Hi Corrie,

I am only growing two different tomatoes this year. One is a Patio tomato, the other is a grape tomato(my fav). They both have lots of "green" fruits and flowers. Still waiting to try it...I live in Central FL, two hours south of Orlando and with the exception of the last few days,we have had unseasonably cold Nov and early Dec. Like you said it has slowed the progress a bit. I've had to cover my plants with frost cloth several times already. We've had a few upper 30's.

Hopefully, in a couple of weeks or so, I will be able to taste the fruits of my labor. I have one potted and one in ground. I bought them both(Bonnie's).

Good luck with your tomatoes!!

Corrie
You are right we should be bragging or complaining about our tomatoes by now. Mine are all started from seed from GW'ers.

My complaints:
Goose Creek croaked.
Cuostralee got taken out by whitefly, trying again currently.

Big Zac took forever to set fruit and currently has 3 on it. This supposedly gets humongous, we'll see about that...

Black Cherry is taking a LONG time for fruits and last spring it had tons of them.

Dr. Carolyn-gorgeous plant with no fruit just blossoms

Good ones:
Marianna's Peace-lots of fruits, good taste

Opalka-plant looks spindly but putting out respectable quantity of fruits

Galina (hybrid)-the star of the garden with lots of fruit and good size. Resistant to whitefly.

Giant Oxheart-only one seedling survived to adulthood but nice (non-giant)tomatoes on it

Stupice-started seed late but it's coming on fast with fruit

Got some others in the small stage (Jersey Giant, Italian Paste, etc but no fruits yet)

Sorry to hear that your Sweet 100 was a flop. Last time I grew it it was great tasting and LOTS of cherries.

Denise
(will post photos later when time available)

Hi Corrie,

Guess you've been reading my posts about how beautifully the tomato plants I got at the Swap are doing, but also about my battle with whitefly. Seems the soap spray has helped in that regard. I also had to spray with BT for loopers. Most of my plants are over 5 feet tall and all are setting fruit. Two of the real tall ones have these tomatoes that are long like peppers. I think they are Agro? Another real tall one has lots of regular looking tomatoes on it. Then there's the Roma which is shorter but wider with several of the plum shaped tomato on it, and finally there's the Goose Creek....just a tiny seedling when I received it and now full of lovely foliage, blossoms, and about three feet tall! I've noticed a few of the blossoms have become little tomatoes. Whoa Hoo!

I've been giving them all lots of TLC and it looks like they'll probably be rewarding me with lucious fruits. Hope some of them will start ripening soon and that I can keep the birds away!

Sheri :-)

We are just starting to get major harvests right now. I've already had to make salsa because I can't keep up. I am saving seeds, too. So far we've had Amazon chocolate, Arkansas traveler, Sabre Ukraine, Galapagos, Granny Smith, Kellog's Breakfast, Pineapple bicolor and several others.

Good job Mistiaggie !
I like to keep a good variety too, the salsa that I make can be frozen and use it later.

Good tomato season everybody!

Willy

Only one plant survived the summer - and I'd given up on it because it grew some but never bloomed or set fruit. Until October. My organic Amish Paste (plum) tomatoe vine now covers a good 15 feet of fence and the tomatoes just keep coming, growing in clusters like grapes. Because we have frequent dips into freezing temps and frost, I've left the tall grasses and weeds as protection for the (potted) plant. I have plenty of the seed left, so will try planting them in late summer next time. Right now, I'm just watching them and shaking my head in wonder. cora

Forgot one that I'm growing:

Southern Star -D- excellent disease resistance. Very early for me this year, healthy plant, 18 inches tall with 11 tennis ball size green tomatoes and still growing fast.

Pug, this year started out cold early, and according to the Farmers Almanac, is supposed to stay cold very late.
Isn't it strange that the Farmer's Almanac can get the weather right, and all these "scientists" can't? LOL

Denise, you have a couple of plants that's on my 'to do' list for next year. Let me know how Galina was for you and if it really was resistant to whitefly. I have my ammo ready this year. Pantene to start, Pyganic as a backup, and the heavy artillery if I need it.
Stupice is on my list for next year too.
You're right, we are in high braggin or whining season right now! LOL
I'm still too cool down here for vining cherry types. Around Feb/Mar I'll replace some of them with Black Cherry and Everglades Wild for the summer. Yellow Pear is the only one I've found that will produce and taste right for me in the winter.
Oh, one more thing, I finally gave up on Goose Creek and won't even try it again. It was like a disease and vermin magnet for me. Whitefly, thrips, mites you name it, it got it, then went down and tried to take all the other plants with it.

Hey Sheri, yep I've been reading about your problems. I start with the Pantene, then later when it's hot, move on to Pyganic which really knocks all that vermin down.
Good luck with the Goose!

Hey Aggie, you have several on my 'to do' list. Arkansas, I have grown and did great. I should put it back on my list, but there's still a lot more that I want to try first.
Galapagos, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Pineapple are on my list too along with some more from Hawaii.

Willy, I know you're up to your eyeballs in tomatoes, so spill the beans! LOL

Cora, if you really like that plant, I would start some more seed right now as a backup for later. You still have a long growing season ahead.
I'm starting seed in another week for my second go around.
With a little luck, and some shade cloth, I'm good until at least June and sometimes July.

I'm trying a new fertilizer this week. Al and JaG on the container forum convinced me to "tinker" with what I'm doing this year - it is the year to try new plants and new things. ;-)

It's made by Dyna-Gro. A combination of mixing two of their liquid fertilizers together.
Foliage Pro + Pro-Tekt, both diluted.

We'll see how this does.

Good morning to everybody, have a great day!
Corrie

Great job mistieaggie!! Great looking tomatoes!!

I am a "HUGE" fan of Al and his sidekick "jag". I have learned so much from Al, especially when it comes to container growing. They are good people! Very helpful...I also use the Foliage Pro and
Pro tekt. It is an awesome product. My biggest complaint is its very hard to find(without paying shipping, lol...)
Closest place to me is two hours away!

Here's my grape tomatoes and patio...just waiting till they ripen :o)
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Corrie

You sure are funny. Is nice to have fun and don't take anything seriously. That is why we garden, is therapeutic!

I came with ammunition from Phoenix, there you could fry on egg on the street. Imagine what it did to the tomatoes!

I am learning here. In fact I will never learn enough because there is always new varieties and new weapons. LOL

I am sure you will all do fine and be eating tomatoes soon.

Willy

Wow, I'm so far behind. I expected ripe fruit by now. I have several plants that are five-feet high and escaping their cages, but nothing harvested yet. I do have several that have set fruit:

2 Pete's cherry mix
A green zebra, or mystery plant, not sure yet.
Ferline
Roma VF
domito

I'm learning that folks don't generally grow ferline or domito down here. I can't remember what attracted me about them, but since they've got little tomatoes on them, I'm happy for the moment. We'll see how they do long term.

The seeds that didn't take at all:
krasnodar and everglades cherry.

The Cherokee purple is HUGE, but isn't flowering yet.

Black cherry, black pear, sprite and sungold are all kind of small and not flowering yet.

The unknown yellow from the farmer's market is huge and quite suddenly covered with flowers. No fruit yet.

Legend is big, no flowers yet.

Red robin has not grown an inch since I put it in the ground. Husky red cherry had it's stem munched completely through right after I set it out. It has put out new growth, but it's very small at this point.

Marmande is looking healthy, but not flowering yet. (another seed I'm not sure why I bought. It must have had something to recommend it, but I honestly can't remember.)

The real surprise has been the domito, which I think I got because the seeds were free with something else. I put it in a 3-gallon pot (where I probably should have put one of the pot-recommended cherries!) I was planning to give it to someone and when I didn't get that done and it outgrew it's starter pot, I just stuck it in what I had lying around, still intending to give it away because I was out of space in the veggie bed. Well, it's less than two-feet high and has several little fruits on it!

I just switched the composters and spread compost around everything today. I also planted some borage on Willy's suggestion at the back of the veggie bed to see if it brings some polinators back there. And on marilyn's suggestion, I've been out tapping flowers every so often. It gives me something to do when I'm out just staring hopefully at my tomatoes.

Bugs-wise, so far, I'm just battling caterpillars, and not too many of them. I'm just squishing them, which still makes me grimace each time.

I clearly need to try some of the varieties y'all are having so much luck with!

I also have borlotti beans that I've harvested (then the plants all died), marketmore cukes in pots that are setting fruit, hyacinth beans that are really lovely, but no beans yet. Kentucky pole bean is healthy, no food off it yet though. Purple hulls have all died, snap peas won't climb and seem to be dying. Broccoli is a long way from producing. Lots of arugula and herbs.

Susannah

Corrie
A couple of things:
My Galina is not the same Galina generally available. I'll call it Galina Hazera because it is hybrid seed not generally available. Mine is a round red tomato, very bountiful. I don't have any extra seeds of that but I can send you Stupice seed. email me :-)

Are you sure Al said to mix Floiage Pro + Proteck? I thought they should be separately applied at different times. I may be wrong but thought mixing was not good. LMK. I use them too. Along with Miracle Gro very occasionally.

Whitefly: I guess it took out 10 plants at various sizes. Really annoying when it's a full-grown plant about to fruit. Grrr. I have one plant with it that has fruits!! I will experiment if the fruits ever mature to see if those seeds/future plants are resistant.

Thnaks for your Goose Creek comments. Makes me feel less a failure when so many others rave about it.

I'll be starting winter tomato seeds soon. Today took cuttings from Big Zac and Galina Hazera which I've never tried before. Hope it works.

mistiaggie and pugluvr
Great photos. Love to see others hard work show off.

Denise

Well, remember I was a MONTH late (mid-October) getting started due to my decision to use an in-ground pot-in-pot model....We've just started harvesting fruit, and my garden is rather schizophrenic as I just could not bring myself to throw out the seedlings that somehow never made it to a any swaps...I only designated thirteen spaces to maters, but ended up with thirty five again this year
:-( :-)

ALL FROM SEEDS:

Beefmaster - great as usual

Big Beef - impressive, uniform shape, almost as good as the Beefmasters

Brandy Boy - also impressive but too soon for final assessment.

Jesetter - Too soon so say, looks a lot like Big Beef, uniform fruit but not harvested yet, soon.

Tons of cherries that were NOT staked/caged and thus are a vining/crawling mess; Black Cherry, Yellow Pear, Dr. Carolyn, Sweet Chelsea...the only one easily identifiable is the HCR.

I'll send some pictures, probably on Christmas day, just got back from a much needed week off.

pug, great looking healthy plants!

Willy, ;-D

Susannah, Everglades does the same thing for me too. I can never get it to 'hatch' where I want it to, and never at all until it's good and hot out.
And you're making me want to try ferline and domito, see how that works! LOL

Denise, thank you a million. As luck would have it, I ordered seed yesterday and ordered Stupice in that batch. See, I've already decided that I need to grow some from seed after all. But starting now, I have time to get them up and ready for spring.
I will take you up on some of that Galina Hazera in the future when you have some seed you can spare. ;-)

"Are you sure Al said to mix Floiage Pro + Proteck? I thought they should be separately applied at different times. I may be wrong but thought mixing was not good. LMK."

LOL I thought the same thing. It was JaG that mixed them. He was trying to mix a concentrated solution so he could just measure one time. He about glued himself to his garage floor.
They mix fine in water at the rate we use them. I mixed them together today.

"Whitefly: I guess it took out 10 plants at various sizes. Really annoying when it's a full-grown plant about to fruit. Grrr."

This is what I do to knock them down, I have a lot of citrus that gets them too.
First, a good soaking in Pantene clarifying shampoo. Late in the afternoon, wait 30 mins and rinse off.
That gets WF and a lots of other things you might not see.

When it gets a little warmer and drier, I hit them with Pyganic. That takes them out immediately. No need to rinse off.

Later in the season, we start getting rain and heat and bugs. That's when I switch to Serenade and Spinosad.

Goose Creek is the most over rated waste of good potting soil I've ever tried, and I tried it three years in a row.
I have grown better commercial fruit than that thing. At least the commercials actually bothered to put out some fruit! (LOL feel better? ;-)

Tom (and Cath), I meant to tell you. Much later in the year, when the sun starts getting my pots too hot, I just wrap them in bubble wrap with Al foil on the outside. That's about the same time I put up the shade cloth too.
Let me know how Brandy Boy does for you, ok? It's on my list of hybrids for next year.

thank guys,
Corrie

OH BOY where do I begin, I really meant to take photos today. I am harvesting Yellow Pears daily from a 7 foot tomato tree!! I trim the branches but it just keeps growing! Denise, the Big Zac is weird!Looked like it was giving no fruit and falling over, dropping blossome--now it has tons of clusters and new growth and blossoms and baby maters!!! Go figger. Goose Creek has always been elusive to me but I have 3 nice plants this year...I'll save ya some seeds.What I had marked as a Black Pear from your seeds is NOT it is a huge plant with nice ripley fruit.
I also have fruit/blossoms on Better Bush, Sunmaster, an interesting cross of 'SungoldXJulietteXBlack Cherry' and fruit is coming up on my 'Sweet Baby Girl' and 'Sugary' Cherry Toms. I have many more plants coming along. 2-3 baskets with Red Robins and Tumbling Toms. Planted out a Porter and a Health Kick today. I put my Matina in a small pot and I am begging my neighbors to take some plants off my hands! Pictures, I promise pics!!

"OH BOY where do I begin,"

Where the h3ll have you been?? LOL start there! ;-)

'SungoldXJulietteXBlack Cherry' Now that sounds interesting! A combination of two very resistant plants and one great flavor. Let me know how that does, I'm excited for you!

Matina is on my short list for next year.

Goose never did well for me until the last year I grew it, and then it was only because I used the nuclear option. ;-)

Corrie

I started way to late with my 'maters. But I think we'll all have really great tasting tomatoes from this unseasonably cold weather! (I'm not a tomoato fan, but like them chopped up in salsa, or plucking a little yellow baby off the stem and into my mouth now and then.

Regarding pollination, (thanks Susannah!) the backyard powderpuff positively HUMS with bees. It's an old Fla. landscape plant, and really draws the good bees. Other attributes: produces nice leaf litter to lighten up potting soil and makes ya smile around the holidays.

Here's a pic:

There's a bee in this blossom (left lower), usually there are two or three bees per blossom. (This bush HUMS from a distance of 3 - 4 feet.)

This bush was probably planted in the early 60's, and could have been trimmed to stay smaller. This time of year, I'm glad she's as big as she is. Definitely a bee magnet. Retarded, beloved dog sometimes jumps into the tree trying to snap bees, possibly because of all the buzzing.

Anyway, that's what's pollinating the stuff in my yard.

I seem to have trouble with my tomatoes every year and only get so-so harvests. This year I got seedlings from the earthbox place because they were so cheap (50 cents) as compared to HD. I got two Tycoon (touted to have great heat and disease resistance), a FL 91, and a grape tomato- Jolly Elf. I've had a problem with worms, somewhat better now that I'm spraying diligently with Bt. However, I've lost about half of the yield to worms. The tomatoes have been so slow to ripen, I suspect because of so many cool days, and have not been setting fruit lately because of the same.

The tycoon have been relatively prolific, but the worms really like them. I'm not crazy about the taste or mealy texture with a hard outside shell. Maybe it's the weird weather? Anyway, I will not grow them again, and am using them up, but not really enjoying them.

The FL 91 I think are pretty good tasting, but are only now starting to ripen. I've had these before and like them. If available, I'll grow them again.

The grape tomato is Jolly Elf. I really love this tomato. Very prolific, disease free and the taste is terrific. Very sweet with good texture. This has been my favorite. I've grown sweet 100's cherries and another grape, but Jolly Elf is my favorite by far. I will try to find it again, for sure.

I've got to say that I have three tomato plants that have sprung up from applying my homemade compost to the garden. They are the healthiest looking plants that I have and are just starting to set fruit. I have no idea what they'll be, but I'm really looking forward to trying them. In the future, I think I will try to duplicate this. For some reason, they seem not to be affected by nematodes so far. The other tomatoes I'm growing in earthboxes because of bad nematode experiences.

In August I tried sowing brandywine and a couple of other heirloom tomatoes and failed miserably. They just failed to thrive. I won't try them again for a while.

All in all, I would recommend Jolly Elf grape tomato, and volunteer tomatoes from homemade compost! We'll see what spring brings.

Anna

Ima,

What a Beautiful and colorful bush!! I need to plant one of those. I need a bee magnet.

Like Tom, I also didn't plant till mid Oct,I can only eat so much tomatoes myself. One of the reasons I only planted two. I like homemade salsa, hopefully I have enough ripen to make some.

Thanks for sharing your nice photo!!

Good Luck with everyone's tomatoes.

Marilyn, I can just picture my pup getting frustrated enough with all that enticing buzzing to just jump into the bush. He's a dope like that too.

But the bush itself is gorgeous. Now I want one!

Susannah

Cindy I saw a 'SungoldXJulietteXBlack Cherry' growing at Marion's today! Love ya' sista, way to go!

Susannah and Lisa, I've got a bucketload of seeds to share, and possibly some saplings. I should go out there now to see if there's saplings. When I pluck off spent blossoms during the day, I get dive bombed by bees. They haven't stung me yet, but they warn me not to mess with their territory. This is the first year since I've lived here that hummers haven't joined the Powder Puff party. (Cardinals have a nest in there though.)

And I'm ashamed to say my seeds didn't get started until late November and early December, even my special heirloom pear shaped yellows.

Oh yes Marilyn, I want some of those seeds, or a baby at the spring swap. Not sure where I'll put it, but I have big plans for this little plot.

I have bees all abuzz in my golden dewdrop, which is gorgeous and overgrown right now, weeping all over a couple tomato plants. And the bees get buzzy about me getting in there, but none have bothered to sting me yet.

I'm beginning to wonder why they're not polinating the cherokee purple, which is now growing up into the dang golden dewdrop in a mess of namesake native and veggie that I didn't really plan. I had no intention of either of them getting so big, but now that they're all grown together, I'd like some tomatoes out of that mess.

I've got better boy, beefmaster, roma and patio tomatoes. 4 in the ground and 6 in pots. All are producing, the true battle if the dog, he loves to eat them! I got him last night with a big beautiful better boy that I have been watching. He already crunched into it!

In the beginning of the season, I was worried, we had so much rain everything looked terrible! Things are looking better now. Just had to bt some plants, caterpillar damage is showing up and finding droppings on the ground. I would pick'em off, just cannot find the suckers.