I grew it last year. The 2-3 toms I got were all large, ribbed, and very tasty. It was a beautiful plant but not very productive at all. I'll probably give it another try in a year or three per my usual MO. Now that I've said that, you'll get 100 other responses talking about how productive it was for them.

My experience with German Queen is the same as carolinagardendawg. I will add that the plant was a huge beastly thing.

Thanks for the responses so far. This helps me gauge how much future space to allocate it in my garden. Unless someone else posts significantly different results, it will receive "novelty" status (2 plants max in the garden).

I still have babies and blossoms on mine, no ripe fruit yet. But some of the babies are getting pretty big! I counted 9 greenies so far...did not count the blossoms. I understand this is a low acid tomato. Don't know if it's going to be "pleated" or not. My fingers are crossed for continued luck with this plant.

I grew it years ago and got smooth large fruits and I checked what some others in the SSE Yearbook got and no one mentioned any ribbing.

It was OK, but there are many other large pink PL varieties that I like better for taste. Just my opinion.

Carolyn

Dr. C that is what I mean. This tomato was pleated (I reserve ribbed myself for internal structure) and nowhere did I see this one shown like the one I took these seeds from. I hate the big box stuff and avoid them because they switch labels and group unmarks together and such. I think it will become an unknown next year and not get much space. Thanks for your comments. The same guy gave me an "Old Timey" before and it was s'posed to be an heirloom, but is wasn't and it got tossed after a couple of years of rotation. I never could find anything on it. The original was tastey though.

I've grown it consecutively for several yrs, now as it is one of my favorites but with some caveats.

It is not ribbed but can often be mis-shapen. Never seen what I would call ribbed but with only one fruit to look at ... They aren't hard to come by so if I was interested, I buy some seeds.

These attributes are consistant, from 2 different stock and seed sources over several yrs..

A VERY large but somewhat sluggish (late season) potato leaf plant.

Moderate blooming, fairly heavy blossom drop, moderate BER (in containers) Heavy water user once size is achieved.

Few but large, very tasty, darkish pink, oblate fruits.

For me, it is a taste standard that others are measured against. Similar to Brandywine OTV with OTV being easier due to plant size and more production but GQ more healthy at all stages, generally larger fruits and so far, IMO better taste.

Since its so big, kinda stingy and finiky, if you grow it and are not very fond of the taste, it probably isn't a good choice for you or your area but like I said, for me its a taste standard.

The old reliable German Queen I grew several years ago,was not like what is today called a German Queen. They were large and very rough shaped,but became more uniform about the second and later ripening . They did no have (potato) shaped leaves and were a very big vigorous dense leaved plant,fruits were mild very red and very small seed cavity with a unforgettable flavor. They were not very disease resistant and got very hard to ,grow with good results,best slicing tomato ever. Would love to find an improved Original German Queen.As for myself if one has a plant with (potato)like leaves it is not even close to the ones we grew for several years. Best we were able to find their origion was Mississipi.

Here's what Tania has to say about German Queen:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/German_Queen