I think every year is diferent and every location in the garden is diferent. I refer to growing and taste. For me- Early girl is gone- poor groth and later that others. Will have one juliet and will give it lots of room to spread out. Kids next door loved to eat them. Stupice was out standing in a cold spring where wind kept trying to blow plants away and Tasted OK to me. Cherokee purple got lots of rain just as they came ripe and tasted like mud, but will get planted again. Old german didn't live long enough to test. More and more I am beginning to think that taste is inviromental.
Kenny

Let's see:

The weather seemed like it was good for tomatoes, but for the first time in this garden (6 years) my tomato plants were unhealthy. Weird.

Anyway, by FAR the big winner of the season was first-timer Aunt Gertie's Gold. Fabulous tomato: just like everyone here said it would be. It gets an automatic promotion to the starting line-up for years to come.

I had pretty good luck with the Brandywine SS this year, which was nice, since they taste so darned good.

I had bad luck with Russian #117, a real favorite of mine, because I accidentally gave away one of the two I wanted for myself and then almost killed the one I did plant. So sad. At least I got about 6 giant tomatoes off of it.

Cherokee Purple, for the third year in a row, was disappointing. The best results I ever had from it were in a container, so I very well may do that again next season.

Lastly, I gave Lucky Cross a shot this year, as a trial replacement for my annual Little Lucky plants. To be honest, it is pretty much what I expected it to be, but I'm going back to Little Lucky from now on. I have plenty of big round tomatoes to choose from each year, but there are only a couple tomatoes in the Little Lucky size that compare favorably as far as taste, productivity, health, and none that compare in the looks department.

So, there you have the year-end round up things worth mentioning. (Oh, and there is a wasp egg covered hornworm on my Chapman (another awesome tomato, by the way) plant right now, so I've got that going for me as well.)

I grow only tomatoes for drying so my criteria are a little different. The standout this year was Chinese Giant. HUGE...about 5 to 6" circumfrance and about 8-10 inches long. Plants absolutely loaded with fruit. We had a bizarro spring...27 degrees on June 11. We have such a short growing season here, any little setback can be a deal breaker. CG showed no effects from weather. Also, for a large paste type, these have great flavor and resist cracking. It seems like the three I go back and forth on these three every year Carol Chyko, Opalka & Chinese Giant. Some years Carol or Opalka is better and vice a versa. I tried "Heart of Compassion" two years in a row and yuck...did not set fruit reliably and took forever to ripen. And of course, as everyone knows, my favorite Russo Sicilian Togeta. I had ripe tomatoes on those 10 plants before I had any on the remaining 140 plants that were 8 to 10 different varieties. EVERY SINGLE YEAR FOR 15 years, these have been the star in my garden. Nothing affects them, they are loaded with fruit and just keep pumping them out until hard frost. These are my "premier" drying tomatoes and I charge extra for those, Principe Borgese, Pantano Romanesco & Costoluto Genovese. For sauce...I would never use anything besides Costoluto Genovese. The flavor triples when cooked.

My hubby grows the rest of the garden as well as eating tomatoes and he never says much either way. He cans, freezes those as well as eating them fresh and all I know for sure is he likes the black varieties the best. He is the most un-picky guy ever and will eat whatever you set in front of him!

We had lots of rain this summer. Torrential downpours that came between sunny days and the garden never got a chance to dry out on it's own. I only had to water with the hose about 4 times.
I was disappointed in the opalka's I grew. This was my first year with this variety, and I think they(Reimer Seed) put the wrong seeds in the package. They were not red skinned but kind of striped or yellow mottled. Then before they got ripe they all developed black spots on them. They were only on the skin so I was still able to use them in sauces. I had good luck with the Polish Linguisa's. Very nice sauce tomato. Brandywine and Early Girls were nice too. I'll try the Opalka's again next year but from a new company....ANY SUGGESTIONS??

I had my garden completely stripped of all plants by labor day, two weeks earlier than last year.

Diane

Okay, I'll play.

Big Rainbow: Very late to start producing, but now is making lots of tomatoes. Very attractive tomato with a subtle, sweet flavor.

Black Brandywine. BB is my star this year. Prolific and tasty. Will definitely grow again.

Carbon: Started out great with lots of tasty, black tomatoes. Has gotten hammered by disease and is limping along now.

Fireworks. An early tomato that wasn't early (didn't start producing until mid-late season). Prolific but average flavor.

Lemon Boy: Prolific with average flavor. Good for canning.

Murray Smith: Tasty and prolific large red. Good for canning and eating fresh. Will grow again.

Red Grape: Tons of average tasting tomatoes. Make good sun-dried toms, though.

Rose: Very late to start producing. Had tons of blossom drop, so I finally hand pollinated it with a small paintbrush. Don't have any ripe ones yet.

Sioux: Another stand out variey. It is a small-medium, unassuming looking red, but it has a nice zingy flavor.

Pleasnt Surprises: Hawaiian Pineapple, Orange Strawberry Oxheart

Disappontment: Neves Azorean Red

Good Old Standbyes: Kellogg's Breakfast, Pruden's Purple, Juliet.

New plantings for next year: Box Car Willie, Aker's West Virginia, a new cherry??

Lots of catfacing on Brandy Boys and Porterhouse not up to usual performance this season.

Next Year's New Ones (for me) Box Car Willie

The standout this year was Chinese Giant. HUGE...about 5 to 6" circumfrance and about 8-10 inches long.
Brokenbar,
Do you by any chance have a picture of that tomato? That sounds like one strange looking tomato.

The jury is still out on the varieties I grew this season...since I don't know too well, just which is which. I'll try to get a review together sometime after the canning season slows down some.

Sue

Worst disease year ever here. But here goes:

Sudduth Brandywine: Medium Disease, early fruit were great, later fruit unusuable.

Marianna's Peace: Medium Disease, Again, very good early, late fruit are small and some unusable.

KBX: The find of the century! No CRUD and only light disease. Fruit still coming. Wonderful production and tastes just like KB!!! Thank You Lee.

Orange Heirloom: Bad Disease, worse on one plant than the other. But while it was healthy produced great tasting orange fruit very similar to KBX. Thanx again to Lee. Will grow again next year and hope for better weather. This is (was) a great tasting tomato!

Big Beef: Bad disease. Old workhorse.

Porterhouse: Bad disease. No huge tomatoes this year. Last year 2 and 3 pounders, this year only 1plus pounders.

Big Zac: Bad disease. See Porterhouse above.

Momotaro: Bad disease. I love this tomato and wish I could have kept my lone plant going longer.

Chapman: The only RL here that I can put in the medium disease range and not the bad. HUGE plant with tremendous production of great tasting beefstakes!

SunGold: Yes, even SunGold had bad disease problems...:(

I have learned that PL plants fare better aginst Early Blight than RL. No doubt about it this year.

Must leave, will be back with more later...

In no particular order:
#4th of July reliable, first of the season, small tomato does well every year.
*Tree TomatoÂwaste of time and space for a pink tasteless beefsteak. One plant never produced at all.
#KelloggÂs BreakfastÂbetter production this year, now my favorite on a burger.
#GoliathÂa great tomato to me
*#Heatwave IIÂgreat improvements on this determinant. IÂll do it again next year.
*#Champion IIÂa beast of a plant and excellent producer. Of the new things tried this year, this is my favorite. Amazing how they improved on one of my favorites.
OpalkaÂdoes not like either me or my garden for some reason. After 3 years and 2 different seed sources I give up.
*#Big ZacÂwish it produced more, but I liked it. Repeat next year.
#CelebrityÂanother of my reliable hybrids.
*Mr. StripeyÂwish I had not wasted the space on this one.
#SunSugarÂthe only cherry I grow because I like it and so do my coworkers and everybody who I have given it to.
Most other types were grow outs and other dehybridization projects with varying results.
* = new this year, # = repeating next year.

chemocurl...broke my digital camera. These are shaped like huge horn, big at top and narrowing to point at bottom. Tops were the 5 in around narrowing to about 1 inch
around at the bottom of the horn. I'll bet I had 150 on some of the plants at one time. Plants were well over 7 foot tall but I top mine like a hedge when they get past the top of the T Post I use for staking. I weighed several individual tomatoes and I had some that were a pound and a half. The flavor was terrific and they have few seeds. My idea of the perfect drying tomatoe. These have been riping for me since about the first of August which is terrific considering we had the lousiest June in my memory. I always forget to add that in addition to being good for drying, the CHinese are tasty enough to eat out of hand....not mealy or dry. I also made some sauce using these this year and it was great, as was Annie's Salsa.

Iowa's Stone Heirlooms are very meaty, and mile acid, but full tomatoes favour. Keep's is round shape 8 oz size consistency through -out the growth of the plant.

Red Zebra, A must try, Amen!!!

Brokenbar,

Thanks for the better description. It just sounds so interesting. I'm a big lover of big paste type varieties, after having only grown romas for so many years before I got enlightened here at the Tomato Forum. In doing an on line search I can't come up with any info on Chinese Giant Tomato...I only find Chinese Giant Pepper.
Where did you get your seeds, might I ask? Might you have a few seeds (4-6) to trade or share with a fellow tomatoholic?

Can you or anyone else maybe point to some on line info on this variety?

Sue

Sue, I will save you some. I will see if I can find where I got them at. They are great! I may have gotten them in a trade. I dehydrate/sun dry 1000 to 2000 pounds of tomatoes a year. 150 plus plants. I sell to the upscale restaurant trade.

EARLY GIRL. Have grown this for many years. Very insipid this year, same as last. I may not grow it again. Has previously been an anchor in my garden, tastier than most heirlooms.

CHEROKEE. Another favorite that produced poorly with bland fruits and became stunted in mid-season. Did poorly last year as well.

SWEET 100. Profuse production of marble size fruits. Intense flavor, very tart. Can't say that I like it. Ripped it out.

"BLACK". Yes, that's what the nursery label said. Fantastic production of 3/4 pound tomaotes, exceedingly juicy, extra tender skin, does not keep long. A neighbor raved over it. So so to me. Won't grow it again.

ARKANSAS TRAVELER. Fourth time I've grown this and third time its failed. Once, it produced a fair amount of luscious tomaotes. Forget it.

CUOSTRALEE. The great discovery of the year. Delicious, meaty, juicy, one pound tomatoes, produced in generoous quantity. A replanter!

RB

P.S.

As I've said here before Early Girl should be renamed "Late Girl." Nothing early about it.

Stupice and Bloody Butcher - A Both did bloody well.

Marianna's Peace - B Only average production but they were very good.

San Marzano and San Marzano Redorta - A+ Exceptional production for sauce and canning. Filled the cabinets.

Opalka - C more than its share of BER and only average production this year but I know it can do better.

Chapman, Red Rose, Florida Pink - C Very low production.

Kelloggs Breakfast, 1884, Cherokee Purple, Giant Belgium and Brandy Boy - A Excellent production and great taste.

Tiffen Mennonite, AR Traveler, and Sweet Cluster - B

Cuostralee - F never again. Not one decent fruit.

Dave

Brokenbar, I sent you an e-mail. Let me know if you received it. It concerns the Chinese Giant tomato.

Thanks,

Mike

Brokenbar,

Ditto what Mike said above.

Sue

Excellent year.
(32) various hybrids all productive and delicious.
(9) Heirlooms: Japanese Black Triefle, Purple Calabash, Arkansas Traveler, Dad's Sunset, and Kelloggs Breakfast were all big producers and great tastes. Dad's Mug was very disappointing (but an interesting look) while Green Giant, Brandywine and Mr. Stripey produced 2 or 3 good tomatoes but died off early.

well i only grew a couple. Nebraska Wedding, a good reliable plant, healthy fruit with few blemishes. Second year now, next year I will try Kellogs Breakfast. NB's mild flavor suits my husband's wimpy taste buds.
Sungold, a standby for my daughter.
Got a Black Krim from a friend but it looks like Joe Average Roma. Oooops.
Next year is going to be dahlias and heirloom tomatoes and that's it. Cutting flowers were fun, but I have the 'mater itch.

Garden Peach - always a standout. Tasty (in its mild way), early and productive. We tried growing one in a container "just to see..." and that plant disappointed us.

Zapotec - this year's surprise! Healthy plants producing a goodly number of big, meaty tomatoes with excellent flavour.

Brandywine - Have grown these for 15 years and I really don't think there is a better-tasting tomato. Since the yield is so low, I plant a lot of them and hope for the best. This growing season has not agreed with them - plants are healthy but production is even less than usual. Moderate disease resistance.

Babywine - Smaller than Brandywine but better production, excellent flavour. Moderate disease resistance.

Cherokee Purple - My fourth (and last) try on this. They are very tasty but can't seem to keep the fruits on the vine long enough to fully ripen...and they crack. Also not too productive. Worst-hit with disease in our organic plot.

Sungold - My favorite cherry for many years, no reason to change my mind.

Peacevine Cherry - VERY productive, disease resistant, great taste, doesn't crack as much as other red cherries I've grown. A keeper!

Black Cherry - Pretty, but bland and poor production for such a healthy plant.

Santa Grape Tomato - Given to us by a friend, incredibly productive and healthy but bland to my taste. However, they work nicely for roasting and drying.

Overall, it was a very good year for Âmaters, even though we had quite a bit of rainy, overcast weather.

The Best:

Sunsugar: The best tasting, no cracking cherry tomato we have ever grown!
Cherokee Purple: Excellent production and flavor
Cherokee Green: Good production and excellent flavor
Legend: Taste was good, the best of our early varieties.

Not so good:

Better Boy: Extremely bland hybrid-will never grow again, not after tasting heirlooms!
Stupice: Very bland, but made good oven roasted sauce- will try again
Black Cherry: Started out great, but developed horrible cracking problems with all of the rain and fruit became bitter. Family is undecided about next year.
Omar Lebanese: Healthy plant, but serious blossom drop, only had 1 delicious fruit- will try again

Happy Gardening,
PJ

My first veggie garden at this house. No significant rain for 8 weeks in a row (July and August) so plants wilted almost every day and were revived with a good watering at night.

Roma tomatoes: Plants were good sized over 3 feet tall. Heavy with fruit. Fruit in bunches of 6-8. Due to lack of calcium in the soil some fruits fell off or got blossem end rot. Remaining fruits looked very good, well-shaped, no other diseases on tomato plants. Removed 4 tomato hornworms around end of July with no more to return.

I found out cheap plastic stakes put in a trio, did not hold up plants because the string would slide down under weight of fruit. So they were worthless. I did cut a notch or "catch" in one stake, and hung a string there. It worked for the season.

Note: Some tomato plants were 1 foot from neighbor's garage, which was white vinyl siding. These plants suffered the reflected heat the most and were the most wilted each day. Note to self: keep plants at least 3 feet away from any building.

Tomato Mike, I did not get one from you but will happy to accomodate. Try emailing me again and I will check my spam filter.

I just tried again. I use a hotmail account.

Thanks,

Mike

The weather was most uncooperative, but I did get some winners:
Kellogs Breakfast, Black from Tula, Prudens Purple, and Charlie's Mortgage Lifter are going to be back next year, along with my Brandywines.

Aw, shucks. I wish I had seen this thread before I posted a similar thread.

Great info, folks!

Yes, Nordfyr, we have similar results. Black from Tula, despite a rough year (you know what i'm talking about) was a big hit with the people who tried it. As I said in another thread, even DH, who's not a tomato lover, thought it was excellent and told me to grow it next year.

Red Brandywine didn't have a chance between BER, borers, and various fungi. There were a few that gave us some slices, and they were tasty. But not one tomato came out fully usable.

Yellow Brandywine is something you should try next year if you have the room to do so. Although it, too, got hit with fungus, many more fruits managed to stay unaffected and they were delicious. Flavor like Red Brandywine with a slight citrus zing that accents the full tomato flavor. It's a lovely summery yellow color. I would described the flavor as crisp and sunny.

Nebraska Wedding was a success too. A really nice tomato. A striking orange with great flavor. Neighbors and co-workers thought they were delicious.

I had no luck with Marianna's Peace. Will try again next year. If yours ripens you must tell me what you think. Go ahead, make me jealous. :-)

In SW PA. Rating 10 (for this year) for flavor, texture and production:
Crnkovic Yugoslavian - My favorite this year. Huge plant. Great tomatoes. If you have room try this one. (It will be back next year)
German Head - Smooth texture. Mild but still tastes like a tomato. (It will be back next year)
Bush Big Boy - Very good flavor and texture. Like when I was a kid. (It will be back next year)
Paul Robeson - My first black grown. Lots of production. Good flavor but a little soft for me.
Campbells 1327 - Bigger than I expected. Very good. (It will be back next year)
Black Cherry - My wife loved them. Sweet. Just OK to me. (My wife loved them. It will be back next year)
Cosmonaut Volkov - Compact plant with very big production. Not sweet. Good tomato flavor. 4' plants with 50+ toms each.
Heinz 1439 - Good red, globe tomato.
Marglobe - Good red, globe tomato.
Supersonic - OK flavor. Poor production this year.

Several I tried won't be coming back. Neves Azorean Red, Omar's Lebanese, Ashleigh, Lime Green Salad and Steak Sandwich had poor production and the ones we did get were not that special.