Since Totally Tomatoes has 10% off today I ordered my tomato seeds. I have a box of tomato seeds but of course I needed more.

Oh well, I do love my tonato garden. And my tasty home grown tomatoes all season long.

There has been some speculation as to your absence in the on-going tomato swap. It was mentioned, with regret, since they were looking forward to getting some seeds from The Tomato Queen.

I remember you saying you were downsizing (from 100+ to ~80!!!. . . ), but your presence WAS misssed!!

Given that it's the first time for a swap from this thread (AFAIK), I think we did well for participation. There were a LOT of varieties offered! But yes, the Tomato Queen was missed as were many others. Several folks told me, "maybe next year!"

If there's a "next year" for my hosting, I think I'll do "invitation only" for a couple of weeks, to be sure everybody here has a chance to sign up, and then I'll open up the swap to general participation (capped at 30 or 40).

BetNC said: There has been some speculation as to your absence in the on-going tomato swap. It was mentioned, with regret, since they were looking forward to getting some seeds from The Tomato Queen.

I remember you saying you were downsizing (from 100+ to ~80!!!. . . ), but your presence WAS misssed!!

Oh sorry, I never do those swaps. They just don'tt interest me.

Newyorkrita said: Oh sorry, I never do those swaps. They just don'tt interest me.

Sorry to hear that. I would've considered it an honor to receive even one variety from the Queen. 😊

Snow day here, so I'm thinking summer gardens! I'd love to hear recommendations for tomato varieties that you consider to be very productive and tasty. I'm near Winchester, VA and coordinate a vegetable garden for a local food pantry. Over the past few years we've seen the following trends amongst our clients: slicing types are preferred, cherry and smaller tomatoes don't do well, and red or pink varieties are preferred over dark, green or striped kinds, though I always grow one or 2 yellow plants. I grow a mix of heirlooms and hybrids and always trying some new kinds. Would love to hear what's done well for you, especially in hot, humid summers!

For productive tasty slicers, My best all around are the TSWV resistant varieties Saybrook, Mountain Merit, Dixie Red. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum 'Saybrook') I have extreme disease pressure especially TSWV,. There are excellent varieties that I cannot use because of it. Mountain Rouge is especially tasty, but has low resistance to TSWV Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum 'Mountain Rouge') These are all big determinates. Big Beef Plus is an indeterminate with a huge vine that does well. The big vines require a good deal of labor to manage. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum 'Big Beef Plus')

Even for "slicing," I like tomatoes that are very meaty, with small seed cavities, and I generally stick with OP/heirloom varieties. German Pink, Potato Top, Amish Paste (really an oxheart), Mr. Stripey (bicolor yellow/red) are larger varieties that have performed really well for me. Wisconsin 55 is a reliable producer of red, smoothly round "normal looking" tomatoes, a little smaller than the others but still 10-12 oz (not a saladette or cherry type). Summers here are probably a little hotter than for you. I do have to spray most years for fungal issues (early blight, late blight), given high humidity.

Hot and humid here! Two that I have settled on are sweet tasting tomatoes.

Great production and red, medium to large size for me was Sleeping Lady.

The other is yellow to red streaks and again a sweet taste Hillbilly.

Both will be grown this year.
Meanwhile I am always looking for a wildcat to try. That is how I found those.

I'm a sucker for big fat slicers. Since my family has fear of diverticulitis I do like ones that aren't seedy. Mainly my dream is to grow a tomato that makes it over 2 pounds. It's a miracle I get one over 1 pound.
Personally I never cared for super juicy varieties that make my salads and sandwiches soggy.
However, I hate dry varieties like San Marzano. That was the worst tomato ever.

Early Girl did well for me and Celebrity is usually reliable. Celebrity was once a recommended variety from U of Maryland.

I thought long and hard and added a cilantro to my list that we like better than the flat leaf variety, flavor is the same tho. If it didn't grow at a different season than my maters, i would keep it near my maters! I get hungry for the slicers, but usually eat them as they are, they don't make it to the sandwich

I live in north Georgia with heat, disease, and pest issues. As far as slicing tomatoes, I will always grow Early Girl, which is the earliest producing slicer I have found (though on the small side). Blue Ribbon is my middle-of-the-summer large slicer.

I'm in the middle of my tomato production season here in Florida, although we've had terrible, cool and rainy weather.

I'm getting the best production from a couple of big slicers, Chef's Choice Bicolor, and Lemon Boy. Both are hybrids because like Dillard, I have problems with disease pressure down here and heirlooms just don't survive well for me. The Lemon Boy have been a real eye-opener for beautiful fruits and great taste despite the lack of sunshine. I'm looking forward to tasting one after a run of some sunny weather.

Another beautiful, productive one I grew last year was Bodacious. But the plant has been in a bad location, getting even less sun than the other plants so I've moved it in hopes it will perk up. Broke off a couple of big branches in the moving exercise.
Lemon Boy

Thanks for all the suggestions! I see several I've never heard of, some I've grown before and maybe some I should return to, like Early Girl, which has always done well and been about the earliest. We tend to grow mostly indeterminates on cattle panel trellises.

Blue Ribbon is one I've never grown but looks good from a quick read. Celebrity & Hillbilly are ones I grew years ago and might revisit. Amish Paste and German Pink did alright recently, but were not terribly productive for us. I've grown Mr. Stripey and Big Rainbow but they weren't especially popular with the clients. Never heard of Saybrook, Mountain Merit, Dixie Red, Bodacious or Potato Top. I think we grew Big Beef a couple of years ago and it did well, but I'll have to look up BB+. That Lemon Boy looks nice, I've been growing Moonglow for a yellow variety the last 2 years, they are medium size and have been pretty productive.

I'll start reading up on some of these and get some new seeds ordered!

'Potato Top' now called 'Limbaugh's Legacy Potato Top' was a Pittsburgh tradition for years. Fred Limbaugh grew them for decades and gave thousands of plants away to his steel workers. Then a Pittsburgh Press columnist orchestrated a big seed give-away for them annually for many more years. I've sent hundreds of seed packets out and had reports of great productivity and flavor from literally all over the US. I wrote an article for DG about their history, https://davesgarden.com/guides...

Sadly, I lost the particular strain I'd been growing, but I got a packet from TomatoFest last year -- very similar but not quite the same. If anybody has been growing 'Potato Top' from seeds I sent them years ago, please save some seeds for me!

Probably one of my favorites as far as taste goes is Thorburns Terra Cotta.
Another worst tomato ever was Orange Accordian. That was AWFUL. And I don't mean just the taste, I mean it's growth. I only got like a couple of unblemished fruits. The rest were so badly infected with BER I just kept throwing away little green fruit after another. Bleah!!!

Thanks for the info on Potato Top, since I came up with 2 different ones when googling.

I got TTC in a swap last year & plan to grow it, so good to know it's a tasty one. Somehow Orange Accordian just seems like a really weird name!

Terra Cotta is fabulous!!!

Any thoughts on Blue Beech, Crimson Sprinter, Kim's Civil War Oxheart or Watermelon Beefsteak? These are varieties I've purchased or got in trade but haven't grown yet.

Thanks!