My little Opalka plant has only 2 fruit on it, but they sure are pretty little things.

It's a bum year anyway, so I'm going to try it again next year.

Just checked it - one of the fruits has BER.

crap.

My Jet Star. Disease ridden and had to be pulled after only getting a couple of fruit. It started off well, but just couldn't survive the attack of spots.

Black from Tula. I got one admittedly tasty, large tomato from it and maybe 7 small things more the size of cherry tomatoes, all because it had the worst disease tolerance of any tomato imaginable. All around it my plants are healthy with the exception of a little septoria, while this one got something that looks almost like late blight, but early on in the season. It hasn't really spread, but that plant has been a waste of space.

Jet Star, two years running it's a disease magnet here.

Earl's Faux, see above except the two years weren't consecutive.

Other varieties doing well. Best new to me variety is Gary O'Sena. DELICIOUS!

All of them due to LB.

I have two that were big disappointments. First was Constoluto Genovese. This plant was hit early on with a bad case of what looked to be bacterial speck. After a few weeks of hydrogen peroxide spray treatments it started to recover, but the fruits remain small, and they are falling of the vine before becoming ripe. This one won't be back next season.

My other big disappointment is Black Krim. I've been dying to taste this tomato, but they all have succumbed to severe catfacing, horrible cracking (or should I say explosions), and my beautiful monster of a tomato fell off the vine last night during a storm and splat!!! I know this season has been terrible due to heavy rains all season, but I don't think I will try Black Krim again next season. I just fell in love with Cherokee Green, so I will gladly plant an extra one of these instead.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim's Garden

Kim, read a few threads on when to pick fruit. It sounds like the monster should have been inside finishing up on the counter, if it really splatted that is. Picking sooner than I have in the past has prevented a ton of cracking and the fruit ripens just as nice, actually nicer considering it's 78 inside and 108 outside.

For me Juliet was supposed to be a massive producer of versatile paste, canning, drying, salad tomatoes. I've picked a couple dozen, the plant is dying, and the taste is comparable to Yellow Pear. My only Park's Whopper delivered one fruit that tasted like swimming pool water. As for the bad production, I blame the particular plants and myself before the type in general, but the taste of both is inexcusable, imo.

My Black Cherry was quite small, and then the stem broke. It's about 4" tall, but I'm still hoping....

[thought I'd posted this earlier]

I've had terrible results from the Opalkas I planted. I'm still thinking that they're probably not Opalkas at all. The shape of the tomatoes are all wrong for Opalkas. They grew very slow and I lost probably 60% of the fruit to BER.

Eloquinn, I have some Opalka seed that I'd gladly share with you.

Send me an email with your shoe size if you're interested.

On the bright side, I think that anything that produced well in the weather this summer will probably do even better in a good weather summer. I'm sure it wouldn't be for certain but if my other plants produce and taste good I'll probably replant the most productive and tasty of the bunch instead of doing all different ones next summer. I only have room for 10-12 plants so production is important on at least half the plants.

In New Jersey coldish nights and too much rain in July seems to have reduced the sugar content in my tomatoes and Black Krim was particularly effected and even high power ones like Brandywine aren't up to snuff. My hope is the younger tomatoes that didn't experience the cool nights will have improved flavor . Bummer - you wait all year for that knee dropping flavor of the first main season tomatoes and end up with a mouth full of water. It is hard to explain all this to other folks in the office who expect consistant flavor year after year. They think I must be holding out.

Wardda - at least you have tomatoes already. The only ones I've had are a few plums(enchantments) and some cherries. All my tomatoes started producing in the last few weeks. I won't really harvest until September/October if I don't get hit with that nasty blight before then. Every time it rains I get terribly nervous! Like right now - it just started drizzling.

KBX just keeled over and died of wilt early in the season. I was excited to grow it because it was supposed to be a more productive, disease resistant version of Kellogg's Breakfast. Go figure.

Among the various heirlooms, Prudens Purple. I just can't find any taste in them for the 3rd year in a row. I'm going to give up on them; they just don't seem to like my yard. 2nd most disappointing is Aunt Gerties Gold because of very low productivity.

But I have been having some BER problems with all of them, and I usually have that with only the 1st couple of tomatoes. I'm doing the same kind of organic fertilizing as in past years, but it seems really bad this year for some reason.

I had very heavy rain in May and June, and near drought since then (I water them at the base of course). Some "early" late blight showed up too. This has been a strange growing season.

On the other hand, my Cherokee Purple and (to an extent) the Brandywines have been doing great.

Generally had a bad year here. No disease, just crummy weather.

My Black Krim, Mr Stripey and Cherokee Purples were awful. Big, bushy, set a few paltry fruit that never grew nor ripened, then all withered and died the first 95+ degree day. Awful. Just awful.

More disappoinments than successes for me.
Hillbilly did not produce at all but could of been due to a less than choice spot in the garden. I will try it again next year in a better spot.
Brandywine gold I saved this seed from a tom I bought from an heirloom farm last year. The plants looked ok but little to no production.
Now pardon me while I rave a little. I bought my seeds a little late and Bob's was the first place I found Cher prpl.They sent me a free sample of Hank. I planted them without checking into them very much(my fault totaly).The plants were vigorous but the fruit was yuck!!!The bad thing is they really produced but it was the worst tom I ever tasted. If anyone from Bob's sees this there is a reason I didn't order any cherry/small toms...I didn't want them.

Anyway my CP, Black Krims and Green Zebras did well.
Cheers

Actually, all my yellow/Gold's were dissapointing. Galina's, Kellogg's Breakfast,
Virginia Sweets(bi-color) and even KBX. Maybe I'm to picky. I'm still going
to try different varieties, maybe there will be one I like. The red tomatoes
tasted better to me.

Hillbilly was a wonderful performer for me last year but this year's crop is non-existent. I haven't had the heart to pull the sickly looking plant out of the ground yet in the hopes of getting at least one tomato. German Red Strawberry is another disappointment with only two fruit hanging. I must say, though, those two tomatoes do look tasty and I'm dying to bring them inside!

On the positive side, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Sioux, Paul Robeson, Yellow Pear, and Fox Cherry have all thrived so it's been a pretty good season.

My Garden Peach turned out to be one of those pink, hard, shiny, tasteless, long-keeper tomatoes instead of the sweet, juicy, fuzzy, yellow thing that was advertised.

I have one giant Rutgers bush which is taking up a lot of space. The plant itself is extremely vigorous, but it has only set a few fruit. I contemplated pulling it out and replacing it, but after losing other plants to disease, I used up my extra plants rooted from suckers.
Last year, my Rutgers was loaded with fruit. Just a dud, I guess.

juice it up- I added some water soluble fertilizer when my bushy plants had no flowers - in 2-3 weeks tons of flowers. I used 3-10-3 rooting shultz stuff

My worst tomato was Purple Calabash, an astringent, poor excuse of a tomato, a total waste of space.
On the other hand Granny Cantrell German Red and Purple Dog Creek were excellant.

Roper2008- I'm sorry to hear that Virginia Sweets is a disappointment. I was going to order some seed for this one for next season. I haven't heard many reviews regarding it yet, but maybe it's not something I will go out of my way to order after all.

Mojavebob- The Black Krim really didn't splat. It did burst open though on the top. It was just under a pound and took quite a fall. It had just started to show a slight change in color, so I was waiting for it to put on just a bit more of a blush before picking it. :(
Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim's Garden

Unusually hot summer.

Cream Sausage = pathetic production, and although they had pretty fruit, it's very bland.

JellyBean Hybrid = Tough skins, bland fruit, feeble vine.

The others: store bought Romas, Matt's Wild Cherry, and White Currant are doing OK to great. Production slacked off in late July, but I'm seeing fresh blossoms and new fruit.

Matt's is a MONSTER - it's spread 6 or more feet from where it was planted.

Most disappointing for me this year were Jet Star and Brad's Black Heart. Both were felled by early blight.

Most satisfying were Carbon (no diseases at all), Early Girl (only a touch of early blight) and Neves Azorean Red (only a touch of early blight). I did not spray Daconil or anything else this year owing to excessively rainy weather. I had very little blossom end rot however.

Next year, I plan on growing only Carbon, Early Girl, NAR and Pineapple. Weather permitting, I plan on spraying with Daconil also next year.

I use lots of compost, manure and a generous amount of powdered lime, as well as 5-10-10 and Miracle Grow.
Will again stick with what works for me next year.

If I only had space for one plant......Carbon, which has been a perfect variety in EVERY way here in my garden.

Out of my left over seeds my 5 Mule Team seedlings didn't make it. Was really looking forward to these matters but alas will have to wait and reorder seeds for 2010. Now if I can locate some dwarfs like Summer Time Gold or Green and a few other dwarfs I might convince DW to let me grow more tomatoes next year. DW wants the back yard to not look like a Jungle.

atleast I have matters this year thanks to Ray's input on SWC.

Sub Arctic Plenty

This tomato was a tease: healthy sturdy plants and early fruit set. However, the fruit is small (most smaller than cherries) and they didn't ripen until well after varieties that are 20 days later. Also, the taste and texture leaves a lot to be desired.

Hey - this is a disappointing thread - I don't want to see that gorgeous basket of tomatoes when I don't have any :) Geebos they look great! You should see my balcony- 13 feet by 6 and 12 tomato plants. There is hardly any room to sit.

I am so disgusted. Years ago I had some wonderful tomato harvests. One year I was dumb enough to plant tomatoes in the same place two years in a row. They didn't do anything.

Then I planted in a different place. Down pores drowned them. Planted an other batch later that year of cherry tomatoes hoping they would ripen faster. They did but the amount of costs for the plants and the work are the same for teeny tiny tomatoes that you need 2 of for every bite.

This season I decided I'd put tomatoes in big containers on the front deck. This way there was no danger of drowned plants AND they were close by and easy to take care of.

I had 'Early Girl' and an other type of which I cannot remember the name right now. They started off beautifully. Many fruits in good sizes. Then the Blight came along, much to my surprise because we live far away from the closest growers. At first I thought I could fight it by picking off the contaminated leaves. But in the end the leaves all shriveled up. Tomatoes stopped ripening. Some of them did get red but when I cut them open they were light green and even yellowish. I ate them out of anger but they tasted like straw.

My husband wrapped up all plants plus soil and tossed it in the trash, according to the advise given on tv.

I am SO disgusted. Tomatoes are one of my absolute favorite foods and I was so happy when they first started off well.

I'll give it ONE more try next year. That'll be the very last time I'm going to grow tomatoes.

Sorry for ranting, I just had to vent...

Milli.

kr222. Hi Kim. Remember, what some people love, others don't.
Maybe you should try Virginia Sweets anyway. You can have the
rest of my 2009 seeds of the tomatoes mentioned above.

Linda

I remember which other tomato I had, a Burpy Beefsteak.

Just to be complete..

M~.

My worst are Bush Beefsteak, & pearly pink. I started by potting up all my tomatoes (also did black trifelle, little julia, viva italia, silvery fir, Bali, christmas grape), ending up in 7 gallon pots. I used #4 Sungro Mix, and a solid tomato fertilizer with many of the minerals a tomato needs (no calcium though). I fertilized at 1/2 strenth about once a week, and my plants were doing VERY good, super green with tons of flowers and fruit set began strong. However, just before my fruit began ripening most of the plants began to become stressed. Severe yellowing, spotting, minor BER, and terrible blossom drop. Basically, all my plants began to look half dead, and no new fruit set was developing. However, at least the existing fruit was ripening fairly.

The bush beefsteak plants look horrible, and the fruit are small and tasteless. Likely partly the fault of the TYPE of tomato, and the size of container causing other issues. On both my pearly pinks hardly any fruit matured, and the taste was not very good either.... no difference between store bought IMO.

On a side note, I did 3 'Little Julia' in pots, and about 4 weeks ago I put them in a newly created raised bed with a peat based potting mix along with lots of "Sea Soil". When I put them in the beds they were so stressed they looked completely gimped, leggy, and devoid of green leaves. Now, they are INSANELY huge (8 feet tall) with apx 500 or more tomatoes on each plant. I ran out of twine 2 times trying to keep them on my trellis.

I must say, that my container tomato gardening did not go so well this year (at least to my standards), and would not reccomend for most new growers to try it. If you have either a good SWC system, or Earthtainer type deal, maybe it would be better so I am not discounting the method (and I can tell that MANY people here have huuuuge success in containers).

Next year, I will create permanent raised beds for all my tomatoes, using cedar 1X6 planks, attaching 8 foot 1X2's to the corners so I can place a makeshift cover if the weather is supposed to be wet for extended periods of time (here on the west coast, this was an exceptionally kind year for tomatoes). I will also make 2 Earthtainers to try and see if I have better success... I am almost certain my failures are caused mainly by my containers being too small and my soil mix being sterile (no microorganism action).

Anyway, long post, hope there was some value for people. I cannot send pics to show you examples of how poor my container plants look now, but I will start a new thread and post them to see if anyone else's plants look as bad...

Happy tomato eating everyone!

Roma, hands down! Celebrity, second worst. Both of them didn't grow too big and had a pathetic yield compared to what I should have gotten off of them. roma also had a huge problem with BER. I got more tomatoes off the Brandywine right next to it than I did from the Celebrity.

The champ is the Sungold. After 60 days of 100+ temps here, it is still *setting* fruit, even though fewer and smaller than before. I cut back all the others, hoping for them to come back in the fall, but left the Sungold alone as it's still producing!

Sophie's Choice - a stubby little plant and I am not impressed with the fruit. It is supposed to be good for pots. My friend has it in a pot; it isn't producing as much as others he is growing. I have mine in soil in two places and I am not at all impressed.

I agree with roper2008. Yellow, Orange, and White tomatoes are a waste of space in the garden.And I do mean all of them. The only one that I do grow is the "Shah Mikado". A really Great tomato is Rose. It's late but it is better than Brandywine.

Milli, and all others with disappointing results this year, I suggest you give Carbon a try next year. Use lots of compost, manure, 5-10-10 and Miracle Grow and powdered lime in good soil. A tablespoonfull of epsom salts won't hurt anything either.
If that doesn't work, stick with growing flowers.

yellow boy sucks for flaver, if i could just get b wines to load up like the limon boy i would be one happy camper. i think i will give yp on yellow all togeather

My most disapointing tomato this year-was (Orange fleshed purple smudge) which came straight from the vendor in one of their packets,-from a well known seed merchant.

The resulting tomatoes turned out something like out of a horror story, a pale creamy orange colour with no purple on them whatsoever, and strange ugly wart like growths sticking out of the bottom of each tomato like mini carrots-four or five to a tomato-horrible looking things-a bit like medusa's head, I am very surprised the vendor company couldnt sell anything better than that and and market them, I grew five plants from seed out of the packet, and all five came exactly the same,

I try to grow at least two of any variety and plant them in different plots having different conditions, that way at least one of the two usually shows me what the variety is capable of doing. Anyway, this year the big disappointment is Chapman. Both plants had low fruitset and are being destroyed by Septoria. The fruits are big, but with so little leaf cover left I don't hold much hope for flavor. My Cherokee Greens are nine feet tall and putting out small red fruit, and my Sophie's Choice is a 5 ft tall late season indeterminant, but I can't hold the variety responsible for those plants.

I had a Pink Caspian that looked promising and then... nothing! No flowers to speak of, no fruit... nothing! Weird. The other clunker was a Black Prince heirloom which apparently was so enticing to every critter that could walk or crawl or fly up to it that it bore zero edible (be me) fruit. I can see that I need to plan my next tomato garden with major security in mind!

No kidding! Construction cloth buried two feet underground to start with. I'm not running a tomato cafeteria for wildlife, here...

Giant Belgium from the free TGS seed was the biggest disappointment this year. For one thing, it was far from giant, with the largest fruit coming in around 6 ounces. Also, it is the blandest tomato I've ever grown by far. It will be the first plant to come out to make way for fall crops. In the meantime, I'm just adding the GB's to my sauce of Stupice and Opalka.

I probably will not grow red currant again, either. The plant was really attractive in the spring, and was quite productive. It has been getting scabbier and scabbier looking over the past several weeks though, and now has more tomatoes than leaves. However, the tomatoes are just too much work to pick, and somewhat thick-skinned. Taste is pretty good, but I'd rather get the same flavor from a larger cherry tomato.

I am on the fence with Isis Candy - when it has the orange and gold striping, it's quite beautiful. Taste is good, but a little bit watery. Will probably go back to growing Sungold and Black Cherry next year.

This was my very first year growing Heirloom tomatoes. Last year I was inspired by my first SunGold to branch out and try some unusual kinds of tomatoes.

Not having enough space in the veggie garden I planted them in 7gal. pots. I was so disheartened when they got end rot, from the stress of potted life. But I told myself at the begining of the season that if I could get just one tomato off of each plant I would be happy. I have gotten a few more than that of course. I think next year I will not plant them again in pots. It is just too difficult to keep them watered.

My favorite is Cherokee Purple. I have never tasted a better tomato than that. SunGold is a close second. Kellogg's Breakfast has had the worst BER, but I think I may try it again next year. Green Zebra had a fair amount of BER. And unfortunantly, no one else but myself liked the taste. :-(

Pink Brandywine was a let down as far as taste. Do not care for it at all.
Chocolate Cherry has been stingy with the fruit. I have only gotten a few at a time, though the plant does seem to have many unripe clusters. I tasted one today, and it was pretty good. The previous ones had all been bland and the skins leathery. Maybe the rest of the CC's will be good from here on out.
CMK

christinmk, do try Kellogg's Breakfast again next year. I have never had a BER issue growing it in the ground. It is a tasty tomato that has given me 1.5+ lb fruits in abundance for the last three years.

If you have the space, I highly recommend Black from Tula, too. I think a few people on this thread have had issues with it, but this is my second year growing it, and it has been delicious, although not as productive as KB and Earl's Faux (will plant two next year). There is nothing better than a BLT starring KB and BfT. Yum!