I am interested in wisconsin 55 , do you grow this ? thoughts on it if you or anyone does.

I grew steak sandwich which is pink not red like burpees pics and description. Thick pink skin, firm meaty most people liked it not going to grow it again disease magnet.

all in all wasnt a good tom year.

Hey Joe-il; It depends on what you like. I found it to be a little too sweet for my taste, and has a really thick,tough skin. It is said to do well in "high blight years". We don't have this in Southern CA.
I have another old cultivar called Landreth which is quite similar,but tastes more like Rutgers.

Two new ones for me this year, definite keepers: Wes and Japanese Black Trifele (wonderful tomato), Orange Minsk, Huge Black.

Not new in my garden but spectacular as always: Indian Stripe, Black Sea Man, Neves Azorean Red.

I only had 3 reds in my Garden. I would say Amish Paste was my favorite
in this years garden. Late blight did get it, but it produced tons of tomatoes,
before it died..
Zebraman...I was raised in Whittier. After high school moved to Chino Hills.
My dad had a nice garden in Chino Hills. The only problem I remember him
having was with gophers and tomato hornworms. I don't remeber the blight.
Those were the good old days. My dad did all the planting and I did the
picking and eating.

All of my tomatoes this year are new discoveries for me.

My favorites: (I've only grown crap before 2009)
Paul Robeson
Giant Belgium
Earl's Faux
Nyagous
JD's Special C-Tex
Snow White
Isis Candy

DH loved them ALL 45 kinds - see the crap growing comment above

Kids' favorites:
Snow White
Black Cherry
Sugar Lump
Peach Garden
-
Won't grow again:
Galinas
Blondkopfchen
Riesentraube
Blueberry

Hey Roper2008; Yeah I know Chino Hills. I'll bet its not the place you remember. Since the early 90's this town has become yet another mega expensive neighborhood. The Dairy farms are long gone. I am at the beach but there are ground squirrels in Marina Del Rey and The Santa Monica incline (Santa Monica Fwy meets PCH).

If one is looking to make a lot of juice and likes a tom with a bit of a sweet flavor, the Red Zebra heirloom is tops in my book. The fruit is from 3-6 ounces but I can harvest 15-20 of them twice a week from each plant. They are still producing now. Plus, they produce the thickest juice of any tomato I have grown. Most of the jars of juice seem to have 2-3 inches of water at the top, the Zebras have 1/2 that.

I like Red Delicious, another heirloom for slicers. Nice, smooth shape that ripen uniformly, especially for a beefsteak. Most of mine were at least 12 ounces, most of them over that. The taste is neutral as far as sweet or tart - IMO not something that bowls you over but not close to bad either.

A good early season variety with outstanding taste and good production was Siletz. Very few seeds, generally 8-10 ounce, round fruits that also ripen uniformly. One of the best tasting tomatoes on the market, at least according to several people I shared this tom with.

Worse: Beefsteak. Yeah, they are meaty and large, but they do not ripen uniformly. The bottom and middle are ripe red, the top ribs are green or white.

Middle of the road - Riesentraube. I am not a fan of cherry or grape tomatoes but tried them. One plant was super prolific, another two were as bad as Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. The taste was great to me, neither sweet nor tart, though. But unless I really want to fix enough salads to serve a battalion of rabbits, I cannot see growing them next year.

Mike

Oh yea. I remember my friend and I cruising down PCH. That was really
nice. That was back in the 80's. I am 45 years old now(can't belive it).
Chino Hills use to smell of Dairy Farms. I don't even know if they have
any left..The house my parents bought was nice because you could have
chickens, horses, goats, geese..etc...We would go out to the chicken coop
and gather fresh eggs..It sounds like you live in a nice area. I can't
remember if I ever went to Marina Del Rey. The beach I would usually
go to was Hunington and Laguna Beach.

Oh yea. I remember my friend and I cruising down PCH. That was really
nice. That was back in the 80's. I am 45 years old now(can't belive it).
Chino Hills use to smell of Dairy Farms. I don't even know if they have
any left..The house my parents bought was nice because you could have
chickens, horses, goats, geese..etc...We would go out to the chicken coop
and gather fresh eggs..It sounds like you live in a nice area. I can't
remember if I ever went to Marina Del Rey. The beach I would usually
go to was Hunington and Laguna Beach.

Joe-il, I did grow Wisconsin 55 this year as well. It was good. It was the first non-cherry type to ripen for me except for Wayahead which was...well way ahead. Nicely shaped all purpose globe tomatoes. The plants dwarf others when it is young but eventually they even out. I would compare it to Rutgers which I also grew this year, the fruits look same and mature about the same time with Wisconsin 55 having the winning edge this year by about 5 days. The flavor is your basic red tomato flavor that is enough to tide me over until the Cherokee Purples and Kellogg's Breakfasts start rolling in.
Since Rutgers and it are both so similar I'll just grow one next year and that will likely be WI 55 since it was earlier and well, I live in Wisconsin.

New favs and must grows: Haleys purple comet, purple russian, Delicious, cherry(grape) ildi, and earlies taxi and burstyn.

My new favourite....German Red Strawberry.

It's supposed to be a late producer in our region, but it was one of the first to ripen. Way earlier than some of the earlier varieties I grew. We had terrible weather this year, so I was extra pleased that this produced. It was a nice size, great texture, and tasted wonderful (on the sweeter side but not too sweet).

Aside from that, the best producers this year were vb russian, siberian, kimberley and livingstons perfection. Red Robin cherry gets an honourable mention for producing so much even though it's been tossed around several times with the rain and high winds we've been having this year :)

I tried Persimmon this year- absolutely delicious! Probably the sweetest tomato I've ever had. I found it at the local farmer's market and hope the same vendor will be there next year.

hmacdona, funny about your comment with the German Red Strawberry. I also tried it this year and it was the worst. Absolutely no flavor at all, although they were large and a beautiful pink color.

i wonder can taste buds really be that different.

new 'maters we really liked this year.

Cherokee Purples way to go jackbenny. the two best toamto sandwiches i have this year were with Cherokee purple and Russian rose 'maters. robust flavor

Kellogg's Breakfasts what cah i say it is on the must grow list.

Opalka. the best paste 'mater. our main canning lady is over 70 and wanted a large paste 'mater. the bonus is that it taste so good. thank you Carlyn and your friends wife.

German giant. large several over two pounds and teast good.

we got a heirloom cheery form seeds of change called LARGE RED CHERRY and we well grow it next year. i have grown sweet 100 and sweet one million in the past and i liked them but this year i got supper sweet 100's and the large red cherry is better.

we tried two new canning 'maters this year. Thessaloniki and bonny's best. bonny's best wins hands down. it was larger and tasted better. the Thessaloniki was advertised to be a 68 day 'mater but bonny's beat in to harvest. was larger and tasted better. so our canning 'maters next year with be bonny's and rugers.

that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Dean

drcindy- If you still have some of the Persimmon around, you could save some seed and grow them next year.

I had a lot of perfect round red crack-free tomatoes this year that also tasted good, Jetsetter, Nepal, and Legend.

For just a little extra special flavor I would pick Bloody Butcher, perhaps not really the right tom as it was from a trade, and is small, not 4 oz like the tomatofest description. Also for flavor, Verna's Orange Oxheart, Japanese Black Trifele, and Poll Robson. I finally got Marvel Stripe to germinate, and got some whopping big tomatoes with great taste, and they seemed to crack less than the Lucky Crosses I have grown.