That is too cool, I love it! You're a wonderful person, and so are your helpers. Mary

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!

You aren't doing anything wrong and it isn't a disease. Your pics are small and I can't enlarge them at all but IMO it is most likely some sort of pest damage that has scarred over combined with catfacing. Birds will peck them, squirrels take bites out and leave the rest, so do turtles if they can reach them. Then there are tomato worms, army worms, etc. that can munch on the outside but may not enter the fruit. Insect damage, poor pollination, and environmental factors all cause catfacing, the puckering, scarring, and deformation of tomatoes. Sometimes this scarring extends deep into the fruit cavity, sometimes not. The most common cause of catfacing is exposure to temperatures below 50 degrees during flowering and fruit set but others factors can contribute too and some varieties are a bit more prone to it than others. Just Google 'catfacing tomatoes' for lots of photos and details on it. Dave

Those almost look like Arbuznyi tomatoes since they have stripes jenniedhs_7b_nc. They have stripes like your picture and stay somewhat green at the shoulders. Obviously not since it is seed you have saved for years...could be cool to save seeds from that one and see if it happens again. :) From what I know of Cherokee Purple (I am growing for the first time this year but have bought at farmers market quite a few times) it typically has dark shoulders which in my experience are more brown than green. I will have to pay close attention to mine as they ripen to fully weigh in. Ricky, many choose to ripen indoors to save the tomato from pests or varmints that might like a nice juicy ripe tomato just as much as you. Squirrels are a big problem for my neighbors...they for some reason leave me alone, but she always picks hers right when she sees the first hint of color and lets them ripen inside. I do a little bit of both. I typically leave my cherry tomatoes on the vine until ripe...mostly because they go straight off the bush into someones mouth ;) And larger tomatoes I will pick when they start to turn color. This gives the plant more energy to devote to the other tomatoes, and takes some weight off the branches. Some tomatoes benefit from vine ripening...but most are just as tasty when they are picked early and left to ripen on the counter. However, that question is a bit like the chicken and the egg...there is no right answer and can be debated for hours. Try both ways, and decide which one you like best!