cherokee purple mess

[tjg911]

one of my top favorites and this year a major problem. the way it looks i may get few to nearly nothing.

it looked the same as all the other plants i put out but failed to grow. it was a runt of about 18" when all the others were 2.5' to 3' tall. however, it had tomatoes very fast and several, without a doubt i'd be picking cp before anything else other than maybe sun gold.

i picked the 1st cp a week ago, it was big a good 12-14 oz. it was down on the straw with 3 other large fruits. until i picked it i did not know the bottom was rotted. i salvaged what i could but a big disappointment, not much flavor for a tomato is has huge flavor.

the plant is now a whooping 3' tall, all the rest are 5'+, has little in the way of branches or foliage and has 3 more big tomatoes. i picked a breaker the other day and took it inside, i should have done the same for the other 2. both have huge sun scald burns on them that were not there just 24 hours ago. i doubt they'll be any good, i expect them to rot tho i have no experience with sun scalded tomatoes. so now all these 'early' tomatoes are just nothing. the plant is small, few flowers and a few small tomatoes remain all deep green.

due to the intense heat and full sun and having removed the lower branches for air circulation most of the tomatoes have no leaves to shade them, big mistake, but any fruits on this plant will have little foliage to protect them from the sun.

for what is normally a great plant that produces a good amount of tomatoes this is not so good looking. i'm starting to think my seeds are bad. iirc last year and the year before cp was a bit smaller than normal. maybe i need new seed!

tom