Congrats!! I definitely remember that feeling from last year!I have my first tomato growing, but its only the size of a large pea so far, :)

Yes I believe that Miracle Grow made the offer for 2 years and then withdrew it. However, they did hire the person who grew the world record and I am very certain that if you grow a world record and use Miracle Grow at least a little in growing it then they will come to you with a financial offer. I suspect you can still get the $100,000 from allowing them to use your endorcement of their products. But that is obviously not guaranteed. I want to say that I want to collect suckers from plants that grow big tomatoes. I want to root them and try to grow them under similar conditions to assess their growing ability. So if anyone grows a tomato of 2 pounds, I am interested in getting a rooted cutting or just some cuttings and I will root them. I will of course pay expenses. Carolyn, You are correct. The seeds are not the same as a rooted cutting. all the seeds will grow slightly different plants with slightly different genetics. So lets say I grow 100 plants of Omar's Lebanese or any other plant. Hopefully I will get a couple that will have a 2 pounder on it. Now my idea is to save the plant until the following year and then grow it as a competition plant and see what happens. With some luck I hope to push it to maybe 2 and a half or maybe 3 pounds and if I have a good group of them I hope I can get at least one to do better. Well obviously one in a larger group will grow the largest one. Now if I had a farm and could grow 1000 plants I could make some progress. However, I can only grow a limited number in the yard. So I need help getting the preliminary filtering of the plants to find some good ones. Will my idea work. Probably not. Will I have fun trying. You bet. Let me say this about growing for size and not taste. I grow way too many tomatoes to eat. I dont sell them. I figure why not have one or two plants dedicated to growing a big one. It will not mean that I eat fewer tomatoes all summer. I have enough tomatoes and tomato juice and tomato salsa so that I do not need to make more next year. So instead of growing and putting them into quart jars, I will grow a few plants for size. I fully intend to grow all my regular tomatoes just as always. Also I will admit that it was reading the book Giant Tomatoes that turned me on to wanting to try next year. So if anyone grows a big one. Just post it on GW and I will pop up and email you. Just make sure you allow emails from GW members. I wish everyone the best of luck next year and I hope I have some luck also. I already have my seeds of Big Zac and I expect those to do the best but I am willing to grow other ones also.

Great critique and excellent pictures! Thanks! Tom-

It would be interesting to hear of the responses that you've had. At first glance one would summize that bacterial speck is your problem but after seeing the damage on the unripe tomato I'm more inclined to think that you have a stink bug problem. Stink bugs feed in different ways. Often they will just probe a tomato to get a drink. Other times they will pump digestive juices into the fruit with one mouthpart while sucking out digested material with the other. You might have to get some expert help since neither problem is as easy to control. The catfacing and even BER go away with time.