**Edit
Ok. User error the first two times! THANK YOU!!
*Original—Thank you… I did try that initially and it just showed code… trying again.
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@ILParadiseFarm,
Brandywine and beefsteak are 2 of the best tomatoes I’ve ever had for BLT 's and such . I’ve only had the pink Brandywine which I grew for years and have not seen the seed again since I stopped saving it. I know there are other Brandywine e.g… yellow. The flavor was so good on Brandywine it was my most picked on tomato by varmints and insects. It was not overly productive and it took me years to get used to the potato type leaves. The beefsteak I started inside a little late in March instead of February and it was a quick and cold year so I only ripened half and the other half were green when winter came. In addition to that problem the garden at the time was somewhat shaded. I got a lot of really big tomatoes regardless and fried the rest of the green tomatoes at the end of the year. Great choices!
@AngelOreo
I’ve noticed many people grow Cherokee purple now which has a great flavor but only averages 2-4 tomato per vine for me for the entire year which is low yielding. I’m not sure if my soil has a problem for that tomato or if it’s just how it is.
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Theres only one I’m certain to grow, JD’s Special C-Tex. It produces a ton, most of the other blacks here either don’t produce much, stop producing when it really heats up (like it always does here), or quit early. It also tastes like all the other great blacks.
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So far…
Pineapple
San Marzano
Yellow Brandywine
Carolina Gold
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@clarkinks
In my prior experience in zone 9b, Cherokee Purple produced less than some of the other gourmet cultivars – but not down to 2-4 per plant, more like 10-20.
@scottfsmith
Thank you for the recommendation of JD’s Special C-Tex 
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Interesting @scottfsmith sounds very good. Here is the website Vegetables. This is what one description says
“Just a little history of the C-Tex Black Tomato. My grandfather J.D. Brann was very fond of this tomato and was responsible for developing the tomato in the early 80’s. When describing the black tomato, I often remember him saying that it’s just a “big, juicy black tomato that tastes great”. This would pretty much convince anyone to at least try it out. That being said, most who have tried the Black Tomato know that if grown right, you can’t beat the taste. The actual coloring is a deep maroon but close enough to black. In developing the Black Tomato, an Early Girl was crossed with a Russian Black Krim to produce what we call J.D.’s Special Black Tomato. Or the C-Tex Black Tomato. While the seed is no longer exclusive to Conroe Greenhouse, we still grow the tomatoes locally and produce our own seed and the tomato is a staple crop in our annual spring / fall growing." -tomatoville
Here is another description that fills in the gaps
“•Grown, sold, and described by Muddy Bucket Farm
•Plant growth: indeterminate
•Leaf type: regular leaf
•Time to maturity: Mid season
•Approx. number of seeds per pack: 20
•Vendor’s seed source: T. Corbett of Reichenbach-Steegen, Germany
JD’s Special C-Tex – 80 days, indet., regular leaf, pink black beefsteak fruit, 12-20 oz, outstanding flavor, high yield
This tomato was developed by J.D. Brann in the early 80s and was promoted by his family who owns Conroe Greenhouses, Inc… It was exclusive to Conroe Greenhouses up until 2009 when other seed vendors also started to offer this variety. This explains ‘C-Tex’ and ‘Special’ in the name, where ‘C Tex’ refers to ‘Conroe, Texas’.
According to Conroe Greenhouses, Inc. Facebook page, J.D. Brann bred this tomato by crossing Early Girl F1 and Black Krim” -JD’s Special C-Tex – Heritage Seed Market
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Awesome, I will go with the Texas Tomato Cages. I have a huge collection of the usual cone shaped ones from various garden stores and while I have purchased the biggest/best I could find they were never nearly tall enough or strong enough.
Does anyone have experience buying grafted tomatoes from these guys?
https://www.gardenamerica.com/store/Mighty-Mato/
I was thinking of order some combination of :
Chef’s Choice Orange
Chocolate Stripes
Sun Sugar x 2
Sweet Aperitif
Sweet Million
I will try these six in the new tomato cages and them supplement with whatever impulse buys I make this spring and perhaps allow a few re-seeds to grow again.
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Since we may try some more hybrids this year, I was curious as to what hybrid varieties you guys prefer. I was considering Brandy Boy, Big Beef, Jet Star and Better Boy as many main choices, any opinions on these? Looking for mostly beefsteak and/or slicing varietiess, no cherry types.
Also looking for a good paste tom, maybe Opalka or Amish Paste? Going to try Romeo again, which gave us some huge Roma type fruit last year.
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I will try the N-100 real sweet cherry tomatoes again. Do you have a favorite CT?
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Thanks. We prefer Chocolate Cherry over the red or yellow cherries. That plant grows huge and always gives us lots of fruit.
Jaune Flamme makes large round yellow fruit, about the size of a golf ball, so I don’t know if it’s considered a cherry type, but we like it, and grow it again this year.
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I grow Big Beef as my regular slicer. I like the crack-resistance
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Good production and flavor?
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I recommend JetSetter and 4th of July. Great taste, long production, early.
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Better boy and Big boy were good tasting and heavy producing tomatoes this last year and not a spot of disease. This was some of my salsa garden photos Growing the infamous Habanero! Salsa Garden!
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Currently:
Gary O’Sena
Golden Queen
Grosse Cotelee
Hillbilly
Northern Lights
Plan 9 From Outerspace
Remy Rouge
Black Mountain Pink
Purple Dog Creek
Goose Creek
Fantome Du Laos
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Burpee did a great job of breeding back in the day.
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Thanks Clark. I didn’t realize it had Early Girl in the parentage. That probably explains why its so productive and seems to survive, it probably got some of the disease resistance from Early Girl.
Big Boy and Better Boy were my only two tomatoes for many years, I got a lot of good eating off of those two varieties!
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Have you grown this variety before. I plan on growing it, but haven’t found many grower reports.
Another really good heirloom tomato in my area is Rutgers. Love to grow them and they are fairly productive but they lack the disease resistance of the hybrids. VFT are the disease resistance I look for but more is better. This year I’m only growing heirlooms and I rotate garden areas which works for me. Early girl does very well here and I’ve grown it many years. Early girls flavor is not a show stopper for me though black Krim can be very tasty in my limited one year of experience. I did wind up finding yellow, black, red, and pink brandywine which are on the way. I save many heirloom seed but once every 10 years or so we replace a bunch of them. In this case we were being lazy or maybe we were just tired this last year and did not save any seed. Some years wild tomatoes come up all around my place and that’s always interesting. The escaped cherry tomatoes injested by wildlife can be highly prolific.
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