Growing tomatoes in our garden

We grew four species of tomatoes in our backyard garden in 2013. As of now, October 16, the garden is still producing tomatoes. Many green ones are still ripening slowly. No frost yet this season. No real threat of a frost this season, so I have not even thought about covering the plants.

We grew:

• Black Krim - small, brownish-red, heirloom tomato

• Amish Paste - heirloom plum tomato

• a round, yellow cherry tomato - very sweet and delicious, but I don't use them often. I like slicing tomatoes for a sandwich, to eat on a plate, or use in pasta. The vines produced a lot of tomatoes. It's still producing as of Oct 16, 2013. The cages are no match for the vines that grow very long and eventually spread across the ground and driveway.

• a heavy, large, roundish, striped, orange-red tomato. The weight of these tomatoes toppled the cage. Slow ripeners. We have a lot of shade in our backyard for one thing, and this summer was much cooler than normal. It produced well, but only one ripened on the vine. I've picked several that were still green. We ate fried green tomatoes. A couple others have changed from green to yellow inside the house. Several more large green ones still exist on the vine.