Jay, I am married to a former Pennsylvanian and he still has relatives there who garden and every summer I envy their cool temperatures (you know, they think 85 degrees is hot) and their usually abundant rainfall. When we go there to visit in summertime, everything is so lush and lovely that it blows my mind, especially compared to how roasting hot and tired everything looks in this part of the country at the same time. On the other hand, Late Blight seems to be on a tear there the last few years, so their beaufiful crops can fail suddenly. Marcy, That's a great list from the Kerr Center. Thanks for linking it. Susan, I think each of us adds/drops varieties for many reasons. After growing tomatoes for 25 years on my own and for at least 15 years with my dad prior to that, I'm just through with the massive experimentation. The truth is that out of every 20 or 25 new (to me) varieties that I try, maybe one or two is worth putting into the permanent growing rotation. So, rather than constantly looking for something new, I'm trying to refine the grow list and weed out those that perform least well in a broad range of conditions. I've reached the conclusion that there really aren't many, or maybe not any, incredible undiscovered varieties out there that taste/perform significantly better than what I've already tried....so I've stopped looking. I had high hopes for the Brandymaster series, likely because it is so tempting to believe there could be anything that could match Brandywine's flavor. They've performed so poorly here that I doubt I'd see a better performance next year or the year after. While many of you may be seeing significantly hotter or drier weather this year than in your average year, for us here in southcentral OK, our rainfall has been exactly 'average' for the year to date and so have our temperatures. If anything we've had slightly lower temperatures, in general, in Love County than we usually have although higher than average heat indices. So, for me, this is a pretty typical year except the real heat arrived in mid-May instead of late June so we got hot earlier, but not necessarily hotter than average...just earlier than average. A tomato variety that didn't perform well in what was a fairly typical year here at our place this year likely wouldn't perform any differently next year. In Oklahoma we have a wide range of average annual rainfall....some folks may average 15" of rainfall per year in western OK while others in eastern OK may average 50-60" or more. Humidity varies widely as does soil type and pH. So, what grows well for someone in highly alkaline soil and water in western OK may not grow nearly as well for someone in eastern OK with entirely different weather and soil. I enjoy looking at everybody's lists and hearing how different tomatoes perform for different people but I know that works well in areas drastically different from mine may not work well here. Growing in containers is much more complicated. First of all, nothing that I grow performs as well in containers as in the ground. Heat and pests hit container-grown plants much harder every year than those in the ground. The grasshoppers have completely stripped my container tomatoes of every leaf and fruit, but have only done sporadic damage to in-ground plants. It is the same thing with spider mites....only the container plants have had issues with them this summer. For me, container-grown tomatoes are great from Jan. or Feb. through the end of June or early July. After that, I might as well yank out those plants and toss them on the compost pile because they're toast. Last year, the tomatoes in containers did somewhat better than they usually do....but we had much higher than average rainfall and much more rain/clouds/cool weather than we see in an average summer. I'm looking for plants that perform best in the worst of conditions, not the best ones, because more often than not, we get the worst conditions every July and August. In containers, I plant tomatoes that can tolerate the heat and the restriction of their root growth and still perform. That means I often grow tomatoes in containers that I don't consider 'good enough' to plant into the ground....stuff like Better Bush and Husky Red Cherry. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just at the point that I want what produces best for us here, and I don't want to keep looking for something 'better' because I don't think there is anything out there that's really that much better than our tried and true varieties that make our grow list most years. For a long time, I gardened for fun....trying any and every thing that interested me. We ate all we wanted fresh and gave tons away and didn't care if we put up much for the non-gardening season or not. In recent years, though, I've developed a deeper appreciation for the truly superior flavor of anything/everything that's grown locally and picked/prepared/preserved at its peak of perfection. Thus, I give away little and try to raise as much of our annual food supply as possible. In a good year I fill up three freezers, a root cellar and manage to can 2 or 3 or 4 hundred jars of 'stuff'. Since that is what is important to me now, I want plants that produce well, that provide tasty food we like and that are not prima donnas requiring a lot of pampering. Thus, I'm less inclined to experiment and more inclined to plant what produces really well with little fuss. In a lot of ways, the 'experimentation years' were a lot more fun, but the farm-garden-preserving years have been much more productive. Now my family is spoiled and I must produce as much home-grown food as possible because they don't like grocery store stuff as much as they used to. Even DS's firestation co-workers prefer fresh, home-grown and I'm going to try to plant a lot more for them next year so I can send them all the tomatoes, peppers and other yuummy things they're craving. There just isn't room, or enough improved soil, to experiment with varieties now as there used to be. I don't mind that, really, because as long as what I'm growing is producing well, I've gotten over thinking there are incredible varieties out there just waiting for me to find them. Megan, Black Plum grew very well for me for a long time and then for 2 or 3 years it didn't and I dropped it. It is odd how that happens....and I loved Coyote too. If my garden were twice as large as it is, I'd bring it back to the grow list. So many varieties, so little time (and improved soil). The tomatoes I grow from seed invariably outperform storebought ones and I don't know why, but I've seen it enough years to know it is true. Dawn

Mike, Most beefsteak types are late to set fruit and to mature fruit. Since yours are from volunteer seedlings, you have no idea what is normal for them if you don't remember what variety they are, but it sounds like they are setting fruit late and, thus, it ripens late. Too much horse poop also could mean they are getting too much nitrogen which makes the plants stay vegetative for a long time before they flower and set fruit. If you want fruit earlier, your best bet is to start out with purchased transplants and to choose varieties that mature more quickly than the average beefsteak type. You could plant Early Girl, Bush Early Girl or Better Bush and get fairly early fruit...a couple of months after you put 6-8 week old transplants into the ground. Jetsetter or JetStar would give you fruit a couple of weeks later than those, and most standard hybrids that produce red, roundish tomatoes would give you tomatoes 75-80 days after the transplants are put into the ground. Many beefsteak types, although they produce big, luscious tomatoes, do not produce fruit well in heat and they have DTMs of 80-90 days or more so they always are going to be fairly late. It may just be that in your climate, you still won't get many ripe fruit until fall. It depends on how early you can transplant tomato plants into the ground there. When's your average last freeze date? One problem is that tomato plants mostly stop setting fruit once daytime highs are above 92 and nighttime lows are in the 70s. You have to get your plants into the ground early enough that they set fruit before that happens. They won't start setting many fruit again until the temperatures cool down. That is an issue we face a lot here in OK. Cherry tomatoes or the varieties that produce smallish slicer or salad types like Jaune Flammee' or Fourth of July will set fruit more or less all summer, except in the hottest weather, so they might be a good variety for you. I like Early Girl because not only does she set fruit early, but unlike many other early types that shut down after producing early, Early Girl will go right on setting fruit almost all summer long. Some years it still is setting fruit for me in August when it is ridiculously hot here. Hope this helps, Dawn

Hi All, I just wanted to make an interesting observation about the Indigo Rose that I planted from seed I collected the first time I grew it in 2012. I planted a flat of tomato seeds in the late spring of last year with the intention of planting a garden but due to a myriad of distractions I failed to do so... I kept watering the flat on occasion but was mostly neglectful and every so often would pull out the dead and dying until one day in august (I think, maybe september) I decided to plant the survivors who were quite stunted but alive none the less! To my surprise they immediately jumped into action and began to grow rapidly, so since I live in temperate Southern California I decided to let them go and see what happened, in short order they started to set fruit but not ripen very quickly which is a known factor so in keeping with my 2014 gardening 'style' I ignored them some more except for watering and they continued to grow and set fruit throughout the the fall and winter and I have been able to pick some ripe fruit through December and January so far... I was pruning them back yesterday and noticed that some plants were still putting off new branches and flowers so it makes me wonder if I kept better care of future plantings whether or not they might become something of a perennial tomato... Interesting huh?

I am in the same boat as you. I have repotted 120 plants and still have at least 50 or more to do. I usually plant 36 plants but will probably up that to 48 this year. Sorry I haven't grown any of the varieties you have questions on, but I had a question for you or anyone else. How many plants to do a good trial of a variety?