Greg, actually, I'm one of 8! I have five brothers and two sisters. Unfortunately, only one brother (and his family) and one sister could make it this year - several of my sibs scheduled their vacations for last week. My Dad, however, really looks forward to our fest. The only reason he missed MAGTAG #1 was because he was in Poland that day!
Of course, the Flynns well on the way to equaling mine as far as number is concerned. Will you name tomatoes after all your kids? I heard Isabelle (sp.?) complaining when Emily's tomato won the largest tomato award.
BTW, the "Emily" tomato really deserved its top-ten rating. You should definitely keep growing it.
As far as cherry tomatoes are concerned, maybe the kids all like them best because they're sweet, and that's why they get so many votes. Another possibility is that they're so early and prolific that somebody always has a bunch of them available for MAGTAG, when other varieties might not be ripe yet. Saturday, two of us brought in Sungolds, and three brought Black Cherries. And I think Donna said she used Sungolds in her yummy panzanella.
And as I recall, previous methods of judging also favored the earlier entrants. Perhaps next year we should have everybody take notes, and then all vote within a particular time period. That way, latecomers like Bluekat won't be slighted. And yes, mixing up the locations of entries is a good idea.
DH Dave took a picture of Emily F. with her namesake tomato, so I'm already dreaming up next year's poster design.
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