New in 2013 Tomatoes

[kath]

I grew this variety once before and got much smaller fruits. These are anywhere from 4-16 oz. on a shortish plant.

[kath]

These are some of the prettiest fruits at this point in the season. Neighbor Cookie is particularly fond of the yellows.

[kath]

Received this one in a trade. The plant stayed small and the fruits are in the 12-18 oz. range. DH liked it in a taste test.

[kath]

Think our weather was really unkind to some potentially great tomatoes and this is one of them. The huge plant was loaded with 1-pound-plus fruits early but then there wasn't much going on. Catfacing, BER, radial cracking, spottiness and some puffiness all took their toll which is not supposed to be the case.

[kath]

This pretty bicolor grew on a shortish plant that was pretty wimpy early in the season. Still only about 5' and some catfacing problems will result in few usable fruits.

[kath]

Not sure what's going on with this one but the fruits are plagued with lots of dark marks that mar its appearance. Very short plant.

[kath]

This is the third and smallest fruit to come off of this shortish plant but I wanted to wait for a pretty one. There really aren't too many more left on the plant, but I did pick off quite a few with bad BER and catfacing. The weight is nearly 9 oz. and the others were 19 and 20 oz. The fruit ripened on the counter but by the time it got "enough" color and started to feel soft, the skin had started to get wrinkly and yet it still didn't taste ripe enough. Not a good year for tomatoes here.

[kath]

Now that family has returned home and I've had some time to catch up in the house and garden, I'm tying up loose ends with this thread and thinking about next year. There are only 5 more new-to-me varieties to photograph/taste/post and because we're into the second half of August they've already got at least one strike against them so they'd better taste pretty spectacular! Seems I'm an impatient gardener.

When all is said and done I'll summarize the results as compared to the returning varieties. I'll start a thread in the Available for Trade section within a few weeks.

kath

[kath]

This variety, along with others that are only now getting posted, would have had earlier fruits had I not pulled off so many of the earlier ones due to catfacing and BER. I forgot to take a pic of the fused fruit so had to wait quite a while to get another nearly ripe tomato and now it looks like they're not even from the same plant because the coloring looks so different! Three fruits picked so far- the first was about 21 oz. and the recent two were just over 11 and 13 oz. The plant is very short, still only about 4' or so.

[jmurphy]

Oh, that last one looks great. I could just reach in a grab a bite of that one!

[kath]

Late but sweet & yummy! The fruits seem to be in the 5-7 oz. range and don't appear to have any change of color when they're ripe. This is the first fruit I've gotten but the shortish dense plant hasn't had any problems with disease. Radial cracks are appearing as the fruits ripen but that's been happening with almost every variety lately because of the weather here. All the fruits are this shape but I don't know if they qualify as an "oblong paste" tomato, so I'd love some feedback from anyone else who's grown this cross to know if these are correct.

[kath]

It's been a long wait for these but the first 2 pics show the reason why.The plant has remained rather short but healthy aside from a bit of EB. Fruits are between 7 and 11 oz. so far but the taste was pretty ho-hum, hopefully because I cut/tasted too soon on the first one.

[kath]

This is the second ripening fruit (6.1 oz.) and it's definitely changing color- has a yellow pink blush happening on the bottom and is yellowish on the side. It doesn't feel as soft as the one I cut this morning, though...hmmm.

[kath]

The seeds for this pink heart came to me through a trade here at T'ville and were named by someone who got them from a Romanian family who had grown them for many years. The plant was one of my many stunted transplants which got off to a slow sorry start, then was plagued by severely deformed fruits, but has finally ripened several fruits in the 14-30 oz. range.

[kath]

So that's it for pics of the new varieties for 2013. The weather has turned cooler here again (low 40's for tonight!) and the garden knows fall is rapidly approaching. Only 22 varieties of tomatoes remain standing out of the original 80. By the end of next week I think the only ones left will be the oldies but goodies.

We're continuing to comparison taste the varieties that are left but I don't think there will be a regrow of any of this year's new ones. It was a tough year for tomatoes here with extremes of cold, heat, and too much rain all taking their turn punishing the plants. Our favorite regrows still impressed us with their performance through it all, though, and are the ones that still have the most fruits left with the possibility of ripening.

In the end, the winners are: Sungold, "Indian Stripe x possibly Daniels", Barlow Jap, Terhune, Work Release Paste, "Fish Lake Oxheart-the unnamed pink one", and Hays' Tomato. If I never tried another tomato, I'd be happy with these; but since the trying is a lot of fun, I'm going to cut my total number in half again as I did this year...40- it's a good number!

Thanks to all who followed and posted in the thread, sent me seeds and inspired me to keep trying new varieties. Wishing you all lots of enjoyment in your search for the best tomatoes~

kath