I had Cherokee Purple last year and loved them. I've never had success with Brandywine, although I love this tomato and try it every year. London Town is a great place to buy heirloom tomatoes, but their sale is over. Healthy heirlooms for a dollar! Where did you get yours?
Good luck, and check out the tomato forum for more info. than you ever knew existed about tomatoes. Some of the people on that forum KNOW tomatoes.

Just got my May/June08 Washington Gardener mag and taht is exactly the cover story - they interviewed a bunch of folks and compiled there answers. This year I'm trying out Yellow Pear.

- Amy

Hi Sandra ! I am lucky enough to live close to an Amish / Mennonite community and there are 3 great greenhouses 30 minutes from my house... I got a 4 pack of Cherokee Purple tomatoes for $1.99 ! The Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter were just a bit more ... I get a lot of my flowers there too that I don't grow from seed .

Hi Amy, I will have to look for that magazine , sounds very interesting ! This is a great forum , I really enjoy reading the posts and hope you all post and let me know how your tomatoes do ;-)

Rane_grow: Where are the greenhouses/What are the names? I live in Harford County and some of the Amish/Mennonite areas may not be too far away.

I'm terrible at growing tomatoes, but even I do well with cherry tomatoes. I think I've grown Sweet Million and SuperSweet something-or-other.

This year for the first time I paid extra for the large plants. (I also bought the usual small plants.) I now have 2 tomatoes twice the size of my thumb on my better boy. Plenty of flowers everywhere. While my small plants are still struggling. It is big plants for me from now on.

Sotodog, the greenhouses are in St Marys County, in Loveville, off Loveville Rd ... Stouffers, Zimmermans and Green Acres... great places to get veggies or flowers !

correction ... Green Acres is off Parsons Mills rd ( off Loveville rd ) Stouffers and Zimmermans is off Rt 5 ( near Loveville rd/ Rt 5 intersection )

Amy 319 wrote: This year I'm trying out Yellow Pear.

I hope you won't be as disapointed as I was with those. Yea, they looked cool but were really bland. Sorry. Maybe it was just my garden they didn't do well in. Good luck with them.

This year I'm growing Brandywine, Early Girl, Sun Gold, Debaro Plum (this one is new to me) and a couple of others. I'm very excited about the Debaro's -- I can't wait to see what they look like!

I agree with Watergal. Cherry tomatoes are very successful everywhere. I am growing 4 varieties this year. Sungold, Dr. Carolyn Pink, Black Cherry and White Current.

Cherokee Purple is a very hardy plant. It should do well for you and be great tasting.

Greg

I grow about 13-15 different varieties every year. Almost always all heirloom open pollinated, but this year I threw in a hybrid called "First Prize" that got some good reviews. I always grow Cherokee Purple, Carbon, Aunt Ginny's Purple, one of the Brandywines (typically either Sudduth or OTV), and Riesentraube. The rest of the selection varies from year to year. I think this year I also have Big Rainbow, Mexico (really like this one -- second year growing it), Earl's Faux and a few others. Can't remember them all off the top of my head.

Keep your plants well-mulched to minimize splash up and give them adequate space -- "breathing" room is definately helpful in managing fungal/bacterial foliage diseases that can bother tomatoes in this area. Remove and dispose of diseased foliage. Rotate your tomato planting area if you can. Good cultural practices are the best way to keep disease problems to a minimum.

I garden in SW Baltimore County and have found that Sungold and Black Cherry do well for me. So do Stupice and Lemon Boy. This year I am trying a variety named Church which was spoken very highly of by the late Chuck Wyatt, who used to run a heirloom tomato seed company out of Rosedale, MD (Eastern Baltimore County). I figure my conditions are similar to his, so it should do well for me - fingers crossed! I love black tomatoes - usually I grow Noir de Crimee, but this year I'm trying Cherokee Chocolate. And of course I'm growing Brandywines. The sublime flavor of the fruit makes up for the fact that Brandywine isn't a very prolific producer for me!

BTW, rane grow, are you aware of the Mid-Atlantic Gardeners' Tomato Appreciation Gathering, or MAGTAG? This will be our third annual festival, to be held on August 16 at Southwest Area Park just outside of Baltimore City. It's centrally located, since we get folks from as far away as WV, NY, NJ, and VA. I've attached a link with some info.

Here is a link that might be useful: MAGTAG 2008 - August 16

Cecelia, make sure you bring plenty of Church (enough to save seeds) to MAGTAG....

Cecelia, yes, thank you, I have read a recent post about MAGTAG, sounds interesting, anything having to do with growing and/or tasting tomatoes is an excellent idea in my book ... I have had the best time this spring learning about heirloom tomatoes by reading all the great info on this GW forum ... at last count I have 35 tomato plants in the garden and have 4 Opalkas that I need to put in the ground, they were late arrivals in the mail , 4 tiny spindly plants approx 5 " tall are now about 12 - 14 " strong and sturday ! I can't wait to see how they and the rest of my tomatoes do ! I just got home from work , waiting for the sun to go down a bit more and then I'll go down to the garden for my evening " stroll " ... I hope it rains tonight, everything seems to need it after these last few hot days .

Rane

This is our first year gardening and everything is in containers. We started out with Amish paste and Brandywine from seed. I started them too early and ended up with spidery plants that didn't survive the move outside. Only a single brandywine made it. Later, I ordered some watermelon seeds and they send me a free pack of furry yellow hog. I've never seen these, so figured I'd give them a shot. I now have 6 fairly healthy looking plants that I will be putting in their final containers this weekend.

I'm hoping to make it to the MAGTAG, and to be able to bring some furry yellow hogs.

Fritz,

Becareful how you handle Furry Yellow Hogs. They can get very onry.

Greg

My Mom has some tomato plants leftover if anyone is interested in picking them up in Rockville. She has some Sungolds and some heirlooms.

I did Mortgage Lifter last summer and it did okay. Wasn't as flavorful as I would have liked. I did Brandywine a few summers ago--it did well and we loved it. Yellow pear is easy and has a mild flavor.

This year I'm doing Brandywine, Rose de Berne, Carmello and Ozark.

Thought I would resurrect this thread and see what tomatoes everyone is planning to grow this year ?

Last year was my first year of gardening in many years and I tried growing Mortgage Lifter VFN and Djena Lee's Golden Girl. Mortgage Lifter did only so-so with productivity, quality of fruit, and flavor. The Golden Girl did really well though - great productivity and flavor. I will definitely plant them again this year. Besides that I plan to try some variety of cherry tomato and one or two other varieties - may Brandywine since so many people upthread rave about it.

Hi rhewhton ,

I have had good luck with Mortgage Lifter , have never heard of Djena Lee's Golden Girl, will have to look that one up ... we love Brandywine, they do well in our garden and they taste wonderful . I like to grow hybrids and heirlooms . Our cherry tomatoes grow like crazy , we pick a colander full every other day from June till frost ... Sweet 100, Isis Candy, Sungold and Large Red Cherry are our favorites but we also grow new varieties every year .

Iris

Hey, everyone. I've been MIA for the last few years and just popped in here for the first time today. I'm not decided on which tomatoes to grow this year, except that I'll probably do some version of Brandywine. I'm thinking of trying one of those early varieties like Fourth of July or Early Girl. Any suggestions for an early type that has done well in the Mid-Atl.?

Hi Julia, I grew 4th of July 2 years ago, I really liked it, as I remember it did produce early with little to no problems . I have read here on the forums that Stupice is a good early tomato . I haven't made up my mind yet what I am planning to grow, its so hard to pick from so many great varieties .

Iris

I was a first-time tomato grower last year and I got good yields from Early Girl (which was indeed one of my earliest) and Stump of the World. The Sibirskij Stambovyj tomato produced my absolute first ripe tomato on July 1. The fruits were about the size of cherry tomatoes, but they were beefsteak tomatoes in every other respect: taste, meatiness, and few seeds. The plants grow only about 2 feet tall. The only downside is that you don't get more than a few at any one time, although they produce all summer.

I started all my tomato seeds outside in mid March in baggie-covered plastic cups, bringing them inside at night until mid April.

Lois in PA