I love this time of watching tomatoes ripen - not only do we get to taste them, but the inevitable surprises show up. There are a few head-scratchers this year, but that makes things interesting.
I've picked the following tomatoes thus far:
Livingston's Favorite - medium red fruit, premature ripening due to blossom end rot, for seed saving, not yet tasted
Polish - nice large oblate pink fruit, picked partially ripe and sent to my publisher for book photography...can't wait to taste the next ripe one!
Don's Double Delight - red fruit with gold vertical stripes, good sized - not quite ready to eat yet.
Cherokee Green - my first disappointment, a prematurely ripened fruit due to BER shows that it is a red - so likely grew out a crossed seed. Fortunately, a gardening friend shared one with me from my seedling that is correct - so I just got unlucky. Lee's Produce at the State Farmers's Market has spectacular Cherokee Green for sale - it is the best tomato we've eaten this year, by far.
Magnus - two nice fruit partially ripe (pink) from a dying plant (Fusarium Wilt), so packed and sent for photography.
Ruby Gold - a large, bicolored beauty picked today, but yet to be tasted.
Matchless - a few smaller oblate red fruit picked, with good flavor.
Tasmanian Chocolate - nice medium brown fruit picked today, needs a few more days.
Dwarf Kelly Green - a few medium sized green when ripe fruit picked, sampled - nice, but needed another day to get fully ripe.
Sleeping Lady - the plant is starting to struggle, but is producing lots of medium brown fruit with a nice mild tomato taste.
Dwarf Arctic Rose - impressive medium sized pink fruit with a really good flavor for such an early dwarf variety.
Iditarod Red - smallish to medium round red fruit with a pleasant mild flavor, with lots on the way.
Perth Pride - nice round purple medium sized fruit have a snappy, tart, delicious flavor - really doing well this year.
Big Green Dwarf - having some health issues, but producing medium oblate green fleshed when ripe fruit with a yellow skin and a mild, pleasant flavor.
Chocolate Champion - along with Magnus, my most diseased variety - medium chocolate colored fruit, yet to taste, a disappointment. Those who got seedlings from me are hopefully having better luck - let me know!
Rosella Crimson - healthy, picked two nice medium fruit, but sad to say, it is not crimson - but purple. It seems the pink color is proving stubborn to stabilize. I've yet to taste but expect it to be excellent. I'd love to hear how others who are growing this are doing with it - especially if you are getting pink fruit.
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf - the fruit are not nearly as large as I expected, nor the flavor as intense - but the plant hasn't exactly thrived. This is a promising variety from our project that is on the way, but may need more selection based on my results.
Lemon Drop - a nearly white cherry tomato, I really like the flavor - not quite Sun Gold, but no slouch, either.
Egg Yolk - a buttery yellow cherry tomato, I like this as well. This is probably the best yellow cherry tomato I've tasted.
Tiny Tim Yellow - much smaller, the size of Coyote, and a pale orange - the jury is out on the flavor - I need to sample more.
Arkansas Traveler - ah, this is a mystery! I grew it from seeds from a friend - and the seedlings were a mix of Dwarf and indeterminate. I have a dwarf growing and hasn't ripened yet. My first ripe fruit was smooth, round...and purple! A garden friend who got a plant from me is getting lovely round purple fruit with great flavor, and his daughter is getting the expected pink. What are others finding who received seedlings from me?
Sun Gold - performing as expected - just delicious (and I have four plants!).
Mexico Midget - tasty tiny red fruit, just as I expected.
Coyote - small (slightly larger than Mexico Midget) nearly white fruit, on the sweet side.
Kangaroo Paw Yellow - the plant is among the least healthy but it managed to put out a small yellow tomato that is nearly heart shaped. A few more fruit are ripening that seem more round - jury is out on this one.
Saucy Mary - a dwarf work in progress, my two plants are showing green fleshed, medium sized fruit that is dark and light green striped - one is more oval, the other more slender Roma shaped - firm, mild, good flavor.
Jeremy's Stripes - another dwarf work in progress, picked today - smooth round dark/light green striped fruit tending to a more yellow background color - will taste soon.
Mint Streaks - not a dwarf but an indeterminate (it is hard to tell in this line when young seedlings), the fruit looks much like Jeremy's Stripes - was not a knock your socks off tomato flavor wise, and the plant has some disease issues.
So I've picked fruit from 32 plants so far. A few plants went down to disease prior to fruiting, including Dwarf Peppermint Stripes, and a second Dwarf Black Angus, with a few more on the watch list.
As far as the Green Ghost eggplant project, it has yielded fascinating results.
I grew our four seedlings from lot 12-24 - three of them are giving very pale green eggplant, with varying degrees of slender fruit shape. The fourth is yielding slender white fruit - so finally a reversion to the original parent, Casper - though with a more slender shape.
There are three seedlings from 12-32, and they are all distinctly different - the first is a thick long eggplant that is chartreuse green with a heavy purple streaky overlay. The second is a very long, slender white eggplant with heavy lavender streaking. The last is like the second but the background color is pale green.
Of the four seedlings from 12-35, the color is more consistent on all of them, with a pale green background and varying amounts of purple streaking. There is a bit of variation in the depth of streaking, and the shape - though they all tend to be teardrops.
Finally, the Islander dehybridization project is also starting to reveal its mysteries this year. For the most part, the Amethyst plants are providing cream colored blocky bells that turn medium lavender - they've yet to turn to their final color. Fire Opal is more variable - the immature fruit are either cream or pale green, and the following color is either light lavender or in one case, remaining pale green...I eagerly await the final color. The Royal Purples are all thus far going from pale green/chartreuse to dark purple. The White Gold selections are either pale cream or pale cream with a slight green characteristic - and the Candy Corn are blocky cream colored at this stage.
Such fun!