I've been growing tomatoes in the northeast for 25 years. When I first started I could harvest perfect beefsteaks into Nov by throwing some plastic over the plants in Sept- the leaves would stay healthy and plants vigorous through Sept. Then early blight arrived and everything changed. Plants will just start to ripen fruit and then begin to die. You usually get a rush of tomatoes that are perfect then quality rapidly declines as plants succumb to blight. For quite a few years I've grown several variety of heirlooms and have found a couple that are fairly productive even in the face of blight but things vary here a great deal year to year now. Many small commercial growers have resorted to growing heirlooms under plastic because that is the only reliable way to assure productivity. Serious home growers too. I won't go to that much trouble for tomatoes, but this year was the best tomato year in probably 15 years. I first thought it was because of the weekly applications of copper I applied but it was a banner year for many growers here in the southeast NY area with many experiencing a major reduction in blight damage. Around here the hot item is heirlooms grafted to the roots of more vigorous varieties, but that is also too much trouble for me, although there are several mail order nurseries that offer them. Things like Purple Brandywine on Better Boy roots. I think a better deal is to grow Burpie's Brandy Boy which is a hybrid combining Better Boy with Brandywine, creating the flavor of the latter on a more productive, vigorous plant. If you want to grow what is hands down the most vigorous and productive beefsteak variety I've ever ever grown, get some Country Taste seeds somewhere. At peak I must have been harvesting 20 pounds a week from one obscenely huge plant. I'm still eating ones I picked green about 3 weeks ago. It reminded me of the beefsteak plants I used to grow, but more tomatoes. Not quite as tasty as a really good heirloom though, but so, so much more productive than any I've tried. For the most productive cherry- that would be Sun Gold or one of its improved strains. Silly sweet with almost no acid. Fun to browse but I prefer a real tomato. Many people think it's the best thing since sugar enhanced sweet corn though. Now that I can't stand.

Scott, I still have tomatoes producing heavily, and a few slow-pokes (planted late because of weather) that haven't produced a ripe one yet. And, there's no way I am going to list every single variety because I plant too many, but I'll give a brief synopsis of the ones that have produced well. Better Bush--earliest tomatoes...picked ripe ones in late April from plants set out in containers in mid-February. The flavor was very good considering these ripened in cool weather. The one in the ground in the garden produced one of the earliest ripe fruit in the garden too. Early Girl--early, lots of fruit, average flavor Jet Star--earlier than Early Girl, heavy bearers, better than average flavor Supersonic--very heavy yields of very large tomatoes, great flavor Prime Time--very heavy yields of large tomatoes, great flavor Ramapo--heavy yields of medium to large tomatoes, great flavor Moreton--heavy yields of medium to large tomatoes, very good flavor Momotaro--heavy yields of large pink tomatoes, excellent flavor Livingston Gold Ball--Heavy yields of golf-ball sized golden-yellow fruit with great taste. I like these so much they seldom make it indoors because I eat them while working in the garden. Indian Stripe--moderate yields (not as good this year as last year) of tomatoes similar to Cherokee Purple in flavor (excellent flavor) and appearance Chocolate Stripes--moderately heavy yield of red and green stiped tomatoes with average flavor Brandywine--low yields--so far 2 tomatoes from one plant and 5 from the other, but the flavor is great, and they are blooming now so hoping for more fruit set during the cool spell (which hasn't arrive here yet--it was 84 degrees here at 7:30 a.m. and felt like 89) Nebraska Wedding--Moderate yields of orange beefsteaks with outstanding texture and flavor Royal Hillbilly-moderate yield of fruit with amazing flavor--did not produce huge numbers like last year Tess' Land Race Currant--One of these is all you need. The plant currently is 8' tall and about 4' wide and I've had trouble keeping it upright. It currently is staked with 3 8' tall metal fence posts and 3 shorter wooden stakes. This produces tiny, red, round, tasty 1/2" wide tomatoes in great profusion....I'd say I've easily picked a thousand of these so far and it will produce until frost is heavy. A lot of flavor in a tiny tomato. We use these in salads and also I dehydrate tons of them. Sweet Million--heavy producer of red cherries with very good flavor Rose Quart--heavy producer of pink oval cherry types (not really as oval as most grape tomatoes) with very good flavor SunGold--as always, a heavy producer of golden-orange cherries with great flavor. Less cracking than most years. Black Cherry--superb as always and ties with SunGold in terms of great flavor and great productivity Ildi--a very prolific yellow grape tomato with amazing flavor. I've tried other yellow grapes and none of them can touch it in flavor. Some of the others are late to ripen.... Red Defender and Scarlet Red both have very heavy loads of large tomatoes. I am just about to start picking them. I think I picked a couple of Scarlet Red last week, but sent them to work at the fire station with DS, so can't comment on the flavor yet. These plants (and Moreton) have just about more fruit than foliage, and their foliage is heavy. I've never had plants in 7 to 10 gallon containers produce as many tomatoes per plant as these are producing. I can't wait to see how they do in the ground next year. Arkansas Traveler is producing medium-sized pink tomatoes with great flavor as always. Box Car Willie is just now ripening fruit. San Marzano Redorta is slow to ripen this year. Viva Italia has been a heavier producer and earlier and with fine flavor Black Plum was wonderful but both plants---one in a container and one in the ground--died of bacterial wilt. Mountain Princess produced heavy loads of pink, tasty fruit early on but was the first to die....of bacterial wilt. It was in a container too, and in fresh soil. (sigh) Some plants that won't be back: Dr. Carolyn (ivory cherry), Snow White (ivory to yellow large cherry) and Yellow Pear (kids love them). All three struggled with disease and died about the time they're producing heavily. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I didn't grow a lot of my real favorites this year because I was worried about drought and wanted some heavy-producing hybrids. Next year (Jay, do you think I'll stick to this plan?) I am determined to grow only the best-of-the-best of the plants I've tried, and maybe allow myself to try 5 or 10 new varieties. I think I'll do a 50-50 split between heirlooms (better flavor, but usually lower productivity in our climate) and hybrids (flavor can be iffy, but heavy production). Dawn

It'll be neat to see what seeds come in! I know I'm going to love some of them! (That insider trading thing, you know). I will probably order a couple of things after I see what comes back, so if anyone wants to try to do a group order, I'm open to that idea (I haven't tried it before, but saving on the seed company's shipping fee would be nice) I went to a garden show last weekend, put on by the master gardeners in the adjacent county. I got seeds! They had a seed swap, and I folded up some &%#@$% paper envelopes (the rules said "no plastic." grr) I'm glad I did, as I got some neat stuff. I now have a ton of yellow tithonia, so if you notice this, Drippy, you can strike that from my list! (or just send it, I'll pass it on). I got Hungarian Daisy, which I'd never heard of, but I'm glad I grabbed it. Sunset Echinacea--does that grow true? Does anybody know? I brought some wintersowing propaganda along too, so at the seed swap table, when people started saying "poppies are so hard to start from seed..." I had my brochures ready to go! It was really nice to go to a garden-related event at this time of year, even though I have wintersowing going on too. I hope everyone is staying warm, especially you, Drippy, with your hands out of your pockets, sorting seeds!

Lou, I'm glad to hear from you. I have enjoyed many of your GardenWeb posts over the years. There does seem to be considerable variation in the M.C.s. The ones we bought from Madrone Nursery and at a plant sale at the Heard Natural Science Museum several years ago have a more weeping, bush-like habitus, not like the ones I got from Creech and the one on Wilson Street. They all seem, once established, amazingly tough. The pinetum in Angelina Co. TX. had some along the edge of a pond and, initially unknown to us, a beaver moved in and selectively mowed the M.C.s to 4 to 8 inch stumps, but they all recovered. I must beg tolerance for our website We haven't updated anything but the database of the Angelina Unit for about 10 years. This will part of our work next winter. If you are ever back in E. TX., we would enjoy your visit. Please call ahead because now we seem to be spending more time in MO. (where we have recently enlarged).rl