First Tomato of 2024

[YumYum]

I have grown Empires from Spring till frost. Puts out quite a few tomatoes to start with then still puts out tomatoes with growth. You won't get late tomatoes like an indeterminate but plenty enough for me. That is not my definition of determinate tomatoes. However, the comercial farmers here used to grow them like a determinate as they want that main crop and then hurry and replaced with another transplant.

Something else you may not believe is that I prune them down to two main stems unlike the conventional thinking of not to do that with determinate types and still get plenty of tomatoes till frost from Celebrities and Empires. Takes more plants but that is what it takes with the humidity here.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

Celebrities grow higher than 3 or 4 feet tall. I've never had any variety of tomato grow that short. Empires are not determinate. Semi-determinate maybe but I'd say Empire grows a bit bigger than Celebrity but Better Boys do grow bigger than both those varieties.

My celebrities are typically indeterminate, growing out the top of 8 ft tall cages. I wonder at sub+variety? Some of the cherries are maybe bigger.

 

[YumYum]

There is a Celebrity Plus out. Not sure how long it's been out but I'm fairly certain all that was grown was regular Celebrities. The farmers here, as far as I know, have changed over to some other variety of tomato now which I don't know what it is. The Grainger Co Tomato Festival is coming up and I plan on asking about it.

I haven't grown any hybrid tomatoes in the past few years but if I do it would be Celebrity, Empire, or Better Boys.