Susan, I didn't want to be too negative, but this is an important issue because in a hot, dry year, the hybrids I grow will outproduce the OPs by as high as 10-1. It isn't like we live someplace where it is easy to grow tomatoes, and most years are hot and dry so we do have to worry about timely fruitset and heat tolerance. So, while the OPs will give a decent crop early in the season, they may or may not set fruit well in the hotter months. That's when the hybrids often pick up the slack and I feel like the great-tasting hybrids with proven disease tolerance and high yields are worth their weight in gold in July and August. Brandywine vs. Brandy Boy is a perfect example of how heat can affect an OP. Brandywine is my favorite tomato of all time and in a year when it is not too rainy as the fruit is maturing, the flavor is incredible. Nothing else tastes exactly like a good Brandywine. I first grew Brandywine in the mid-1990s and never got huge yields, except once in about 2003 or 2004 when we had so many tomatoes from six Brandywine plants that we gave them away. Everyone we gave Brandywines to said it was the best tomato they'd ever eaten, and the unspoken question in their eyes was "why don't you give us some of these every year". I felt obligated to explain that most years I only got 3 or 4 fruit per plant period for the whole year. When Burpee released Brandy Boy, I thought "Yeah, sure, like anything is ever going to match Brandywine's flavor." Still, Gone Fishin' liked them and highly recommended them, so I planted them in either BB's second or third year of existence, and I loved them. While Brandy Boy's flavor is not as exquisite as Brandywine Sudduth's, it is close enough for me. I looked at one Brandy Boy today and counted its fruit. It had 24 and still is flowering and setting fruit. In even the best of years I'd need 6 to 8 Brandywines to equal the production of one Brandy Boy. I think I planted 4 Brandy Boys this year. So, even though I love Brandywine, it just does not produce enough fruit to earn a spot in my garden, but Brandy Boy, with its similar flavor, high production and disease tolerance earns several spots in the garden. I do like True Black Brandywine and it produces well, but it has a black tomato flavor, not a true Brandywine tomato flavor. I grow at least 2 TBBs every year, and sometimes 4. I still struggle with getting the balance right between hybrid and O-P varieties. I'd rather grow more OPs for all their unique flavors and colors, but I have to grow a lot of hybrids too in order to be able to give away as many as I do and to be able to can, dehydrate and freeze a whole lot of them. I love, love, love Big Beef. I have several and they're all heavily loaded and I am thrilled about that. I also love Big Boy, which my dad always grew, even though it never seems to produce as well for me as it seemed to produce for him. Better Boy produces more heavily most years, but I don't like its flavor quite as much as Big Boy. I've never tried Best Boy because I suspect it is only an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the other Boys. I'm stubborn that way. Now I have to take back what I said about Big Boy. One year I planted 6 or 8 of them in late July for fall tomatoes. It was incredibly hot and dry. Our afternoon humidity was in the single digits many days. Our highs were over 105 and as high as 110 in August, and those Big Boys were blooming and setting fruit every day in those conditions. I believe the low humidity is what allowed high fruitset in high temps. That year, we had so many Big Boy tomatoes on those plants when the first frost hit that I pulled up the plants, brought them into the garage and stripped them of every fruit. We gave away hundreds of fruit, both red and green. It was incredible. Sill, that's the only year I've grown Big Boy that it truly wowed me with its productivity in the heat. Early Girl is a tomato-producing machine this year. The one Early Girl that I have in the galvanized 200-gallon stock tank (with three other plants) already has produced 19 ripe ones, has 4 more breaking color, and about 15 fully green ones. If she never produces another tomato this year, I'd have to be happy with how well she has done. However, she usually produces all summer long, including in July and August when a lot of others slow down, so I expect she'll keep on producing all along as long as disease or some horrid pest doesn't attack her. I grew the F-1 Top Sirloin and it was only okay as grown in my garden in whatever years I grew it. It didn't make the permanent grow list. It isn't that it was bad. It is just that it was only average, and I'm always looking for the ones that are above-average. I hope the O-P Top Sirloin is a good one for you. It sounds nice, and if Suze likes it, then it certainly is worth trying because she grows in conditions I consider tougher than ours. It is a hot dry year here at my house! lol Last May we had over 7" of rain in May alone and it was such a relief to have that rainfall. This year, in May so far, we've had less than 1.5" at our house and it is so incredibly dry that we're afraid to mow the pastures for fear the dry standing cool season grasses and forbs will ignite. It's pretty bad when it is too dry to safely mow in May. I've only set the place on fire once by having the lawn mower hit a rock, causing a spark that set the grass on fire, but it is an experience I do not care to repeat. You should get fruit from virtually anything you planted this year as long as the plants stay healthy. The temperatures are in the right range for fruit set and, for once, are staying there in that range for a decent amount of time. I did look at my dwarfs this afternoon, and all of them are in bloom or have blooms about to open, but none have visible fruitset yet. The plants thenselves are healthy and happy with no pests and no diseases so far. Dawn

This sort of behavior is typical of tomato plants late in the growing season. The plants are now tired and worn out, having expended a great deal of energy the last few months while growing and producing/ripening fruit. It is perfectly normal for the fruit to get smaller as the season goes on. It happens to my plants every year, and I just don't worry about it. By the time the plants are producing significantly smaller fruit, we've just about overdosed on fresh tomatoes anyhow and I've already canned, frozen and dehydrated more than enough tomatoes to get us through the non-tomato-growing season. The decrease in fruit size is one reason why lots of gardeners in the south will plant a second round of tomato plants in mid- through late-summer (the timing depends on how far south they are) for a fall crop. Fresh, new plants will have more vigor and will produce larger fruit than exhausted plants from the spring planting, provided they aren't having to deal with very severe drought conditions/moisture stress. Once I've met all my canning goals, I start yanking out plants as their vigor fades and productivity falls. I plant a lot, though, so tired plants are expendable. I never yank out all of them---and I use logic---the plants that still have loads of fruit on them are left in place until those fruit mature, and then I harvest the last of the fruit and yank out the plants. I leave enough tomato plants to keep us supplied with fresh tomatoes until the first freeze, but I don't keep enough plants that I have huge surpluses to can. If the fruit are so small they aren't worth dealing with, then I vote for going ahead and removing them and sowing the cover crop. We love tomatoes, but I get tired of them late in the summer. You know how it is when you first start getting ripe ones----you eat each one as soon as it is ready and you enjoy every bite. Well, by the end of the summer, we are totally the opposite--staring at those tomatoes sitting there on the counter and telling ourselves that we really "ought to" eat those. When I start leaving tomatoes on the counter and no one even eats them, I really start yanking out the plants and replacing them with something else for fall. I used to think there was no such thing as too many tomatoes, but since then I have learned that we do get burned out on eating them constantly. I'll tell you what, though. Despite all the above, when we are eating the very last fresh tomato of the season, it is a bittersweet experience because we know it will be months before we have more fresh, home-grown tomatoes.

I don't know of any Canadian sources, but I bet you could find one via Google. And yes, Burpee Big Boy is the same as Big Boy. It's a nice tasting tomato that my dad grew every year when I was a boy. In fact, I just might grow it this year for the sake of nostalgia. : )

I'd love to see an open pollinated tomato that truly matches the characteristics and value of Big Beef. I'm betting there isn't one. Big Beef is pretty special with regard to production, disease resistance and flavor. If anyone really finds a head-to-head replacement, please holler out. None I've seen mentioned meet the challenge, in my opinion. An open pollinated replacement for Brandy Boy will be easier, I imagine. According to many reports right here at GW and other tomato haunts, Cowlicks Brandywine is a contender. I've not grown it yet. Anyone else who has maybe can chime in.