I have yet to try mortgage lifter. Did you know the old story of lifting the mortgage with them was due to selling the plants and not the fruit? That is what I hear anyway.

Sliced mule team tomatoes tonight, and one slice would fit a whole BLT sandwich, juicy, and tastes like a tomato. Slow to grow, but huge, but good.

It will be grown again. mk

I've heard that ML was created by a fellow nick named Raddiator Charlie. He fixed trucks after they came over PA. mountains. Good story! Good mator this year! Looks about done now.
Dr. Wyches Yellow did well also.
Minnie, hows the market going?

The marketting is tough. Some people are very difficult. My self-serve stand is going better than expected though. Last week I made over $50. My goal was $15 a week. So far nothing has been stolen.

Little Minnie- How do you secure your cash box? And do you have shade over your sales rack?

Taste - Cuostralee but the plants turned into a spindly mess

Growing - San Marzanano because they are so dependable to produce lots of paste tomatoes.

Binny, I just have a coffee can with a hole in the lid and it is nailed to the table to stay in wind. I have a big beach umbrella over the table and it is otherwise in the sun. I found that putting it more in the shade under trees made it harder to see and so stuff sells better right on the shoulder in plain sight with the big umbrella. I have a cooler with a jug of ice wrapped in a towel to keep perishable things cool- like beans, zucs, broc, carrots. They stay fresh for days when I change the jug every 24-36 hours. On the table are tomatoes, onions, potatoes, potted plants, squash, melons, peppers.
Everyone is very concerned about theft when I say I have a self serve table with a can. But I have had no theft at all and if someone stole a few bucks it will still save me over buying a lockbox. I just don't want the cooler or table or umbrella stolen but don't care if a few tomatoes are gone. Still, no one has stolen and sometimes there are quite a few dollars in there and I have to really think of what all was bought.
One thing I have contemplated is to leave my canopy for market over the stand through the week but I don't want it to get too used and old. There is a possibility too of someone crashing into the stand since the traffic there is so bad. The light is always red and people are always stopped right there waiting. I just ignore the traffic when gardening and working on the stand. Maybe when a rainy week is forecasted or intense heat I will put the canopy up. We have had 75 and sunny for many days. It is awesome. I am also setting up a second surplus table in my own front yard tomorrow. I need to find another can or bucket.

The best I have ever tasted is "Rainbow," a large yellow variety with red streaks. As far as the tomato ever getting around to me, rather than squirrels, tasting it, I like green zebra. The squirrels don't even notice them.

I had a coustralee and rainbow tonight!

Here is my tomato variety report- hope it is okay to blab it all here. My tomatoes were their best ever this year but since I was so busy I couldn't prune like normal so they got out of control! The coustralee indeed are so viney and huge they are a problem. I have been trying to get everything off the ground in my twine fencing thing and have basically espaliered them. Some of my stakes are way leaning over. The fruits of some types are so heavy and the vines so weak that it is ridiculous. I have 10 gallons of green tomatoes from pruning a dozen plants! Some are ginormous!!! but the vines are so weak that when I gently lift them to get them tied up they often break or stems come undone.
So for the facts: the coustralee are the worst. They would need constant surveillance to make sure their giant fruits didn't split the spindly vines; they also were the variety that got the rot in the center of all the tied up branches. Their foliage is extra big too and obscures the craziness going on inside all the tied up branches. But you should see my espaliered ones now dangit! I would recommend them for growing one giant tomato per plant and showing it in contests. They are very late to mature though! Wouldn't be red by our state fair.
Rainbow and Delicious are the next ones with too big of fruit and too fragile of vines. I didn't have that problem with persimmon or brandywine pink. Pinks are very disease free for me too. I pruned off some of their limbs accidentally but they didn't break like coustralee. Green Zebra are hard to pick but easy to grow and Cherokee purple had a lot of cracks and ugliness but may have been getting too much water.
Of the cherries I grew, Sungold is always numero uno in all respects. Black cherry is a nice plant but don't taste as good. Super snow white are ridiculous to pick and late to mature. Sweetie are late to mature, not that sweet and poor for quantity. I have one other cherry from the mix pack that hasn't even ripened yet!
Peron Sprayless again has proven not very 'sprayless' at all. I will not grow it again.
Wisconsin 55, Quick Pick and Oregon Spring were not worth it because Stupice beat them all for earliness and productivity.
Super Sioux was very close to stupice but a little later. I like Stupice better.
I also grew flame- a french cocktail tomato. It has been fine but I haven't taste tested it yet.
Husky gold and Bush Goliath are excellent as potted sized plants. Both get a little fungusy here and there if not watched. Goliath is my money maker again. I don't like growing hybrids but Goliath is so superior in size, earliness, productivity, health and looks there just is no comparison. I need that reliable producer for selling. They produce first and go til the end.
As I said earlier I am very disappointed with Principe and they have been a problem to sell and a few of their little fruits in a canning tomato box ruins the sale since people don't want to peel them. I am drying them but it takes forever which is ridiculous in a drying tomato. Martino's roma have been ok but not very early. No BER at all on anything but some crispy, fungus here and there- no blight or real diseases on anything.
My favs are (still) Goliath, Sungold, Persimmon, Brandy Pink, Stupice.

I'm glad to know that the tangled vine mess of Coustralee was not solo to me! I was wondering what I did wrong. They taste good, produce well, but completely take over their space -- and I also go verticle. Little Minnie, I also spent yesterday giving them a hefty prune because I was so frustrated with the runners. I will continue to read this thread and decide on something else for next year.

Thanks for your report Minnie! Lots of info for the novice like myself!

My tomatoes did not do well this year. We had lots of cold weather until August when it got hot. I really liked the Rowdy Red Clint Eastwood tomatoes. Big 2" cherry tomatoes. Nice flavor. I had 13 plants.
Next year I'm growing some of the favorites I read about here.
I'm changing my pots and adding lots of mulch. I will do Mumsey's Mix to start, add two aspirin to each hole and follow up with fish emulsion during the growing season.
I will also start the seeds earlier.

It would be one of your tomatoes, not mine! Care to share a few??

Minnie you said:

quote:

My tomatoes were their best ever this year but since I was so busy I couldn't prune like normal so they got out of control!

How do you prune tomatoes??

Prune off all the suckers that are sticking out of the crotches of the branches. Try to have only 1-3 stems total. Then later in the summer pick off all bottom branches, anything yucky looking and anything without fruit or that will be too late to develop. If you want really big tomatoes you prune off everything but a few on each plant. I meant to keep my plants to 3 or so stems and have all the bottom stuff gone but just didn't take the time to do it. I do feel they produce better with a few stems rather than only one like I have done in the past.

Early Girl, Vorlon, Indian Stripe,and the cherry in the middle is Aunt Ruby's German Green Cherry.