Fun topic!

This year's "gems" have been:

1. Karma Purple. My most delicious tomato so far, rich and full-flavored.
2. Blush. It came up as a volunteer originally, and I decided to use it to replace a plant that got eaten early on after transplant. It's been absolutely prolific, and has fought off diseases that took out a plant next to it (so far). I'm also using a new type of cage with it that is very prone to collapsing, and in fact it has collapsed twice, and it's still fine. It's just indestructible and I respect that!
3. Grosse Cotelee. Of my larger tomatoes, this slicer has been very productive. I planted out two plants, unfortunately one of them I had to pull for disease, but the other one is doing fine and still producing a lot. It's also a perfect size for me, just right for one sandwich plus a bite.

"Duds":

1. Perfect Storm. I wanted to like this, I really did. But it succumbed to disease too early, and I found the fruit to be bland.
2. Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart. It tastes good, and is so pretty, but the tomato is so very soft, it's not to my liking.

Romovaya Baba was a new GWR I tried this year and it was very productive and great taste.

Noir de Crimee, a variety I've had in my collection forever but haven't grown, turned out to be a productive plant, but way too seedy and flavor was average at best.

Kellogg's breakfast,took forever to get ripe but survived bird pecks and vermin bites due to it's color.

Update on Gems:

I have to revise my opinion of Medovaya Kaplya, which I had listed under "Duds." It has metamorphasized into something else entirely! It went from producing small, blah tomatoes, to much bigger (2 or 3x bigger) and much more flavorful little delights. I was hoping the flavor would pick up but, what a nice surprise.

Lucky Tiger - Planted this late and it has sparse fruit and not sure when it is ripe, so I've been watching a couple fruits. Today they had blushed a little, and then I saw fruit flies swarming them and realized they had both split on the back side. Picked them, cut off the bad parts, oh my goodness, what a wonderful flavor! Sweet, fruity, tangy, love it. Hope I can get a few more!

Not Cherokee Purple Pink - Okay, I made up that name. I have a Cherokee Purple plant that is producing pink fruits instead, and they turned out to be yummy. It is not Cherokee Purple, but it's very flavorful, and wonderful in sandwiches. The first fruits were almost entirely uniform in color. The ones I picked today have some green shoulders and the circular cracking on top that I'm used to seeing on CP.

Still waiting on some new-to-me varieties ... Rusty Everett Oxheart, Cherokee Purple Heart, Grandma Oliver's Chocolate, Captain Lucky, and Midnight Sun.

No duds this year, but found two new gems, both of them dwarfs.
Both varieties were healthy and vigorous plants, and bore ample fruit that stood up well to the perennial Stinkbug problem I have in my garden :evil:

I've already bought more seeds (Victory Seeds), so I could be sure I can grow them again next year!

Boronia Dwarf - To me, it looks and tastes like a medium sized Cherokee Purple.

Dwarf Mr. Snow - It's an ivory white medium sized tomato, with an excellent balanced taste to my palate.

[QUOTE=mike5953;759766]No duds this year, but found two new gems, both of them dwarfs.
Both varieties were healthy and vigorous plants, and bore ample fruit that stood up well to the perennial Stinkbug problem I have in my garden :evil:

I've already bought more seeds (Victory Seeds), so I could be sure I can grow them again next year!

Boronia Dwarf - To me, it looks and tastes like a medium sized Cherokee Purple.

Dwarf Mr. Snow - It's an ivory white medium sized tomato, with an excellent balanced taste to my palate.[/QUOTE]

Good to know, I'm also waiting for my Dwarf Mr. Snow. Planted it super late, but it shot up and has tons of flowers and a few little fruits developing. Certainly looks much more productive than the couple other dwarfs I've grown. Very much looking forward to tasting this one.

Mr Snow is one of the sweetest tomatoes I have ever tasted.
Boronia has more evenly shaped fruit than Rosella Purple and is equally delicious.

Gems - Sweet Scarlet Dwarf, Rosella Purple (Great taste and production)

Duds - Dwarf Firebird Sweet, Dwarf Maura's Cardinal, Dwarf Beauty King (None of these produced for me)

LK2016, My Rosella fruit are in big clusters, on very very tall plants (double others in height) but the fruit is very small. I don't know if this is just my growing conditions or this variety just produces smaller fruit, smaller than other cherries.
What is yours like?

Few other first time gems:

- George Detsikas Italian Red: Big meaty and beautiful tomatoes 6 kg from a single plant in a short season

- Abruzzo and Italian Special Red Pear: similar beautiful pear shaped tomatoes, big plants. I really like this shape for cooking and I've tried other pear shaped varieties last year (Japanese Black and Orange trifele, Aladdin's Lamp, Piedmont Pear, Black Pear, ...) and they were very juicy (way to much) for cooking and on the small side (120 g average). There italian pear shaped varieties are much meatier and bigger (average 250 g), they don't crack under my conditions (no irrigation) and cook well. Abruzzo had better taste than Italian Special Red Pear, but had a little bit more juice.

- Medovyi Spas : great meaty heart-shaped tangerine orange tomato with good taste.

First Time Gems-
Purple Russian, Rosovyi Myod, Thessaloniki, Anna Maria's Heart
First Time Duds-
Stormin Norman- cracked when picked, beautiful but not very productive
Heart of Compassion- could have been bad placement, but overly wispy leaves, very late, very small
and not so tasty

Nothing new in the garden this year, other than experimental F2's, F3's etc...

Old time gems...

Stump of the World - the best tasting tomato in the garden for 2019 and 2020.

Lillian's Yellow Heirloom - don't know why I waited almost a decade to try it again. Oh yeah, I couldn't find seeds for almost a decade.


Last dud was a couple of years ago - Kookabura Kackle. If I spelled it wrong, I don't care.

First time gem is Bichiy Lob. Usually in the short season here Cosmonaut Volkov and Sahharnyi Pudovichok are my go to red slicers but the Bichiy Lob was far and away superior in both production and flavour.

Dud is EM Champion, mostly because it was bland. The growth habit and production were great, which is probably why it disappointed because I was so happy with the production, the blandness was a real letdown as I thought I had a real winner/keeper.

Oh Canehdian, what a disappointment! In my garden, EM Champion tasted fabulous, not bland at all.

OTOH Dr. Carolyn Pink and Galina never did taste anything but bland :(.

Linda

[QUOTE=Labradors2;759832]Oh Canehdian, what a disappointment! In my garden, EM Champion tasted fabulous, not bland at all.

OTOH Dr. Carolyn Pink and Galina never did taste anything but bland :(.

Linda[/QUOTE]
Hmm, maybe its a soil issue then because I tried EM Champion based on the endorsement of local Tomatovillian RJGlew. Perhaps a Mulligan is in order with some highly amended soil.