Can you explain that soaking?
I don't understand the use of a sodium chemical on plant material?

Pulled about a third of the tomatoes yesterday. The rest still have fruit ripening so as they are done they also will get pulled. So far September and October has been the most productive ever. The tomatoes have been larger and tastier than any late season in my fifteen years of keeping records. Usually by October the flavor is washed out and the fruit mealy.

I am down to about five cabbages left and the ten pepper plants are doing better than ever. Strange year and that is a positive statement rather than strange bad. I have not been on this site long enough to tell whether anyone enjoys year end reports on my brand of ratings... flavor, production, etc. I will try it later a see what reaction comes from such a thread.

Yes we like to hear people's ratings of what they grew!
Please do!

I'd also love to hear your ratings, Paul.

@Carolinescott--I'll send you a t-mail regarding the garlic, as to not hijack this heirloom tomato thread.

CarolineScott said:Yes we like to hear people's ratings of what they grew!
Please do!

Yes, yes!!

We love ratings reports and many of us do post them. So please add yours!!

Guess it's that time of year that many of us are pulling out our tomato plants or getting ready to pull them soon.

It sure was a great year for tomatoes here!!

We love hearing what people think!!

Sadly it is getting to be that time. I still ave tomatoes ripening but as they get I will start pulling plants. I did pull off all the blossoms this past week. That s so painful!

Claudia said:We love hearing what people think!!

Sadly it is getting to be that time. I still ave tomatoes ripening but as they get I will start pulling plants. I did pull off all the blossoms this past week. That s so painful!

I hate it when it is time for the tomatoes to quit too!!

I wish I could have at least a few giving me tomatoes almost all year but of course it doesn't work that way.

      With all the tomatoes now put to bed, I thought I would mention one that did quite well this year: Amish Gold Slicer (not to be confused with Amish Gold, a paste tomato). Although it is firm and has a good taste for a yellow tomato, last year I had it planted in a shadier spot and wasn't impressed with the yield. This year I put it in full sun and had lots of fruit from late August until late October. If only it weren't so late...I still had a dozen green tomatoes on the vine when frost came (rather late this year). Frost will probably be earlier next year, so reluctantly I will try another orange tomato like the Golden Girl that has been mentioned on this thread or the dwarf Kangaroo Paw Yellow (I like that name). I've had good luck with Azoychka and Kellogg's Breakfast in the past but I want to try something new. AGS might be a good choice for those of you with longer seasons than my Zone 6.

We had a light frost over the weekend so I pulled all the plants out except the Sweet 100. Will see if what is on there ripens.But I picked over 2 dozen tomatoes Friday evening to bring in to ripen. Most were Golden Girl tomatoes but a few Rutgers too.

Over all this year was a success! Can't wait until next year!

Sad to see the tomato season ending for us here in the east and Midwest but tomatoes lasted fairly late this year.

Don, thank you for that report, I always like to read the tomato reports from all of us growing tomatoes in our gardens.

And I like to always now have some yellow tomatoes in my garden. I am quite fond of them. Funny I can remember not that long ago that all I grew were the red tomatoes. I will not be going back to growing only reds.

I see that DND's seed swap has over 100 varieties of tomatoes offered.

DND#3 Swap Home Page:
http://garden.org/apps/swap/vi...

Swaplist filtered on "tomato" - can non-members see this?
http://garden.org/apps/swap/sw...

Trading begins Nov. 2, so there's only around 4 days to join. You can keep adding more seeds to your list of offerings as the swap goes along.

(Also posted to the Hybrid Tomato thread.)

Excellent!!

Tomato catalogs starting to arrive and I can't wait for a few minutes to sit,
drool and plan what new varieties to try next year. We are still eating tomatoes
from the vines that were pulled about a month ago when we had our first freeze
warning. Harvested probably a good peck of green tomatoes, some slicing size,
some will go into salads, but we enjoyed a few of them with our Thanksgiving
dinner and I expect we'll still have some at Christmas. My window sills are
full and a couple of baskets waiting their turn as they start showing some color.
These were from the first picking:



A sandwich I made from the large one on the window sill above,
I believe Mortgage Lifter:

Sorry about the photo quality. I need a new camera.

Both pictures and harvest look good to me.

I have not yet ordered any new tomato seeds but of course I do plan to do so.

Rita: I am definitely going to order some of those Jaune Flaume (sp.) this year. Sticking
with Mortgage Lifter, Rose, Better Boy and will try a couple more new ones after I go
through the catalogs.

Today's lunch. Try not to drool on your keyboard!

That looks delicious, Angie! We ate our last few tomatoes in a salad last weekend; I'm still recovering from dealing with the overabundance of them that we had this summer and won't miss the ripe ones for a little while (although I'm sure I'll be wishing for one long, long before we have another crop!)

Sandy, you are so right. They can't come quickly enough next year, can they?

The only tomatoes I buy in winter are the Campari tomatoes. Don't even try to
get a good slicing tomato. It doesn't exist.

We ate our last two tomatoes, Kellogg's Breakfast and Mortgage Lifter, along with some green peppers for supper last night. It all was very tasty. This may have been the latest for fresh tomatoes and peppers here.