Raisemybeds, you do have a way with words! It's funny that I should stumble across this post today. Just yesterday, as I'm driving home from picking the kids up from school, I'm looking for signs of a gardener's presence as I'm driving through town. Granted it's a small town, around 2500 people, but there were only 2 or 3 homes that showed any signs of life. The tulips and daffodils are just now coming up, so I'm not referring to things blooming already, but just evidence that someone cares. Maybe they've cleaned up the fall debris, or worked the soil in a vegetable bed, or have bulbs coming up. Most houses have a few token shrubs or trees, and when summer kicks in they might set out a couple pots of store bought annuals, but no perennials or vegetables. Oh, there are a couple of homes that appear to have been professionally landscaped, with things you can buy at any big box store, but nothing unusual to say that a gardener actually lives there. Last year, I was edging around one of my perennial beds with a pair of hand held grass shears, mainly because I can't cut a straight line with a weed-eater. One of my neighbors saw me, and later asked my DH if I alway cut the yard with scissors. It makes me a bit sad that there are so few gardeners around here, and that I'm seen as an oddity of some sort. That's why I enjoy the forum's here so much. I feel like I'm around people that understand the joy and beauty of gardening, and enjoy helping one another to be more successful at it. Thank you for sharing, Bonnie

Pollination is a problem, but I think the main problem is that no flowering is even taking place to begin with. Interesting update on the situation - I mentioned that until yesterday I had only seen 1 striped cucumber beetle, and then killed 3 in the morning... well I went out on my nightly slug hunt last night and ended up squashing about 10-12 more SCB's, 6 of which were coupled up and going at it on the leaves. Rest assured I busted in like a disapproving father and brought an end to their shenanigans. No signs of any eggs this morning, and only one more single beetle seen/squashed. SCB damage to the leaves seems very minimal... no wilting going on, but still no flowering :/

I just had my first "UglyRipe™ tomato and can say that it is definitely not a delicious selection. So I looked high and low for information on it this morning including this surprisingly recent thread right here! I felt cheated so I'm going to give my story and stick to it until experts like Carolyn or Dave who are so helpful correct any misconceptions. UglyRipe™ is a trade mark. It is not a cultivar in the sense most cultivars get named. So I suspect the actual cultivars/genetics sold under the trade name can vary. A New York Times article at the time of the suit discussed above mentions that the UglyRipe™ subject of the suit: "They were developed from a French heirloom called Maramondo that was cross-bred with non-heirlooms to make it more disease resistant and to strengthen the stem." Other sources simply call it a European heirloom and the original marketer said it was crossed “only twice”. Earlier in the thread it was suggested as Italian. I can't Google up anywhere the heirloom "Maramondo". Maybe it exists and is hiding from the Internet and commerce, but I doubt it. Putting it all together, it is not clear to me is whether the UglyRipe™ tomatoes being sold are open pollinated, hybrids, or for that matter if any heirloom's accidentally fall into the box, especially in affluent markets. There is no cultivar specification for the UglyRipe™ brand I can find. I looked up its original dead trademark and its new live one. The change was simply to make UglyRipe™ registered as UglyRipe Tomato™ by the “new owners” who were in bed doing business with the “old owners” for 50 years. Probably they are all old buddies from the Bronx and New York Produce Markets. The Italian component I see is that a bunch of produce strong arm tomato used the Florida Tomato Commission to their benefit, got angry the Commission was becoming more fair to all growers (after all one was a founding member of the FTC) and didn't want to throw away their seconds and came up with the UglyRipe™ gimmick, and framed the problem as David vs. Goliath, even though they were the original Goliath they could no longer, let’s say, ‘control’. The gem they had was to get a good tasting tomato so their company could sell their seconds. So they did a marketing switch from "seconds" to a branding of UglyRipe™, and secured an exemption so their company could ship the 30% of tomatoes that were irregularly shaped and consider to be at higher risk for damage in shipping, plus the aesthetic presentation issue "Ugly is Just Skin Deep" taste it! So now their competitors were forced to conform to not ship seconds but all they had to do was put the UglyRipe™ label and they could ship theirs. The twist was,. that the marketing campaign worked out better than their initial dreams and business shenanigans to put their competitors out of business. To the public they sold an heirloom-type tomato which had improved shipping and disease resistance as part of the marketing strategy. If the heirloom parent story is not misleading purposely and some OP cultivar, “Maramondo”, or otherwise, exists as an heirloom and was originally "crossed", whether saving seeds from store bought UglyRipe™ to replant will have the same traits or a distribution of traits including the selective breeding that was done to develop this irregularly shaped beefsteak non-heirloom tomato will hold, only those who grow it out can tell ��" including flavor, since shape is no guarantee of taste when making “two crosses”. UglyRipe™ well could be a hybrid for all we know as “heirloom-like”, in an industry that will seize consumer perceptions of “heirloom” tells you right there that even these tough Produce men didn’t feel right calling it an heirloom, but that distinction is lost on consumers who for the most part are clueless on selective breeding practices. Agree with the above poster 100% if it gives you like it great. Not interested in debating what an 'heirloom' is, but heirloom-type is a marketing term developed to strong-arm a market and the effects of this are I must go Whole Foods to find what seem to be heirlooms and just repeat to myself - it is an heirloom because they say so. If I go to Publix, I only find UglyRipe™, when previously Publix used to stock "real" heirlooms occasionally, the UglyRipe™ has had the effect to exclude them, and the cardboard tasting tomatoes are a popular as ever. Though Taste is King, another little gem to keep in mind in the David vs. Goliath story ... the guy who registered the UglyRipe™ was also the guy who pioneered the use of picking tomatoes green in Florida to ship and gassing them and was a founder of the FTC itself to exclude competitors. America! This is my assessment which is based on the interpretation of information on the Internet and I believe it is generally on target though there may be some errors since I wasn’t a fly on the wall of the boardrooms where the marketing plan was hatched. $5 a pound for such a crappy tomato. I should have returned it LOL, since it was probably Publix’s (the #1 produce supermarket in FL) fault, I bet they stuck them in a cooler.

Season's end report, on KUMATO, the brown tomato: Mission accomplished. My F2 Kumato produced consistently true fruits in size, color, texture and taste, just like the one that I took the seed from. I planted it in a 6gallon pot and it did well. The main branch forked just once and the branches are about 5ft tall . I like that compact feature. The plant produced about 20 fruits in 4 trusses. The average fruit size being 3 to 4 oz. Not too bad for a small compact plant in a pot. I have already saved seeds (F3) and will plant it next year. END OF KUMATO ADVENTURE> Sey