Helen, have you sprayed the tomato to keep the foliage looking so good? This has been the worst year ever for disease on mine. I am thinking the hybrids are a safer bet for disease resistance! Yours looks wonderful.

I don't see how this one branch will be able to support all these tomatoes. I have found that some tomatoes will rot so bad that it is hard to get a good one and others a few feet away will be fine even if a worm makes a hole in them. My biggest problem is stink bugs. The spray to kill them is too toxic and the safe sprays won't work. The worms are killed by Bt if you can get the spray on the tomatoes. Black from Tula tastes good but if a worm makes a hole, it rots. Celebrity can get a worm hole and the wound dries out and usually the tomato is still OK. I have not had any luck with Ananas Noir. Most of those are rotting; for one thing I am not sure I really have this tomato. The seeds may have been mislabeled because there is nothing black about it. It is green, yellow and red and I don't know when it is ripe. Granny Cantrell has not rotted. Eva purple ball and pale perfect purple don't rot. Glacier has too many tomatoes I didn't get a cage around it; it is sprawling has a million small tomatoes and I am sick of trying to pick them. Mortgate lifter has been pretty good and brandy boy is OK too. Some of those have rotted but not too bad for a big tomato. I don't like the color of black prince, but it has been healthy. I am not even bothering to pick the cherry tomatoes. I hope I don't plant any next year. My friend has a mislabeled tomato I planted in his yard that was supposed to be Sara's Galapagos but it is yellow. He loves it. I think it is yellow ping pong. The seed was from a seed company and they offer yellow ping pong. The tomato fits the description perfectly. I have it too but stink bugs are getting mine. Yellow Submarine is not bad for a little pear shaped tomato. I would eat those in the garden if I hadn't had to spray for worms.

Helen, I think black is a bad term; I would call is dark greenish. When ripe, mine was reddish on the bottom, but still green on top and when cut open shows red and green.

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Thanks. That looks like mine. It is a very juicy tomato. I guess I need to close my eyes when I eat it because green equals not ripe to me. I think I am letting them all get past ripe. Also I probably should pick when close and let them ripen in the house where I can see them. I go out every morning and pick and I can go out later and see red tomatoes I've missed. When they aren't red it is harder to find them and I have a jungle. Reisentraube and black cherry got bigger than any others, so their area is hard to get into. I finally wacked a path through them because what is the good of having tomatoes you can't get to.

My Celebrity isn't quite that prolific, but has been a good producer all season. We only have four plants, two Better Boys, one Beefsteak, and the Celebrity, but have had more than enough to keep us and our neighbors in tomatoes. We don't have a real garden. I had a load of topsoil hauled in three years ago and we have just sort of leveled it out some since then and added all our fall leaves and clippings to it. Thought it would be fun to experiment a little this year. Two of the tomato plants are nearly ten feet tall and loaded. The problem I'm having now is many of the tomatoes are splitting from the stem outward. Doesn't hurt the flavor, but looks bad.

I planted too many tomatoes because certain people on this forum kept talking about their wonderful heirloom tomatoes and all the different kinds. They made me buy a book by Carolyn Males and made me read books in the library and go to the tomato forum. I am now hooked. I don't can so I have to make neighbors and friends eat them. I am going to make salsa for sure. I made a batch and froze it. It still tasted pretty good after a trial thaw of one jar, so that is what I am going to do. Do you think the lycopene I'm getting cancels out the bad effect of a whole bag of corn chips?

helen, I eat my salsa on the side with my scrambled eggs (no toast) of a morning. I ate about a pint a week all winter. I really do like it. It is also good as a side with pinto beans (of course, some sweet cornbread goes really well with that too!).

Helen, I found some pics of the whole tomato. Last year was so much better in the garden!
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Yes that is what I have. Arkie a real garden is what ever you want to plant. Too many people think a garden is work. Planting what you can take care of and no more is smart. We are used to grocery store tomatoes. Real tomatoes have cracks and splits and spots and holes. I am learning to throw more over the fence. I have all these beautiful tomatoes and I was cutting off the bad parts so I wouldn't waste them and giving the pretty ones away. I am trying to let go.