On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 16:59:02 -0400, Ecnerwal wrote:

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.

We usually have at least one cherry variety. Mostly they are flavorful
and productive until they split and get moldy. For me they seem more
prone to this than the larger tomatoes. Mainly we don't grow more
because one or two gives us all the cherry toms we want; and they are
take so much more time to process if canning.

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.

I haven't found a plum variety yet that will grow in our cool environment
and have much flavor.

[snip cherry info]

"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.

New England, while having a shorter season, is considerably warmer at its
peak. Its challenges are different, and highly variable with exact
location. It seems that the lack of high temperatures (which we really
like for us) is a problem for many garden plants.

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.

My condolences! We had one season where almost all of our tomatoes got
late blight, going from huge luscious plants to grey dying hulks in a
couple days - and the picked, rescued fruit got moldy and nasty in a week.
It was awful. I hope you got something out of your crop.

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.")

[snip]

We've grown tomatillos- They do fairly well here, and tend to reseed
themselves pretty effectively. We just aren't that crazy about their
taste as tomatoes.