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Tomato talk 2009

POTAWIE

POTAWIE

I'm starting to narrow down my list of tomatoes to grow this year but its just as hard as narrowing down my pepper varieties:( Last year was about the worst conditions I've seen for growing here, so I can't base anything upon those results. This means I'm going to have to re-trial most of last year's tom varieties as well as grow a few new and exciting ones.
How was everyone else's tom growing season, and what are your most favorite tasting and most productive tomatoes?
For me my Omar's lebanese was my most productive and biggest fruiting but it was also in the greenhouse in a huge container. My favorites for taste were the sungold for cherry type, and german red strawberry for overall best taste.
 
I am not a big tomato eater, but my wife is. Everything I grow will be for her, sandwiches or sauces. That being said, I am going for some sungolds and sweet 100's for munching. Some sort of beefsteak for burgers and sandwiches. And last, I need some recommendations for good sauce toms.
 
Potawie,

I tried about 14 different kinds last year. Like you, we had a pretty crappy season; a late, cool and rainy spring, dry summer, the whole works. It wasn't just me - everyone was talking about how late their tomatoes were and how they never produced the amount of fruit they should have. But comparing the results of the ones I tried to each other, I found two keepers for this year. Red Zebra was extremely productive, better than any other plants. The toms are the size of a cueball to a baseball at largest. The taste is a bit sweeter than others toms. The downside is they have more than normal amount of seeds.

The other delightful surprise was the Green Sausage. It's a paste type of determinate tom. The plants don't grow over about 18" tall (though I have two in a hydro unit that are over 24" tall) and bushy. Very few seeds and next to no juice. The seeds are all in neat little vertical rows in the middle of the fruit so I sliced them and cut them out easily. Made a delicious salsa. Also very heavy producer plus they do not require near the footprint normal toms do. They can be planted 18" apart and still have lots of room.

One I had grown before and didn't disappoint last year was the Golden Monarch, a yellow tom. Not the best slicers as they tend to crack but I grew them for juice. Three plants produced more than 30 quarts of juice.

Mike
 
We had an odd year for production down here, too. Everything was late, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants...everything. And everyone commented on it, so there must have been some sort of weather phenomenon. I got lots of tomatoes, they were just late. Usually our tomato peak is in July, but it was August before the big peak came.

I tried several new tomatoes, and the one that was absolutely a keeper was the Bella Rosa Hybrid. Now, I don't usually like hybrids, but since the Great Thrip Wars of 2002 and 2003, I have made sure to plant at least one variety of tomato that is Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus resistant. I tried Top Gun and Bella Rosa for the first time last year, and have planted Amelia for the last few years. Bella Rosa outshone the other two by a long ways. Tasty, medium sized red tomatoes that handled the heat well, and made a good showing against the late blight that takes all the tomatoes in the fall around here.

Mule Team, Mexico, and Tropic continue to produce really well for me, so I'll be planting them again. I thought I would try New Big Dwarf along with Stupice as an early tomato this year. Tomato Grower's Supply describes them as:

'"Compact plants only become about 2 ft. tall yet produce a very early harvest of flavorful deep pink tomatoes that grow up to 1 pound, but are more typically 8 to 12 ozs. This variety is wonderful in the garden and also in containers since the plant stays small while delivering large and really delicious tomatoes. We consider this an heirloom tomato as it was created before 1915 by crossing the Ponderosa and Dwarf Champion varieties. Determinate. 60 days. "
 
I had a pretty good season last year but I do not have much to go by because this year was the first year actually growing them the right way. Years previous I would just plant store boughts and let them grow wild without cages on some (not a pretty sight). The ones I grew last year were;

Mariannas Peace - These were Large pink and pretty productive
Mortgage Lifter - I'm not sure what strain, either radiator Charlie's or Halladay's but the tomatoes were OK taste. Another pink variety
4th Of July - These were a bust did not taste good low production
Snow White - Very good cherry type will grow again
Black Cherry - Exceptional taste good production but later in season
Tidwell German - Awesome plant grew to about 8+ ft. very large tomatoes and good taste.
Omars Lebanese Very large and tasted good
Persimmons - Exceptional fruity sweet flavor will grow again
Porters Pride - Bust this plant had BER bad
Isis Candy - No big deal
Delicious - exceptionally large Tomatoes some close to 2 lbs. OK flavor lots of tomatoes
Black Zebra - These were small fruits really cool looking
Earl Of Edgecomb - Not very many tomatoes for me on this one small plant
Abe Lincoln - Don't remember
Sungold - Absolutely the best tasting cherry tomato Like eating candy. This plant grew over 10' tall.​

The three varieties of cherry toms I grew looked really good in a bowl together and all were very flavorful.​

I'm not sure what I'm growing this year have to many to choose from probably around 30 varieties in the garden this year. Going to grow the more unique shaped ones this year. Any ideas on the heavily pleated varieties?

Dale​
 
thepodpiper said:
Any ideas on the heavily pleated varieties?
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Dale,

Not from experience but I have tomatogrowers.com catalogue and they have a tons of varieties. I got several seeds from them last year and was satisfied with prices, number of seeds and germination rates.

Mike
 
wordwiz said:
Dale,

Not from experience but I have tomatogrowers.com catalogue and they have a tons of varieties. I got several seeds from them last year and was satisfied with prices, number of seeds and germination rates.

Mike
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Thanks Mike, I was just trying to get the names of some that people have grown and know the varieties. I'm not looking for a place to buy. I already have over 200 varieties of toms to choose from just thought someone would know the name of a really bizaar looking one.

Dale
 
Pam said:
Any of y'all ever try Coyote?
http://www.chileplants.com/search.asp?ProductCode=TOMCOY&SearchButton=Pressed

i keep hearing good things about it, but I can't find the seeds anywhere. I already have more yellow currant tomatoes than I can possibly eat, so i hate to go to the expense of buying a plant. It looks like a fun one to try, though.
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That reminds me of another one I've wanted to try for a while the Dr. Carolyn, named after a very inspirational tomato breeder/grower.
 
my favorite is the beefsteak - for eating, canning, whatever. I got some huge one before. I had to upgrade my cages last year cause the year before the plants pretty much smashed them down from the weight of the toms. last year I raked a couple bags of the 'organic manure' from home depot into my garden - it seems to really make the toms. grow.
 
POTAWIE said:
That reminds me of another one I've wanted to try for a while the Dr. Carolyn, named after a very inspirational tomato breeder/grower.
Click to expand...

Damn you, that does look good.
 
I'm growing three varieties at the moment Romas, Costa Luta De Marmande sold as Burke's Backyard Italians here in Australia and Sweet Bites

I planted my second lot of plants just before Christmas. The first lot of Burke's Backyards and Sweet Bites weren't staked to my liking.

So now I have 4 Romas, 5 Burke's Backyard Italians and 4 Sweet Bites in a new garden bed.

mytoms03.JPG
 
Say what you will but I love Roma tomatoes. Just got a seed packet from Lowes and will start them this weekend. I've never heard of most of the tomatoes ya'll talk about. I get several huge harvests of Roma and I always seem to have tons of fresh tomatoes all summer long. Their medium size makes them easy to grow.
 
Pepper Ridge Farm said:
Say what you will but I love Roma tomatoes. Just got a seed packet from Lowes and will start them this weekend. I've never heard of most of the tomatoes ya'll talk about. I get several huge harvests of Roma and I always seem to have tons of fresh tomatoes all summer long. Their medium size makes them easy to grow.
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C'mon Dave, slap a couple of unknowns in the ground this year you'll love em. I'm going to send you a couple of varieties for you to try. Black ,White, Green, Pink, Orange, Yellow or Striped? :P

Dale
 
bigt said:
Just got an email from Burpee today touting this Tomato Black Truffle Hybrid - this looks seriously good. http://www.burpee.com/product/id/111427.do?cid=2009_01_16_BlackTruffleTomato&

I've never grown tomatoes before because of all the deer that hang around my place. Maybe if I surround the toms with peppers the deer will stay away.
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Deer will eat pepper plants, too. My sister has a problem with them, but peeling a strong deodorant soap with a potato peeler around the plants seems to discourage them long enough for them to put up their own defenses.
 
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