Ashok, I too remember Black from Tula as one of the best tomatoes I've ever tasted, but the last time I grew them, the squirrels got most of them. That, and Pink Caspian, had bites in them while green. The next year I grew more cherry tomatoes, so that even if the squirrels did eat some tomatoes, I wouldn't notice and there would be enough for all. Last year, they left my heirlooms alone! So now I'm emboldened to try the irresistible BfT and PC again. Penny, I've wondered who buys all those early seedlings. Does everyone else have a greenhouse? The place where I found mine, OSH, always has tomatoes in February, and they have a free replacement policy, so last year when the first two seedlings died in the cold, I got free replacements (so they are, in a small way, subsidizing my experiments in winter tomato culture). Of course that did mean another visit to OSH (more temptation), but surely if lots of people brought them back, they'd stop selling them so early? Or maybe the plants are so cheap ($1.29) that most people don't bother to bring them back? Still, I'd think selling plants that are bound to die would be bad for repeat business. And OSH does not sell walls-o-water.

Hi Y'all! I grow a huge variety of heirloom tomatoes every year, and grow them in every color imaginable, including black, purple, pink, orange, yellow, red, white and green when ripe. I have about 90 varieties, mostly heirlooms but about a dozen or so hybrids, in the spring garden, and will be trying a lot of different ones in the fall garden. I have grown heirloom tomatoes for about 15 or so years, and the black ones tend to have a wonderful flavor that is addictive, although some blacks are better than others. The black tomato that consistently tastes the best when grown in my garden is Black Krim, a Russian tomato from the isle of Krim in the Black Sea. Black Cherry, now in its third year in my garden, is a close second. Whereas Black Krim is a marvelous, thick, heavy dense beefsteak type tomato, Black Cherry is more of a sweet, fruity one. Black Krim and Black Cherry are heads and shoulders above the rest, but the other black ones are still good to excellent in flavor. If I had to rank them in order of preference, for me the listing would be like this: Black Krim, Black Cherry, Black Plum, Paul Robeson, Pierce's Pride (new for me this year), Black From Tula, Carbon, Nyagous, Black Pear, Black, and Japanese Black Trifelle (also new in my garden this year and not yet impressive). I am also trying Black Pineapple and Black Zebra this year, but haven't had ripe ones yet. I tried Black Ethiopian this year but the non-stop rain wiped them out so will have to try them again next year. I agree with Violet that you have to get past the idea that the only good tomatoes are red, round, uniform balls from which the flavor has, for the most part, been bred out. I have to BEG people to take one bite of a black tomato, but once they try it, they are the ones begging for more. It was hard for me to get enthusiastic about the GWR (green when ripe) tomatoes since we all grew up equating green tomatoes with unripened tomatoes. Once I tasted a few GWRs, esp. Aunt Ruby's German Green, though, I developed a new attitude towards green when ripe tomatoes. I still have a hard time with the bi-colors and tri-colors. Most of the ones I have tried have not been as tasty as I had been told they were, and they take forever to get ripe in my garden. Of course, tomato taste is subjective since everyone's taste buds 'taste' things differently. Even tomatoes that I really, really like will taste better some years (the dry years) than they do in other years (the really wet years), even when grown in the same garden spot. Happy tomato growing and eating! Dawn

Jay, I am married to a former Pennsylvanian and he still has relatives there who garden and every summer I envy their cool temperatures (you know, they think 85 degrees is hot) and their usually abundant rainfall. When we go there to visit in summertime, everything is so lush and lovely that it blows my mind, especially compared to how roasting hot and tired everything looks in this part of the country at the same time. On the other hand, Late Blight seems to be on a tear there the last few years, so their beaufiful crops can fail suddenly. Marcy, That's a great list from the Kerr Center. Thanks for linking it. Susan, I think each of us adds/drops varieties for many reasons. After growing tomatoes for 25 years on my own and for at least 15 years with my dad prior to that, I'm just through with the massive experimentation. The truth is that out of every 20 or 25 new (to me) varieties that I try, maybe one or two is worth putting into the permanent growing rotation. So, rather than constantly looking for something new, I'm trying to refine the grow list and weed out those that perform least well in a broad range of conditions. I've reached the conclusion that there really aren't many, or maybe not any, incredible undiscovered varieties out there that taste/perform significantly better than what I've already tried....so I've stopped looking. I had high hopes for the Brandymaster series, likely because it is so tempting to believe there could be anything that could match Brandywine's flavor. They've performed so poorly here that I doubt I'd see a better performance next year or the year after. While many of you may be seeing significantly hotter or drier weather this year than in your average year, for us here in southcentral OK, our rainfall has been exactly 'average' for the year to date and so have our temperatures. If anything we've had slightly lower temperatures, in general, in Love County than we usually have although higher than average heat indices. So, for me, this is a pretty typical year except the real heat arrived in mid-May instead of late June so we got hot earlier, but not necessarily hotter than average...just earlier than average. A tomato variety that didn't perform well in what was a fairly typical year here at our place this year likely wouldn't perform any differently next year. In Oklahoma we have a wide range of average annual rainfall....some folks may average 15" of rainfall per year in western OK while others in eastern OK may average 50-60" or more. Humidity varies widely as does soil type and pH. So, what grows well for someone in highly alkaline soil and water in western OK may not grow nearly as well for someone in eastern OK with entirely different weather and soil. I enjoy looking at everybody's lists and hearing how different tomatoes perform for different people but I know that works well in areas drastically different from mine may not work well here. Growing in containers is much more complicated. First of all, nothing that I grow performs as well in containers as in the ground. Heat and pests hit container-grown plants much harder every year than those in the ground. The grasshoppers have completely stripped my container tomatoes of every leaf and fruit, but have only done sporadic damage to in-ground plants. It is the same thing with spider mites....only the container plants have had issues with them this summer. For me, container-grown tomatoes are great from Jan. or Feb. through the end of June or early July. After that, I might as well yank out those plants and toss them on the compost pile because they're toast. Last year, the tomatoes in containers did somewhat better than they usually do....but we had much higher than average rainfall and much more rain/clouds/cool weather than we see in an average summer. I'm looking for plants that perform best in the worst of conditions, not the best ones, because more often than not, we get the worst conditions every July and August. In containers, I plant tomatoes that can tolerate the heat and the restriction of their root growth and still perform. That means I often grow tomatoes in containers that I don't consider 'good enough' to plant into the ground....stuff like Better Bush and Husky Red Cherry. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just at the point that I want what produces best for us here, and I don't want to keep looking for something 'better' because I don't think there is anything out there that's really that much better than our tried and true varieties that make our grow list most years. For a long time, I gardened for fun....trying any and every thing that interested me. We ate all we wanted fresh and gave tons away and didn't care if we put up much for the non-gardening season or not. In recent years, though, I've developed a deeper appreciation for the truly superior flavor of anything/everything that's grown locally and picked/prepared/preserved at its peak of perfection. Thus, I give away little and try to raise as much of our annual food supply as possible. In a good year I fill up three freezers, a root cellar and manage to can 2 or 3 or 4 hundred jars of 'stuff'. Since that is what is important to me now, I want plants that produce well, that provide tasty food we like and that are not prima donnas requiring a lot of pampering. Thus, I'm less inclined to experiment and more inclined to plant what produces really well with little fuss. In a lot of ways, the 'experimentation years' were a lot more fun, but the farm-garden-preserving years have been much more productive. Now my family is spoiled and I must produce as much home-grown food as possible because they don't like grocery store stuff as much as they used to. Even DS's firestation co-workers prefer fresh, home-grown and I'm going to try to plant a lot more for them next year so I can send them all the tomatoes, peppers and other yuummy things they're craving. There just isn't room, or enough improved soil, to experiment with varieties now as there used to be. I don't mind that, really, because as long as what I'm growing is producing well, I've gotten over thinking there are incredible varieties out there just waiting for me to find them. Megan, Black Plum grew very well for me for a long time and then for 2 or 3 years it didn't and I dropped it. It is odd how that happens....and I loved Coyote too. If my garden were twice as large as it is, I'd bring it back to the grow list. So many varieties, so little time (and improved soil). The tomatoes I grow from seed invariably outperform storebought ones and I don't know why, but I've seen it enough years to know it is true. Dawn

UPDATE : I like Black Russian :) It's color is similar to Cherokee Purple but the plants are 7' tall now (semi-suckered/staked) as CPs are usually 5' tall max before fading away. The BR is still kicking out new tomatoes and it has thin deep green veins spaced where lobes might be (not a lobed tomato) running from top to bottom thru it's crimsom/purple color (you can see this in one from the top post above with pic, not all of them have this, maybe 30%). Green shoulders and several have belly buttons on the bottom. Not perfectly round but a slightly semi flattened shape. Taste is very good, juicy, and tomatoie. I still need to do some more precise comparisons between it and CP overall but BR is more productive for me and produces larger tomatoes. No sign of disease or blight so far. As for the Country Taste - It's color is the same as typical hybrids with an orangy-red hue. Very nice strong plants, very productive, good tomatoes as vine ripened. Sizes vary from Med to Large. I'll try to update BR as the season continues, am curious to see if it goes all the way to first frost unlike CPs which peter out by Sept for me.