Whew! Let me just say keep reading, here and elsewhere, keep asking questions, and keep growing.

Pay attention to early, mid, late to cover the season with fresh ripe tomatoes. There are great varieties in each category. Early varities especially can give you ripe tasty toms up to a month and a half earlier than our beloved beefsteaks planted out at the same time. Yes. They're important to note.

That said, I'm with you on Sudduth's BW (Late). You might also love Julia Child (Late) in the beefsteak cat. I do.

Yellow/Orange, gotta love Platfoot's BW Yellow (Late), Golden Monarch (Mid/Late), Golden Sunray (Mid), and Azoychka - the early variety from Victory seeds. These are very fully flavored. Aunt Gertie's Gold, Kellog's Breakfast are sweeter with equal or better flavor depending on the conditions and your taste.

White cherries, don't give up before you try Galina's or Dr. Carolyn.

As for Black Cherry, mine always taste better when they're a bit water stressed, like later in the season when it's hotter than hell here in Texas. I hear Brown Berry is worth a try. If you're into exotic/expensive, Purple Haze from Laurel's Plants gets high praise. Never had the pleasure though. Sadly, there's only so much room for new varieties in my gardens each year. Plus, eight bucks per plant is just wack, unless it's a grafted special order jobie that took some work.

I like red and pink tomatoes best myself. If you know you don't want colored tomatoes, that narrows your choice a bit. I plant one or two early tomatoes, so I don't have to wait for a garden tomato. Check the red, round, reliable thread for some early ones. You will find posts about people not liking the early tomatoes. They are not going to taste like your B. Sudduth, but they are still very good. If you can grow Brandywine Sudduth, I would stick with that. It is recommended by many. Check my clippings for some comments on paste tomatoes.

I would be surprised if you didnt like kellogg's breakfast (orange beefsteak) or some of the blacks.

Black Cherry, Opalka, and Sungold always get rave reviews. Asearch here by their name will pull of several discussions on each.

Black Krim is another that is given good scores by most and so is Rutgers and Beefsteak. As Helen said, check out the post on this page called "The 3 R's - red, round, reliable" for lots of recommendations.

For earlies my personal favorite is Bloody Butcher with Matina a close second and Stupice 3rd. And yes, there is a big difference between early, mid, and late season - especially in areas with very hot summers.

Dave

I live right up the road from you in Kyle so our climates should be the same.

Black cherry was pretty good for me, but when it got hot last year, they died. They didn't go dormant like most of my other plants, they flat out died. Up until that point, they did great. They were not my favorite cherry, but not bad. It won't get a spot in my garden this year because I think I actually preferred the store bought "grape" tomatoes you get at Costco. Maybe it's because the BC's were just too big to really be a cherry tomato. All my friend's loved them.

Now, sungold, on the other hand, was awesome. They need to ripen on the vine to bright orange and somehow not split. They produced well and had good flavor.

Coyote cherry was worthless. It outproduced everything but had no flavor for me. I finally just pulled the plant up with hundreds of tomatoes on it. As I walked through the yard, I would hear them pop under my feet for weeks.

Finally, I'm glad you had good luck with Brandywine. I had about four or five plants from three seed sources. One was from a trader I met here and the other two were from seed packets labeled "Brandywine" and "Pink Brandywine". They all grew into big, beautiful plants with lots of blooms, but I got exactly zero Brandywines.

My overall favorite tomato was Cherokee Purple. It produced well and the flavor was out of this world.

My favorite reds were Marianna's Peace and one from a plant that was labeled Black Cherry, that produced closed to one pound tomatoes that looked an awful lot like my Marianna's Peace. German Strawberry, Lennie's Oxheart and Eva's Purple ball were also pretty good. NAR did well, but was planted in my garden too late to produce much.

Here's my list for this year. Already started in seed trays.

BrandyWine 1 (giving it one more chance)
Cherokee Purple 3
Marianna's Peace 2
Watermelon 2
Indian Stripe 2
Berkeley 2
Sun Gold 2
Black Krim 2
Carbon 2
Neves Azorean Red 1
Linnies Oxheart 1
Black from Tula 2
Kellogs Breakfast 2

Definitely Black Cherry and Yellow Pear.

Don't plant alot of the Yellow Pears, they will produce til frost. You almost can't kill the production once they get started.

We grow for a farmers market and our varieties last year was.

Black Cherry
Snow White (whitish cherry)
Yellow Pear
Yellow Plum
Large Red Cherry
Isis (not again)

Last year the larger tomatoes did not produce, but the year before the Big Beef out-done everything else.

I have not had good luck with Rutgers, small and not many fruits.

I must be the only person in the world who doesn't like black cherry. It makes me think I got the wrong seed. The more I read about different strains of this and that with the same name, the more I believe that is likely.

ArcherB,

With my brandywine suddiths, I did notice something that may be of use... try it and see.

We have a big barn that runs east/west on our property. (Maybe 40 feet long and 20 foot wide). I planted some of my brandywines about 4 feet away on the east side of the wall of the barn. The plants got full morning sun, and all afternoon, until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

I planted other plants out in the open in another garden spot (same variety) and the ones next to the barn outproduced the others by about 3 to 1.

I don't know. I am a newbie. But it might be some mojo or something, but I noticed a difference.

Water drips off the barn roof. That is how I grow blueberries it is microclimate.

If it's pinks and reds you like, I recommend Eva's Purple Ball. (Which isn't purple, oddly.) For me it was a great producer, about the third to come in (After Sungold and Striped Roman) and is very sweet and tasty. Plump, with a thin skin, it was a good fresh eating tomato and didn't split as much as others. As an added bonus, it produced in the heat (Northern Virginia) when other varieties were taking a break. If you like more of a saucing tomato, I love the large pear varieties. Lots of meat and less seeds and for some reason the pear shape doesn't seem to split as much (At least for me). Also, oxhearts! I've grown Reif Red hear and was pleasantly surprised with how robust and tasty it was both fresh and cooked. It's on my "to grow again" list this year.

PS about yellow pear: They are little monsters hell-bent on world domination. I got hundreds and hundreds of tomatos all summer. It took a couple of frosts to knock it back and then the darn things reseeded and came up again after being disked under with the plow. One plant is more than enough for most people. Put it in a tub or give it room to grow on it's own. It will take over it's neighbors.

Here is what I decided on... to be honest I got tired of thinking about it so I just picked some and thats that. I guess in some ways it will be another 'reference point' year.

Early Girl VFF Hybrid
Big Beef VFFNTA Hybrid
Celebrity VFFNTA Hybrid
Bradywine Suddith
Opalka
Black Cherry
Sungold (cherry)
Yellow Pear

I have some other seeds still that I may plant as well. Last year Sweet Gold FT Hybrid did excellent and the taste was phenominal. I may plant a couple of those too just because they tasted so good. I am all about experimenting, but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Of course I will also have several types of bell peppers, some squash (that did horrible last year), and some egg plant.

Does anyone know what the production is like on the following:

Early Girl VFF Hybrid
Big Beef VFFNTA Hybrid
Celebrity VFFNTA Hybrid
Opalka

I am trying to figure out how many plants I ultimately want to have of each. Brandywine Suddith is going to be getting more than the others though, thats for sure.

I think you should try the Eva Purple Ball. Are you mainly wanting production or good taste? Eva tastes better than Celebrity and Early Girl to me. Eva produces pretty well here, but I'm not in your climate. I have never grown Big Beef. I think you will get good production from your hybrids, but if you consider Brandywine such a winner, taste must be important to you.

I am wanting only good taste. I am not selling them commercially or anything like that.

Taste is 95% of the concern, and the other 5% is making sure I have enough good tasting tomatoes to eat.

I make my list and change it. Someone will hate Kimberly, someone will say it is the best tasting early. I am not an expert. I grew some tomatoes, made some salsa, dried a few and gave what I couldn't eat away. When I ate a fresh tomato for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (truely) I picked Pale Perfect Purple, Eva Purple Ball, Granny Cantrell, Mortgage Lifter and (Glacier early only because it was ripe in early July and the others came on slowly). We had frost threats in early May and a cool May when the tomatoes should have been growing. This year I'm changing my early to recommendations listed in the RRR thread. An early tomato is better than no tomato. Last year it made a difference because of the cool weather. I grew Celebrity and it did fine; I don't think it makes a difference for cooking or salsa. This is Celebrity the date is wrong; my album says early August. It was planted late; impulse buy at the feed store. Didn't take pictures of the others.

{{gwi:1292738}}

Hi Alamo,
You said that "Taste is 95% of the concern". May I then humbly suggest that you drop Early Girl, Big Beef, Celebrity, and Yellow Pear? Given your stated preferences, I'd recommend Stump of the World (my all-time favorite), German Head, Cuostralee, and Wes. If you want a hybrid, Brandy Boy is superb. Sioux is a very good medium-sized round red, if you want one of those. Of course, there are many other excellent tomatoes; these are jjust some of my favorites. Good luck with whatever you choose.
Paula

Up until this past year I've always sworn by Wisconsin 55's as a good general purpose OP with a good, solid flavor that I like. Our weather last year didn't suit them, so I was disappointed in their production.

I did put out a couple of Brandy Boys, and was pleased with their flavor, but again, production was off.

If it wasn't for my Golden Girls, Cream Sausages, and Roma's, I'd have had quite a few less jars in the cupboard. The BER hit the CS & Roma's early on, but they pulled out of it.

If only Stupice was just a bit bigger tomato... they started strong and never gave up. Nice for the table, but too juicy and small for canning.

I grew the Sun Sugars last year and they were the best producing tomato of the 7 types I grew, I picked the last batch on Dec 12th. Pretty good taste but nothing in comparison to my Brandywines, of which I got 6. Of course that was better than the 2 Watermelon Beefstakes and the 0 Cherokee Purples, but then I got a late start and we had too many hot days/nights for fruit to set well. Everyone has a favorite paste and mine is the Amish Paste. They set more fruit in the heat than all the others combined (except the Sun Sugars).

I try to cover a wide range with a relatively limited number of plants and only have the ones that taste good (to me). I like at least one early and one hybrid and a grape or cherry so Early Girl is my early and my hybrid. Grapes and cherries also tend to be early. Once I have that covered I look for med to large good tasting fruits in a range of colors, at least a couple each of reds and pinks, a yellow/orange and a black. I would like to add a green or stripe this year. I find the variety makes for very pleasing bowls of tomatoes and fun, appetizing dishes and sandwiches while still tasting wonderful. I find I can cover that with only about 8 or 9 plants. I don't want to plant more than I can keep up with, and I live alone, so unless I start canning big time, its enough plants for me. I would decide how many you want to plant, and make a list by early, mid and late season, as well any other features you are trying to include and start narrowing down the ones you want try and the ones you want to plant again from last year. Try to keep your real favorites from previous seasons and add at least a couple new ones each year. I just learned about the different Brandywines last year and plan to start trying the different varieties. I will start with the Suddarth, and you may want to continue that one and add one other each year until you find out which ones work best in your area which taste the best to you. Some people like sweet tomatoes, some dislike the sweet ones and like very acidic ones. Its all pretty subjective, but you will find about 2 dozen or so that well liked and are repeatedly recommended here, like Brandywine Suddarth, Kellogs Breakst, KBX, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, etc.

Aunt Ruby's German Green
Brandywine
Cherokee Purple
Florida Pink
Pineapple
Silvery Fir Tree
Stump of the World
Thessaloniki

(not on list, but should've been: Traveler aka Arkansas Traveler)