Hi - Please report back on which heirlooms thrived from those gorgeous long heirloom lists! John - lamb_abbey_orchards(5A / Midcoast Maine) fiedlermeister(04/05) lotsa_rocks I imagine choosing a variety for early/short season is important. What else determines a successful variety in Maine? Humidity tolerance? Tolerance of the occasional dip below 55 on summer nights? I want to get my mom some great heirlooms. I am a crazy tomato grower but my region is very different. The first four that seem like a good fit (for cold/humidity tolerance): Purple Bumblebee Eva Purple Ball Carmello (sets fruit down to 42 degrees) Japanese Black Trifel I thought also maybe: Jutland Momotaro (a hybrid sold by many vendors who specialize in heirlooms) Paul Robeson, Marianna's Peace Purple Cherokee Amy's sugar Gem, Anna's Russian, Anna Banana Russian, Chocolate Tasmanian Pink Bumblebee and Sunrise Bumblebee Sunset's Red Horizon Sungold Tati's Wedding I'd love to hear which ones were winners and which were losers from your lists above.

Rebelski is the most reliable tomato we grow. It is leaf mold and powdery mildew resistant and it has a vigorous and consistent growth habit that lends itself perfectly to trellising to a single leader. But it’s not the best tasting tomato out there, and it does have that annoying white core problem that a few customers have complained about. Trial Torero as a possible replacement for Rebelski. They are very similar in growth habit, with Torero producing slightly heavier yields of slightly bigger fruit. It‘s better tasting than Rebelski as well. Caiman is our go to tunnel tomato for taste. It produces heavy yields of large deep red tomatoes that have that classic beefsteak look inside, but doesn't have as long a shelf life as Rebelski or Torero. Neither Caiman nor Torero have powdery mildew resistance bred into them. This was quite obvious to us last season when PM swept through our tunnel. The row of Rebelski stayed green and healthy while the Caiman and Torero on either side quickly succumbed to the disease.

Hi, Misty! ALWAYS nice to see you pokin' your head in around here! It's interesting that you left the ROCKY Mountains--and now you have ROCKY soil instead! I'm not so sure that's a good trade off! :-D But I'm glad to know you're still growing a buncha veggies! There's no food as good as home grown veggies--especially tomatoes! I don't know what they are, but the Pink Stuff they sell in food stores are not tomatoes! If you like Sungold, you REALLY should try Sweet Aperitif red cherry some year! They're "different" from Sungold, but they are BOTH To Die For! [Fedco--good seeds, good prices! Free shipping over $50 -- $6 under $50!] If you're in "eastern" Kansas, what town are you in/near? I'm asking because long, long ago, my husband's best friend--best man at our wedding!--was from Hutch--as in Hutchinson! And when he got married, his Intended was from Beatrice (Bea-A'-trice!), and my husband was HIS best man so we went back there for the wedding--the wedding was in Beatrice! Then, after they got married they lived on his father's (inherited) farm at Hutch, and one year we drove back there and stayed--in the olde farm house--for a couple nites and one day went out and waded in the Arkansas (Ar-KAN'-sas!) "river," which runs across the farm they lived on! It was great fun--except for the nasty, nasty "no-see-ums" that were biting us--no matter where we were! So I'm just wondering how close you might be to that area! Getting way off the tomato subject!!! Also! If you're close enough to St. Louis, have you ever heard of Cahokia Mounds??? It's right across the river (the BIG river--not the wading kind!) from St. Louis at Collinsville, Illinois! If you've never heard of it, search it (I recommend doing it on DuckDuckGo so you can actually SEE the "images"--since you can't anymore with google search!). It's part of the "Mississippi River Mounds Cultures", ancestors of some of today's "east coast" tribes (Creek, Shawnee, Seminole, and more!)--there are "ruins" that "look like" Central American ruins, but they're "made of earth!" If you're interested in "that sort of thing" I thought they were very interesting! If you ever go and you walk to the top of "Monk's Mound" (yeah, named by White Man!) you can "look across the river" and see St. Louis--that's how close it is to the river! I found the Ye Olde Folks thread on RMG (actually, I had saved a link to it--it's virtually impossible to find anything you try to search for on GW anymore since houzz took over!) and I'm gonna do a short post on it right after I post this, to bump it up! It was started in 2008! If you have "some time," check it out! I just reread virtually the whole thread again--Memories!!! Candy cigarettes and Burma Shave signs!!! Please do keep showing up here every now and then! You're Family, and if you have "garden"--or bird!--questions, we're still here with answers--even if you DO live in No-See-Um Kansas! Happy Spring, Skybird F 03.01.24 @ 1255 MST

I recommend the Sausage tomato. It's very prolific, with large, easy-to-harvest (the stems come off easily and they're easy to see/grab), firm fruits that can ripen nicely in storage. It's great at handling heat/cold/aridity/sun-stress, too. I'm not sure how many plants you'd need, but I got as many pounds of fruit from one plant as I've ever had from anything, if not more, I believe (and that was with very little water, with black plastic). Sausage is a little big to can whole, but it would be great canned as slices (remember, it's a firm tomato). We've been stewing our tomatoes before canning, though (and sometimes blending them up into sauce); so, we didn't try that. A friend of mine recommended La Roma III F1 to me (for canning) last night. As a side note, I looked into Wessel's Purple Pride that cindy_7 mentioned and it's from a cross between Sausage and Cherokee Purple, and is supposed to taste like Cherokee Purple. I'd like to try that some year, perhaps. It sounds delicate compared to Sausage, though (so may not be as durable).