In article ,
Frank Miles wrote:
We had one very pleasant surprise. A new variety for us "Kimberly" was
both early and tasty (if a bit on the sweet rather than tangy side).
Smaller than we'd like it, nearly a cherry, but still very productive.

"Fireworks" had amazing sprays of flowers, and a tolerable flavor, but
wasn't that productive, and the plants weakened from a probable fungal
disorder that seems prevalent in this area.

------------------
I'd be delighted if others would share what they've learned - we're
definitely going to be trying new varieties next year! We're especially
interested in early to mid season as we don't get enough heat here to
ripen most varieties.

We went all-cherry some years back, after comparing the total output of
"regular" and "cherry" tomato plants - it simplifies a lot of things,
and when one cracks (if it's got infested beyond just eating) it's not a
big loss. On the whole they seem less prone to cracking and many fungal
diseases, though this year has been bad for the latter and they all
succumbed eventually. Frankly, I also never found (for instance)
Brandywine to live up to the catalog hype about its supposedly superior
flavor; but it sure was a pain to grow, comparatively, with a good deal
more loss.

A "plum" size we haven't grown for a few years, Principe Borghese
(supposedly an Italian sun-drying variety) was a good meaty little
tomato. For our sunless drying, a bit big (prefer just cutting cherries
in half), so we downsized out of it, but not a bad one on the whole.

Jelly Bean has ben a good red cherry for us, and Sungold/Sun Sugar for
orange, though you might find the latter (or all three) a bit over the
top if you are objecting to sweetness. Despite being hybrids, the
volunteers (if not weeded out) often seem to come fairly true-to-type.

Tried "Tumbling Tom Yellow" this year, would not recommend it. Watery
and tasteless and more than average foliage disease issues.

"Yellow Pear" (open pollinated heirloom) has been productive, but I
don't care for it much. Didn't grow any this year, not watery as far as
I recall, just not the preferred taste here, rather acid. May suit your
taste better, assuming you can even bring yourself to try cherries (it
really is pear shaped, but is similar in size to cherries.)

"Green Zebra" is an oddity that I have not grown (bigger than my cutoff
since I swore to just stick to cherries), but have had from further
north than here so it would probably grow for you (I'm zone 4, New
England, not great but usually not terrible tomato country, terrible
pepper & eggplant country most years.) Starting any tomato indoors is
assumed here - the volunteers in the garden only get a few weeks before
frost hits.

This year was pretty whacky weather-wise and nothing really got going
early, after a roller-coaster spring (80+ for weeks in March, hard
freezing again in late April...) and then all the tomatoes got some sort
of fungus that took out the foliage at the end of the year. Ordinarily
I'd be running the dehydrator full-out right now as the frost is coming,
but the vines all died out weeks ago.

If you have the space for them, I'd also suggest trying a Pineapple
Tomatillo (open pollinated, not a tomato, a tomatillo, or "husk
cherry.") They make much smaller tomatillos than the usual ones you find
in stores, and you can either harvest them green and tangier (as the
ones in the stores generally are) or let them go ripe, sweet and yellow
where they do have a slight reminiscence of pineapple to the flavor. The
plants get big (3x3 feet) and they really need an indoor start to get
going well for harvest in summer here - but they do volunteer - since
none of last year's old seed came up, we've made do with the ones that
volunteered, but we'll lose them all soon, (even more tender than basil)
so we didn't get many ripe ones this year - but the plants are covered
with fruit right now. We've saved some new seed from those for next
spring. They have had very little pest and no disease problems for us.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.