Just picked my first ripe ones this week here in Bergen Co., NJ. It's just not
hot enough for them to get ripe, I think. I've got plants that have had fruit
on them for almost two months and should have started ripening at least two or
three weeks ago.

Most of my plants are almost 7 feet tall. I have no idea what exactly they are,
since they are volunteers from last year's crop of Sweet 100's. They look like
grape-types, but they are the size of golf balls or larger. Imagine a cluster
of five or seven or more of those all over the plants. I'm tying them up with
butcher string because I think they are going to get damaged from their own
weight if I don't use something relatively soft - forget about twist ties! The
vines themselves are thick, thicker than anything I've ever grown, including
Beefsteaks. Wierd plants for sure.

FWIW, we also have the mutant sunflowers from seeds I've saved over the past
six seasons - they get over 15 feet tall, and branch out like a tree,
constantly producing new, but smaller flowers in the apex of the branches and
leaves. Between the tomatoes and the sunflowers and the giant zuchinni (also,
strangely, unproductive this year), my yard looks like the rainforest...

Now I'm worried that it will hit 90 for a few days and I'll be up to my armpits
in tomatoes - or red golfballs if they don't taste as good as they look...[g]


-=epm=-

In matters of truth and justice,
there is no difference between large and small problems,
for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
- Albert Einstein