WOW Tom, what the heck have you been feeding my tomatoes? Bigger than golfballs, not something I get too often but apparently you can do magic. :)

Mike, I received seeds from you as Selbo's Red Ribbed, without the word cherry, and so that's how I sent seeds out to the person who is doing seed production for me.

And I'm sure that you sent seeds out to others as just Selbo's Red Ribbed as well. who won't see your update.

So what's to do now with seeds so widely distributed?

Carolyn

Hi Mike. Yes, a pleasant surprise. All my tomatoes are going bonkers this year.

Here's a shot of today's haul. Some of them are over 2 lbs.

I haven't fed them but twice, with Miracle-Gro for tomatoes.
Once when they were first planted and then two weeks ago.

I did bring in 60 gallons of compost (free - which made it
even better) and around 20 or so gallons of coffee grounds,
including the paper filters. We're friends with the local diner owner
and she gives me all I want (also free!).

Could it be the coffee grounds? Do tomato plants absorb caffeine?
Maybe they're on a caffeine high!

Carolyn,

I guess at the end of the day the name is not that important. I was most concerned about getting the seeds distributed. I would have sworn the word "cherry" was on the seeds I sent out and Tom and I thought that "ribbed red" made more sense than "red ribbed" but again, at the end of the day we'll all know what tomato we are talking about.

Thanks again for the three types of seeds you sent me. I'll send you a full report on how they are doing. The Green Zebra cherry is amazing, it is 7 or 8 feet tall and covered with big cherry fruits. It looks like it is on steroids :)

Mike

And Tom, that must be it, the caffeine rush ;) and I'm sure the 60 gallons of compost didn't hurt.

Those tomatoes look gorgeous. I can't wait to see them go for wide distribution as I would love to try my hand at growing them....as a beginner and all.

gaguy: Thank You for giving those of us interested in this tomato, from the beginning of Mike's thread, your updates. Those plants are beautiful!

Mike: Thanks to you for sharing this tomato. Can't wait to get to grow it. Hope all use the name you that you chose. Afterall you stabilized it for all of us and deserve it.

One question, these look similar to the Liberty Bell tomatoes which are considered stuffing tomatoes. Does anyone know the difference between the two?

Ahh, they look so cool. I can't wait until there are enough seeds to go up for sale. Thanks for the updates and for getting them out into the wider world. It's exciting to follow these threads. :)

This is Mike Selbo. That is my baby :) The question about Liberty Bell - although the first fruits are sometimes larger, in Tom's case HUGE, they are usually more cherry in size and the interior cavities are small, more meat than anything else. I see a picture of Liberty Bell on line, it is definitely larger, with large regular shaped cavities. Take a look at my post last year, I included lots of samples of the cut fruit and you can see they are definitely NOT stuffers.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg081607239792.html?75

Thanks for answering Mike.

I saw the Liberty Bell and thought it might be in the same family...guess not given it's larger.

Well, I will wait til I can get my hands on some Selbo's Red Ribbed seeds then. They look so yummy.

Here is what I have so far in the northeast:

CH

Name it anything you want. But "CHERRY", as a name or an adjective , for those tomatoes does not make sense. "CHERRY" in tomato world is referred to "a tomato , which is roughly the size of a cherry".

In addition to SIZE conflict the SHAPE has no similarity to CHERRY either.

IN THE END OF THE DAY, IT IS YOUR BABY. NAME IT WHAT YOU WANT>LOL

This post was edited by seysonn on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 12:03

You-all are killing me with these photos! Those look *amazing.* I am really hungry now.

Qaguy: if you don't mind me asking, where'd you get the free compost? Is there any more of it? I live in Central LA-ish.

Need2SeeGreen - I got free compost from two places.
One was at our Glendora Earth Day. Athens Services
provided 30 gal to each Glendora resident.

The other I got through Craig's List.

I think there's a service through LA County, but don't know the details.

Here's what I picked today (Aug 16).

Thanks, qaguy!

Also, wow!!!!