Lemon Boy hybrid!

About twenty percent of my spring planted, open pollinated tomato plants; normally die in the 100 degree plus heat of mid to late summer. Most years, I have new plants either germinated or grown from suckers ready to plant in replacement of the dead plants for my fall garden. This year, I purchased my replacement plants from my local farm store concentrating on supposedly heat resistant varieties. I also purchased a couple of plants of Lemon Boy hybrid with no knowledge of the variety. I assumed it was a new variety so I looked it up on the internet. It is in fact a fairly old hybrid variety with no indicated heat resistance. Most folks who posted reviews of Lemon Boy seemed to have a mostly unimpressed opinion about it's taste.

When I planted Lemon Boy in the high summer heat at the same time I planted six or seven "heat resistant" varieties, it started growing well in a few days. Most of the others died in the heat within a couple of weeks. Lemon Boy grew and bloomed well in the heat. By fall, both Lemon Boy plants were loaded with green tomatoes. When cooler weather arrived, the tomatoes started ripening slowly. Before our first frost of fall arrived, I harvested all of my larger green tomatoes from all of my plants with about fifty pounds of green tomatoes stored for the winter.

The green tomatoes ripened slowly from mid November until Christmas. We ate our last tomato on Jan 1 and it was a Lemon Boy. I thought the taste was very good, production was very good, and heat as well as disease resistance was great.

I have Lemon Boy germinating for my 2015 spring garden. Spring planted and fall planted tomato plants of the same variety, usually perform differently in my garden. Tomatoes grown usually appear and taste different between spring and fall. Lemon Boy may not perform as well in my spring garden as it did in my fall garden.

Ted