Tomatopalooza....numbah TEN!
 

Saturday July 28.

Working out the details - location will be the wonderful home/farm location in Efland, NC - Jimmy and Fred hosted two Tomatopaloozas some years ago (including the ones attended by Rena/Suze/Feldon/Mischka and other Tvillians the first time there, and Patrina and other Tvillians the following year).

Stay tuned for more details as they develop!

Wonderful! Reaaaaaly want to make it this year - w/J.Michael's if you want!

Woo Hoo! I'll be there!!

Greg

Darn it! That's the first day of my vacation. :(

My family and I are headed in the opposite direction from Efland that day.

Oh well, maybe next year.

Hey Craig! If I have some dwarf tomatoes ready at that time, would you possibly want me to get them to you before the event? Obviously, I don't expect a firm answer at this time, and I don't know how my schedule will be that week.

But if you want to try them, or take them for others to try, I could tentatively plan on doing that. I'm hoping to have Waratah, Tasmanian Red, and Zig Zag Wattle.

Yay, been waiting to hear when this would be!

Yeah! I've got it on the calendar! Hoping to have lots of dwarfs and Chocolate Truffles to taste.

Praying the weather will be a bit cooler than last year.

Web page updated now with event details and registration instructions.

Look forward to seeing y'all there... :) Gotta fix that typo subject line...

Lee

P.S. Stormy, J. Michael's sounds great... I was bummed you gave my
cheesesteak to Craig last time! ;)

Lee

On the calendar! Looking forward to contributing more than just bread this year.

Finally some news - or will be! We are having a planning meeting on Sunday evening at the hosts' house/farm - with a long agenda.....following that, we will be able to be clear on exactly how Tomatopalooza will go on this year. It will be a nice, relaxed atmosphere - we've had two great events at this location in the past - and since it is number 10, we may be adding a few aspects in, as well as relaxing some of the perhaps perceived to be more structured aspects of the last few years.....(no worries about limiting numbers, parking issues, etc) - I am pondering adding more food - Salsa contest, maybe? - anyway - stay tuned!

Craig if we still lived in my DH home (KY) we would make a weekend trip to this.

hope your's and other contributors' tomatoes are perfect for the tasting.

My daughter has a new Tomatopalooza website in development - well, it's launched, actually - but we are making changes to it often!

[url]http://tomatopalooza.weebly.com/index.html[/url]

[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=4]Hey NC’s ‘My daughter’ - Great site.[/SIZE][/FONT]

Just a bit more than one week from Tomatopalooza X! For those who plan on attending...please do go to the website - link here again - [url]http://tomatopalooza.weebly.com/[/url] - and register (simple process - just if you are coming/numbers, if you are bringing tomatoes, and if you want to enter the Salsa competition).

I am hoping my tomato supply holds out - if it were this weekend, I could probably bring over 100 varieties! By next weekend...who knows!

This is somewhat tentative - some of these may not make it to Saturday in edible condition (watching for leakers and fruit flies!) - but if all goes well, I will be bringing the majority of the list below for tasting:

Indeterminates:

Blush
Green Zebra Cherry
Sungold
Sungold Select II
Maglia Rose
Mexico Midget
Casey's Pure yellow cross red cherry
Lucky Cross
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Nelson's Golden Giant
Maiden's Gold
Giant Syrian
Burgundy Traveler
Farmers Market Bicolor
Cherokee Chocolate
Selwin Yellow
Cherokee Green
Dana's Dusky Rose
Kellogg's Breakfast
JD Special C-Tex
Abraham Lincoln
Anna Russian
Hege's German Pink
German Johnson Potato leaf
Piennolo
Dester Amish
Bridge Mikes
Nepal
Cherokee Purple
Lillian's Yellow Heirloom
Hillbilly red cross
Caitin's Lucky Stripe
Cour du Bui
Arkansas Traveler
Teddy Smooth
Sorrento
Reinhard Chocolate Heart
Speckled Roman
Casey's Pure Yellow cross large yellow striped
Green Giant cross large pink
Trader Joe Yellow Cherry
Green Doctor
Green Grape
Cherokee Chocolate cross small red
Torre Canne
Yellow Bell
Green Giant
Amana Orange
Taps regular leaf
Druzba
Polish
Strawberry Margarita
Big Willy
German Johnson regular leaf

Dwarf Tomatoes

Dainty F1
Dwarf Caitydid
Dwarf Russian Swirl 3467
Striped Tidy
Dwarf Blazing Beauty 3434
Dwarf Blazing Beauty 3435
Green Beauty 3366
Uluru Ochre 3481
Grizzly red
Boronia 3463
Loxton Lad 3432
TastyWine 11-154
Summertime Gold 2512
Uluru Ochre 3460
Dwarf Sweet Scarlet 3412
Dwarf Arctic Rose
Dwarf Leesha
Summertime Gold 08-145
Dopey F2 selection 1
Dopey F2 selection 2
Dopey F2 selection 3
Dopey F2 selection 4
Ivalde F2 selection 2
Ivalde F2 selection 4
Dwarf Rosella Giant purple 3443
Summetime Gold 11-181
Wherokowhai 3505
Harmony F1
Uluru Ochre 11-147
Bendigo Blush
Rosella Crimson 3445
Rosella Crimson 3444
Loxton Lad
Loxton Lass
Dwarf Sweet Scarlet 3457
Wherokowhai 3437
Dwarf Blazing Beauty 3410
Wherokowhai 3437
TastyWine 3411
Uluru Ochre 3460
Dwarf Jade Beauty
Dwarf Beryl Beauty
Dwarf Golden Heart
Beauty King yellow striped
Dwarf Kelly Green
Boronia 11-160
Dwarf Sweet Sue
Fred's Tie Dye
Dwarf Lemon Ice 3513
Dwarf Lemon Ice 3156
Dwarf Pink Passion 3180
Beauty Yellow green striped
Pesty striped
Summer Sunrise
Blazing Beauty 11-40
Cheerful F1
Yukon Quest
Barossa Moon 3431
Sarandipity 3466
Summertime Gold 2512

You can add Shannon's and Golden Cherokee!! :)

Just went to the site and signed up.

Greg

I will have Flat Head Monster.
Jim

Here's my list of what I'll have with me.... Interestingly enough, this
will be the first year (in ten years!) that Craig and I have not had any
variety overlap.... Amazing....

Big Beef
Brawny F3
Cuostralee
Don's Double Delight
Ferris Wheel
Fuzzy Cherokee
Improved Colossal Yellow
Joe Thieneman's Australian Heart
Kentucky Yellow Heirloom
Lemon Gazzi
Mortgage Lifter Pale Leaf
Orange Heirloom
Dwarf Mahogony F3
Dwarf Rosella Purple
Spear's Tennessee Green
Stokes County
Tennessee Heirloom
Sean's Yellow Dwarf F7
Carbon
Yellow Bosnian
Not Kristina Bulgarian
Celebrity
German Queen
Brandywine

Oh this is going to be great! Lee, I had a 2 lb Brandywine picked a few days ago, but it had a little prelude to a lead bad spot near the blossom end - would have been really nasty by tomorrow - so it contributed to the best Tomato Bisque I've ever made!

I think we will be fine with tomatoes for tomorrow.....we always end up just fine! (I don't dare look at the tomatoes I am bringing - I am sure are a bit past their prime....but as we always say, good for seed saving!).

I am getting there with Sue and Caitlin around noon.

Wish I was there! Maybe next year!

Gonna bring some Anna Russian too! :)

Greg

Here's hoping all of you have a grand old time!

I'm majorly jealous, but since we're headed in the opposite direction, (beach) I just can't do it this year.

Wishing you no spitters!:twisted:

It was a great day....very tired....much more later. So many people made today a success. Well done as always, Lee...and all!

Glad to see you posting that you survived...LOL Lee you the man as well. If we lived even have way there we would have come. The thought of seeing that many different kinds of tomatoes in one place is mind blowing.

Now you two go get some well deserved rest. LOL

What a tasting!! Sooooo many tomatoes it was hard to choose! You really have to go back twice to double check. As I went back to a couple the flavor seemed to change a little! lol

A couple stand outs were German Queen and Dester Amish. Need to grow them for sure!

The Dwarves were UNREAL! Better every year! The taste, color, texture, size and shape were overwhelming!

Bravo to Craig and Lee for their work!

A couple that stood out were..

Laxton Lad
Kelly Green
Rosella Crimson
Brawny F3
Sweet Sue
Dwarf Mohogany
and Jade Beauty

Brought my 8 year old Shannon along this time too. It was hard to keep up with her! She liked it and wants to go next year! She was so proud of the tomatoes she brought and listening to the reviews. Makes me happy she's into gardening like that at such an early age! sniff!

Her favorite was.......you know! ;)

Looking foward to some pics!

Greg

Proud girl and her Tomato! :)

Greg

Here's the photos from this year's event.
Thoughts about the event will be forthcoming.

Lee

[URL]http://www.tomatopalooza.org/tomatopalooza10/ATS00000.htm[/URL]

Lee

thanks so much for the link for event pictures. By the time I got to the last pictures I was ready to lick the computer screen...... OH MY GOODNESS those were some really incredible looking tomatoes.

To those that placed, name tagged, cut up tomatoe, WELL DONE. That is just incredible display for folks to come a see ALL of those incredible varieties.

Ok, I can see this event as a bucket list addition....LOL

Thanks for all the hard work and countless hours you folks have put into this.

Greg I love your budding garden partner there, she is such a beauty.

I would love to post some pics - but neither Sue or I got to pick up a camera once! My first thoughts of the day....showed up at noon, had 12 flats of tomatoes...took Sue, Sara, Caitlin, two of Sara's friends and me an hour to get them out and tagged (during which time I was completely drenched with sweat) - did the intro comments, off to the dwarf table, cut there, had a zillion tomato conversations, people kept pushing bottles of water at me....then at one point, a tomato/bacon sandwich (which was so, so appreciated) - back to talking - headed to the clogging area at 4:30 and sat my butt down in a chair for the first time since I got out of my truck at noon!

Of all of the Tomatopalooza events, this one was the most of a total blur for me - no pics, got to taste hardly anything.....wow, just wow! We had lots of people there, which is great - and they didn't trickle in - they were there at the start and they didn't trickle out - they stayed until the end! I hope the organizers collected info on who most of the people were and how they found out about it - much lower percentage of my seedling customers, many many new faces. Who were all those people?

Slept the clock around - collapsed at 11 PM, got up at 9 this morning, and my brain is so totally fried! Jim, Greg, Chris, Tim - great to see you/have great conversations. Lee - thanks as always. The success of the event totally fell upon the hosts (Jimmy and Fred for a superb location), Lori and Brian and their cast of many helpers - my three girls (Sweet Sue, Sarandipity and Caitydid), Sara's many friends. Gardens and Guns magazine was there - an article will be forthcoming. Sara's friend, a photographer, also there and took lots of pics - I am sure I am forgetting people and details. Oh - and mother nature - never have my own tomato contributions made up such a large percentage of stuff to taste - which makes me nervous about future events - there is a risk there...always is, but something we need to ponder for the future.

Whoosh! Tomatopalooza X has come and gone.....that was FAST!

Maybe its the equipment I am on but upoun clicking on images could not see the variety tags.