Tomato 'German Queen'

I have a rather small backyard garden outside of Denver Metro - on the NE high plains, not the foothills of the Rockies. Elevation here ...Read Moreis about 5,400 ft. our growing season is rather short - May 10th to October 10th. I've been planting 3 of 4 tomato varieties... have had great luck with Big Boy, Better Boy, & Better Bush. This year I tried new varieties from Bonnie: Cherokee Carbon, Celebrity, & German Queen. We had a firt week in June hailstorm which battered all my young plants, so I had to start over. They have done great. I have just finished a ham sandwich on organic bread with the deepest red German Queen tomato slices! BEST-TASTING tomato I have ever tried in my 60 years. I have 2 German Queen plants, which have grown to about 6 feet, but have doubled over to the ground. Their yield is not nearly as bountiful as my 2 Celebrity plants, which have about 80 green and ripening fruits right now. In comparison, my German Queen pair have 15 and my three Cherokee Carbon have about 60. But the German Queen are BIG - the first one I picked weighed in at 26oz! Today's sandwich was 24oz. Most of my Celebrity avg. 12-16oz. The Celebrity are an orange red, the Cherokee Carbon are more acidic - are deep green to purplish-green at the top 1/4th... moving to a purplish-red middle to bottom. The German Queen are deep red from top to bottom. I read posts from others saying that their bottom leaves of the German Queen yellow early... and that is true of mine as well - I just cut them off and remove the leaves. I use "Mater Magic" & "MiracleGro "Bloom Booster" and "Tomato Booster" fertilizer every 10-14 days, and water well. Perhaps this season was an aberration, but I will always look for German Queen, and try to grow at least 2 or 3 plants. Happy with Celebrity as well. I also had a terrific year for both Yellow Crookneck Squash and Yellow Pat-a-Pan (Scallopini) Squash - with over 100 of each on 2 hills of each. Other things I like to grow are roses, dahlias (a good 20 dahila bushes), daisies, and caladiums & begonias for shady areas under trees. I've not had much luck with peonies... I made the mistake of buying the economical peonies at the big biox stores, and I've been waiting 3 years to get a plant large enough to set blooms. Next May, I will bite the bullet and buy the established shrubs @ $45 each... at least 3 to see how that goes.

Bought this randomly at a nursery. The bush stayed kind of medium sized, and has a lot of medium sized tomatoes red tomatoes. Pretty go...Read Moreod tasting, a lot of of acid zing. Lower leaves have been looking pretty affected by what looks like early blight, but it hasnt taken over the plant much. Not bad, actually it's quite good for a red tomato - I usually prefer pink and other colors. I have limited space so I wouldn't go out of my way to grow it again most likely, but you never know.

I grew 15 different types of tomato this year, mostly heirlooms. German Queen was one of the best, if not the very best. I planted it in...Read More a raised bed with lots of compost and organic fertilizer. From 2 plants I got lots of huge, juicy pink tomatoes w/ a sweet flavor and I still have about a dozen fruit still on the plants. It is a potato leaved plant and turned out to be the most heat tolerant and disease resistant variety; it held up to the 100+ heat. It is a beautiful plant actually. Definitely I will plant this one again.

I grew 10 varieties of tomatoes this year including German Queen, Brandywine, Early Girl, Black from Tula, Black Krim, Golden Jubilee, Le...Read Moremon Boy, Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, and Steak Sandwich. Unfortunately, the heat and drought have pretty much ended this season’s gardening, however, it was a lot of fun up to this point and I took very specific notes about how each tomato variety performed. My top three varieties, in order of performance, were: German Queen, Early Girl, and Brandywine. Of the five performance categories that I tracked, the German Queen was ranked in the top three in three categories, was probably the most heat and drought tolerant, and (subjectively by consensus) had the best taste. Here are the results respectively:

• No. of Days From Transplant to Harvest: Early Girl, Steak Sandwich, Black Krim
• Avg. No. of Fruits Produced Per Plant: Golden Jubilee, Early Girl, Lemon Boy
• Avg. Fruit Size in Ounces: Brandywine, German Queen, Cherokee Purple
• No. Days Bloom to Harvest: Early Girl, Black Krim, German Queen
• Avg. Lbs of Fruit Produced Per Plant: Brandywine, Golden Jubilee, German Queen

Other findings:
• Potato leafed plants were definitely more resistant to pests, heat, and drought than regular leafed plants.
• Yellow varieties produced more fruit per plant than red or black varieties.
• Potato leafed plants produced bigger and heavier fruit, were meatier, and had less seeds than regular leafed plants.
• Hybrids (with the exception of Steak Sandwich which fared next to best in resistance) were actually more prone to damage from heat, drought, and pests. Another exception was the Arkansas Traveler (open pollinated) which immediately began deteriorating from heat and drought which I thought it was supposed to be very tolerant of.
• Black Krims are very susceptible to blossom-end rot with the first batch of fruits with nearly 90% of the fruits being affected. No other variety that I grew had this issue.
All in all, I was most pleased with the German Queen, Brandywine, Golden Jubilee, Early Girl, and Cherokee Purple. Even though the Black from Tula did not produce well, I think it has the best flavor and will continue to grow them each year.

I realize results are dependent upon many factors (type and condition of soil, humidity, avg temperature day and night, etc...), I thought this info might be useful to others.