Dawn, I surely appreciate all the suggestions of tomatoes for next summer. I'll be starting my plants from seed next winter and hope to get an early start in the garden with Walls of Water. I got such a late start this year, what with having a late freeze on April 15, then the chickens eating my plants, the terrible winds, etc. So I really had my worst tomato production year, ever. Here's hoping next summer will go much better. :) I had never heard of California Gold until this year, but I really like it. I remember reading in one of your earlier posts that anything with "Gold" or "Sun" in the name would generally do well in Oklahoma's heat, and that was certainly the case with California Gold. It's been my best producer this year. The fruits have all been uniform sized and really pretty too. Who knows how large they would be if they'd gotten decent rainfall, because my Roma tomatoes have all been very small. My Sungold cherry tomato plants burnt up in the greenhouse before I got a chance to plant them, and I sure missed growing them this summer. They were the only tomatoes I grew from seed and I got a very late start with them, too late to start some more after my seedlings died. I LOVE Sungold tomatoes. I don't think I am going to waste my time growing Brandywine anymore. I love the flavor, but mine just never produce many tomatoes. This year I think we got 2-3 tomatoes and all had BER. GRRR. I prefer the taste of Cherokee Purple even though I nearly gag sometimes looking at their bruised looking flesh, ROTFL. I will look over your tomato lists again of your favorites, what did best in your gardens in our heat, and get some ideas on what to grow next year. Thanks for all your tips and suggestions. Dawna

I grew PP in 2009. It was a healthy plant and set quite a number of fruit. Needless to say, we were looking forward to them. Then -- bam! -- late blight came to town and we had to destroy every single tomato plant, including the luscious-looking (up to that point) PP. Obviously I can't comment on the taste because none of the fruits were close to mature. But it did have a good number of medium-to-large fruits and quite a few blossoms before it went to the great garden in the sky. :-) I keep meaning to try it again, but always get sidetracked by other varieties and PP gets forgotten. Hmmmm, it's not too late this year. Thanks for the reminder!

I grew mine from seed as well, and all my plants grew very well at first, but the cherries grew big and bushy and shadowed the CPs. Not to mention the cages are too small and the tops got heavy and droopy. And the suckers have grown into the growing space of other tomato plants! The CPs seem to have stopped growing. I cut some of the growing tips off the cherries and once I get all the tomatoes off them will trim them down a bit. Unfortunately recent flooding rains here in Pensacola have caused excessive splitting of my toms. Next year I realize I need to space my plants out a bit more and give them larger cages to grow in. Also prep the soil a bit better and will try pruning a bit more, as I pretty much let all the suckers grow. Maybe I'll get better looking yields next year. I got some pics of some of the problems, and will try to post them tomorrow. Thanks for the responses guys!

The provided by Carolyn is very interesting and pertinent to what I've been trying to say here for months now ... that the "Cherokee presence" so often cited as "evidence" of a connection between Cherokee Purple of eastern Tennessee with Indian Stripe of southern Arkansas is not evident. Look at the closely again. All the routes of the forced march of the Cherokee Nation are thru Memphis thence across east central Arkansas, up the Arkansas River thru Little Rock and up into northwestern Arkansas where indeed there is a Cherokee presence in the northwestern corner of Arkansas adjacent to the Western Nations. Look at the map again. The only migration route through the south-central area of Arkansas where Indian Stripe was grown by Clyde Burson, Sr. was the route taken by the Choctaw and Chickasaw (hence my comment in an earlier post above). Strong, Arkansas, home of Mr. Burson and his Indian Stripe tomato is due south of Camden, Arkansas, and right near (like 12 miles north of) the Louisiana border. See Camden on the map? It's where the red dotted line (Chocktaw route) and the purple dotted line (Chickasaw route) merge into solid red and purple lines. Add to the missing link of evidence for a "Cherokee presence" in or near Strong, Arkansas the fact that such a large, smooth and dense fleshed tomato as Indian Stripe (same for Cherokee Purple) was not in existence at the time of the Cherokee migration, and did not come into existence until decades later and by the breeding efforts of European-Americans, the most likely source of original seeds for both Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe was commercial seed vendors. Now it's entirely possible that Native Americans obtained the original seeds for both varieties from commercial seed vendors or from neighbors who did the same ... but again, there is nothing but third hand hearsay and supposition that either Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe was grown by the Cherokee People, much less that the two varieties are genetically related any more closely than they individually are related to many other varieties, strains, mutations or whatever. It may be pertinent to remember that Fejee Improved, a "maroon colored, dense fleshed beefsteak" tomato, was widely available commercially several generations ago (like in both eastern Tennessee and southern Arkansas). Again, just my opinion. Bill