I don't have anything that is completely reliable without any work but my Honey Jar jujube comes close. Its a wonderful tasting fruit which needs no sprays. The only downside is is doesn't pollinate well every year, and the ants go after them (easily solved with tangletrap). These grow in any part of the US with a long hot summer. The blueberries and currant/goose are probably next in line, all they need is netting at harvest. Raspberry and blackberry beds need renewing so they are a bit more work due to that. The only "regular" fruit that might make it in is Tomcot apricot which is early enough that it doesn't get much insect pressure and so I don't have to be so vigilant about spraying. I don't have a reliable and great persimmon, my favorites are Hachiya and Chocolate but I have not gotten consistent crops. Chocolate was doing well for several years but last year it didn't get pollinated, I think the tree that was pollinating it nearly died. Once I get a decent pollinator for Chocolate I think it will be right at the top of this list. Hachiya is not reliably hardy so it doesn't fruit every year. It will probably die to the ground one of these years but I've kept it going for eight years and I'm looking at a real nice crop this year. Scott

I love my Satsuma. For me the fruits ripen relatively eary -- over Fall and into Winter indoors. And they are sweet, easy to peel and seedless. What more could you want? The plants can also take some chill outside in the Fall. They're not nearly as tender as, say Key Lime. Satsumas are among the most hardy of the edible commercial citrus. The only possible downside is the fruits reputedly don't 'store' well on the tree for a long time (unlike grapefruit)...and they tend to bear seasonally (as opposed to Meyer Lemon which can flower and fruit any time of the year). I also have a Ruby Red Grapefruit in a container. I leave the fruit to ripen much of the winter and it gets sweet with time. With more heat it likely would have ripened earlier. Also, indoors it does not get that red coloration, but I don't care. I've heard good things about Oroblanco (which I believe is a hybrid between a white grapefruit and Siamese Sweet pummelo). Generally pummelos don't need as much heat to sweeten up. I also have Meyer lemon and Ponderosa lemon. Lemons are great, but don't compare with Satsumas in my opinion. No experience with Trovita. So, if I had to choose only one citrus to grow, it would probably be a Satsuma! Just one more opinion! I would make sure you have a bright spot indoors for it.

Game on! Let the Tomato Wars begin! LOL! I cracked up when I read your post, Bonnie--a/k/a HighAlt! I decided a few years ago that the biggest problem with growing tomatoes is finding out what works for YOU. I've been getting recommendations here for what to try ever since I got this house and had a place to grow veggies, and sometimes they do well, and sometimes they totally flop! I don't think there was anything wrong with the recommendations for the ones that flopped, I just think the people recommending them had different growing conditions from me. I still haven't found a red that's on my Must Have list, but I did FINALLY find a yellow/orange last year that will most likely be found in my garden into perpetuity! This won't help on this thread because I'm sure it's not available as a plant, but if anyone is wondering, it's Earl of Edgecombe. Set fruit the earliest of my large tomatoes and didn't seem to be much phased by heat--and large flavorful tomatoes. Ripened well when cut and hung in the garage too! It's a keeper for me--but who knows how well it would grow for someone else! But the thing that really cracked me up, HighAlt, was your recommendations for cherries! Hmmm! Too bad we're too far away from each other to do some Pelting! ;-) On the recommendation of several people around here I tried Black Cherry in '08, and I didn't find them to have much flavor at all (Who's gonna do the Pelting now!) For me they also took a LONG time to ripen, and they seemed to ripen just a few at a time, so I never really got a large amount to gorge on at any one time--unlike SunGold. I do totally agree that SunGold has a cracking problem, and if I didn't like the flavor so much I'd be looking for a replacement. BUT, I think I MAY have even found a solution to the cracking problem! When I go on vacation I always take a box of MY tomatoes with me, and in the past most of the SunGolds cracked right when I picked them, and even many of the ones I put in the box to take seemed to crack--sooner or later! This year I stood and Glared at then for a while, trying to figure out what to do--but I REALLY wanted some with me so I finally decided to cut off the whole "clusters" of tomatoes, which included many ripe ones and others ranging from near ripe to mostly green. There are a LOT of tomatoes on each SunGold cluster! I packed them carefully in the box, fully expecting them to split when I pulled them off the "cluster" but found, to my amazement, that when I started "picking" them, they weren't splitting! So I don't know what made the difference--is has to have something to do with the lack of water available after I cut them, but they rarely split if they've been cut from the vine with "stem" still attached, and then kept that way for "a while" before they're removed from the stem! I will be experimenting this year to see how long you need to wait to prevent the splitting! I started harvesting all my cherries like that after vacation last year, but there wasn't enough time left in the growing season to come to any good conclusions. My Must Have red cherry is Sweet Baby Girl, but that won't help here, again, because I'm sure it's not available as a plant! Even the seed is somewhat hard to find! But Sweet Baby Girl, IMO, has a GREAT flavor (not the same as SunGold), and it does NOT crack! Almost never! Don't remember why I tried that one, but I sure am glad I did! Interestingly, I have "discussed" SBG with Digit recently, and he said he had grown it too, but described a small plant that could be grown in a pot. NOT the same thing I have! Mine get over 6' tall and would EAT a pot! I'm sure we're not talking about growing conditions in this case, and we apparently got seed for two different things! From Digit's list Yellow Pear was one of the very first cherries I tried--I think because I remembered growing it when I was a kid--but for me it was a complete catastrophe! I DID get tomatoes, but they were mushy and mostly flavorless! They were bad enough that I didn't even eat most of them--threw them in the trash! Home grown tomatoes--in the trash! I don't believe even the good Illinois Dirt they were grown in when I was a kid could explain the difference in this case, so I don't know why they were so bad, but I will not be wasting time with them again. I haven't seen this linked around here for a while, and I recently managed to find it again after losing everything to the hard drive crash, so here is a link to the Cornell Tomato Base. It's set to list them by DTM (you need to scroll past the ones that don't have DTM listed), but you can change it to look them up by ratings or variety name or some other things! The ratings come from Real Life people who have grown them! On this list SunGold is rated 4.5, Sweet Baby Girl is 4.0, Black (and Chocolate) Cherry is 4.0, Sweet 100, Sweet Million, and Super Sweet 100 are all 4.0. you can check out the specific comments about each if you click on the individual varieties! Like Bonnie/Lucky, I've had problems with Mortgage Lifter! I had grown it in the past with no luck at all, but wound up growing it again this year since, in my search for the perfect yellow/orange, I had neglected to buy seed for some new red varieties! This year I finally did get some tomatoes off of it, and they were large and pretty flavorful, but they were very late, and it definitely had the hiccups when it got hot out! I'll "keep it on the back burner" but will be testing out some new ones this year. Bloody Butcher, another one that came highly recommended around here, suffered a TOTAL Failure to Thrive for me, and I never got any tomatoes at all off of it--but there are definitely other folks around here who LOVE it! Another highly recommended one here, Thessaloniki, did very little for me. Grew it twice and both times I got VERY few small tomatoes and I rated the flavor as: very average! Others in our area swear by it! Had tried Kellogg's Breakfast in the past and not gotten much/anything but decided to give it another whirl this past year and I did, pretty late, get some big and pretty tasty tomatoes, but Earl of Edgecombe was better and more productive. It'll be another of my Back Burner ones for possible future reconsideration! So, in my opinion, I guess the moral of the story--with or without The Pelting--is that you really just need to try different varieties and figure out which are going to work the best for you, and which ones have the flavor you like best. Taste is a very subjective thing, and while reading reviews might help a LITTLE bit, the best review comes from your tongue and your sense of smell! I still very much recommend you go with more than just one, Aloha, because if you just grow one and happen to get one that flops, or that just doesn't Tickle Your Taste Buds, you might decide they're not at all worth growing--and they are SO, sosososo, worth growing, even with the yearly catastrophes we all experience! Still picking a few tomatoes from last year, Skybird P.S. If you check the drop-down menu under "crop," the Cornell site has listings and ratings for WAY more than just tomatoes!. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Tomato Base

i am convienced i need new seed for AGG. **** Tom, you've got my e-mail address. Just send me your home address, b'c it would take me too long to find it again, and I'll be glad to send you some AGG seeds. I think they're probably 2003 or 04 but germination has stayed good. Not a general offer folks. Sorry. AGG has been one of my faves since Chuck sent me the seeds lo those many years ago. It's always one of the latest for me and has always loaded up wonderfully. I remember one year in the past where I had two plants and picked a half bushel off each plant at one time. And don't anyone ever tell me that yellow/gold tomatoes are bland until and unless you've grown AGG. LOL It was a lucky find for Chuck and in the back of his mind he always wondered if it was an OP derivative of a hybrid. He got the seeds from a friend in VA and apparently his friend knew nothing more about them. But speaking for myself I don't know of any other yellow/gold that has that taste. Which of course is a somewhat meaningless statement since I'd have to have grown all the large yellow/gold PL beefsteak varieties known and that's an impossibility. LOL Carolyn