Maybe you should try it again because many people seem to love it. It is early, will grow in a tomato cage, and the red hearts are big, beautiful and tasty. The only disappointment here was that it set a zillion flowers and then the weather got really hot and it dropped most of them. It IS determinate and I didn't mind too much when it stopped growing because it gave me a lot of great tomatoes, and I pulled it out to make more room in the row.

I gave all my plants a good dose of composted chicken manure at planting time.

Linda

[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]No duds this year for me, thankfully. :cute: But the extended heatwave for my area (another top-5 historical heatwave - just like 2018) means that I had to give the container plants extra waterings just to stay alive. And extra water tends to lead to more bland and watery tomatoes. C'est la vie![/FONT][/SIZE][/B]


[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]OTV Brandywine was the best for taste this year. It was intensely flavored, with very little sweetness, and a pleasing amount of tartness. Most of the red fruit averaged about ten to twelve ounces for me (I only get 2-5 hours of sunlight per day) and, as a side bonus, it was the first plant to ripen this summer. This was one of the two plants I grew in honor of Carolyn's passing last year (the other was Dr. Carolyn). I'd rate it a solid 9.4 out of 10.
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[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]Dwarf Peppermint Stripes really surprised me. It was another strongly flavored variety that leaned on the tart side of the sweetness/acidity scale. The fruit typically came in around seven to eight ounces and are a really pretty sight to behold - darker green with lighter green stripes and pink blushing at the bottom (as well as inside). My rating would be an unexpectedly happy 8.8 out of 10.[/FONT][/SIZE][/B]

[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]Loxton Lass is an orange dwarf variety that put out a large amount of blossoms... typically eleven to fourteen per cluster. The fruit was an amazing shade of orange with small locules and a very meaty interior. It is a sweet tomato, so it doesn't have much of an acidic bite. It also doesn't have the flavor intensity of the first two, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. This was my smallest slicer coming in at about six ounces on average. I'd give it a respectable rating of 7.4 out of 10.[/FONT][/SIZE][/B]

[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]Dr. Carolyn wasn't a disappointment for me, but I had higher hopes for it's flavor (though the weather surely was a negative factor). The fruit was mostly about 3/4ths of an ounce and a really beautiful pale yellow color. It was fairly mild though, and that surprised me. It was also the last plant to give up its first ripe fruit (yet another unexpected surprise). I'd give it a 7 out of 10.[/FONT][/SIZE][/B]
[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]
[/FONT][/SIZE][/B]
[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]All plants were very productive (and are still producing) and will be trialed a couple of more times in the coming years before I render my final judgement on them. I like to grow a variety at least three different times before I can truly decide if it works for me. Hopefully next year will be a bit more normal (historically speaking)... these heatwaves are brutal and the plants don't like it anymore than I do. :x
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In previous years, EM Champion was always good, in my garden. This year it was great, likely due to the local drought.

blackfoot was a good one for me. this one came to me in a trade from a fella
in wyoming. large red irregular shaped tomatoes had good flavor, and production.
fairly early to ripen which is important to me.

simo finnland was good, but early tomatoes had blossom end rot.

dud is honig susser erloser from carolyns/shawn seed offer. nice large orange

tomatoes, but too many had blossom end rot, and they have nearly zero storage
quality before getting soft spots, and turning to mush. flavor was good.
never the less i am saving seeds, and will make them available to someone else.
maybe they will have better luck.




keith

[QUOTE=GrowingCoastal;759768]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.[/QUOTE]

Boronia definitely sounds worth trying, good to know!

[QUOTE=NewWestGardener;759770]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?[/QUOTE]

My Rosella plant also grew very tall. I feel like it outgrew itself, actually, because even though it produced well at first and flowered like crazy, it really crashed. A lot of the flowers did not set fruit and the plant seemed to suddenly just run out of steam and collapse. Yes, the fruit is small, and seemed to get smaller as the season progressed. I really like the flavor, although I wish it lasted longer - it's kind of a burst and then over. The fruit was very good, and the plant initially promised great vigor, but at this point in the season it has turned into a bit of a dud.

EM Champion is doing well for me, although the flavor is not as intense as last year. But I've got more fruit ripening so we'll see.

Just tasted Grandma Oliver's Chocolate, from Farmer Shawn, seeds from Carolyn. A very nice tomato - healthy plant, nice size fruit, very productive, and good flavor. Not as intense flavor as Carbon, which has been phenomenal this year. But I'm very happy with it. GOC are the four dark tomatoes in this picture.

Yes, cracking is happening. We've had drought, then torrential rain, now back to a dry spell.

My Rebel Yell beats the rest for flavor, and perfect blemish fruit. I have one plant that must have 40 medium sized tomatoes that are harvest-able.
A surprise finding is also Jutland, multiple clusters of hearts, not super sweet, but very meaty. I like just eating them fresh off the vine, reminding me a lot of tomatoes in my childhood.
Andes Horn from Mr. Tomato was also great, thank you Gary for the seed. They are surprisingly sweet for fresh eating as well as processing. Very dry meat, with barely any seeds, actually almost no seeds.

Rosella
 

Mine remained vigorous for a long time, although it is now covered with mold as it is grown in the greenhouse, the cukes are spreading the mold.

Lots of clusters of small fruit, really nice flavor but I grew tired of harvesting them. It is worth growing though.

[QUOTE=LK2016;759855]My Rosella plant also grew very tall. I feel like it outgrew itself, actually, because even though it produced well at first and flowered like crazy, it really crashed. A lot of the flowers did not set fruit and the plant seemed to suddenly just run out of steam and collapse. Yes, the fruit is small, and seemed to get smaller as the season progressed. I really like the flavor, although I wish it lasted longer - it's kind of a burst and then over. The fruit was very good, and the plant initially promised great vigor, but at this point in the season it has turned into a bit of a dud.[/QUOTE]

First time Gems for me this year are Rosovye Krupnye and Lucky Cross. Rosovye Krupnye so far has produced 40 tomatoes with probably a dozen more to ripen in the next two weeks. 4 tomatoes have weighed more than 30 oz. each with most of them slightly more than a pound. The taste is very good to my taste buds and I will be growing this one again for sure. And I've wanted to try Lucky Cross for 5 or 6 years now but never did until now. Wow, what a fantastic tasting tomato. So far it has given me 24 tomatoes with 6-7 more that should be ripe by the end of my growing season. Largest one was just a freckle under 27 oz. Fabulous unique flavor and it has made my "grow every year" list.


Dan

Lots of enthusiasm for EM Champion I see. Duly noted. It killed for production.

Iva's Red Berry is one my new gem list. Nice pop of flavor on that one..

That’s awesome! Where did you get your seeds, Dan?
[QUOTE=Yak54;759864]First time Gems for me this year are Rosovye Krupnye and Lucky Cross. Rosovye Krupnye so far has produced 40 tomatoes with probably a dozen more to ripen in the next two weeks. 4 tomatoes have weighed more than 30 oz. each with most of them slightly more than a pound. The taste is very good to my taste buds and I will be growing this one again for sure. And I've wanted to try Lucky Cross for 5 or 6 years now but never did until now. Wow, what a fantastic tasting tomato. So far it has given me 24 tomatoes with 6-7 more that should be ripe by the end of my growing season. Largest one was just a freckle under 27 oz. Fabulous unique flavor and it has made my "grow every year" list.


Dan[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=NewWestGardener;759870]That’s awesome! Where did you get your seeds, Dan?[/QUOTE]

The Rosovye Krupnye seeds were from Carolyn's Last Seed Offer sent to me from Farmer Shawn and the Lucky Cross seeds came from our Tomatoville friend Craig Lehoullier. They may possibly be available again for next season. :yes:

OMG Krasnyi Krupnyi just won 2020. Best red I ever tasted.

A contribution from another continent.


Gems: Mountain Magic, Crimson Crush, Cocktail Crush: excellent late blight resistance and taste between 9 and 10 (scale 0 - cheap supermarket to 10 Start (a Czech cultivar) in August). Late blight was rampant this year in the CR and killed my other plants in early September. Unfortunately, these varieties are British.


Duds: 100 pudov. No lb resistance at all. Very bland in taste. Not higher than 5. I'm not growing them next year. More likely never ever.


A question: Has anyone here grown Galahad F1 or Defiant PhR F1? Can you give me any references? Thanks.


Milan HP