I still have 20 varieties in the fall garden group that I am waiting on. Spring tomatoes that I have been disappointed with are : Mr. Stripey, Old german, and Rutgers. The Old German are still cherry tomato sized, and the Rutgers has struggled alot. I finally got a ripe Orange Oxheart, it was good, but kind of hollow inside. I'll try to post some pics I took.

[IMG]http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc47/sherimac88/orangetamato002.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc47/sherimac88/orangetamato009.jpg[/IMG]

My Rutgers flopped this year. But I know, from past experience, that this can be an awesome tomato. I'm planning to try again in 2008. Under proper conditions Marglobe is also a favorite of mine. But I haven't grown it for years. So many tomatoes... so little time and space!

This year I grew a wild tomato, which I purchased in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, from a little hnu Indian lady in 2003. I won't grow it again. it was productive and hardy but it didn't just lack flavor. It simply didn't taste good.

George

This year my delicious, rutgers and roma all did awful. To flip this question. What variety do you like?

Since I got most of mine free I don't know what they were. I did buy 4 Golden Jubilee and was given another supposedly heirloom yellow tomato. I lost the little stake with it's name on. The others I was given were either cherry size or regular size from the Oklahoma Food Bank. If yellow tomatos all taste mild like the ones I got I won't be growing any more yellow tomatos. Basically they seemed tasteless to me. Give me a red tomato any time. Although the red ones, cherry and regular size split vertically or had concentric circular splits the flavor was really good. I got to looking forward to going out and popping a half dozen cherry tomatos in my mouth. They were really good compared to tasteless storebought. I've pretty much cut down the yellow ones but left the red ones alone and they are still flowering and beginning to set fruit again. I can't tell how tall they are as they sprouted into multi trunks and spread four feet before they climbed the 7 foot stakes. And now I'm staking them to other nearby wooden stakes too. We'll see what happens between now and December.

I tore out the cucumbers and am preparing that and other bed space for kale and beets and garlic and onions. I may plant a brussel sprout or broccoli or two if I come across some this weekend.

My zinnias are doing great in the half whiskey barrel I planted them in. They are over 3 feet tall and attracting butterflies now. Saw a really pretty almost lime green on stop by this afternoon. Wish I had something nice to plant around the zinnias. It would be nice to have something smaller flowering at or over the edge of the barrel to balance things out.

That's it for me.

Hank

JJSkiatook,

In answer to your question, I like a lot of different ones, but there are a few that are really reliable and consistently give good to great production, have average to above-average disease resistance, and have great flavor. However, in any year, flavor can be significantly impacted by excessive rainfall (or, by overwatering).

Here's a few I grow pretty much every year.

HYBRIDS:

Better Bush Improved
Early Girl
Better Boy
Sweet Million (cherry)
SunGold (cherry)
Brandy Boy (tastes almost as good as the famous Brandywine heirloom, but with much greater productivity)
Celebrity
Big Beef

HEIRLOOMS:

Black Krim
Black Plum
Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Green
Cherokee Chocolate
Stump of the World
New Big Dwarf
Dr. Carolyn (an ivory to pale yellow cherry)
Ildi (a yellow grape/cherry)
Snow White (an ivory to pale yellow cherry)
Black Cherry (a blackish-purple cherry)
Nebraska Wedding
Earl's Faux

IN A CLASS OF ITS' OWN: Brandywine--believed by many tomato afficianados to have the best-flavor of all the tomato varieties. Unfortunately, in our hot summer weather, it only produces a few fruit per plant. I used to grow it every year, but now grow it only every other year or so since Earl's Faux and Brandy Boy both give similar flavor and better production.

NEW FAVES: Two hybrids that are fairly new on the market but which are probably going to be on my grow list every year are:

Burpee Porterhouse
Neve's Azorean Red (an heirloom that is new to me)

Dawn

I don't grow as large a variety as does Dawn, and I'm working on narrowing things more, to make life a bit more simple. If anyone wants to try a tasty yellow, I'd recommend Sunray VF. I first grew it in 1983 and have tried to grow it whenever I grow tomatoes (couldn't do tomatoes when we lived out of the country). One year I had 20 varieties of tomatoes and did a blind taste test with friends. As long as they couldn't see that it was yellow/orange, they'd chose it as the best tasting. We have a daughter who won't eat fresh tomatoes UNLESS they are Sunray VF!

I grow Prudence Purple, an heirloom I picked up from a Gardens for All member back in 1983. It is like Brandywine (I've been told) but it sets fruit pretty well in the heat, that is, until the heat hits into the 100s. It's also earlier than Brandywine.

My wife, Jerreth, and I have observed that we eat a fair number of fresh tomatoes, earlier in the summer, but by August, we use them almost 100% for paste and sauce. So, I'm thinking of going back to a tomato I haven't grown since 1985... Roma VF. I want a large flush of solid paste tomatoes, which will hold a few days on the shelf. I never much enjoyed Roma VF for fresh eating. But my heirlooms don't hold well on the shelf and they have a higher water content.

The best all round tomato I grow (fresh eating & cooking) is an heirloom called Baker Family Heirloom. I got the seed from an L.D. Baker of Tinley Park, IL, back in the early 90's. It handles the heat well and is a high producer of nice large beefsteak type tomatoes, which are also pretty good for cooking. It does, however require tall staking as the plants are super vigorous and often climb to 10 or 11 feet. I use 5' tall concrete reinforcing wire cages and prune to keep them in them, only letting them flow out the top. By fall they have usually reached the ground.

I have only grown Rutgers, here in OK, this year. It flopped. But in NJ it was as tasty as Baker Family Heirloom and nearly as productive, but with a more restrained growth habit. Rutgers and Marglobe are really "the NJ tomatoes." I will try Rutgers again in 2008. It's one of the few things about my NJ roots, of which I am truly proud. At one point Rutgers was the #1 tomato worldwide.

George

George
I am glad to find out it wasn't just my Rutgers this year that flopped. I remembering reading where a lot of people were raving about it. I will try it again next year too. I will also try the Baker's Family Heirloom, and Prudence Purple is another one that I have seen a lot of people talk about. Sheri

Sheri,

Baker Family Heirloom may be a bit hard to find. But I have plenty of seed if you're interested. Prudence Purple is somewhat of an enigma to me. I have the same seed I received back in 1984. But there are others who have Pruden's Purple and claim that they are the same. I'm not so sure. I sent seed to a GW member, last year, so he could grow them out and compare. But he hasn't notified me of the results. The Seed Savers Exchange decided to rename my strain as "Pruden's Purple," last year. So I stopped offering it.

Send me an e-mail if you'd like some seed.

George

Wow, Dawn, what a long list of tomato duds! Sometimes I wonder if tomatoes taste different depending on what kind of soil they grow in.

I haven't had good luck with several varieties. Cody's Paste wasn't very prolific and except for the first one, wasn't any bigger than Amish Paste. It was very dry, though, and for a paste tomato, I guess that's good. But I couldn't really taste anything. Maybe cooking would bring out more flavor. Next year, I'll try it as a fall tomato and see if it does any better.

I didn't get anything noteworthy off Grandma Suzy's Beefsteak and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

And I only got one or two tomatoes off Goliath and County Agent. I don't have a lot of space and I really expect a tomato plant to make more than one or two tomatoes all summer.

Of course our freaky weather could've had a hand in this.

Several of my plants survived the rains of June and the heat/dry of August and are making little tomatoes now. I hope for a late frost. The plants are all so big, many of them easily 10' tall, they grew up over the 5' PVC cage and are now hanging out in the walkway between the raised beds. I have never even thought about starting new plants in early summer to use as a fall crop, by the time I learned about that, it was really too late to start the plants. I tried rooting cuttings and that just didn't work out at all. The ones that didn't rot in the water just stalled when I planted them and eventually died.

I really did enjoy Juane Flamme, they were early and very prolific, if a bit small. This was my first plant to die from the excessive rain, however.

I loved my Cherokee Purple. Good flavor and prolific. Boxcar Willie, Red Brandywine, Arkansas Traveler, Mortgage Lifter and Homestead all produced well and had good taste.

I like the idea of growing something prolific for giving away. I might do that next year, too, as my disabled neighbor is still making pointed remarks about not getting many tomatoes from me this year. She's so demanding, she pushes my "stubborn buttons" and I just hate to cave in.

George, your Baker family tomato sounds interesting. Do you still have seed?

Hank, I enjoy zinnias, too. I didn't plant any this year. I'm moving one of my beds and think I might plant flowers in it. But thinking more on the lines of things hummingbirds like. We have lots of them. Now that a lot of my stuff has died back, they're feeding at my neighbors sugar-water feeders. I don't see how hummers can live on just sugar, but maybe so.

I've been too busy to lurk so haven't been around in awhile. I'm trying to get caught up on everyone's posts today. Glad to see familiar people still posting. --Ilene

Ilene,

I have had a problem with neighbors who have come to think that my tomatoes are 'their' tomatoes, too, and it really gets my goat! (smile)

You know, I will give tomatoes to ANYONE, even strangers who are driving up the road and stop to admire the garden....but when someone starts acting as though I 'owe' them tomatoes, that is when I get stubborn and stop giving tomatoes to them. I can't help it. I get especially hard-headed about not sharing with friends and neighbors who tell me they have stopped growing tomatoes because "they are too much trouble and I can just get tomatoes from you this year". No, they can't! I don't like this reaction in myself, but it is what it is, and I have little patience with people who think I am their own personal grocery store.

When I was a young child, one of my very favorite books was the Little Golden Book THE LITTLE RED HEN. Well, when I have greedy 'you owe me tomatoes' type neighbors, I start feeling like the little red hen myself! LOL

The plants that have produced dozens, if not hundreds, of fruits per plant, and which I often plant in order to have 'giveaway' tomatoes are Bloody Butcher, Fourth of July and Super Boy. They aren't the greatest in flavor, when compared to something like Purple Cherokee, Jaune Flame, Neves Azorean Red, or Brandywine, but the people I am giving them to are always thrilled to get them.

This year, though, I planted a whole lot of new varieties that I wanted to try, and I didn't plant any specific 'giveaway' plants.

I hope your tomatoes have time to ripen before the first hard freeze. I have tons of green tomatoes on my fall plants, and I'm getting some ripe ones here and there. The night before the first expected hard frost I will cover them up really well with sheets and blankets, because often we have weeks and weeks of warm weather again after the fall frost. I don't know if you have that warm weather after the first frost since you are so much farther north than we are, but it is one of my favorite times of the year here in southern Oklahoma.

One year, probably in 1999 or 2000, I harvested the last tomatoes one week before Christmas!! That was a remarkably late killing freeze, and I just loved it!

Dawn

George,

I guess when I said I was wanting to grow Prudence Purple, I was actually thinking of Pruden's Purple. I don't think I have heard of Prudence Purple until now. However, if you have some extra seed of it and Baker's Family Heirloom, I would love to try some. I will try to grow both Prudence and Pruden's Purple next year, and see if I can tell a difference. The only thing is as a new gardener, what is so baffling to me, as I have posted, is that some of the "large variety" tomatoes that I grew, have produced only cherry sized tomatoes, such as Old German; and Mr. Stripey, never had one hint of a stripe, and was also cherry size. But, I would love to grow both and see what the outcome is. Have you ever grown Homely Homer "Ugly"? It was probably the best tasting tomato I've had so far this year, with Brandywine, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple close behind. Sheri

No Sheri, I have never tried Homely Homer Ungle tomato. Sounds like a rough but tasty tomato.

One reason the tomatoes you try may not come out like the description may be that they got crossed. I've found that a relatively large percentage of those I get in trades, from other gardeners, are crossed. Sometimes I get crossed seed from people who are renowned in the area of tomatoes. I hope this rarely happens with seed I send out. But I'm sure that it has happened before. As a minimum, I give my tomato varieties 15' distance isolation with pole beans or corn in between them. This year I gave them 30' to 100' isolation distance. It pays to have several gardens scattered around the property. Crossing is one reason I'm working to cut down on the number of varieties I grow per year.

Another reason they may have come out so small may have to do with stressful conditions. This year was a tough one for tomatoes, at least in my garden.

I can offer seed to either Prudence Purple and Baker Family Heirloom, to anyone who can make a trade that I'm looking for (hard to come up with most of the time) or else sends $2.00 to cover my costs. I feel like a grinch asking for that, but I consistently end up spending more than I receive on seeds and our budget just can't handle that. This is what Seed Savers Exchange members must send for a sample. Non members are supposed to send $3.00 per sample of small seeds.

Oh, I just thought to mention a tomato I WILL NOT be growing again: Black Plum. I grew this one in NJ and it made a good crop. But no one in my family liked the flavor. I grew it again this year, thinking that at least I could use it for paste (and my seed needed renewing). Well, most of the tomatoes got sun scald, cracked and rotted. Guess when a tomato is from the former Soviet Union, it's probably not made for Oklahoma conditions!

George

Dawn,

I wonder how soon the first freeze might me in a year with cool weather like this? That's scary for me, because I have 30 some plants that I haven't gotten any tomatoes from yet and not near enough blankets, I wonder if throwing a tarp over them would help? Did you ever try the Ugly tomato?

George,

I sent you an email yesterday, to tell you I don't have any seed, but I do want to try those two tomatoes for sure, what other variety of seeds do you offer in tomatoes and peppers? I am going to try growing mine from seed next year, because I know it will be alot less expensive than this year, I bought 79 plants! If you have enough seeds from that Thai Pepper plant, I think I want to try that also. Sheri

Sheri,

Do you know what the average first frost date is for your county? If so, keep in mind that half the time the first frost will occur before that date, and half the time it will occur after that date.

Here in Love County, since we moved here in 1999, we have had a "killing freeze" as early as September 30th and as late as December 16th or 17th, so it is highly variable. Typically, though, it tends to occur in the first half of November most years. For you, then, it probably would occur in mid- to late-October in the average year. But, heck, what in the world is the "average year" in this state of wild and erratic weather?

I've linked a climate/freeze data page for you to check out. Remember, though, that all this data is only based on 'averages' and, in addition, you may live in a microclimate that tends to freeze either earlier than or later than the surrounding area. For example, we are in a low-lying microclimate compared to many other parts of Love County that surround us, so we usually have freeze damage in our garden a week or two before the rest of our county sees any damage. Also, under certain conditions, you can see freeze damage on plants, including the loss of leaves/stems/fruit when air temperatures hit about 38 degrees. So, it is not uncommon to see plant and fruit damage or loss before you actually have freezing temps.

I watch the weather like a hawk in the fall so I can cover up plants and protect them from that first freeze. Sheets, blankets, afghans, sleeping bags, old curtains or tablecloths, etc. are all preferable to any sort of plastic, including tarps. With a tarp or any sort of plastic, you will have some success. However, wherever the tomato plant physically touches the plastic or tarp, the plant will freeze. So, you can use a tarp or other plastic, but know that you'll lose a part of the plant if any of it is touching the plastic.

The year we had the Sept. 30th freeze here, we were expecting it because a really huge, Artic cold front was forecast to come barreling its way down through the state, so we built a wooden frame using 1x2s and covered it with six mm plastic. We covered six tomato plants. Although we lost portions of the plants that froze, most of the plants survived and we were able to harvest tomatoes for another 6 or 7 weeks.

Obviously you have to pick and choose which plants to try to save. I always pick those that have the best chance of ripening fruit, based on the size of the green fruit and the plant's DTM.

Any plants you can't cover, you can pull up by the roots and hang in an insulated garage, basement, storage building, attic, etc. Some of the green fruit on these plants will ripen over time. You also can pick green tomatoes right before a killing freeze and put them in single layers in a cool, dark place and some of them will eventually ripen.

In August and early September, I felt like we were going to have an 'early autumn' because we had some really cool nights for a while. Since then, though, both our days and nights here are running above normal temps and it has been very hot and dry, so I don't necessarily think we'll have an 'early' freeze.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: First Freeze Data

I grew Ugly either the first or second year that seed was available commecially.

It wasn't anything special. Yes, the plant grew and it produced tomatoes that were fairly large....about the size of the "Ugly" tomato you see in grocery stores. We had high rainfall and high humidity that year, and the foliage had every problem you can imagine....bacterial speck, bacterial spot, early blight, etc. In spite of the foliar problems, the plants did not die and kept producing tomatoes.

The flavor of these tomatoes was just barely acceptable. Obviously they tasted a little better than grocery store tomatoes, as do all homegrown tomatoes, but not much.

Based on flavor, which is paramount in our garden, I opted not to grow them again.

If all you care about is disease tolerance, though, it is a great plant.

Also, as with every other tomato on earth.....flavor varies with soil, weather, growing conditons, etc., and what tastes 'bland' to me might taste good or great to you, and vice versa. Flavor is highly subjective, and growing conditions are highly variable. On the Tomato Forum, we often express this as "your mileage may vary". For what it is worth, I have found that a tomato may taste better the second or third year I grow it, but I have to like it enough to give it a second or third chance, and I really didn't like Ugly enough do that.

Did you grow Ugly this year? Did you like it?

I'm going outside right now to work in the garden. I have lots of tomatoes and peppers to pick, a few herbs to harvest, and some weeds to pull.

Dawn

Sheri,

I responded by e-mail yesterday. Did you receive my response? I have PLENTY of Thai Hot seed!

George

Dawn,

It looks like we have a decent chance for a couple of weeks of safety. Although, the temp was 44 this morning. We are in a low lying area as well. I was afraid that the temp. didn't have to be 32 to do damage. I can't believe we're that close, I'm afraid most of those fall plants were a waste of time, even if I do hang them upside down :( Next year I'm planting them a month earlier. I didn't think about the curtains; good idea.
I planted one Chef Jeff's Homeley Homer, and it was a big hit, didn't get very many tomatoes, but it was probably the best tomato so far, in my opinion.

George,

I didn't check my email yet, will tomorrow. Thanks Sheri

Sheri,

It seems like every year I plant at least some of my fall tomatoes earlier and earlier.

This year I got the earliest ones in the ground in mid-June, and they had green tomatoes on them by August. Now, in a normal year, the July-August weather might have been too hot for blossoms to set fruit, but this wasn't a normal year.

Other ways you can protect fall tomatoes from the first freeze or two:

1) Set up 3-gallon or larger buckets, pots, wastepaper baskets, etc. alongside the tomato plants you want to save. Fill them with water. The water will act as a 'heat sink', soaking up heat from the sun all day, and then releasing the heat at night as the water cools off. The heat released by the water helps keep the plants a little warmer.

2) Run a string or two of Christmas lights down the row of tomato cages or trellis. Leave them on at night. The heat from the lights warms up the air around the plants a little. This works best if you use the larger Christmas lights, and not the really small ones. It also works better if the plants are covered since the cover helps hold in the heat.

3) If you have a handful of plants you really, really want to protect, keep a few bags of dry autumn leaves or a couple of hay bales handy. When the first freeze is expected, grab handfuls of the hay or leaves and shake them gently over the tomatoes. The idea is that the leaves or hay fall gently onto the plants, creating warm pockets of air and covering the leaves/fruit as much as possible to keep frost/cold air away. You don't want to pack down the hay or leaves tightly because that will crush the plants. The hay and leaves insultate the plants a little. When I do this, I usually just put the hay and leaves inside the tomato cages. Anything that sticks out of the hay will probably freeze.

4) Cover the plants as we previously discussed. If you do this in combination with the lights, be sure the fabric doesn't make contact with the lights or the fabric may scorch or ignite.

If you don't cover the plants, you can position a fan to blow air towards the plants. This light 'breeze' can help keep frost from settling on the plants.

5) If you want to try saving only a couple of choice plants, place a large plastic or rubber trash can over the plant. You may not be able to save all of the plant, but you can probably save some of the it.

Last spring, I used a combination of buckets of water (the large jugs and buckets that cat litter comes in are great for this), hay, straw, and covering the plants with cloth OR plastic ('cause the plants were small and the plastic didn't touch them) to protect the tomato plants (the early ones I put into the ground in mid-March) from a late, two-week spell of freezing weather, cold rain, hard frost, etc. All the effort was worth it to me to save those spring tomatoes but I doubt I'd go to that much trouble for fall tomatoes.

One of the hardest things in the world, though, is standing in your garden and looking at green, healthy tomato plants full of blooms and fruit, knowing the first frost is headed your way. I hate knowing that the veggie gardening season is 'over'!

Dawn

Dawn,

I think I will do the Christmas light idea, that is very creative. I never would have thought of something like that. I have a TON of lights, and probably enough old curtains and sheets. My neighbors are going think I've lost my mind, lol. I had so many lights last year, we had a steady stream of traffic, their going to think I'm decorating early.
It will be very depressing knowing that first freeze is on its way, I never thought about it until you mentioned it a few weeks ago. It made me think I might like to live in Corpus Christi. Then I snapped back to reality and realized how mad I'm gonna be that I didn't at least try the winter tomatoes. My tomatoes are just now really starting to get a good flavor to them too. On the bright side, I will have a few months to review all of my notes, and old posts on here and I'll be much better prepared in the spring. Sheri

Sheri,

If you gardened in Corpus Christi (which is a lovely place!), you'd probably have to deal with sandy soil, and sandy soil often is infested with nematodes.....so, you see, you are better off here in Oklahoma where you only have to deal with tornadoes, hail, sleet, snow, rain, floods and extreme drought! lol

My tomatoes are tasting great right now too. Yesterday for lunch we had BLTs made with Brandy Boy tomatoes. Yummy!

If we can make it until the end of October without a killing freeze, I'll be happy. If we can make it until the end of November, I'll be ecstatic.

Down here in southern OK, our local weather forecasters are calling this month Hotober as we're running about 10 degrees warmer than usual for October. I hope it lasts for a while.

Dawn

Dawn,

I actually thought about the sand and nematodes in Corpus, and realized it would probably be easier battling hail and the tornados. lol We have had nice 80 degree weather during the daytime lately, I love it! Sheri.

Sheri,

Well, a mild cold front made it this far during the last day or so and I like it even more than the weather we'd been having recently.

The days are still running nice and warm, with highs in the low to mid-80s and I hope that means the 90's are OVER for 2007. Oh, but the nights are SO MUCH cooler, having dropped from the mid- to upper-70s to the lower 50s. Now, THAT is some nice fall weather!

The tomato plants have responded by perking right up and looking "happy", if you know what I mean. There are so many blossoms on the plants right now, and it makes me dread the first freeze because I hate to see the tomato season end. I am getting lots of ripe cherry and grape tomatoes, but the larger ones are slower to grow and ripen up in the shorter days of autumn. I do have lots of green tomatoes that are about half their mature size, especially on Super Fantastic, Brandy Boy, Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Green, Black Krim, Livingston's Favorite and Livingston's Paragon. The cherry and grape tomatoes that are still producing lots of fruit include Rosalita, Coyote (a currant tomato), Orange Santa, Black Cherry, Dr. Carolyn, Ildi, Sweet Million, Sungold and one more whose name escapes me at the moment....it is a red and gold bicolor.

I also hope this weather stays exactly the way it is for a while.

Dawn

The bicolor cherry is Isis Candy. I have so many cherry tomatoes ripening now that I eat them by the handful all day long while working in the garden.

What lovely autumn weather we are enjoying!

Dawn,
We have had a little cooler weather the last couple of days now. It is suppose to get down to 42 degrees tommorrow night, need get the Christmas lights out fast! I still haven't gotten very many ripe tomatoes from the fall plants, 1 Paul Robeson, 1 Juane Flamme, they were ok. What is surprising to me is that all of the spring plants are still going, although some of the look pretty ragged, and most with alot of blossoms as well. Even the Rutgers heirloom which is is a determinate is still 1/2 alive. Sheri

If I mulch over my oregano heavily for the winter, will it come back in the spring?

Sheri,

It is still fairly warm here at night (for October) with our temps only going into the 40s once or twice so far, and mostly staying in the uppper 50s and lower 60s. I hope this weather hangs on for a while longer.

I would say that my spring tomatoes produce a fall crop about 3 years out of 10. In order for it to happen, the spring-planted tomatoes have to survive ALL of our various weather conditions AND the spider mites, grasshoppers, etc. Generally, though, it is the August heat and lack of rainfall that gets them, and this year's August heat was mild compared to the August weather we have here most years.

I hope your plants survive the onslaught of cooler weather and your greenies have a chance to ripen up.

If you mulch your oregano, it MIGHT survive the weather. It mostly depends on what type of oregano you have. If you are growing Italian Oregano (Origanum x majoricum), it ought to be cold-hardy in zone 6 with heavy mulch unless you have a tremendously wet winter. If the winter is terribly wet, the oregano might not make it though.

If you are growing Greek Oregano (Origanum vulgare Hirtum, I think), it is only reliably cold hardy to zone 7, so it might survive in your garden with heavy mulch, but it might not.

Spanish Oregano (Origanum vulgare, aka as wild marjoram) is "usually" cold hardy but not always. If you are growing Golden oregano (grown as an ornamental, not for culinary purposes), it probably will not survive our winters, nor will Cuban or Mexican oreganos.

Hope this info helps!

Dawn

disapointments for me have been several. But they all make good giveaways.
However, some of the best from my list....
Snow white... low acid yellow to white cherry
Momotaro.... for me the best tasting but harder to find
Terrenzo... determinate cherry , good producer for size
Black Krim... good producer, different flavor
Matts wild cherry....
Sun Gold, sweet Million, sweet 100, all cherrys.
Box car willy and Anna Russian...
Recomendation... add egg shells or calcium in some form
fish emulsion, composted Chicken poo, and epson salts to your mix to help bring out more taste in the tomatoes. The calcium and magnesium helps bring out the best tastes...

drfrogster, I love Momotaro (and Odoriko as well), Snow White and several others on your list. To put this old thread from 2007 in perspective, there was far too much rain here that year---and we had lots of flooding, washed-out roads, some flood-damaged homes and flood-destroyed farm fields, etc. The flavor of the tomatoes suffered greatly because it was so watered down by the rainfall. I've been growing tomatoes since I was a child in the 1960s and generally have no problem at all with getting tomatoes with good to great flavor, but 2007 was a terrible year for tasty tomatoes. I don't have to add calcium or magnesium to my soil because it is naturally high (almost too high) in both. This thread really was not about tomatoes that do not taste good under good/normal growing conditions, but more about the many varieties of tomatoes that are not as flavorful as expected based on the catalog/seed company, etc. hype. Every time they roll out a new variety they treat it like it is the best ever, and 99.9% of the time, they are wrong about that.

I am a really, really picky tomato grower/eater, so focus mostly on a few dozen of the tremendously tasty heirloom varieties for my family to eat fresh, but also grow some of the standard red hybrids, mostly just to either use in canning or to give away to people who like the flavor of the average red hybrid tomato but who look at you funny when you try to give them a black, purple, pink, orange, yellow or green-when-ripe tomato. Those folks who don't want to eat tomatoes of a different color have no idea what they are missing, but I have managed to convert about a half-dozen friends from eating red tomatoes to black tomatoes.

Some of my favorite tomatoes from 2007 are still being grown in my garden today, and there is no flavor issue this year at all because we are in extreme drought and the tomatoes grown in dry years always have superb flavor. I'm also growing a lot more pinks, purples and blacks than ever and that keeps our taste buds happy. Even Brandywine is having a great year here so the tomato lovers in our household are ecstatic.

Dawn