Remy glad to hear the tomato fest was a great success again this year. I only got a couple of tomatoes this year as the tomato honworms got to mine....even the ones in containers so I didn't have a chance to attend. I have gotten a total of 3 cherry tomatoes but lots of green ones which I am sure will never ripen will be pulling the plants up in the next few days.

Ginny, I canned 13 jars! One broke though: ( Still that's a pretty good amount. I'm going to save some for next year for raffle prizes like I did this year. Sheryl won the big heirloom tomato poster. I for the life of me can't remember who won the cheese knife set. The rest of the goodies I just let people pick whatever they wanted. Kathy, I sure hope you can make it next year!(Penny too!) I've been trying to bribe you with beer and good food. I'm not sure what else I can do, lol. Umm... next year there will be male dancers? Tauna, I'm glad you could make it! Hilde already emailed me saying we need to plan a trip to visit you. Remy

I was thinking of having something similar to a tomato tasting, but I would be selling my tomatoes. I have about 20 different varieties in my garden, and the plants are all doing great so I was thinking I would let customers who wondered what some heirloom or hybrid actually tasted like come into my garden and see the tomatoes actually growing on the plant, that way they can also figure how much space the plant would take up. They would point out the tomatoes they wanted and I would pick them right before their eyes. When they got all the ones they wanted I would weigh them and charge them what, maybe $2 a pound. I guess I would have to save a lot of plastic bags so I could separate out the different varieties. If they Emailed me back what tomatoes they liked the most or least and why I would give them some free tomatoes next time they came. One selling point would be I use absolutely no pesticides or herbicides in my garden.

Yes, some have reported so called black tomatoes that are smokey or salty and I've grown a lot of different blacks and have never tasted anything salty or smokey so I wouldn't use those tastes as criteria for good taste and I'm not the only one who has never tasted smokey or salty. There are darn few blacks that I like but as with all other varieties as many have said here, some are great in one year, perhaps not so great the next year, and usually weather related. Some humans, and I'm a human, wink, thrive in hot humid weather but I'm a human who hates hot humid weather and prefers more moderate temps and lower humidity. So too do different tomato varieties prefer certain weather conditions. And of course taste is personal and perceptual and also has a human genetic component. The few blacks that I like are Indian Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry, Brad's Black Heart, Black from Tula and now Kazachka. There have been folks who have grown out huge numbers of blacks in one season and find that many of them taste and perform the same. That doesn't surprise me one bit b'c when I first started growing OP's in large numbers in the mid-80's there were only about FIVE (5) known black varieties. The fad for blacks started in the early 90's, has not yet abated, and now there are close to maybe 200 varieties. Where there is demand the varieties will appear, if you get my drift. ( wink) My personal faves are the hearts and the green when ripes, but of course with others sprinkled in for diversity reasons and I'm always looking for the next new variety I try to be a big winner. And I usually find a couple of winners each year. One actually was Indian Stripe seeds for that sent to me in 2002 which I then listed in the SSE YEarbook and sent it for trial at those seed sites where I know the owners and trust them, and now Indian Stripe can be found all over the place and seeds very available. it's good to know that some of my tomato kids have done well, and those would include Neves Azorean Red, Opalka, Indian Stripe, OTV Brandywine,Crnkovic Yugoslavian,Heidi,Large Pink Bulgarian, Omar's Lebanese, Soldacki, Sophie's Choice and many more. Good to know some of my tomato kids have done well since all I have are two cat kids. LOL Carolyn