my project tomato anna russian cherry x

[rxkeith]

its all over with the outside tomatoes here. we got frosted pretty good about 10 days
ago. i spent several days before hand picking as many tomatoes as i could. many
green tomatoes just hung there, and wouldn't turn ripe.
here is the season run down. all tomatoes have finally had a taste.


aili line four plants.

plant one was smallest indeterminate of the four, but had the largest fruit, some up
to about 6 oz. somewhat irregular shaped red fruit, call them lumpy heart shaped.
taste just wasn't there. on the watered down sweet side, but nothing to write home about. this one
is on the shelf. saved seeds, but i think its better to have the flavor present than to go looking for it in future generations.


plant two had heart shaped similar to plant three and four only a little larger over all
say 4 to 5 oz. red fruit flavor was slightly better than plant one.
on the shelf for now.


plant three looks like a twin to plant four. heart shaped red 2 to 4oz fruit.
this one had a good balanced flavor, best of the aili line.
future grow out to f5 at some point.


plant four was red heart shaped with an acidic bite to it.
may grow out at some future point

plants two, three, and four were loaded with tomatoes. i was hoping flavor would
be better overall with the heart line, but it is what it is.


lempi line


five plants, all displayed rampant growth. vines were over 6 ft tall, and still growing
when frost hit. fruit was two bite sized for the most part.

plant one gave me pink oval cherry sized tomatoes. flavor was a rather intense sweet
flavor that caught me by surprise. productive
worth growing at f5.


plant two had small red roma shaped tomatoes two bite size.
flavor had a good balance of sweet/acid, but didn't last long on the tongue the
way a real good tomato can. worth another look at some point.


plant three had elongated red pear shaped fruit with nipple. good balanced tomato flavor. two bite sized. only thing i didn't like about it was the skin was somewhat firm, and stuck around in my mouth after the rest of the tomato was gone. most similar in shape to the f3 parent. worth another look at some point, need to do something about the skin.

plant four yielded cute little red plum tomatoes with a nipple.
flavor was a good balance of sweet and acid. worth growing to
f5 at some point.

plant five gave me pink cherry size tomatoes.
flavor was sweet, but not complex. on the shelf for now.


mama helen line f3 parent was a pink 5 to 6 oz plum tomato.

plant one was late to ripen. when it did, it produced beautiful deep pink
round tomatoes about 4 to 5 oz. call it large saladette size with a nice balanced sweet/tangy flavor. moderately productive
will go to f5 at some point.


plant two was a beast. this one kept branching off, producing blossom cluster after
blossom cluster before loading up with small pink plum tomatoes that tapered to a dull pointy end. size was about 2 to 4 oz. tomatoes were the first to ripen. flavor was sweet with an acid bite
finish. some of the early fruit was on the crunchy side. i might have been too eager
to eat them. this one is coming back next year.


plant three i had to pick everything green. fruit just wouldn't ripen before frost hit.
what i got was plum tomatoes in the 4 to 5oz range. i squeezed five tomatoes for
seed, and sampled them as i did so. they seemed to be the juiciest of the whole lot.
flavor had that stewed tomato like taste.

worthy to go to f5 at some point, but would prefer it to vine ripen.


there you go. it was a fun year
i'll post later with some ruminations and try to decide what the heck

to grow next year.




keith