I never let my tomatoes smoke! It is VERBOTTEN!
Grilling is another story. 
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I don’t know, maybe it’s been usually dry there?
So, lemme get this straight, you’ve had 'maters as big as a dishpan??
Yes, don’t you? I thought that was what everybody growing tomatoes was after, BIG UNS.
Oh no, I think the biggest one we’ve weighed was about 2.5lb, and about 5-6in in diameter.
I mean, big 'maters are impressive, but don’t they tend to have a washed out flavor? Which varieties give you the biggest specimens?
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Are you pulling our collective leg? I never seen one much over 2 1/2 lbs. If they got much bigger, I wouldnt think they could hold together. Kind of like the old saw about why there are no giant bugs. I spent time as a teenager on a research trawler. We’d haul up some giant crabs sometimes and they pretty much die above water since their mass exceeded the strength of their exoskeletons in air.
I dont have any silver bullets for you, Im afraid, but do post some pics of these enormous beauties so we can all ogle them.
thats about as good as Ive done. usually we get a few of these whoppers in the 2+ lb range. They are a treat.
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I believe he is, actually. I think he’s trying to flex on us…
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Saharan humor
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On the 14th I top dressed three tablespoons of Tomato-tone to each plant. I’ll do it again later this week. I actually just received Texas Tomato Food (which I heard rave reviews about). I gave them a bit of it today; we’ll see what happens.
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I grew them last year, let’s say I won’t grow them again.
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horticultural amnesia- i know some people so afflicted. myself, i keep my brain well gummed up with every detail of what ive planted
No amnesia here, but they might come from my compost. I hate picking cherry tomatoes. This is why I know I didn’t plant any before I left for vacation.
I only planted some after I came back, why, I need to get rid of the seed.
My wife and I spent a couple hours weeding the garden. It was hard work but it looks much better now. Got a few pics of the mater’s and some other parts of the garden.
Some of the largest plants are 5ft high already, and several are flowering profusely, and the bigger ones have some decent sized fruit.
Better Bush, a very compact variety. The three of them have a few fruit on them.
In between the rows. There is a huge pumpkin plant that sprung up from last year’s patch. It’s really taking over this part of the garden, so I might have to cut it back if not remove it. You can see a smaller tomato plant that sprung up as well.
An Early Girl, that actually gave us a ripe fruit already. You can see the pumpkin insinuating itself into the plant.
In these two pics you might see the grass clippings I’m using for mulch around the plants. It seemed to really help them last year, so I’m doing it again. We have about 2 acres to mow, so we get plenty every couple weeks.
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We picked a ripe mater off an Early Girl already, very surprised to see that so soon. We cut it up and gave it a taste, to me it was not that good, but my wife liked it.
Some green onions, doing very well.
Corn looking good, almost 2ft tall now
One of our “helpers”, who is more of a nuisance at times.
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I stopped growing those. Post hole digging for the 4x4 posts required to hold them up was too much work. 
I actually looked it up on the Guinness World Records and found this:
“Grown by Del and Julie Faust (both USA), the heaviest tomato weighed 11.65 pounds (5.284 kilograms) as confirmed at the Stillwater Harvest Fest in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA, on 8 October 2022 by representatives from the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth.”
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How does a plant with abundant flowers look like? I keep seeing mine with flowers, but I don’t really know the difference between average or abundant flowering. I have one in particular that has had a lot of blossom but is dropping all of them; it has only set two fruit. It is an oxheart type because its foliage is so wispy.
Some of my plants seem to have a lot of flowers, but whether that’s an abundance or average, I don’t know. Like you said they could flower a lot, but setting fruit is another matter.
If it’s getting hot (+90 degrees) at your location, you could get a lot of blooms, but they probably won’t set fruit due the heat affecting the pollen. We’ve had temps in the 80s, lows in the 60s. Rarely in the 90s here, even tho the next couple days we’re expecting temps near 90.
BTW, I’ve grown oxhearts in the past and they generally have a wispy habit, but are otherwise healthy. Especially the Russian ones I’ve grown.
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