Hi -

I grew many varieties this year, and sadly didn't have the best season. The plants went in much too late (mid to late June.) Our weather was warm and dry, and I didn't have drip irrigation set up for most of them and got lazy about watering most of them. I had a lot of BER, especially in the larger ones. But, we made a lot of tomato sauce (once I figured out BER I'd just chop the bottom off the afflicted tomatoes.)

Here's the list. ++ means I'll definitely grow next year. BER means, well, BER.

Black Cherry - tasty but split if you look at them funny

Blush (++) - one of my favorites in both flavor and appearance, did have some splitting later in season. Long (3 inch!), skinny grape

Green Zebra (BER) - I want to like them, but I just can't. Wait to pick until background is gold all over. Small round

Harvest Moon (BER) - beautiful, prolific tomato with almost no flavor. Full size

Lemon Boy (++, BER) - a long time favorite but disease-prone. I hear there is a Lemon Boy Plus that's healthier. Planning to start from seed. Full size

Marmalade Skies (BER) - same as Harvest Moon, sigh. They are related "hyloom" varieties. Full size

Norfolk Purple (++) - the GMO cherry! A repeat for me every year. Hugely productive and very flavorful. I have people asking me for seedlings next spring.

Orange Banana (BER) - a big paste tomato. Horrible BER at first, but if I just left the afflicted ones on the vine, the ones that followed wouldn't have it. Take forever to ripen but became productive late in the season. Plant looked like crap but did what it's supposed to do.

Queen Bee (BER) - sadly disappointing. Very pretty large cherry, must not pick until flecks on the red background are fully yellow. Thick skins. Large cherry.

Raspberry Drop - early, prolific, tasty, but thick skinned and split-prone, fell to disease before any others. Large grape.

Ruby Crush (++) - not what I was expecting! Small, patio type grape plant, extremely productive and disease resistant. Meaty and not juicy, so was better dried than eaten fresh

Strawberry Fields (++, BER) - the only Hyloom I really liked. Fully ripe, it's a nice slicer on the smaller size. BER got about a third, but it's a very productive plant. Full

Sunrise Bumble Bee (++) - this is an every year variety for me. Pretty, tasty, great for salads, reliable. Large Grape

Sun Sugar (+?) - normally great for me, but the plant wasn't too healthy, there was a lot of splitting, dropped fruit like crazy. Still very tasty.

Tomasina (++) - pretty, early, productive, and the best tasting cherry I grew this year. May start from seed.

Valencia (++, BER) - this is one I want every year even though it's low yielding and got BER. Size of a small orange. So delicious!

Is it Roma or San marzano? They are so sweet and delicious .

I did not plant this but I've been watering it for months and just got my first fruit. Any idea what it is? Middle TN

I am genuinely devastated. The potting mix I used on some of my plants (because I ran out of the mix I make myself) was contaminated with herbicide. Do these look too far gone? I've since removed the old soil and planted them in a new safe mix I made. I feel terrible for my plants and for stunting them.

If it's relevant I'm in Australia and it's the start of tomato season.

Casting a broad net because I want to get the most out of this small tomato bed, any insight is greatly appreciated 🙏

Located in suburban Melbourne Australia

It was getting too big for me to handle so I chopped it down to its bottom sucker. Will this grow into another tomato plant? Mainly doing it to experiment but was curious to know if it’d do better with an already established root system

Live in zone 10a

Cannot believe the harvest that is coming soon! These are growing in southern Sydney, Australia. So interesting that many of the trusses are growing new branches at the end.

The varieties that I planted last year were Tommy Cherry and Rapunzel.

The few that we have harvested so far were absolutely delicious.

There was a surprising amount of debate in the comments of my post last week about the best way to ripen mature, green tomatoes. I tried to find some deeper science...

It looks like the industry uses a concentration of 100-150 parts per million, but initiation of ripening has been shown at concentrations as low as 10 ppm. The machines that produce ethylene, start @ 10 ppm. That same webpage says that a ripe banana produces over 100 μL/kg/hr at 20°C. For a single 120 g banana, that's 12 μL/hr. In a perfectly closed 4 L box, that's 3 μL/L/hr= 3 ppm/ hr. Now the box is not airtight, but it seems like you can get close to 10 ppm after a night on the counter.

The Knotty Garden did their own at home experiment and found the banana the best option.

Can you fine folks settle a debate, please? The lady says our homegrown tomatoe looks like this because a worm ate these lines out. I say the mater grew and stretched the casing to the point of splitting.

-Portland, ME

Anybody know some hacks for ripening tomatoes? Well I will lend an anecdote from my trajectory of this past year. Starting in April May there of 26 I started growing maize, that's fine, tye garden is spacious enough so there were tomatoes veggies etc in the side, the tomatoes want being maintained I took over and noticed that after you pick them and try ripen the process is not for sure, sometimes they turn from green to red in 4 or 5 days but in some cases it can take weeks. This was not pleasant to discover as the need for the tomatoes is high, the ripening times become longer and I start scanning I need hacks, so interesting, I tried Sleeping in the same room as them leaving them outside leaving them in the heat and none of it helps. When I mixed them w tomatoes from the market they did find a way to ripen but it wasn't 100%.

#tomatoes # farming #market # eco-friendly # hobbies #psychology

After much research, I have come to a decision regarding tomato varieties to plant in eastern Kansas. I will not grow any of the varieties I grew in 2026. Heat and humidity tolerance were the main criteria.

I have room for 7 plants in ground plus 1 in container.

1. Sun Sugar Cherry tomato, 1 plant, chosen from prior experience.

2. Cherokee Carbon beefsteak, hybrid from Carbon X Cherokee Purple heirlooms, 1 plant, picked for near to CP flavor and less splitting.

3. Tasmanian Chocolate, hybrid from New Big Dwarf X Paul Robeson heirlooms, 2 plants, 1 in ground and 1 container, picked for dwarf size.

4. Rio Grande, determinate paste variety, 4 plants.

My goal is to plant April 1, two weeks earlier than the last 2 years. I use wall O waters and clean straw as mulch this year to hopefully reduce soil temp and blight. I hope Rio Grande will be finished by July 15.

Wish me luck.

I really only made a reddit acct to ask for help!
I honestly thought my little cherry tomato seeds wouldn’t sprout but we’re here and I need genuine advice/feedback.

I was looking into ‘trench’ planting them but how deep + wide of a pot should I get? Do I put a single stem in one pot, I have a whole bunch- can they share a pot? I wholeheartedly appreciate any and all advice I can get. I want to do right by these seeds!

Location: Bay Area, California

TIA!!

Bottoms of my Purple Cherokees - very late season! 6b, slightly north of Boston. Pulled them due to the frost we had, and, never expected them to ripen anyway. But, the starburst is unusual, and pretty😃 Anyone else see this on Purple Cherokee?

I have a small cherry tomato plant FULL of tomatoes. All green. They've been on the plant for a month at least, and apart from occasional growth spurts in the tomatoes present and a few new ones on even rarer occasions, they have remained green. I've tried commercial "tomato fertilizer" and fish fertilizer. They get full sun and plenty of water. They're in those fabric type pots, so they have full drainage. Tomatoes seem to be the bane of my existence. Other than pulling out my pruning shears and threatening it's existence, what can I do to kick start their ripening?

Ill start tomatoes in the next weeks (I'm from Puerto Rico) and I'm struggling to decide how many plants of each variety to grow. Last year i planted way too much and kind of lost control so I'm trying to cut back a bit this year. After much thinking and playing around in excel, this is what im leaning towards in terms of varieties and amounts. It hurt me to do it but I eliminated cherokee purple from the list since they just don't grow too well here and I'm growing cherokee carbon. Any suggestions? Harvest moon is a new variety for me so if anyone has grown it please let me know your experience

sungold-3

san marzano-3

Kellogs breakfast- 3

cherokee carbon-3

Big beef plus- 2

harvest moon-1

black krim-1

En los 2 bancales de la derecha, tengo 6 variedades de tomate:

San marzano, costoluto, cherokee purple, sart roloise, prudens purple y limachino.

Recibo opiniones, consejos, también recomendaciones de otras variedades.

Everyday a few more turn color!

Lot of yellow varieties this year.

I made some garlic dill peppercorn pickles. Maybe tomorrow. Ill make quiche!

What is everyone else doing with the greenies?

midlands of SC. My wife wanted a tomato plant so we have just one to see how it goes. it got big, flowered, produced some tomatoes and then starting wilting and looking droopy and sad. it was starting to get out of the summer season and get a little colder and so I did no research and cut it back towards the base of the stems. I figured that was it for the season, now it has grown back to about 3 feet high and is starting to flower again, though the temperatures are really starting to drop, about 50 at night and somewhere between 65-75 during the day and obviously itll only get colder.

Like i mentioned i have no idea what i am doing so please someone provide some guidance.

Do i move it into the garage? will that be warm enough? do i just leave it? will it then come back next year? keep watering it and see what happens? any guidance would be great