Looking very healthy and lush there. Job well done. Looks like your a day or two out from tasting some Super Sioux.

Damon

Thanks sprtsguy76 - Yea I also have a NAR and a Rosso Bruno F3 that will be ready for my 4th of July BLT.

On a side note, these CRW cages are great. Much better than the bamboo stakes I used last year. I just wish I could have found some that are taller than 5 feet.

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Jerold Burrow

I'll be interested to hear how your Rosso Bruno F3 turns out. I've bought the tomatoes at Whole Foods and love them. If saving the seeds works for you, I'll give it a try myself. Nice garden, Jerold!

I wonder why your russo bruno's look different than mine from last year. My russo bruno was also a heavy producer on my balcony garden. The seeds were saved in Hawaii and grown in Massachusetts.

Looks great!

BTW, pulling a plant out of compost because you felt bad for it is totally something I'd do. Glad you saved it! :-)

sumith2008 - Your plants look more like the original F1. Are they about the same size as the F1? Interesting how mine grew out into beefsteak types... they're about the size of NAR.

azruss - I'll be sure to snap some more pictures and post them here when I cut into the F3. If you do save seeds, I wonder if yours will look more like mine or sumith2008's tomato?

Forrest Gump was full of crap... life is more like growing out F1 tomato hybrids!

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Jerold

wow! Really nice healthy looking plants. You are going to have lots of delicious toms soon!

jeroldrburrow - I saved the seeds from the original fruit, so it would be F2 seeds i guess. This is the fruit i got once it was ripe. It looked almost like the original.

This is what my plant looked like last year.

Oh also what's interesting is you mentioned your plant was compact?? Mine was HUGE.. even bigger than this picture here. I had to grow it side ways once it hit the balcony ceiling. Also, it is very disease resistant I never got blight or any of those tomato diseases (maybe because of the balcony but no blight or spotty stuff)

Don't laugh.. :) this tomato balcony garden will scare ya.

Ok.. sliced into the Rosso Bruno F3 along with some others:

Clockwise starting at the Lemonboy (yellow) -- Lemonboy / NAR / Super Sioux / RB F3 / RB F3.

One of the bigger ones. Average size is probably 25% smaller that this one.

I really like how the inside looks, as well as the gell-to-meat ratio. Does the inside look pretty standard as far as black varieties go? -- I have very limited experience here.

Taste!
Lemonboy - Not as full-flavored as some of the others -- definitely not bland, though.
NAR - Strong "tomato" taste with a hint of something else. I don't have the words to describe it, but I think people describe it as having a "complex" flavor.
Super Sioux - Kind of disappointed so far. This was one of the first fruits out of that plant so I'm still keeping my hopes up. Tart, yet less tomato flavor than Lemonboy and very little sweetness.
Rosso Bruno F3 - Maybe I'm biased, but I though this tasted great. Same strong "tomato" taste as NAR except a bit more tart and sweet. Also has that "complex" flavor element, but an entirely different one than NAR.

Over all I'm very happy with these RB F3 plants. They set fruit well and taste very good. Hopefully the F4+ plants are the same or better.

sumith2008 - How was the taste? Interested in swapping seeds? I'd like to have a plant that produced fruit looked like the original F1.

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Jerold Burrow

If you bought the seed from a grocery store then you are probobly looking at a hybrid. That means that even though it is possible you could have good tomatoes using seeds from this year you realy do not know what you will get using those seeds. You cannot reproduce hybrid plants year after year and get the same type of fruit year after year like you do with heirloom plants. Hybirdization changes the DNA of the plant. It is possible you could get good fruit, but I just want to caution you so you are not disappointed if you find the results less than impressive.

One of the reasons companies make designer varieties is so that the gardner cannot replant the seeds in succeeding seasons and get the same fruit. You see the seed companies get two things from hybridization: They hope to create a variety that is more resistant to diseases (this is good) and they hope to be able to produce a furit that tastes good (also good). But the process also makes it impossible to recreate the results using the seed that comes from these plants unless you know what the two types of plants they used to create the variety are and then cross the two yourself to get what you originally liked so much. This is good for the seed companies because if you want the same great tomato you had last year you have to go back to them and get new seed for this year. I have no problem at all with this because the seed company spent the time and resources to create the tomato in the first place. For the most part, I find the heirlooms have more flavor than most of the hybrids. Although there are some very good hybrids out there.

Depending on where you live it can be a tossup as to what to plant. Heirlooms are more suseptible to disease and the yields can be lower. I like the beefsteak varieties and I don't think most of the hybrids taste quite as good even though they are more resistant to disease and often give greter yields. I don't live where the humidity is high and with so little rain I can control the amount of water the plants get. This is ideal for heirlooms. Although, when it comes to yield my Better Boy had better get it in gear or the Black Krim is going to put it to shame for both yield and taste.

It has been a weird year for weather. So much overcast cool weather (into June) and for SoCal that is unusual. It doesn't help that I go such a late start. I am used to having ripe fruit by July, but this year it will be August at the earliest. No more late plantings for me. Get those plants in the ground by the end of March or not at all. Too much effort and care to only have tomatoes for three months. Although at $4.00 per pound at the grocery store for heirloom tomatoes I guess three months of truly vine ripened goodness is better than no months of vine ripened goodness. My mouth is just watering for my first BLT of the year. It buggs me that I watited so long to put mine in the ground.

Tom

Hello again! Me and my wife both loved the taste of the f2 Russo Bruno / Kumatoes we grew last year. I'm up for swapping seeds, your Russo Bruno F3's look very interesting and would like to try that next year. I'm growing 2 RB's this year, so I will add a picture here as soon as i get some fruit set. The weather here in the North East has been terrible (rainy). Thanks for the update.

Sumith2008