I just put a tray in my unheated greenhouse to see how they will go.. doing some inside now too

Wow,Joanne. I've never even heard of some of those varieties! Allison, what varieties are you starting?

these are the ones inside

http://davesgarden.com/communi...

the ones outside are more or less the other list.. just add brandywine, yellow punch, and lumpy red

dad is going to pout if I don't find more Ramapos next year.. just used my last ones

Nice selection....I'd never heard of the Ramapos or lumpy red before. What feature is it that your dad likes about the Ramapos?

ramapo were developed by Rutgers ... they are trying to achieve the "jersey tomato" taste ... so more or less the ones he grew up with

here is a nice article about them

http://www.nj.com/homegarden/i...

now thats a lot of tomatoes.

I have only done my wintersow experiment:
Red Siberian
Early Siberian
Glacier---- a Swedish variety
Polar Baby ---from Alaska
Siberian Golden Pear
Last year I did Siberia and did get green tomatoes from them. They were a winter sow.

I want to start the Canadian varieties:
MacPink
Morden Yellow
Kimberley and
Sophies Choice

Then for my plant breeding towards a super nutritious tomatoe:
Double Rich
Health Kick
Caro Rich
Carotina

I have a supply of several others, but will have to curb some of this.

Kumato will be one as I finally obtained a few seeds of this of origin in France.

eye spy a bunch of my tomatoes inside germinated!!!

I finally got all my tomatos planted yesterday.....a little late but I pre sprouted them in baggies before planting.

This year I am doing 5 varieties,

2 Japanese Black Trifele (black/purple & pear shaped)
2 Black Cherry (can reach up to 10 feet tall, YIKES!)
2 Ararat Flame (an old and quite rare heirloom. I think it's German)
3 Black Plum (Extreamly delicious and very productive. Even in the cold summer last year)
4 Arkansas Traveler (a pink heirloom)

If everything turns out we should have 13 tomatoe plants this year. After eating those nasty ones from the grocery store for the last year I am more then ready to eat these ones!

I don't even buy the toms from the grocery any more. I just wait for the home grown ones.

Karen

I'm with you, Karen. Occasionally I will buy some grape tomatoes at the store, but never slicing tomatoes ... might as well eat cardboard ... the taste is about the same.

I do resort to buying Romas usually when I make home made pizza--can't have pizza without tomatoes!

Steven, have you grown any of those varieties before? I grew the Japanese Black Trifele last year, and it did fairly well in spite of our poor season. I will definitely want to try it again. I was wavering between Black Cherry and Chocolate Cherry--finally went with the latter (hopefully it will not get 10' tall!)

The 2 I've grown before are the Black Plum, which was very tasty and prolific despite the terrible summer last year. I also grew the Arkansas Traveler last year but it didn't perform as well as the plum though, many of the flowers on it simply produced no tomatos but that was probably due to the weather. The few maters we got from it were very good though.

I had a question from a co-worker about tomatoes and seeds. She wants to grow some 'maters this year, but doesn't like them with lots of seeds. Any suggestions as to which varieties would be best? I couldn't really answer since seeds in my tomatoes don't really bother me so much...I haven't really met a tomato that I hated, lol!

There are some new, seedless tomatoes, but I've not tried them.
http://www.burpee.com/product/...

The picture they display looks odd. The meat of the tomato looks mushy, unappealing. Sometimes looks are deceiving, though.

Karen

That Burpee picture almost looks photoshopped. In photoshop there is an effect called 'plastic wrap' and it looks like they used it on those maters in the picture. Either way, I agree that they look unappealing.

See, that's what I thought, too...I wondered if some of the tried and true ones tended to be less seedy than others...Certainly won't try those funny looking ones, lol!

Our weather has been cool and everything seems a bit delayed. There is a lot of green tomotoes, so I hope it warms up.
This year I tried a hydroponic system for both tomatoes in the greenhouse and outside. I am amazed how big the plants are and how much fruit has formed. Just need some heat & sunshine.

Here's the Maxikap system outside. The Brandywine is loaded. Last year I think I had 4 tomatoes on the plant

Here's some in my veggie garden