20 years ago when I was in a particularly vigorous healthy eating kick, I made an eggplant dish. Everything was low fat in that era and somehow I just dumped in the eggplant. While I am normally quite a good cook, this meal was one of the most memorable disasters - the kids still talk about how bad it was and they were under 10. It really set a bad family tone for eggplant and I haven't ventured back to it. I have been collecting recipes and plan to redeem the poor maligned vegetable and my family's confidence in my ability to conquer it!

Susan, You asked where all the 'brave' souls are who intended to plant fall tomatoes. I think we're all still here, but the thing to understand about fall tomatoes is that some years you 'need' them because the spring crop is playing out and its productivity is decreasing. Other years you don't 'need' fall tomatoes because the spring tomatoes are still going strong. I can't speak for everyone else, but my spring crop is in amazingly good shape, so I don't 'need' new plants for fall. That was a decision I made in early June, by the way, because early June is when I would have started seeds for fall tomatoes. I also could have started new plantings for fall from cuttings a week or two ago and still could do that now, but there's no reason to do that with the spring plantings still going strong. I suspect that if I kept records, I'd see that I do a fresh planting for fall about half the time, but not last year and not this year. I have grown longkeeping types and they are OK. Their flavor is nothing to get excited about but it still is superior to grocery store tomatoes. The key to success with longkeepers is that you have to have a place to put them where they can ripen slowly. I use the tornado shelter as a root cellar, so I have that. Depending on the space you have in your house, you may have room to store them and keep them as they ripen slowly. They are worth the effort if you don't have a lot of tomatoes frozen, canned or dehydrated to get you through winter. Since I started dehydrating so many in recent years, I haven't bothered with longkeeping types. The ones I've grown have included Longkeeper, Red October, Yellow In Red Out, Reverend Morrow's, Old-Fashioned Garden Peach and Winterkeeper. Sunray is another one that lasts forever on the kitchen counter even though it is not normally described as a longkeeper. Larry, I'm sorry the drought there is causing you so much trouble. I spent a huge amount of money watering my garden in June (the June water bill was three times higher than the May water bill, and the May water bill was twice as high as the April water bill) and would have lost everything if I hadn't irrigated. The rain that arrived here in late June/early July has kept it going a bit longer, but I'm pretty much at the point that if rain doesn't fall here in July, I may not be able to keep the garden going much longer. It is a simple financial decision, you know, because at some point you spend more to water than you'll get in produce out of the garden. Several times in recent years (2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 come to mind), I've just basically turned off the water and said "I'm done" and let the garden die, and that was after having a water bill in the triple digits. It is the hardest thing in the world to do, but water is very expensive here where I live and it takes enormous amounts of it to water a huge garden in clay soil. So, you certainly have my sympathy. If it doesn't rain here in July, my garden may not survive until August and that's just the reality of a low rainfall year. Even in a good year we don't get enough rain in June, July and August, and we're not having a good rainfall year here in Love County. We go for long periods with no rain and then get so much at once that much of it runs off instead of soaking in. Diane, Here's the difference between Tim and I. Let's say we cut up a couple of big ol' maters and made BLT sandwiches for lunch. After the meal, if I am cleaning up the kitchen, I look at the two or three slices of tomato left on a plate and decide to eat them right then and there so they won't spoil. They are so yummy! If he is cleaning up the kitchen, he puts them into the refrigerator and NO ONE eats them because of the way their taste and texture change. He doesn't even eat them!!!! So, when I see slices of tomatoes in the fridge, I take them out and feed them to the chickens. I don't know why he doesn't just eat those couple of slices himself, offer them to me, or feed them to the chickens. Ezzirah, To keep that fresh-from-the-garden taste and texture, never refrigerate tomatoes. It basically reduces their quality to little better than that of the tasteless red 'excuses' for tomatoes that most all grocery stores sell. You'd think after well over 25 years of hearing me say "don't put the fresh tomatoes in the fridge" that my DH would understand not to do it, but in this case, it just goes in one ear and out the other. The funny part is that he doesn't eat them after he sticks them in the fridge. My DH is VERY spoiled. He is so used to always having tons of fresh garden produce around that he isn't very good at eating leftovers of anything. It drives me nuts. He is great at putting stuff in the fridge, but not at taking it out, reheating it and eating it. That just drives me nuts! (What is the point, after all, in putting it into the refrigerator if you aren't going to use it?) Sometimes I think men shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen, but then he cooks a lot in the summer when I'm canning a lot and sick of being in the kitchen, so I can't very well order him out of 'my' kitchen, now can I? Dawn

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

One year my CP's threw a creamy textured, soft, buttery, smooth (textured) tomato. I think it might have been early in my heirloom tomato growing experience, b/c it didn't strike me at all that strange. Other than I remember it being WONDERFUL. I did NOT save seed and I was really sorry I didn't b/c I've never had anything like it since. I went through the tomato bible (Doc Carolyn's book) and looked for creamy textured tomatoes - I think Lilian's Yellow, Kellogs Breakfast and Dr. Neil or Dr. Lyle or something she had listed as creamy textured toms... and may be Jeff Davis?? (I'm sure she'll chime in and spread her wisdom.) anyway, I never had any luck with any of the other 'creamy' textured tomatoes. So, Lori, when you get to the bottom if it - the 'best textured tom' please let me know! :)