Ok, so time to cut the pink Elbonian Mud Ball for [mention]Tormato[/mention] . Haven't got there earlier due to a dose of the barr-squi-rrff-irrtts, it enough about that.

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That is the smallest of the two shown earlier, pink not green gel, tasted ok to me and wife, typical good tomato taste, my taste buds are definitely not in Tormatos league, so called in big gun, nearly 10 year old miss, who promptly reached for the knife to cut off a slab. Must be pretty good. Will be picking the fruit off both EMB's tomorrow, pulling seed out of most of them. Just keeping a couple to eat

Having recovered from the above mentioned episode, I have spent the past few days doing the tomato cookup, as the rain we have had lately has lead to a mass tomato ripening . This meant that I have cooked up about 4 of those black crates worth of tomatoes, passed about another ones worth onto a mate and I think that there is still one in the big fridge. Plenty still on some of the plants as well. What is left will probably go to Mum for sauce. All up I have about 30 liters in bottles.

Rosso Sicilian Togeta, one of Brokenbars favourites, understandable having seen how the plants have produced in an average season here. Very similar to the Costuloto tomatoes to look at, but drier. Typically around the 150g/5oz mark

For those whom never crossed paths with Brokenbar on TV, Mary was someone who grew tomatoes either to dry or make sauce from. She had a particular Costuloto genovese that she had selected from Italy herself for that purpose , and here it Is
Typically around the 150g/5oz size, they have done well for me in two average La Nina years, waiting for a nice hot summer to see how they really perform. Like all tomatoes, they are better in some areas than others

The two bottle sizes that I have used are shown here
The shorter ones are 750 ml, the taller are 375 ml. Final tally is 39.75 liters, which will keep us going for sometime.

Japanese Onion

I received the seed for this from friend Mcsee a number of years ago and had not gotten around to growing them until this season. Germination was good and plants grew well. They are an orange Roma style fruit, very dry and thick walled. External walls are upto 1cm or 3/8 inch thick and seed gell is very dry, needing to be scrapped off rather than squeezed out. When crushed up they have a beautiful colour.
Plenty of seed saved for the next MMMM

Ok, time to update some of the varieties from this season, mainly a few picks of each as I work through what I have and have not posted. The tomato season is rapidly coming to a close here, with the majority of the plants dead or close to it, about a quarter have been pulled out so far.

First up is the old stand by that has been around for a long time in Apollo. This was an unintended acquisition as a result of a swap, very much a supermarket style tomato, round red and about the 5 to 6 oz mark.

Next up a basket of Barnsten, a plant that grew to about 3 or 3.5 feet high, round orange cherries to slightly larger that was well liked by all, will definitely get a return run in a year or twos time or maybe earlier when I start to consider plants for next season. 67 mm dia camera lense cap included for size reference.

Barry's Crazy cherry, a well liked, repeatedly grown multiflora pointed Ivory cherry. Have found in other years that if left to itself it is far to vigorous a grower to do really well tied to a single stake so I pushed in 4 stakes for it this year and tied two or three leaders to each one. Very productive and still ripening a lot of fruit even with plant nearly dead

I best add while I think about it, this La Nina season has been hard on the plants, lots of cool cloudy weather, wet to very wet for some of the time, to the point where it would have been very damaging to the soils structure to try and dig it over, so the plants went in 6 to 8 weeks late. Then the rain tap was turned off mid November and before one could think about it the ground was that dry and hard even large tractors were not marking it. Paddocks in the district are ankle breaking as a result of cattle pug marks. A thunderstorm in mid January allowed the plants to produce fruit everywhere, and big fruit at that, a lot more half kilo fruit than normal to be had this year. Ripening was looking to be a different story, with the unripe fruit hanging for weeks at full size before a couple of storms in early March trigged them to ripen all at once. Just as well we purchased a second hand 1500lt commercial fridge last year, had probably 50 to 60 lb in there at one stage.

Those black crates in post 567 above hold 25 lt and measure 19 x 14 x 7.25 inches, I would have cooked up the contents of 5 or 6 of them, I think 4 or 5 went to Mum, about 1.5 to a mate and a half to the brothers and fruit are still hanging on a lot of plants and rotting on the ground from splits due to the rain earlier this month.

So in summery, a good, late and compact season is probably the best way to describe it.

Added

The compact nature of the season meant it has not been possible to do each variety justice as far as tasting goes, so if some varieties seem to be lacking taste comments, it is because the fruit were picked into crates, into the fridge to hold them before cooking and bottling occurred. I did not always label representative fruit of each var as they went into the crates.

Black Krim, seems to be several plants going under this tag, with this years effort being only average so far..

Bogatyr Masalov, one of the Russian/Ukrainian heirlooms that probably came from @Rajun Gardeners offer of seed from Nikitovka, this lot of seed coming to me via @Volvo. Plants produced well with lots of big meaty fruit, the biggest pushing 600g/21oz. They where striped when ripening before ripening to a solid red. Another than will get a rerun somewhere down the track.

Bowerbirds orange, mentioned above, here is a picking from the 5 plants grown this year from a 190gram fruit from last season. Plants are rugose leaf, dwarf in stature, lucky to make 600mm/2 feet high that produce solid meaty fruit, and lots of them, 30 on each plant maybe an under-estimate. I have not properly counted them but they do load up well.

Cherokee Chocolate, one that I need to thank @Tormato for, plant has done very well. loaded up nicely with a lot of fruit on it, will be growing again, not sure how it will fit in with a number of other very good dark tomatoes, but it will be grown again

Chocolate Stripes, the seeds for this years grow came from @Volvo. The plant grew to about 3 feet and stopped growing, it produced about 25 fruit of the size pictured here

Copia was another sent to me by @Volvo. Not the most productive plant under the circumstances, but one that I want to grow again for its appearance as well as flavour.

Costuloto fiorentino, one of which I had heard about and wanted to try, eventually tracked it down locally as one of only two Costulotos that appear to be available commercially in this country. The other is a generic genovese. These are quite productive under my conditions, tasty and good for sauce. Most are fairly constant in size, weighing around the 150g/5.5 oz mark. The odd compound blossom did occur but are probably better off being removed on these if one gets the chance as they can produce some very convoluted fruit., with lots of nooks for bugs to hide in.

Costuloto genovese "Brokenbar" is a clone that I have mentioned above. This is one pick off five plants and probably one of seven or eight such picks. Having seen what they can produce in a moderate season I can understand why this clone was selected as a straight saucing tomato. Under my conditions, if I was told I could only grow one tomato variety, this would be it. Productive, great taste and fabulous for sauce. Size is very similar to CF, around the 150g/5.5 oz mark

Jupp, a largeish pink pear whose main claim to fame this year was that it ripened the first large, non-cherry tomato, beating plants that had gone into the ground a month before it. Undecided about this one returning.

Your Barnsten looks a lot like Bursztyn. IDK if they might be the same. Ours were not quite as orange though (but it was a cold year).
I'm glad to hear that you got lots of tomatoes in the end, even in spite of the El Nino season.

I can't see the last few pics you posted so will check back later. My slow connection doesn't always load em up.
edited to add: well they loaded right up while I was posting Gorgeous fruit, great pics Whwoz!