I have identical tomatoes in full day-long sun and in morning to noon-ish sun, and the shadier ones are far redder, fatter and sweeter than the tiny orange bitter ones in full sun. It's a tough time to be a tomato.

September is coming...

What do you do with the plants that are now on the way out? Take cuttings for September, or toss them and start again from seeds?

How I know why they didn't get too red - the sun. Some even had white bleached spots until I put a curtain over them.

My dog discovered them. I found her with a red beard and seeds stuck in the hair. Brat.

It's a tough time to be a tomato.

That's funny - and very well stated. Not much you can do now agility. Shade, water, add compost, try to keep the roots alive until September. You can cut back some of the dead branches but leave some too or you'll kill the plant. Ask me how I know this!!

I start a new batch of seed indoors July 4th, more or less. For planting out in Sept.

I have them covered with 60/70% shade cloth that is 8 feet off the ground. They are in full sun in the morning, get the filtered shade during the early afternoon to later in the day but are planted on an east side so they get total shade later in the day.
They have composted mulch around them and have been fertilized with organic vegetable fertilizer.

The plants actually look pretty good. They still have new flowers on the tips. It's just that the tomatoes don't taste all that good. They are sour.
The ones that I have planted are sweet 100, yellow pear, Phoenix, Celebrity, an early girl, a couple of Sun Golds and some others that I would have to check on the names of.There is a dozen pants in all.
So I am wondering if there is anything that they lack that would cause them to be sour. Or if just amending the soil is adequate.

Maybe I just need to plant new plants in September in a new and amended patch :)

Hey I'm having the same issue. This is the first year that I've gotten a significant harvest, but they don't taste great. If I'm going to the trouble to grow them, they need to be better than supermarket tomatoes.

Last year I bought a yellow pear tomato plant from Costco. While those were just ok there was a other variety mistakenly growing in the same pot. I found out when red tomatoes starting popping up. Those red ones were incredible. That one died over winter and I have no idea what this other variety was.

This year I'm growing Punta Banda, Green zebra, black cherry, vernissage pink, early girl bush and early girl indeterminate, and the yellow pear that survived from last yr. None of these taste great. Some are sour and some are just slightly better than supermarket. I'm growing organically. They are in a raised bed with good soil. The one is self irrigated planter is not doing well because I didn't set it up right. The yellow pear in ground is not looking goods. The ones in raised bed look quite healthy. They have a sunshade over them and get afternoon shade.

Any ideas to improve taste? I feel like the salty tap water affects taste but no evidence for it

Best tomatoes I've grown have been this year... They were actually plants left over from spring 2013 that I was too lazy to pull and, being on a timer, they just kept getting watered. This year's winter was mild compared to some years of late so I started getting bumper crops of Japanese black trifeles, black krims, yellow pears and sungold starting in late November 2013 through about two months ago. Yellow pears petered away last month so I cut some branches back around the board and am now just getting vegetative growth.
Mine are all in a bed under a tree except that I have transferred them to containers... Thirsty tree roots invaded the bed enmasse super fast right after I built it. Grrrr.
Anyways, prior to that the best tomatoes came out of seeds started in November/December (look at days till fruit on the variety to determine) and protected from frost so fruit had time to ripen before the hot hot sun hit (crops in may). Figured this timing out after several years. It's too bad many garden centers here don't set out plants until is too late... Gives you a false sense of timing.

-Ming

I don't think the common practice of restricting water works as well in AZ as it might in a wetter climate. Just growing here is difficult for tomatoes bred to do well elsewhere. I water liberally, mulch heavily and (gasp) even use fertilizer. Ammonium phosphate or ammonium nitrate.

Add soil sulphur liberally to decrease the pH, add WAY MORE compost (I've grown tomatoes IN my compost bins), mulch them to retain water, and give them relief from the summer sun.

I'm growing Matt's Wild Cherry (collected in Mexico) and a Roma-like variety selected for heat tolerance whose name I don't remember. I've had good luck with a variety from southern India, name unknown.

Don't buy widely grown varieties: look for ones selected for desert conditions. OR ... plant the cool-area short season varieties for an early crop and replant for a fall and early winter crop.

http://bonnieplants.com/products/vegetables/tomato-varieties/heat-tolerant

I tried 'Phoenix' this year and it produced large tomatoes that taste great. It's short ripening (about 70 days I think) and is still blooming. I have my plants under 50% shade cloth.