The year in review--Barbee

[Barbee]

Finishing putting the garden to bed this week so I decided to do my yearly review and add some thoughts about each variety. Feel free to comment Weather in SW Ohio was dry as a bone and HOT. No water given to any of the plants other than at plant out. At my tomato patch, it's survival of the fittest and I expect my tomatoes to have great production and intense flavor or they don't get invited back next year. So keep all these things in mind when you read my reviews. Exception: SWC was watered as needed.

PL Black Brandywine: Got 4 seeds from a grower in KY who asked me to grow this variety out and send seeds back. Instructions with the seeds were to throw out any RL plants that came up. 4 seeds planted and 3 came up potato leaf. 4th plant was RL so it went into the trash. One plant was planted in a SWC on the deck to save seeds from. The other two were planted in ground in the tomato patch. Excellent taste, excellent production, and giant in size for the in grounds. I did have one really big prospect blushing on the SWC plant. An opossum ate the bottom of it out before I could pick it This one will be in the patch again next year.

Tom's Yellow Wonder: Planted these seeds for a friend and had an extra plant left over, so I stuck it in the ground. I'm not really a fan of yellow tomatoes, didn't even eat one of them.. but the production on them was great and they pumped out some nice BIG tomatoes. The people I gave them away to kept asking for more, so it must have had a good taste. If you're a yellow tomato eater, and you like um big...this one might be good to try. This will not be back in my tomato patch next year..not because it's a bad tomato, but because I'll be replacing it with a bi color. I do a lot of sliced tomatoes for carry out dinners and such, and the bi colors just pretty up the plate a little more.

Bull's Heart: Picked this plant up at the CHOPTAG plant swap and what a good deal I got! Nice big tomatoes, gorgeous color, great taste and excellent production. Had problems with removing the stems without ripping the fruit. Any thoughts on how to solve this issue would be appreciated. I plan to try this one again next year.

Black Cherry: As usual, a great tomato but it will not be planted in ground again. Too vigorous of a grower in ground and too time consuming to pick. I'll grow it again, but it will go back on my deck in a SWC

Spudatula: Seeds from Ami. Great taste, great production, great looking tomato. Big drawback for me was the short holding time. It goes bad quick, just like the regular leaf version. I doubt this one will get planted again because of that. If you just have a few tomatoes at a time and can eat them up quick, this is one you'll want to try for sure.

Stump of the World: YES YES YES! This is one fine tomato. Always the first tomato I reached for when making a BLT. I can't say one bad thing about it. It will be back in my garden for sure.

Lynwood: This tomato just continues to make me happy. HUGE production. This tomato is not big in size but it's big in good ole tomato-y taste. It will be back in the patch next year.

JD's Special C-Tex: I love this tomato. It's a great performer and the taste is just always spot on. Handles the heat better than any other tomato I've grown. It will be back in my patch.

Spudakee: I grew Cherokee Purple for the first time ever last year. It was a good tomato but production was not up there like I like it to be. Ami offered to send me the PL version to try. Woohoo! Now we're talkin
VERY good mater and production was outstanding. It's got a place in next year's patch for sure.

Marianna's Peace: This years production was awful for MP. Not sure what happened, because in past years..it's always been one of my best producers and the taste is great. I will give it another shot though, as it's been one of my favorites for 5 years running.

Box Car Willie: This is my 2nd year of trying BCW and I love the taste but the production is not what I want. I feel like 2 years is a good enough trial so BCW will not be invited back to my tomato patch.

Black Krim: Another of my favs that did not perform well for me this year. Taste was great, production was poor. It will get another shot in the patch next year.

BTD Pink: Great looking tomato with good taste. Production was not what I wanted, but it may be due to our hot dry summers. It will get another chance in the patch next year.

Striped Roman: A good tasting tomato with great production. Not a long holding life to suit me, so it wont be back.

Cuostralee: Plant was sickly looking from the get go so I pulled the plant before I got any fruit set.

Canestrino: Pretty fluted piriform tomato with good production. Taste was just okay. Undecided on whether to try it again or not. I sure did get a lot of questions about it from patch visitors

That about sums it up Picked all the remaining fruits yesterday, in all stages. Time to tear out plants and cages today and do some fall ammendments. I'm sad to see the year end, but excited to start planning next year's patch.

[lowlylowlycook]

Cuostralee: Plant was sickly looking from the get go so I pulled the plant before I got any fruit set.

Somehow this made me laugh. Or did you post in the earlier thread?

[geeboss]

Thanks for the review Barbee very interesting what works well one year and another year falls way short of one's expectations. So glad to see the Stump is still king!!!

George

[Gobig_or_Gohome_toms]

Great review thanks!! I am surprised that after everyone kept asking for TYW you did not slice one up to taste it. I was surprised this year on how good Earl of Edgecombe tasted this year and I am with you do not usually like the yellows/oranges.

Craig

[greyghost]

Barbee, I enjoyed your descriptions very much-thanks for posting them.
Stump of the World has been on and off my 2011 list about 10 times now;
I guess I'll have to put it back on again after you reminded me just what
a good tasting tomato it is!

[Mark0820]

Great review Barbee. Thanks for posting this information. It is good to hear JD's Special C-Tex handles the SW Ohio heat and humidity. It is on my list of tomatoes to try in the future.

I tried Canestrino about 3 years ago. It sounds like your plants produced better than mine did, but our taste evaluation is about the same.

Mark

[Barbee]

Mark, I grew the JD's year before when we had such a cold crappy spring and it didn't do well at all. The taste was there, but the production was awful. Hoping that year was a fluke, I gave the tomato another try, especially since the TX people raved about how well it did in their heat/humidity. And thank goodness I did try it again this year because I would have missed out on just how productive it can be in the right conditions.

lowly, I think I did post in the Cursed Cuostralee thread. Lee raves about it and especially about how BIG it gets. What's not to love about a giant tomato that one slice will cover a piece of bread. I'll give it another whirl at some point. LoL

Craig, I always meant to taste the TYW but before I knew it, the season was over. There were so many yummy pinks and blacks to choose from, I just kept putting it off. I will most likely go back to the Lucky Cross since I do think it is one of the best bi colors out there.

George and greyghost, I tried Stump at the CHOPTAG taste fest last year and I voted for it as best tasting tomato. Coyote won the prize, but the Stump flavor was so good, it went on my list immediately to grow out for this year. I didn't get to attend the taste test this year, so I will miss not being able to refer to the notes I always take to see what varieties I want to try. I will go back to last year's notes and work off that list I guess.

[pete]

Nice review. Very tough year. Was going well until mid-august and has not rained since. I usually post a bunch but this year has me a little disappointed.

My sungold plants actually died, before now I didn't think that was possible.

Cowlicks, AGG, and Cherokee green were the 3 I'll keep planting from this years trial. Taste is always different from year to year, Will it rain tonight???

[Barbee]

I sure hope it rains, Pete! It is terribly dry here. Creek is totally dried up and I don't think I've ever seen that happen since we moved here. I just finished up mowing and I have dust and dried bits of grass everywhere. Just call me Pig Pen LoL

[pete]

Its starting to rain yeah, 60 days tooooo laaaate