Could be from water droplets that were on the leaves and then got really chilled overnight. Don't fret about it unless you see rot on the stems -- that's an indication of serious issues. It's not just air temperatures (above 75 F) that are appreciated and needed by tomatoes, it's also warm SOIL temperatures (ideally never plant tomatoes outdoors until your garden soil is no less than 65F at the 4-inch depth. Your 'maters will recover just fine as we head into the more tropical warmth of May!

I've been using tunnels (see link below) for many years. Some areas of the country may not need them but in the Pacific NW there is a wet and dry season, so there is nothing but rain rain rain in spring and planting time. Since the tunnel keeps rain out of the soil under it, it can be used to dry the soil before planting time or I would be digging in mud, not good. That alone makes it worthwhile for me, but in addition it creates a warm microclimate. (Tunnels have seen my transplants through frosts and snow.) Here the nighttime temperatures in summer are in the low 50's so the soil is never really optimal for tomatoes or warm season plants. The tunnel enables me to start the tomatoes earlier so I can grow medium and even long season tomatoes instead of being restricted to short season tomatoes. I also use tunnels for my squash and cucumber transplants with great results, and this year I'm buying more to start beans early as well. And yes, later planted transplants do eventually catch up but I get a couple of weeks of early fruit out of the ones planted out April 1-7. Also I plant out when the transplants hit my lights, at 11", and they don't all do this at once, so by planting out early I stagger the planting process over several weeks which makes it an easier work load, as I grow 60-100 plants a season. Other areas of the country differ, but here there is very little disease or pests for tomatoes, except the possibilty of late blight, so I don't do any disease control at all. If there is rain toward the end of summer, which is not usual but last year there was quite a bit, there can be an outbreak of late blight. This year I'm considering buying some 6 mil 4 year greenhouse plastic and constructing a hoop house over at least part of my tomatoes because it was so cold last year that my first ripe fruit was about a month behind usual, and all the rain caused late blight to start early, so the tomato crop was severely reduced.:-( Nancy Here is a link that might be useful: TunLCover photo

If these are the ones that you have to chose from then all I can do is to indicate my own personal choices and I've grown the majority of ones that you list. I'll just star the ones I think are best: Cherry: Green Grape *Black Cherry Italian Ice (read that this one isn't that great in the taste department) "Unusuals": Black Truffle Lemon Boy (read its a stinker) Razzleberry Carbon Red Lightning (not great ratings on this one) Green Zebra Heirloom: *Brandywine Amana Orange (not high in flavor?) Aunt Ruby's German Green (mixed reviews) *Kellogg's Breakfast (mixed reviews), much better than Amana Orange which it supercedes. Pineapple , Virginia Sweets is a better gold/red bicolor Georgia Streak , Virginia Sweets is a better bicolor and Georgia Streak is a very long season variety. Marvel Stripe , another bicolor *Aunt Gertie's Gold (very low production?), outstanding taste, and probably some got low production as can happen with any variety *Virginia Sweets *Golden Queen (USDA strain) (low production?), no, not low production, again, someone somewhere is always going to have low production *White Queen, the whitest of the whites and the most taste, but that isn't saying much; grow for a novelty Tangerine Great White (low production?) *Dr. Wycke's Yellow , it's Dr. Wyche's Yellow and quite good Mortgate Lifter Vintage Wine *Cherokee Purple Thank you all in advance!! CMK Carolyn

Oh fun! Since my spring/early summer harvest is done, here's a full report. Ratings are on taste alone. 10-Black Cherry 10-Gardener's Delight 9-Goose Creek 9-Momotaro 9-Mule Team 9-Sun Gold 8-Heatwave II 8-Isis Candy 8-Neves Azorean Red 7-Stupice (10 cooked) 6-Costoluto Genovese (9 cooked) 6-Heartland 6-Mrs. Maxwell's Big Italian 6-Sweet Baby Girl 3-Hawaiian Tropic 3-Super Sioux I'd rather have store-bought Romas than these last two. On another note, I think I might have found THE most heat tolerant variety: Cold Set. I put out two seedlings just for the heck of it in late May. They are setting fruit like crazy and our days have ranged between 95 and 105, nights 75 - 85 daily for the last two weeks. Amazing. Can't wait to sample when ripe! Two Sheyennes are setting fruit too, but not as many.