Topic: Reliable Tomato variety please ?

[woodypecks]

I have had a couple of years trying precious heritage varieties .This year I want to grow a simple easy reliably fruit bearing Tomato .  Any ideas on this would be very much appreciated .  Debbie

[johhnyco15]

for me moneymaker, alicante,gardeners delight and coure du beof if i could only grow three it would be them if i could grow 4 id throw sungold into the mix

[johhnyco15]

for me moneymaker, alicante,gardeners delight and coure du beof if i could only grow three it would be them if i could grow 4 id throw sungold into the mix

whoops that is 4  sorry

[woodypecks]

Thanks Johnnyco !  Debbie p.s May the plot be with you too ! 

[lottie lou]

Sungold, blue oso, a titchy currant one  ( name unknown but called barmy by a neighbour) polan. Red alert, tigrella.  Like to try one new one also. 

[Vinlander]

for me moneymaker, alicante,gardeners delight and coure du beof if i could only grow three it would be them if i could grow 4 id throw sungold into the mix

I've been growing tomatoes for 40 years and I never managed to get Moneymaker or Alicante taste any better than the stuff in the supermarket, so I'd say Gardeners Delight and Sungold every time.

The big advantage of these two is that in April you can try a few garden centres and buy the biggest 3 plants of each you can find. Each one should cost you about 1/3 the price of a seed packet - they will be much more advanced than your own seedlings and when the axil shoots appear you can take them at 25-60mm as cuttings that root easily and fruit only 1 or 2 weeks later than the parent. The parent is not slowed at all by this process.

That's 6-10 plants of each for the same price as 2 packets of seed (and a lot less time, space and trouble) - and the next wave of shoots will root & fruit too - a bit later again but great for an indian summer or the greenhouse/tunnel.

If you are buying "super duper special plants" by mail order at a really "supersized" price then this technique can be used to salvage your self respect... Unfortunately I didn't know this technique when I bought Green Zebra plants and nobody sells the plants now.

If you want to sow seeds I'd recommend buying a box of fresh Piccolo from Tesco/Lidl etc. - a brilliant flavour (and a bit 'different') and they always come true from seed (just rub the jelly off with a cloth and sow immediately) - a bit pricey as tomatoes but still the biggest and cheapest seed packet you'll ever buy - with the advantage that you know exactly what flavour you are buying & growing.

If you want a really interesting cooker/eater then I'd recommend Green Tiger - unfortunately rarely seen now in supermarkets but the seed is available as Highlander. A really meaty flavour - particularly excellent raw if the thick skin doesn't put you off (why would it?) - it might be a cross between Tigrella and Green Zebra - there are hints of both in the flavour. The fruit are 30-40mm spheres or very slightly pear-shaped - quite a bit of genetic variation there - I don't know if the "Artisan Green Tiger" is related or not.

That's my 4 - SWMBO is very fussy about toms and won't let me grow anything else (except Sweet 100). I agree - the list of so called 'flavour' types that have fallen by the wayside is long - basically everything else, including Green Grape, Matts Wild Cherry, Black Krim, Green Zebra (only because they are buggers to grow), Harbinger, Outdoor Girl, Black Brandywine, Tigrella, Ildi, Golden Sunrise etc. etc. and these are the best of them... I could list a dozen more that were absolute rubbish like "tasty" Koralik (DMML - bloody awful).

Cheers.

[BarriedaleNick]

My go to varieties are
Red Alert for an early tasty tomato - does well in containers and crops reliably.
Harbinger - early, good cropper.
Shirley - Boringly reliable big cropper
Sungold - Sweet Cherry type
Roma/San Marzarno - excellent for pasting and cooking
Coeur du boeuf/Costoluto Fiorentino for a big slicing variety also sauces well
Black Krim - Lovely slicing variety that looks great on a plate

I also had a variety given to me under the name Epicure which were great but a bit unstable and I have lost my saved seed.

Naturally I throw in some others so this year I am going to try
Piccolo Dattero and Principe Borghese for drying
Golden Cherry to see how they compare to Sungold
Sub Artic Plenty - supposed to be early so see how they compare to Red Alert

I would try some Kenliworth as they remind me of my Mum but I just checked and have no seeds left.

[johhnyco15]

i think taste of tomatoes can vary immensely down to local climate and water i never water my outdoor tomatoes after the first week of planting i feed them once a week via a plant pot sunk into the ground at planting time then from august onward they are on their own i find this delivers a very sweet balanced with acidity you just cant buy however we do have a lot of sun high temperatures and very little rain from end of march right through until late October this im sure helps develop the flavour however cropping wise which was question this should be the same wherever you live hope this helps

[Tee Gee]

i think taste of tomatoes can vary immensely down to local climate and water

Plus I think the quality of the water matters e.g. Rainwater, Tap Water-Chalky, Tap Water Peaty and Artesian

I think many commercial crops are 'hydroponically grown' hence the water taste/content!

I like to grow my plants quite hard and don't follow any hard and fast rules e.g daily!

If I think my plants don't need it e.g. dull / overcast days then they don't get any!

I like a bitter sweet taste rather than sweet tomatoes i.e. they have a 'bite'

[Pescador]

Sungold for me, every time

[winecap]

For regular  sized tomatoes I grow Alicante, Moneymaker or Ailsa Craig. Some people say the moneymaker is bland, but so long as you grow in rich soil rather than commercial compost and so long as you never feed and only occasionally water I think they taste good and crop heavily. For a cherry tomato I use Sungold and Gardeners Delight. Other than those I grow heritage varieties and though some of them are less heavy cropping, I am fortunately not short of space. If you are growing outdoors however, I would choose Mountain Magic and Red Alert.
Good advice from Vinlander regarding propagating side shoots. I got  6 crimson crush plants last year using a £1 plant from B&Q and they were early enough to crop heavily outside.

[George the Pigman]

I definitely agree how you grow them really affects taste.  The mass producers of standard supermarket tomatoes water them to increase size. Generally the less you water the sweeter they taste as the sugars are more concentrated.
Whilst on holiday 2 years ago in Santorini I came across the "Santorini Tomato". This was especially bred a long time ago to give a plant that didn't need watering. It survived on the small amount of water from morning dew. Needless to say it was small, tough skinned and immensely sweet. In fact the first ever tomato puree was produced from it. There's actually a Tomato Museum on the island that tells you its history and the story of the people who worked at the factory.
https://www.santoriniartsfactory.gr/en/museum
I managed to take home a couple of tomatoes from this variety and grew them this year. There were prolific and beautifully sweet.

[woodypecks]

Thankyou everybody for lots of good advice and things to think about .  You all deserve a gold star !      Debbie

[casejones]

what do plan on using the tomatoes for:salad, sauce, sandwiches

[Plot 18]

My regulars are Jaune Flamme an orange cloured cherry with a citrus in with the sweetness, Rosella a bit fruity as well as sweet, Black Cherry picked just before it looks ripe (the colour is deceiving) Nectar Rose, large salad tom with 'old-fashioned' tomato taste. I always grow paste tomatoes - San Marzano tastes best IMO but is a PITA with BER, so often grow Cornue des Andes or Opalka. This year I've got Polish Linguisa to try for a change ;)

[BarriedaleNick]

This year I've got Polish Linguisa to try for a change ;)

They look interesting - might have to add them to the "Buy" list but this year I am going to try some Big Mama for pasting

[Vinlander]

I agree that for intensely flavoured tomatoes, restricting water is the 2nd most important key (after the genetic lottery is 1st). 3rd is hours of sunshine.

I can't eat supermarket tomatoes without a tiny bit of seasoning - and "fleur de sel" is definitely best (try it - particularly good on tomatoes from the fridge...).  I think this is no coincidence - it's wider range of compounds (after the NaCl has dropped out by crystallisation) is is much closer to the soluble mix in soil (potassium, magnesium etc. matched with sulphates, phosphates, iodides, nitrates etc.).

The way to get these tasty salts into tomatoes naturally is to make sure they don't get washed out of the soil before the tomatoes can grab them. Tomatoes that are over-watered definitely taste of water.

In the UK, tomato plants fully established in open ground should manage with very little water (same goes for peppers).  In fact you should be able to leave them at the mercy of the rain 7 or 8 years out of 10.

Each plant seems to produce a fixed amount of flavour in a season - you can either have kilos of tasteless tomatoes from watering one plant, or kilos of taste sensation from not watering 5 or 10 (or more) plants. Since I have an allotment I have no reason to go for the former approach.

Paradoxically, the degree of control available in high-tech hydroponic systems allows them to 'have their cake and eat it'. Supermarket hydroponic Piccolo tomatoes are actually very good - they taste like they have all 3 flavour keys working for them (I suspect that the Kentish growers also make use of extra LEDs on dull days - am I right?).

I suspect that over-watering is not such a problem in Mediterranean climates - partly because most of the water they use is irrigated, which brings in it's own salt to replace what's washed away by rain in winter. I'd also guess that what ends up in their rivers and lakes has already evaporated more to make it more salty.  In places like the Maghreb and Australia it dries so much and rains so little that the salt builds up in the soil - to the point where their crop types are limited by salt-tolerance, and soon afterwards it gets to the stage where no commercial crop is viable.

Cheers.