My tomatoes have taken forever to ripen this year, but what do you expect when you have the coldest July ever recorded? So far a new one for me— ‘Brandy Boy’ (pictured above)—has been the biggest, weighing in at 23 ounces.
Many of my ‘Black Krim’ tomatoes are ready to be picked, but almost all of them have split. That’s not going to stop me from growing them again, however, because they are one of the first to ripen and very tasty:
Another heirloom I tried this year is ‘Cherokee Purple’. The fruits are not going to be asked to prom anytime soon, but they sure do make lovely slicing tomatoes:
I’m supposed to be whittling my list down to the best so I can grow fewer plants next year, but so far I’ve only ruled out one cultivar. ‘Polfast’ is a determinate plant that supposedly excels in setting fruit in cool weather. July was the perfect backdrop for that theory, yet ‘Polfast’ was outdone by many of the heirloom varieties.
I didn’t really like their flavor either. I did a side-by-side taste test with several other varieties, and ‘Polfast’ was very tangy, almost to the point of being sour. It’s just not for me.