Let's see them: Your single biggest tomato of 2020. Weight, a few pics, Variety, and a short description of the grow out!
Even if you only grew one tomato this year, you have a biggest...you can post it on up!

I'll start. I haven't had a nice big one in a few years, but this one timed out perfectly after that tropical storm's 5-8" of rain. Tight, 1' spacing inside CRW trellis and grown through black plastic covered raised compost row. Yay for carp!
2lb
Sweet Ozark Orange
Excellent taste and juicy but not watery.

Admittedly I didn't see that post as I have never seen that subforum. Still, I am more interested in the story behind them; that thread says it is a contest. That big SOO above actually poured clear water out the top when I turned it over the first time. I was worried it would taste watery, but far from it. I have picked some more SOO since then and they all seem to tear the stem out like that.

Sicilian Saucer grown from 2014 saved seed at my community garden plot.

Here's mine, a Virginia Sweets. Wasn't sweet at all. Horrible jelly like texture. 2nd time growing it. 1st time a few years back and they were delicious.

Let me see if I took a picture of it.

It was probably one of these (not sure which was bigger):

Kellogg's Breakfast: This is the same KB fruit sliced in two: Mexican Yellow cross F3 (yes, it's pink): The fruit pictured above is the bottom fruit in this picture (these are among the earliest fruits from the plant; the earliest fruits from its plant were prone to cracking, this year):

Sicilian Saucer... now that is a nice looking tomato. So is that more or less bred for making sauce?

It looks a lot like the costoluto genovese that I grew about 5 years back. Only a couple plants. There were beautiful, but the ribs on mine often had black stuff at the top and/or would kind of collapse when they were over-ripe. If I grow a tomato shaped like that, I think I need to put it out where it can be seen and picked on time. I had it in a back row.

Peebee that is a shame it wasn't tasty. I have been fortunate in that when there is a big tomato they seem to be pretty good. Unless it is a big ugly cracked one, but they usually don't get notably big. Probably the single best tasting tomato that I remember was a huge picture perfect Brandywine (my seed) planted at my brother's then first year garden. It was probably close to 2lb. He had incredible tomatoes those first couple years at that house. The same starts at my house, I'd get two decent fruit on the first truss, maybe five good fruit for the whole plant.

Hey Shule is that from the KB seed I sent you? I think some of mine had that triangle shape at times. I think I like SOO better but it looks the KB is doing good for you. The first yellow/orange I grew was OR117 and SOO...(.well I grew them the same year. It is possible I tried KB that year or the year before or after. Regardless,) I thought OR117 was better, but to be fair they were both planted for late season. Then I grew KB a couple years and thought they were okay but bland, and OR117 wasn't as good in its third or fourth year; they kept collapsing. I almost didn't grow a yellow this year, but on a whim started SOO again and it seems to be worth growing, firm enough and good taste.

Regarding the pink Mexican Yellow: if only you could find a yellow Mexican Pink and cross them. Imagine the possibilities...

I don't make sauce, so I don't know if Sicilian Saucer is best for it. I was just looking to update my seed from 2014. I grew it at my community garden plot, so it took a little neglect.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Mon Aug 17, 2020 5:53 pm Hey Shule is that from the KB seed I sent you? I think some of mine had that triangle shape at times. I think I like SOO better but it looks the KB is doing good for you. The first yellow/orange I grew was OR117 and SOO...(.well I grew them the same year. It is possible I tried KB that year or the year before or after. Regardless,) I thought OR117 was better, but to be fair they were both planted for late season. Then I grew KB a couple years and thought they were okay but bland, and OR117 wasn't as good in its third or fourth year; they kept collapsing. I almost didn't grow a yellow this year, but on a whim started SOO again and it seems to be worth growing, firm enough and good taste.

Regarding the pink Mexican Yellow: if only you could find a yellow Mexican Pink and cross them. Imagine the possibilities...

If the seeds were inside purple tape, then yes, I got it from you! I lost track of the forum handle of the person I got those seeds from (I have the real name, though); so, if they're from you, that's great news.

I like Sweet Ozark Orange quite a bit. It's prolific and has historically gotten pretty large fruits for me. I haven't tried SOO with black plastic, yet, but I have tried it on separate years with lots of water on one year and very little on the other (with approximately the same results, astonishingly). It would be great to cross it with Frittata Kitchen or something.

The Mexican Yellow cross, I think is Mexican Yellow x Chapman F3. Chapman is an extra large pink tomato (bigger than this; I had a ~2lb fruit from Chapman in 2016; Cuostralee and George Detsikas Italian Red also got ~2lbs, with Cuostralee producing the largest fruit of the three). The fruits are larger than the regular Mexican Yellows. It has excellent early season cold-tolerance compared with most tomatoes I grew this year (one of the few to survive the greenhouse freeze just fine). It has an enormous plant, now, and is looking productive. Had I given it more space, I'd be very excited to see how it would have turned out. The taste is pretty good; I think I liked the F2's taste more, but I can always grow more F3s. I was not expecting the plant to be huge (probably because the F2 got a late start and didn't get huge as a result).

Next year, I'm planning to grow Church and Dinner Plate. If I still had seeds, I'd probably add Neves Azorean Red to that. Terhune is another potential giant I intend to grow next year, too.

[mention]Shule[/mention] Don't forget, I have some Neves seed for you. I've got it set aside with a few other things.

Unfortunately I don't have a scale. But it looks like at this point, Dixie Golden Giant is the early leader.
Left to right, DGG (which should be ripe by the weekend), Big Zebra (which should be ripe possibly Thursday), Pink Ponderosa to be eaten tonight and up on top of the container the smallest of the bunch is EML, but I have one much bigger that hasn't started to turn yet.

@shule, yep purple painter's tape sounds right. I stuffed seed from a few different tomatoes in one envelope and didn't think 4 or 5 ziplocs was a good idea. You sent me a fat bag of wonderberry. Btw I killed that one single wonderberry I managed to germinate. I finally planted it outside the cage at the cherry tomatoes. It was small but growing. Maybe two weeks later, I put a basil row in "outside the cage at the cherry tomatoes"... I must have sliced that wonderberry right off with the co-linear hoe when I was weeding that area. I see no trace of it...I'm certainly glad you have held up your end of the trade, because I did terrible job. I'll get some going next year. I have to say it was worth it because the basil was timed absolutely perfectly. It is the best looking basil I have ever had right when I need it for canning. Usually I put it in too early and it is already going spotty.

@EdieJ Pink Ponderosa on the paper towel? That looks nice...I'm going to have to grow a big pink again next year. Is stump pink or red? Red with clear skin is pink? Maybe I'll grow that again. Might be that new hybrid, mountain rouge, if I decide I can afford the seed. More the principal of it, I guess. A source was posted in another thread, a buck a seed with shipping. $10 for ten seeds. I bought my big beef seed at $12 or $13 for 250.

I grew a few dark tomatoes this year, but I haven't been impressed with them. Paul Robeson, Black Krim, or for that matter, Cherokee Purple. I've been reading some about cherokee purple having drifted away from the original quite a bit. I would love to try the original. I don't know why, but it seems like I have a hard time judging when they are ripe.

EDIT these calls don't always work, I'm not sure why.
[mention]Shule[/mention]
[mention]EdieJ[/mention]
Okay so even if I spell it right, it won't work. I need to actually cursor select the name. Got it. I'm not much for the fancy stuff.

[mention]JRinPA[/mention] Just hit the "@" and then the first letter of who you want to mention and you should get a list to choose from. Pink Ponderosa is pretty good. I think EML has better flavor. But I am saving PP seeds so if you want to try some message me at some point this winter and I will send you some.

[mention]JRinPA[/mention]
Sounds like you made a valiant effort. I have a wonderberry forest right now. I think they're twice as big as last year.

You might try direct-seeding several of those seeds in the early to mid spring and see what happens. They should sprout when they're ready. They're good with ham, by the way.

It should convert the @ to mention tags around the name while you're writing. If it doesn't convert them, then it won't work. You could write them manually, though, if you needed to: e.g.

I got a new toy today - a kitchen scale! I weighed the DGG.
And there is another one at least that big or maybe bigger that looks like it will start turning any day now.

[mention]JRinPA[/mention]
I found a bigger one than those in my pictures. It's surprisingly from one of my Brandy Boy cross (F3) growouts (not one I've evaluated, yet). Usually, they have a pretty consistent size, but the fruits on this plant are significantly larger, and I'm not sure where the genetics for that came from. Not giant or anything; I'd guess maybe 1.5+lbs. Hopefully I'll get a picture. I should save seeds and grow them again next year.

[mention]EdieJ[/mention]Is that Dixie Golden Giant considered a yellow, or an orange? Or are they always called one or the other? I've been calling SOO and KB orange. I'm thinking those big DGG look yellow. I also call tennis balls green, but some people tell me they are yellow...

[mention]Shule[/mention] How many plants do you have growing this year? I have something around 55 at the comm garden in two double rows. 6 cherries out front with a Paul Robeson on the end - that spot came out of spring peas. And a 13ft backyard bed that also came out peas that has 5 cages and I think 11 late plants florida weaved. So 78 total. But nothing I worry about keeping track off, other than saving a few for fresh seed off the first trusses. I would have to re-think my system if I was trialing crosses and needed to evaluate, record, give them all a fair shake at equal growing conditions.

Another thing I notice, some of you leave the stem on the tomato. I usually grab the tomato and rock it off the plant, so it pull the stem off some. I rarely cut a tomato stem. EdieJ's tops look like mine. Is there an benefit to cutting and leaving the stem?