June & July Tomato Comparisons

Our first nearly-ripe tomatoes made themselves apparent yesterday: Black Cherry and Peacevine Cherry, one fruit each. But while waiting for them to ripen, here are the other comparison pictures for the 2013 grow-out varieties. All of these pictures were taken a month ago.

Maruskin's Andes up in the new Front Farm beds.

Second Andes in the new Front Farm beds.

Third of three Andes: this one is planted in the Mater Patch out back.

Livingston's Beauty in the Mater Patch.

Younger Livingston's Beauty in the Front Farm beds.

Monstrous Black Cherry in the Mater Patch. Black Cherry, Costoluto Genovese, Rebecca Sebastian's Bull Bag and Rose Beauty were the most gigantic plants in the garden - but the two Front Farm Andes plants were giving them a run for their money.

Black Cherry's first truss of fruit.

Butler Skinner is slow, as usual - and rather whiny this year. Butler is planted where there is some afternoon shade, and in a corner where there will be more than adequate circulation. The plant is prone to some blight problems.

A monster of a plant - quite healthy in all respects - and keen on producing tons of beautifully fluted fruits. Can't wait to taste the tomatoes. It's been a joy to grow out so far.

Cuneo Paste aka Liguria was planted to replace a Christopher Columbus that was broken by an animal intruder.

Can't wait to try DePinto - I believe that DePinto was the first to set fruit this year.

Depp. Enough said. Usually a whopper of a plant that makes a whopper of a fruit - but this year Depp is planted in the newly-expanded section of the Mater Patch, where the fertility may not be as high as the older part of the bed.

Very slow to set fruit - but I've tasted this variety, and it'll be well worth the wait. I couldn't stop eating slices of this variety when we were cutting it up for Tomato Jamboree last August 2012. The ripe fruit were glorious, courtesy of Mark Henkle in Nicholasville, KY.

Two baby Ernie's Plump sharing the beet and sorrel bed together. A favorite variety from Marianne Jones.

Nobody's growing this variety in Seed Savers the last few years - figured I needed to keep it going. It's a great variety, and very trustworthy with production and quality.

A standby - these are planted in the old Kitchen Garden just off the porch.

Kenosha Paste is much acclaimed among the tomato-growing Seed Savers with similar taste.

I wish I had enough property to grow a dozen of these beautiful Lena Mae Nolt's Holy Land oxhearts!

Via Dr. Carolyn Male. Not remotely like Roma - but a Roma-sized fresh-eating paste from an Italian family.

Peacevine Cherry will eventually fill this extra-tall cattle panel cage. .

Prue takes the prize for stringiest, most pitiful looking plant - and this is a well-grown specimen! But the fruit are a real treat, in spite of the Addams Family demeanor of the plant.

It's been a while since I grew this out - and I must say that I'm shocked all over again by the size of the plant. Rebecca Sebastian's Bull Bag has other peculiar traits besides its octopus-like growth habit; it produces a wild cluster of up to ten buds but will set only one or two fruit from each cluster. And the fruits are gigantic, living up to the name that Mrs. Sebastian's father gave them.

A keeper from Estill County. Named for the Rose family on Happy Top Road.

One of Craig LeHoullier's Cross-Hemisphere Dwarf Tomato Project varieties. No cage required so far.

Another dwarf from the breeding project.

Supposed to be heat resistant and extremely productive. We'll see. I just hope it tastes good. Introduced from Greece by Glecklers in the 1950s.

The Mater Patch.

Growing Yellow Cookie instead of Verna Orange this year; I miss Verna Orange, but I was out of seed this year and didn't have time to order before planting.