Yellow pear.Still going strong. Sun Gold and Sweet 100 are almost played out due to spider mites and Plague X that swept thru everything but YP seems resistent. Just pulled and trashed Early girl ,jubelli, parks whopper,old german. They were just half dead spider might factories at this point.

Our big toms haven't yet begun ripening, with a couple of exceptions. OSU Blue was okay. SuperBoy was tasteless and the skin was horrid -- thick & tough and we had to spit it out.

Speaking of spitters, Chiapas Wild! Ew! Holy nastiness! I'll see if it improves but, dang, I'm afraid to taste it again. This makes only the second spitter for me ever. Sweet 100 (or was it millions?) was the first I ever had to spit out. And, believe me, it takes a lot for me to spit out a tomato. LOL

Okay, I so didn't answer your question but I can't pass up a tomato thread. ;-) Sungold is the star of the show so far...

Diane

Biggest producers this year: JD's Special C Tex, Indian Stripe, Gary O Sena, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Cluster Goliath, Early Goliath, Goliath, Russian Persimmon, Jaune Flammee', Big Boy, Big Beefsteak, Better Boy, Fargo, Ildi, SunGold, Matt's Wild Cherry, Mountain Magic, Husky Red Cherry, Astro and Heidi.

Of course, I am later than most of you because of my location so I can't yet name the best of flavor or the heavy producers. I have had Cluster Goliath, Early Goliath, and Nebraska Wedding along with cherries and currants. I still like Tess's Land Race for providing that early, tiny burst of tomato flavor in early Spring before anything else is ready. They are such tiny fruits but they have a nice taste and are a great food for snacking in the garden.

This is my first year to plant Jimmy Nardello peppers and they have produced a lot of peppers already before many others are ready to pick. Overall my sweet peppers are doing quite well. My hot peppers haven't had enough water and I have lost a few. I used a Biker Billy Jalapeno in a dish the other night and was careful to remove the seeds since I was afraid the lack of water would make it really hot, but it was just fine.

In a good year I would be picking a basket of produce everyday but this year I can usually carry it in my hands without the basket. LOL

I am hoping that I will get more fruit set this week. We got a nice slow rain last night (finally) and today the temp is 82. Although the heat index is 87 and you feel like you need to swim through the air it is so humid, it is such an improvement over the last couple of weeks.

It is so quite when I go outside. Usually when I am outside in summer I just hear one boat motor or jet skii after another, but this year the lake is mostly silent. It has just been a strange year all around.

Cherokee Purple is doing great and has a wonderful, rich flavor. Love Striped Roman for a paste and it's very prolix, not s fresh eater, though. Arkansas Traveler was late but is coming on and has a great, real tomato taste. Marglobe was early and one plant must have given me almost forty pounds but the taste was so-so. Very commercial tasting. But, can't complain about any tomato that just keeps on giving.
Reisentraube is a spitter and I'm feeding the cherries to my chickens. Great for training my little Banties to come to me!

No tomato stars in my garden, but in the garden I picked for a friend while she's been in Switzerland the Sungold was definitely the star. I've never grown it but will now. It will be half the size of hers and produce 1/3 as well, but that would be fine. Her garden does better while she's away than mine does when I'm home all summer.

The blacks have produced well for me so far and I love the flavor. The deer took out one Cherokee Purple plant before the tomatoes ripened, but the remaining plant has had good flavored maters. Also Black Brandywine. But the Black Krim and Vorlon have both been more productive. Early Girl has gone right on setting tomatoes despite the heat so haven't sacrificed it to hornworms this year as some years. Thessaloniki and Arkansas Traveler both doing well and except for color (Thes red, AR T pink) very similar in taste and size and productivity.

Those that didn't do well for me. This is my third year to raise Tess's and I don't know what is different about my garden but so far not impressed. They are early true, but also tough skinned and bland. I will try one more year and see if I can get a better mater. The Black Cherry and Sweet 100 are doing well as is a Gold plum type that I bought as a mix of gold plums--I also bought a mix of heirlooms but will never do that again because can't identify them when they ripen. Two that haven't done well at all are Raad Red and Costoluto Genovese. The former is a magnet for striped blister beetles and the latter for green and brown stink bugs which ruin the fruit. One that did just fine but doesn't meet my needs is San Marzano, a paste type. It's very prolific so I have mixed them with other maters and frozen them for winter.

It is too early for me to make any judgements. I'm getting 1-3 a week. And that may stop for a few weeks. I will decide about mid August how many and what will remain the rest of the season. There are a few that have caught my attention. But due to starting over after the hail mine are at least 3-4 weeks behind normal. I may be throwing out some new names in another 6-8 weeks. Jay

Dorothy, I am surprised you are having good luck with Thessaloniki. I only planted it one year and it was a very good tomato year and it didn't set one fruit the entire season. It was the only vine that didn't produce. Maybe I should give it another try.

Sorry about your Tess, because mine are very good. I get a handful everytime I walk by the vine. They are tiny little things but the flavor is intense in my garden and it doesn't have a tough skin either. There is one problem with Tess and it seems most of those volunteer vines that came up in my garden were Tess children. I hate tough skin and that is the reason that I only grew Sprite one time.

I finally had my first BLT tonight and it was wonderful. It is hard to beat a sandwich with Wright's bacon and a fresh tomato. I sliced both a Nebraska Wedding and Early Goliath and while the NW was better, both were good. In fact, after dinner I was eating some of the leftover slices just plain with fresh basil leaves on top.

For several weeks Al had been scheduled to do a flag retirement ceremony tonight. This week our county was added to the burn ban. He still got it done after getting a special event burn permit from the fire department. It was a bit of an odd situation since we got about a half inch of rain last night and this morning so it was pretty safe but, of course, still required permission.

Jay, I sure hope you have some good tomatoes because you have sure worked hard for them.

4th of July is my only good one.

Picked the first couple of Juane Flammees yesterday. I'd not grown them for a couple of years and had forgotten how wonderful they are. I just about died from the taste overload. The only thing that saved my life is that I only got 1/4 of one of them, due to having to share with the other seven members of this tomato-crazy family. LOL

Diane

Here is the remainder of my first big tomato of the year...Cherokee Purple. I knew I should have picked it yesterday when it started changing colors. I hope it was good. If I didn't live in the city, I'd have squirrel BBQ tonight.

Too early to say here. I got Baker Family Heirloom planted in April, but apparently the wet and cold affected it, as some have died and only one plant is actually growing. Black Cherry is looking good. Looks like a good year to have planted a lot of small fruited tomatoes. Pruden's Purple has plants which are growing well, but no fruit set as yet. The same goes for Roma. I don't eat Romas unless they are cooked. But the variety is a winner for versatility and easy production of cooking tomatoes.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Best cherry tomato - SunGold
Best indeterminate - Big Beef
Best determinate - Bella Rosa

My container indeterminates are essentially finished, but in-ground plants are still producing.
I'm surprised, but my determinates are now producing a second set of larger fruits.
It has been a such a great year that I am (almost) getting tired of BLTs and canning salsa.

Gardenrod,

Often I'll have 2 or 3 flushes of fruit on determinates and that is fairly typical of many of the determinates in our climate.

I hit tomato overload a while back too, but now that production is dwindling, I'm starting to worry about running out of tomatoes. I think most of mine are about done setting fruit---even a lot of the cherry types are stalling. Our highs have been mostly in the 104-107 range for the last couple of weeks, so the tomatoes are not happy campers.

Carol, I'm glad Al got to do his ceremony. At the present time our county is not giving burn permits to anyone at all, even though in previous years they have done so (on a limited basis) during a burn ban. In the last 5 days, we have had three large "page all" fires, where all 15 departments in the county are paged out to one large fire. We've never had three page alls in one week before, much less in 5 days.

It is too hot to be out there at fires for hours on end. I'd rather be home picking or eating or canning tomatoes or, as far as that goes, I'd rather be home doing anything at all.

Scott, If there is a tomato plant that is a more reliable producer in our heat than Fourth of July, I cannot imagine what it would be.

Super Boy produces as well for me as Fourth of July but the flavor is nothing to get excited about.

Diane, No one in my family but me has had any of the Jaune Flammee' tomatoes this year, because I stand there in the garden and eat them as fast as I can pick them.

Dorothy, For me, Tess's has always had amazing flavor. Since you have so much more rainfall than I do here, I wonder if the moisture is affecting their flavor.

Dawn

gardenrod - It is nice that someone is having a great year. Today is the first day that I have picked more than I could carry in without a container. I went to the garden without a container and was glad I had on a long shirt because I just picked enough to fill the 'pouch' I made out of the front of my shirt tail, but I am still getting Cluster Goliath, Early Goliath, Nebraska Wedding, Sungold, and Tess and an occasional one from a couple others. It has been a real eye-opener in what should be planted for earlies in my garden, and has been much more apparent than in other years.

Don't know what my problem is with Tess. Maybe it is the location which is on the fence. I have worked some compost and ashes into the soil, but it is still a much newer spot than the garden proper. Now that I have large CRW cages, I plan to put one into the older area next year.

Carol, I don't know why Thessaloniki didn't bear for you. I grew my first ones from a pk of bonus seeds from Baker's three years ago and was so impressed that I've grown it each year since.

I am also having a good year...kinda. I have lost several tomatoes to fruitworm and had two Cherokee Purples that looked just like Tulsastorm's. But I have put up about a half bushel and have another bushel ready, plus have had enough to share with friends and family. I planted 46 plants this year which is a lot for me.

I'm such a noob, I'm sort of like "my favorite tomato is one I can eat." I'm thrilled to have anything edible coming off my plants. The only productive ones have been my hybrid cherries and hybrid roma. Some of the skins on the cherries have been a bit thick, but I think it's due to the weather. They continue to flower and seem to be setting fruit, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the fruit setting - I'm too busy scouting for breakers (after I lost the first roma of the season to a rouge squirrel gang).

I'm hopeful all the beautiful heirlooms I got at the Fling will shape up for fall - only a handful of blooms, very rarely, and not a single fruit. Even with bloom booster, nothing... trying to nurse them through to the fall so I can taste a "Real" tomato!

Forgot to mention, my favorite way to eat these has been a roasted garlic triscuit, topped with a schmear of goat cheese, chopped fresh chives, a half cherry tomato or roma slice, with a tiny bit of kosher salt on top.

The way I said that it sounds like I just eat one... let me assure you, that's not the case. A glass of wine, a plate of these babies... great after-work snack.