairly well-the top photo is Sungold, SS100, and Bing Cherry. The Bing cherry tomatoes are about twice the size of a regular cherry tomato and a little smaller than a Campari tomato. The have a very good although mild flavor and by mild I don't mean sweet in this case they are more acidic, but just mildly acidic. the skin is thinner than the Sun Gold, but thicker than the SS100. I would say just for the production value the Bing Cherry plants are worth growing-they are out producing the other cherry tomatoes by 2 to 1 at least and the flavor is good. They are not mushy at all, even when left on the vine until they are deep crimson-they are not good when picked early-very bland and flavorless-dark red is necessary. I have tons of jalapenos, jwala, poblano, and ghost peppers, but the habanero plant seems to have stopped producing. The Carolina Reaper plants have blooms, but have not produced a pepper yet. I thought the ghost pepper had the wilt for a while but it bounced back-ghost pepper plants are super hard to kill once established. I have 5 Bolseno tomatoes, although I have several fertilized blooms that will hopefully emerge soon, 24 C Tarasenko tomatoes and 12 Cherokee Purple tomatoes on the vine. It has been in the low 90s in the day and mid 70s at night, which is much better than it was before the rain (100+ and close to 80 all night). I have a ton of fertilized Rose and Delano Black tomato blooms and some Brandywine Sudduth but no more tomatoes yet except on 4 other plants I am not sure are going to make it.

6-26-2018 -- first ripe tomatoes of the season (not counting micros and dwarfs which I grow year round).

Bolseno (left) and Tribute (right).

Will report on taste later.

Tony

Beautiful! Hope they taste as delicious as they look!

Red Robins and Sweet N Neats 23 days after seeding. Gardening on a patio these are the only things I had room left for (there are 1 pepper, 1 sun sugar and beans out of view).

Michelle and Silvia (and others growing it) -- Milka's Red Bulgarian tomato question.

I'm not sure I got the right seeds -- tomatoes are the size of golf balls (does not fit the description). Tasted the first ripe one today and had amazing flavor, but very, very mushy flesh (won't be saving seeds from this particular plant, because of that).

How large are yours, and what's their taste and texture like?

Tony

Bolseno -- our favorite tomato to grow! In 40+ years we have never grown a more productive tomato plant (60+lbs per plant), best disease resistance, and having a superb flavor complexity, tangy taste, crisp texture and full of juice!

Tony

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After picking 4 more Bolsenos today....

... see how loaded it still is -- and that's just the lower part!

The Bolseno jungle -- over 6' tall already (they'll get 10-12' high by end of season).

Wow! Tony, your tomatoes are impressive! Make me want to grow some Bolseno in the future. It is almost that time to start new seeds for me.

About the Milka's Red Bulgarian, I grew it few years ago but did not remember how well it did in my garden but now that I grew it again, I was not too happy with their performance because it was the last to ripen and when it did so was uneven. Flavor was good. My seeds are from Tatiana's and it says 6-12 oz, mine were like the 6 oz.

Silvia

Those are some beautiful plants Tony. My Bolseno plants are over 6 feet too but there are still only 5 tomatoes on 7 plants. It is super hot here now even at night so many of the fertilized blooms are dying without producing a tomato. Only the cherry tomato varieties are not affected especially the Bing cherry which all have close to 100 each

RD -- I was worried you started the Bolsenos too late, and might get the wrong impression of their taste and productivity during your super hot months.

Here it's been hot since beginning of May -- and all my tomatoes are about 2 weeks early. Only Bolseno is crisp, tasty and juicy so far -- the rest have very mushy flesh and taste is barely so-so (even Bolseno F-2 is mushy and bland).

Here are the ones we've tasted already (only 3 haven't ripened yet).

First Ripe Fruits----------------- ETA ------ Actual*
5. Bolseno VFFT hybrid ----- 7/10 ......... 6-26*
1. Tribute VFFA Hybrid ------- 7/10 ......... 6-26*
1. Milka’s Red Bulgarian ------ 7/15 ......... 6-28*
1. Valley Girl VFF Hybrid ----- 7/15 ........ 6-28*
1. Camaro VFFFA hybrid ----- 7/15 ........ 6-28*
2. Bolseno F2 ------------------- 7/10 ........ 6-30*
1. Large Pink Bulgarian ------- 7/15 ........ 6-30*
1. Bush Early Girl VFFNT ----- 7//01 .......
1. Dixie Red VFFFNA ---------- 7/15 ........
1. Bulgarian Old Sort ---------- 7/15 .........

p.s. from the 3 dwarfs I planted -- so far only Lime Green Salad is juicy with creamy flesh (not mushy) and very tasty. Yukon Quest dwarf is nowhere near getting ripe, and Patio Choice Yellow has been producing nonstop juicy (but mushy) cherries with an OK flavor since June 15th.

Tony

Tony, I have had 100s of cherry tomatoes this year, but only one ripe Fred Limbaugh's Potato Top (plant died) and 3 ripe Creoles (which are about 1/4 the normal size). The FLPT tomato was very good with maximum juice, a tart tangy acidic flavor and thin skin. The Creole tomatoes were so, so at best. The cherry tomatoes have been very good and productive-the Sun Gold and a couple of Bing Cherry tomato plants also died and one of the SS100s is looking pretty bad. None of the Rose plants has a tomato on them and they are probably 8 feet tall-the C Tarasenko are putting on tomatoes every day and the Cherokee Purple have several that are almost ripe, but the plants are starting to look like they might not make it either. The Bolsenos look healthy and put on another tomato today.

Bush Early Girl VFFNT -- finally got the first ripe ones today, 7-07. The 4th one to ripen of all determinates, so should not have 'early' in the title. Surprisingly it has very good taste and texture with a decent amount of juice.

Will report later in more detail once it starts producing in full swing, but it looks promising... also, very compact and loaded with medium to large fruits.

Tony

Bolseno pics today (5 plants) -- we've picked over 40 so far, average weight about 10 oz. Still have lots sitting on the counter, with loads waiting to be picked.

Tony

Bolseno and Lime Green Salad tomatoes -- the healthiest 2 varieties so far!

Jwala Peppers, Chyornyi Tarasenko, Bolseno, Black Truffle, Bing Cherry. I had a Bolseno tomato that was almost ripe that had a hole rubbed in the side of it so I had to harvest it and some Cherokee Purple tomatoes and now I see what Tony is raving about-the Bolseno wasn't even ripe and it had a great taste-very acidic and strong-in the top 2 or 3 for red tomatoes for strong flavor. When compared to a Cherokee Purple tomato which is very sweet the contrast is even more striking. My Bolsenos are about 6-8 ounces and the Chyornyi Tarasenkos are about 3-4 ounces, Bing Cherry maybe 1.5 ounces. All of my peppers are producing now including the Habaneros, jalapenos and Anaheim peppers, which all have 20 or more peppers on them and the poblano seem to be struggling with the bacterial wilt and I only have one so far-it is about 5 inches long and 2 inches wide, I had about 100 little buttercrunch lettuce, 200 strawberries (which have just about stopped again) and about 75 white scallop squash, which have also just about stopped putting on blooms. It has been rainy here for the last few days and cooler so I was hoping to get some fruit set.

Hot weather starts today -- so picked a lot this morning.

All are Bolseno -- 17 lbs.

Bolseno twin

Tony

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slim pickings from other varieties....

Awesome Tony, those are beautiful and I know they are extra tasty. I got a couple of Bolsenos that are almost ready now-but not that big more like 8 ounces

RD -- my Bolsenos are averaging about 7 oz now. The first ones were in the 10+ oz range, these ones are from 5-9 oz, with a few at 4 oz and a few over 11 oz -- I think it's the super hot weather we've had the last 3 weeks (95F and higher) that's messing with size.

From the 11 varieties I'm growing this year, only Bolseno is truly delicious. Second comes Lime Green Salad (these 2.5 foot tall dwarfs are workhorses -- tasty, tangy, with good amount of juice and creamy flesh).

The rest so far are disappointing....

Tony

Lime Green Salad

p.s. only 2 left to taste (finally blushing): Dixie Red and Bulgarian Old Sort -- fingers crossed....

The squash are just about gone now in this brutal heat, but I harvested about 65 this year, so this was my best year ever for squash. I am getting several ripe tomatoes a day now, but they are all very small. I will say that I will be growing Bolsenos every year now-just for the taste. Out of all the tomatoes I have grown, I have never really gotten any compliments on the taste from people I have given them to or eaten with them. I gave one to my mom, who rarely compliments anything, and she said it was "delicious" and one of the best tomatoes she has ever tasted. Even the small ones are loaded with juice and have a flavor somewhat reminiscent of a Creole tomato, but a little spicier with the perfect amount of acidity. I am hoping I can keep them alive until the fall so the production will increase-I am averaging about 2 tomatoes a plant now-the Rose is the same way, but one of the Chyornyi Tarasenko tomato plants is going crazy now putting on tomatoes-it has about 50, while the other 4 Chyornyi Tarasenko only have only a few tomatoes on them (one has about 15) and the Bing Cherry tomatoes are struggling to survive. I have several varieties of cherry tomato growing (about 2-5 foot in height)-Jasper, Red Pearl, Peacevine, and Black Cherry. I also have some Campari growing. I transplanted the 4 Bolseno plants I had in rockwool into the dirt and they are taking off pretty good now. I should just clone the Bolsenos and grow a whole crop of them. I will do that next year-I am pretty good at the cloning technique-you can even use 16 oz water bottle with the top cut off about 3 inches down-cut the stem, branch, or suckers off and cut them at a sharp angle with a razorblade-dig them in the cloning solution and then you just stick them into the dirt or rockwool if you so desire. The good thing about the water bottle technique is you can see the root forming, so you know exactly when to transplant. I cloned some Creole tomato plants, way back before I even knew about black tomatoes and they were pretty awesome at about 1 lb apiece. I really didn't think that anything could beat that super tangy Cajun spice Creole tomato, but I think mama Italian has it beat. I am drooling right now in anticipation of the next tomato to drop. These wimpy Creole tomatoes I grew this year couldn't hold a candle in the same galaxy of the dominant Bolseno fruits.

Ball Quart Jars, Wide Mouth, Set of 24 -- $30 & FREE Shipping!!! Just got this super deal from Amazon.

Tony

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WT3OZDO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

32 oz jars (with lids) at $1.25 each -- hard to beat!

Thought I'd check in ..... We've had the best season in the last 5 years. It's really keeping us busy. The heat and lack of rain has really concentrated the flavor and the feedback has been fantastic from our customers, friends, co-workers and family. The big ones and the little ones all taste fabulous. The "Bulgarians" have been great. Probably the best producers. Maglia Rosa was fantastic early. Other notables are McKinley, Negro de Cuenca, Gordo de Pantones, Black Early X PBTD, McGee, Monroe, Moruno Anta, Scary Larry, Pink Pioneer, Butter-n-Eggs, Early Glee, Big Orange V, Vorlon and Summer Cider. Most all of the varieties have done well. Here's some pictures of today's harvest. There's some ugly cat-faced guys in there but they taste great. We harvest every other day. We have 60 plants and many varieties. This level of harvest has been going on since the 1st of July, Starting to save some for seeds now that we are mid season. You might see some database numbers written on some of them.

Shell

Awesome harvest Shell, love the variety. Been so hot here all I have been getting is cherry tomatoes and Chyornyi Tarasenkos, which have been small but very tasty. Peppers are going crazy hundreds on of all different varieties especially Jwala and Jalapeños

Richard .... Oddly, our peppers have been a little hit-n-miss. The cubanelles, jalapenos, red roasters, shishitos, jwalas. poblanos, anaheims and some of the Ajis have been great. Other Ajis and some of the bell pepper varieties have struggled.

It was a banner year for the sweet corn, potatoes and beans. The garlic and onions were very good as well.

Our spring crops were terrible. We went directly from Winter into Summer and the cooler weather crops couldn't handle it. I'd call the Spring (what we had of it) a total bust.

The tomatoes have been great from the beginning. I had to install the irrigation system this year (I haven't had to use it the last 3 years). The first tomato was Forest Fire. The latest are a couple of the big PL varieties that are just ripening.

I want to thank everyone that I traded seeds with earlier this year. I received some very nice and interesting varieties. I will start fermenting seeds in the next few days.

Things have been crazy ..... It seems like the farm house has been under renovation all year. It started with the roof, windows and paint and is now wrapping up with new decks and a new patio. I'll be happy when it's all completed so life can get back to some level of normalcy. Hopefully in 2-3 weeks.

Shell

Shell it will be nice when you can relax on your new deck. you are right about the bell peppers, I haven't got a single one to sprout. My poblanos are only producing about 5-10. The jalapeños have been going crazy in this heat and they are red and blistering hot for jalapeños. The ghost peppers are a little wimpier, the Anaheims are looking good as are the cayene which are the most ornate I would like to trade some of these peppers for some tomatoes. Your C Tarasenko are awesome. I get 4-8, 2-3 ounce tomatoes with a great acidic taste. It is outproducing the othe plants 50 to 1. The plants are huge too it will be among my yearly plant list for sure

Trying to dehybridize Bolseno this year -- growing two Bolseno F-2 -- and I consider it a failure. Both F-2's are showing little disease resistance, much lower production with fruits inferior in taste, texture and flavor.

Tony

RD -- pics look good. What varieties and how do they taste?

Tony

Top picture is one is one of the Jwala plants--then some of the hottest Jalapenos along with a cayenne and habanero pepper and a plate full of Jwala peppers-the tomatoes are C. Tarasenkos and two Bolsenos with a red jalapeno-jalapeno plant-another jwala and one of the cayennes

The top picture is Chyornyi Tarasenkos-the next one I was hoping someone out there had seen before. I am not sure what they are-taste a little like a very fruity ghost pepper, but not as hot-but pretty hot. The next one is a Cayenne and the peppers on it are pretty blistering too. Next is the mystery peppers, Jwala peppers, Cayenne peppers, and Chyornyi Tarasenko tomatoes. The last picture is a close up of the mystery peppers-they are very shiny just like ghost peppers-really like the taste.

Tomato report -- 8-13-2018:

The season started 2 weeks early this year, because of high temps in April, May, June, July and now August.

From 20 plants I'm down to 7 that are regularly producing -- 5 Bolseno and 2 Bolseno F-2, the other 3 indeterms were heirlooms and all died already from diseases. Next year all indeterms will be Bolseno.

The diseases here are so bad that even other "disease resistant" hybrids are waylaid!

Bolseno is by far the most productive and most delicious. Bolseno F-2 is less productive, with an OK taste, but not as disease resistant.

The determs were the biggest bust.

Best tasting was Bush 'Early' Girl (not early at all) -- but, low production and the first one to be killed.

Second best in taste was Valley Girl -- decent production, and good flavor complexity. Still has a few fruits that we can pick.

Tribute tasted so-so, low production and little disease resistance.

Camaro (relative of Charger) made some large tomatoes that were sub-par in taste and diseases killed it already.

The worst was Dixie Red (supposedly super disease resistant for the South) -- cannon balls of red tomatoes with little flavor and very low production, also dead now.

Bad year for tomatoes, here!!! I'm at 190 lbs so far, so my goal of 600+ lbs for the year is out the window.....

Valley Girl is the only determ I'll consider growing again.

Tony

Here is an awesome photo of some really bright showy flowers from my Solanum peruvianum wild tomatoes in my garden this year! The bees really love these bright showy wild tomato species! Would look awesome in a flower garden!

RD and others -- join the veggie discussion here:

Veggie Tales - September 2018

Tony

I think it's about time to start the 2019 thread, but while this is here, I wanted to point out that Sausage and John's stabilized Brandy Boy did the best for me, this year. Sausage probably got more pounds of fruit (as many as I've ever had on a plant, probably), but both did quite well. What is great about this, though, is that they performed so well on a tough year for most tomatoes (the toughest, yet, IMO). We didn't water them much and they performed like it didn't matter. Sausage has a really nice texture, and nice, large fruits (it had no BER, either; however, lots of other tomatoes, even round ones, got BER—but not Sausage).

The earliest Brandy Boy's weren't as large as the ones after that (if you looked at my pictures of the earlier ones). The average one was maybe 1 to 1.5lbs.

I liked Frosty F. House quite a bit, too. (Not nearly as many tomatoes, but it's super early and it got smothered—so, it wasn't to blame.)

Mountain Princess did well as usual (it seems to do better every year; well, one plant did better this year; the other one did worse). It didn't get as many pounds of tomatoes as Sausage and BB, but the taste was awesome, and there always seemed to be a handful of ripe tomatoes on it for my burritos (not enough at once to make canning lots of them worthwhile, though). To be fair, Brandy Boy doesn't ripen all at once, either, but it sets fruit early, and seems to increase in production as the season continues (and the fruits are large; the green ones are easy to use for canning, since it's easy to spot them when they ripen indoors, which they did pretty quickly).

So, next year, I plan to grow a lot more Sausage and Brandy Boy
tomatoes, as well as a bunch of new tomatoes similar to Sausage (in size
and shape; e.g. maybe Gilbertie, Polish Linguisa, Napoli, Federle, Rio Grande, Jerusalem, Sheboygan, and Roma) to see what happens there. I plan to grow Valley Girl F1, Husky Red F1, a cherry or two, Mountain Princess, and a number of others, but probably not as many kinds as this year. I plan to be focusing on production in 2019.

I grew Bush Early Girl II F1 in 2018. It wasn't early, but it did a lot better than most of the F1 hybrids that I grew. The F1 hybrids didn't turn out so well, on average, unfortunately. I wonder if the soil needed something, but I'm sure it was too hot for them (the black plastic and the strong sun together made hot soil). It had nice, durable fruits, that were a good size. If our season were longer, it would have produced a lot, I think. It's the only hybrid where I was highly tempted to grow the F2 (I'd probably rather just grow another Brandy Boy plant).

Stick was a fascinating tomato, but the fruits weren't as large as advertised (they were just bigger than a cherry). They were striped and very firm. Not my favorite for taste, although it does have taste. I really like the plant habit. The giant wasps liked the plants more than any others for some reason.

Heatwave II F1 showed promise to start with, and I really liked the foliage color, but the hot soil made it suffer (although it did set fruit in the heat/drought, and did better than most of the F1 hybrids).

I liked Garden Leader Monster a fair amount. It was tasty. The fruits were a good size, and it produced more than most. I liked Super Marmande about as much.

Burpee Gloriana had production (for a while anyway) and great taste (comparable to Mountain Princess, although bigger and rounder), but every single fruit cracked. It didn't have much hang time.

Burpee Sunnybrook Earliana did decently.

Green Tiger was really sweet! So was Poca Roja. They both get high marks for taste.

Sub Arctic Plenty didn't produce as much, this year.

Cougar Red had great production. It was slightly mealy, though, and very leafy.

Frosty F. House was early, with great taste, a small plant, and good production.

Jaune Flammee turned out to be a cross. It produced well and had round red fruits that tasted okay.

Tigerella showed promise, but I didn't get as many pounds of tomatoes as I had hoped. Taste was decent. They looked cool.

Alpha Pink probably would have done a lot better in a different spot. That's one where I wonder if it would have been awesome. It seemed to be doing pretty well for the conditions. If I remember right, it tasted good.

New Yorker V and Manitoba didn't do as well this year as last year.

Fahrenheit Blues looked really awesome. Taste was not horrible, but I wouldn't recommend it for taste. It set fruit in adverse conditions, but it took a long time to ripen.

Urban Beefsteak got a lot of small fruits, more so at the end of the season.

Virginia Sweets produced pretty well for its size (it got large fruits).

Old German was undersized, and very bushy, but it tasted awesome.

Italian Giant Beefsteak and Huevos De Toro only got a few fruits each (about a pound each). Huevos De Toro had fruits that looked kind of netted, like a cantaloupe, if I recall.

Sheyenne, Early Rouge, and Alpine didn't produce much, and they were late. I didn't taste them knowing what they were.

Nodak Early had larger fruits than expected and was early. It had a very small plant, especially considering how large the fruits were.

North Dakota Earliana did better than last year, but didn't produce much. It wasn't early.

Earliana got a large plant and some fruit (not early).

Orange Minsk wasn't early. It had large fruits. It produced more later in the season (and would have done better with a longer season), but not many before that. The plant was fairly large. It tasted like most other large orange tomatoes to me, but I only tried one fruit fresh. I considerably prefer Sweet Ozark Orange (which seems to be a similar tomato).

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye did okay, although not what I would call productive this year. I think it did better without the black plastic last year, though. All in all, I'd rather grow Brandy Boy.

Tatura was earlier this year, but the taste was better last year (without black plastic; I think the cool late-season weather might improve the taste).

My Galapagos Island cross did very well. One of my Husky Cherry Red F5s was yellow, and that one did pretty well; another was a red dwarf, which did okay (but it was in the middle of the patch and it was hard to track the fruits when the area got overgrown; I don't recommend the middle of a tomato patch for a dwarf cherry). None of my HCR F5s were very early, though, unfortunately, but that yellow one sure had a tough root system (I pulled it up early because it was smothering plants)! I pulled up the Galapagos Island cross for the same reason (but I turned it upside down and moved it out of the way where it could finish ripening the fruits—that worked out well).

My Porter-like plum tomatoes tasted sweet and awesome, this year. Much better production than in previous years (and no anthracnose; none last year, either, but the year before that it did have it). This was one of the best-tasting, this year (much better than the two previous years). They were volunteers (not in the black plastic area with most of them).

Bush Champion II F1 showed early promise with the initial fruit set, but failed to do much.

Millet's Dakota did okay, and was quite early with good-sized fruits. The taste of the early ones wasn't a favorite. It seemed to be increasing in production, but then I don't know what happened to all that fruit. My yellow HCR and Cougar Red may have smothered it.

I grew several other varieties (most of which probably didn't do much).

All in all, the majority of tomatoes (by weight) seemed to come from 2 out of ~70 plants—those were Sausage and Brandy Boy, but some others did decently.

I think the black plastic helped to increase the acidity (sour flavor—not necessarily pH) overall. I think it increased production for some varieties, but just made it too hot for others (in the summer, anyway). It did seem to decrease the watering requirements. We canned more tomatoes on fewer plants, with less water, this year, but we also had more plants that were suffering with the hot growing conditions.

Shule, that's an impressive list. Approximately where are you?

November 20, 2018, Pitt PA, zone 6a

I'm late to the party, but I'll wade in.

I only grow in the dirt. I've had problems with blight and after a lot of problems have come to realize that if you don't rotate crops you will have problems, especially with tomatoes. For many years I grew tomatoes in the same small 11x14' plot but I can't do that any more.

I also quit buying plants from outside, which leaves me with no outlet except growing from seeds, and then I decided to also save as many seeds as possible which means growing only heirlooms.

This past year I grew the following tomatoes: Kellogg's Breakfast, and a Yellow Pear tomato, the rest are beefsteaks. They are Pink Rozoyzi, Mortgage Lifter, Red Brandywine, Pink Ponderosa, Marianna's Peace, Giant Belgium, Tennessee Heirloom, Crnkovic, and Dester. For the second year the Mortgage Lifter was my first tomato, in August. Giant Belgium lived up to its name, they were some of my biggest. I had two plants of Kellogg's Breadfast, the yellow tomato, they were huge, productive and I was happy with the taste. We canned some of them; a nice orange-yellow sauce.

As far as taste I was happy with everything except that when we got too much rain they all lacked flavor for a week or two, I'm going to eliminate the Tennessee heirloom, because the tops tend to have a brown/beige cast. I'm also going to replace the Red Brandwine I have with a Sudduth, if I can find it, and it's accurately labeled. My Red was supposed to be a pink, two years ago.

I set out four seedlings in Mid June on purpose to test a late harvest. That worked fine as those plants started out with their huge tomatoes in the first week of September. I picked nice tomatoes thru most of October and then got a big bowlful when frost threatened. I'm still eating beefsteak tomatoes the week of Thanksgiving, although they're getting down to the size of cherry tomatoes. They're still excellent eating!!

RD - Hope that you are still following this thread.

This is what I've determined from my earlier posted list of tomatoes.

I do not plan to grow any of the following again. I didn't keep specific notes just jotted down one or two words. I also think I'm finished with any of the tomatoes that exhibit "blueberry" traits. The plants were unhealthy and small and the fruit of the different varieties were so similar to each other that it was difficult it tell one from the other.

Many of the following varieties were weak on production, too.

Dark Galaxy
Great White-Blue
J & L Midnight Select
Lucid Gem
Solar Flare XL
Lovely Lush
Hippie Zebra
Black Krim X
Amethyst Jewel
Black Beauty
Dark Queen
Brad's Atomic Grape

The other varieties posted above did well enough that I will be growing them again.

Cindy

I plan to cut back in 2019 by 50% to allocate more raised bed space for pepper production. My 2019 grow list is as follows:

Amazon Chocolate

Black Magic

Bolseno

Brad's Atomic Grape*

Brunete

Captain Lucky

Cherry Bomb

Clear Lake Heirloom

Couilles De Taureau (Heuvos de Toro)

Dora

Druzba* (Overall best of 2018)

Esterina

Fabulous Dark Cherry V*

George Detsika's Italian Red

Gordo de Pantones*

Grandma Oliver's Chocolate*

Iva's Red Berry

Lithuanian

McMurray #10*

Mikado Chernyi

Missouri Pink Love Apple

Monroe* (Trying this one again)

Moravsky Div

Northern Lights

Oregon Spring

Pale Perfect Purple

Seek No Further Love Apple

Stupice

Sunpeach

SuperNova

Unknown Mexican Market Black F2 (Black w/Green Shoulders)

*Invited back from 2018

2018 Review

AAA Sweet Solano - Fair, would grow again

Aunt Lou's Underground Railroad - Low production

Big Orange V - Good, would grow again

BKX/Prairie Star - Grew out as Prairie Star - Low Production

Black Bear - Good, would grow again

Black Early X PBTD - Very Nice, would grow again, good looking fruit

Black Giant - Low Production

Blackberry - Low Production

Blackstar - Low production

Bosanski Stari - Very nice red, would grow again

Brad's Atomic Grape - Very Nice, big seller, good production

Buffalo Soldier - Low production

Bulgarian #7 - Moderate production, great taste, would grow again

Bulgarian Old Sort (No Name) - Moderate production, great taste, would grown again

Butter 'n Eggs - Mellow, great production, not a big fan

Calabacito Rojo - Little ruffled tomatoes, not a big fan

Druzba - Great production and taste, overall #1 for 2018

Dwarf Arctic Rose - Did not do well for me

Dwarf Iditarod Red - Did not do well for me

Early Glee - Nice, good production, would grow again

Fabulous Dark Cherry V - My best cherry for 2018

Faelan's First Snow - Moderate production, great taste, would grow again

Forest Fire - Super early, decent production, I wish I would have planted more

German Johnson Benton Strain - Fruit sizes and shapes all over the map

Gordo de Pantones - Huge and tasty red beefsteaks, very nice and would grow again, one of my 2018 top performers

Grandma Oliver's Chocolate - Probably my best black for 2018

Indian Moon - Not a big fan

Lime Green Salad - Had several plants that produced a few tasty fruits

Maglia Rosa - OK, would grow again

Matsu Express - Fruit sizes and shapes all over the map

McGee - Good, would grow again

McKinley - Nice large pink beefsteak, would grow again. Top 5 for 2018

McMurray #10 - Another large pink beefsteak, would grow again. Another Top 5 for 2018.

Medovaya Kaplya - OK but was expecting more

Milka's Red Bulgarian - Decent, would grow again

Monroe - Moderate production, pretty good, plant succumb to disease early. Would like to try again.

Morado de Fitero - Great, would grow again.

Moruno Anta - Another good one, top 10 for sure

Moruno de Madrid - Low production

Napa Giant - No production

Negrillo de Almoguera - #2 black for 2018

Negro de Cuenca - Nice red, would grow again

Orange Cream - Did not do well

Our Own Pink - A very beautiful and large PL plant, low to moderate production, few but great tasting fruits, would grow again

Perth Pride - Did not do well

Pink Pioneer - Great, ranked right up there with McKinley and McMurray #10

Reverend Michael Keyes - Decent, still in search of good red cherry

Rosella Purple - Did not do well

Scary Larry - Would grow again, good production

Spike - Would grow again, good production

Summer Cider - Low production but sooooo good

Sweet Ozark Orange - Another one with low production but great taste

Tasmanian Chocolate - My best dwarf

Texas Star - Low production

Vorlon - Good production, decent taste, #3 of my 2018 blacks

Wherokowhai - No production

Shell

Shell -- Bolseno will become your favorite for taste, non-stop production and disease resistance! :)

Was thinking of growing Tasmanian Chocolate next year -- but, we don't care for sweet tomatoes. How did yours taste?

Tony

p.s. glad to hear from you!

Tony ..... Looking forward to Bolseno. We liked Tasmanian Chocolate. Definitely not sweet. I'd say balanced. Almost as good as some of our other top performing 2018 blacks.

Shell

Hello, Shell it is good to see you posting again. That is an impressive list of tomato varieties. I had to get out my note pad to take notes on your best. How did your season go? I still have two of the Dark Galaxy plants growing now with tomatoes on them along with some Bolsenos, Brandywine, Brandy Boy, Martha Washington, Carbon, Nepal, Liz Birt, BHN-589, Black from Tula, Sweet Pea, Black Beauty and a couple more I can't think of right now. Did you get any pictures from the season? Would love to see any. It is supposed to be in the 30s again here next week, so I might not have any for much longer.

Tony here was the white eggplant i saw on Johnny's https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/eggplant/italian-eggplants/aretussa-f1-eggplant-seed-3759.html

Here is the Burpee one that I ordered https://www.burpee.com/gardening-supplies/holiday-gift-guide/2019-burpee-superstars-collection-99830R.html

They also had some good sounding "Spicy Mixes" https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/mesclun/mesclun-spicy-mix-54288A.html

https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/lettuce/lettuce-fordhook-favorites-blend-52779A.html

I also got a few more tomato varieties of course

https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/tomato-druzba-56937A.html

They have a deal now that if you put in Burpee20 you get 20% off your entire order. I can never resist the discount sales.

Ordering seeds now. I like to try varieties I have not grown before. Bloody Butcher, red Jelly Bean, New Girl ( improved Early Girl with better flavor), Bolseno, Valentine, and Stupice (grew last year and it was my most productive tomato) I live in the Nevada desert and am not an expert!.

Already have a Stupice, Creole, and a Big Beef going. That's all for this year. Will keep us in tomatoes all summer and then some.