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Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: John85 on August 01, 2011, 08:14:01
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What is the sweetest tomato?
I grow gardener's delight and mexican honey but I 'd like to grow a very sweet big one.Thank you for your suggestions.
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Welcome to A4A John... I think the sweetest is Sungold... but it's a cherry... after that it gets a bit fuzzy... I like the large Black varieties... :-\
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Hmm..difficult one that..as growing conditions have big influence for the flavour too...and at what stage the fruit is picked.
I always associate the really sugary sweet tomatoes with cherry-types..like Saddad suggested sungold..
I grow variety Sun Belle that is plum-shaped yellow cherry tomato..it is too sweet for me to eat as ripe berry and I find its best when it still has hint of green on it...and its still deliciously sweet even then!
But large ones usually have to be really properly ripe to develop the sugars and they don't tend to get even near to the sweetness of cherry types.
Sorry..out of all the hundreds of varieties that I've grown..with large ones there is not one that really stands out for their extra sweetness. Bloody butcher that I grew last year were nicely sweet for salad type..but those were almost over ripe by that stage.
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My favourite is a beefsteak tom. Brandywine, it's a frying tomato. Excelent flavour. I'm trying 'Garden Pearl' this year. Cheers, Tony.
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I agree with Sungold, I also love Tigerella but it is more tangy than sweet.
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A friend of ours brought back some seeds of oxheart a couple of years ago, huge things look like a handbag, lovely, sweet taste. I save the seeds so, if you would like some, I can send them in autumn
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Do you have "Proper gardeners delight"?
I would love some seed if you could spare some, the last couple of years I have used seed which calls itself GD and last year they were tasty and small - BUT certainly not GD and I am so annoyed as I bought some Thompson & Morgan at horrendous expense as I thought that I would be safe with them. But they have no flavour and are certainly worse than I had last year. I am soooo annoyed as GD are the only tomato I really want along with some coloured ones for colour and the odd large beefsteak variety.
I am going to complain to T & M as they are misleading many people who have been told that GD are the nicest tasting variety (some may agreee/disagree) and when they try this mushy tomato with the supermarket taste they will be put off.
Sorry to be cheeky but I am so annoyed - and I have only just started picking tomatoes and they are rubbish!
Old Bird
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How odd, Old bird - I am growing Gardener's Delight, got them from probably Alan Romans, and they are a kind of cocktail tomato, they grow on long trusses, they are very sweet and juicy and not at all "floury" (and there are zillions of fruit!). Do yours not resemble that?
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Thank you all.
Somebody adviced me Ponderosa pink.How do you rate that one?Worth growing?
The one I grow as Oxheart is very different:it is heartshaped without ridges,very meaty,late,big fruit but not very sweet.
manicscousers,
yours looks very much like Borsalina but it is the taste that is important isn't it!
Oldbird
Sorry but I cann't remember where I bought GD.Just in a garden center some years ago.
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I wonder if the labels got mixed, I didn't plant them this year, I had 'help' from my grandkids ;D
maybe the heart-shaped one is the oxheart, I'll ave to look through the seed packets to find out which one is the 'handbag' shape :)
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gardeners delight is not a good choice at all.
sungold f1 is a very sweet variety but rather small.
most large varieties are not very sweet but have more of of the sharper taste notes.
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Sungold is the sweetest I've ever tasted and very early and prolific - small but you can always eat lots at once.
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gardeners delight is not a good choice at all.
Well I must beg to differ. I have grown them now last year and this year and I find them to be quite delicious. I admit that I have never been able to get Sungold to try. The only thing I dislike with the GD is that they give a lot of fruit all at once and it's hard to eat it all. They ripen very quickly once they get started. But they are productive (mine are heaving with trusses at the mo) and the fruit tastes great. Why is that not a good choice?
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Hi
As to the difference in opinion about Gardeners Delight.
I am convinced that different seed companies sell very different types of tomato as "gardeners delight", some being much better than others (of course there is personal taste as well)
I grew Suttons GD one year loved them, next year got seed from a different company and did not like them, so went back to Suttons.
I presume this happens with other varieties as well.
Bill
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@bappelbe
That is probably true. There are also quite a few "mis-translations" I feel where companies don't keep the original name but translate it to English and then mix ups occur. For example I find it hard to believe that the varieties called Gartenperle and Garden Pearl are not one and the same tomato.
I am not sure if I can keep my GD seeds? I am guessing they are hybrid? I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try.
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Antipodes..GD is not hybrid.. ;) ;D
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I think you have hit the nail on the head with Gardener's Delight, there are just so many different strains being marketed. I tried an Irish version last year from Real Seeds I think, that was supposed to be a supersweet strain, but I found it had poor vigour and the fruit were nothing special. I have grown many different strains over the years, some had cherry sized fruits, other were more like a medium salad size, so I guess it is pretty difficult to determine what the original would or should be like by now. I guess if you find one you like you stick to it, but there are an awful lot of versions out there.....
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manicscousers
I don't think you have mixed your labels.This may be the explanation:in a old French seedslist they wrote that Borsalina is sold wrongly as "coeur de boeuf"(=oxheart) in some areas of France.I guess your friend just told you what he had heard.
Antipodes
As I have a sweet form of GD, i collect my own seed every year.No problem at all; just avoid to collect seeds from a plant that is next to another cultivar.
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Sungold for me too. The fruit may be small, and prone to splitting but they taste so delicious that I don't care.
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antipodes you not really going to get decent tomatoes in France any way.
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antipodes you not really going to get decent tomatoes in France any way :o :o ???
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oooh, the ignore button is a good thing ;D
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I love sungold but the seed is becoming seriously expensive you used to get 45 seeds in a packet now they have about 10. I bought a packet half price but only managed 6 plants from it. Presume they are available mail order in EU.
Might get some direct from Tozer next year.
I am interested in what you say about gardeners delight. I grew it some years ago and loved it then grew it again and was not that impressed. I thought the whole idea of the EU seed rules was to get standardization.
No polite commend PL what a load of tosh.
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antipodes you not really going to get decent tomatoes in France any way.
Oh yeah of course, silly me, they would be FRENCH tomaotes wouldn't they? and obviously rubbish!
The mind boggles.
RE discussion about gardener's delight, I THINK (not sure) that I got the seeds from Alan Romans (they say cordon Indeterminate, i grew it as a bush - it's now about 5 feet tall!!). These are quite big cherry tomatoes, more what I would call a cocktail tom (you can fit one in your mouth but you look like a bit of a pig if you do). I ate one yesterday, it was not even that dark, but it came off as I touched it to look more closely. It was b***dy lovely. Mmm they are actually side by side to others but what the heck, I guess that I could try saving some seed. The worst that could happen will be odd tomatoes...how bad could that be?
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Got Sungold among others for next year from
http://www.simplyseed.co.uk/tomato-seeds/page/2/
£1.69 for 10 seeds
Black Cherry is quite a nice flavoured tomato
I was going to get Yellow Bannana but a Friend was at the Gateshead Show and got talking to the rep for Heirloom seeds who said it was quite prone to BER (so sorry for mentioning that) and re comended Jersey Devil as a better one.
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Got Sungold among others for next year from
http://www.simplyseed.co.uk/tomato-seeds/page/2/
£1.69 for 10 seeds
That's quite expensive, isn't it? 10 seeds doesn't sound like many!
and re comended Jersey Devil as a better one.
That should be grown for the name alone!!! ;D
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Last year I grew sungold for the first time, and also grew GD.
The GD were OK, but the sungold were unbelievably sweet.
This year I have grown them both again, but this time the sungold is nothing special, but the GD ane sweet and delicious, if it was not for the different fruit colours I would have assumed I had got them mixed up.
This is nothing to do with different seed supply, as they came out of the same packet, what is different is last year they were grown in pots in my greenhouse (and regualy short of water), where as this year they were grown direct in the greenhouse soil.
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Plainleaf, you are being rude again..stop it, you have put some good posts on lately..don't spoil it for yourself again. If there is a reason why you think France will not produce good tomatoes then we would like to hear that...sensibly.
XX Jeannine
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I got Unwins Sungold this year - £2.99 for 30 seeds but the shop was selling them off half price as supposed to be sown 2011 (not worried about that as tomato seed seems to keep forever).
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Grown Meile this year, yellow mini plum tomato, wonderfully sweet !! just won the local show with them !
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I'm growing lots of varieties this year and of the cherries, the sweetest so far have been Sungold (which annoys me, when the skin splits), Suncherry Premium F1, Cherrola F1(all grown outdoors in Hampshire) and Tumbling Tom Red (grown inside).
Gardener's Delight is a great old variety which is made delicious by its acidity, but modern cultivars tend to have a flavour that leans to sweetness, don't they? Suncherry Premium and Cherrola both have a bit of complexity over and above the sweetness.
Oh, Berry F1 is another sweetie, of course. And given the price of seeds, it's time to start thinking about seed-saving...
:)
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Grannyjanny sent me some black chernomore tomato seeds this year. The flavour is wonderful but the black cherry she also sent are my sweetest tomato this year.
Thanks Grannyjanny ;D
Duke
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I love sungold but the seed is becoming seriously expensive.
I never buy seed for any variety that can be bought as plants at garden centres.
I buy a few plants of Sungold and Gardener's Delight as soon as they appear in the spring and take cuttings about 5-6cm long as soon as I can (ideally axil shoots, but sometimes I behead the plant to get even more sooner).
Every cutting grows into a plant that is bigger and stronger than the specialist toms I start as seeds in heat in Jan/Feb - there's no point knocking yourself out molycoddling seedlings when you can get cuttings!.
The cuttings seem to carry over the maturity of the plant they come from - even cuttings taken in May and June flower within a few days of the original plant (May/June axil cuttings 10cm long often already have flowers when I take 'em - they still root).
They always say: If you want an easy way to do something give the job to a lazy man...
Cheers.
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I love sungold but the seed is becoming seriously expensive.
I never buy seed for any variety that can be bought as plants at garden centres.
I buy a few plants of Sungold and Gardener's Delight as soon as they appear in the spring and take cuttings about 5-6cm long as soon as I can (ideally axil shoots, but sometimes I behead the plant to get even more sooner).
Oh but that takes all the magic out of it! I love planting the little seeds and then pricking them out and finally planting the adult plants. I feel like I have really achieved something then.
And I love it when Jeannine gets all mean on us and speaks her mind! Good on ya, gal! And I will just keep chucking all my disgusting French tomatoes in the compost ( 8) ) *evil laughter*
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Sungold for me too. The fruit may be small, and prone to splitting but they taste so delicious that I don't care.
Auto watering will stop them splitting.... my GH gets 90 minutes every day through the soaker hoses and I've not yet seen any splitting or blossom end rot....
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oooh, the ignore button is a good thing ;D
I have PL on ignore as a matter of course.... :-X
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: Jeannine name one great french dish that has tomatoes in it or one tomato variety developed in France. tomatoes are not a basic of the food in french food culture.
that is why i said french do grow good tomatoes.
look at American food or Italian lots of tomato based dishes. even British food has spaghetti and sauce as major dish.
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Plainleaf, thank you for your explanation and I would agree with you if you were right but I could not resist the challenge.
French dishes.. well how about a few of the most famous, like Cassoulet, Bouilabaisse,Escalopes de Veau , or Classic Consomme, (have hundreds more)
For varieties, I could wear my fingers out but top of the list would be Cuostralee , which brings me full circle back to the original question on this post
Cuostralee, huge fruit, sweet and robust, dense red colour and one of my personal favourites. and French too!!
Recipes posted if wanted.
By the way for all you Sungold fans there is a dehybridised variety now and it is much cheaper.
Some of the US seed houses sell original Sungold in bulk and will ship to the UK ..ask if you want links to buying 1/4 ounce etc.
XX Jeannine
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Just because they have not necessarily bred many varieties doesn't mean they are not big tomato growers! Every garden in France is full of tomatoes in the summer and they grow all sorts of varieties, from the Rose de Berne pink beefhearts, Coeur de Boeuf, Merveille des Marchés, Montfavet, to San Marzano Italian tomatoes, and Marmande is a town in France! How can that not be a French tomato (and they all grow those tomatoes there!
There is nothing better than a huge fleshy tomato, grown in the hot Midi sun in a farmer's field in the south of France. Very often on holidays I have made a starter for 4 from ONE tomato!
All varieties grow here becasue the climate is suitable, for outdoor growing too, no need for greenhouses, and they have cleverly adopted the Italian varieties, as well as the Eastern varieties that grow in the short and hot continental summer.
And the French are big consumers of tomatoes: stuffed tomatoes, ratatouille! They like them very simple, just cut as a salad, with a vinaigrette sauce, or as finger food, or as a soup in the late summer.
I don't even know why we take the bait, I think we just like talking about our toms!!!!
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Jeannine,
Can you give some more information about the non F1 Sungold please?
May be a supplier or a link?
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i had a bash at growing crystal f1 paid £3 for 6 seed, they are supposed to deep red and sweet as necter,i think my taset buds are dead very disapponted with them ,anyone else try them?
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I find the typical 'cherry' fine for a bite but far too fiddly small for anything else except stews.
Much prefer a half-way house - Nectar for instance.
For a mini-plum, Yellow Santa is excellent.
For a really rich beef - John Hawkins.
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Sungold Select is an OP Sungold XX Jeannine
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I just made some tomato soup out of Sungold (plus some Red Alert)..
It has to be the sweetest most perfect bowl of tom soup I have ever had - even if I do say so myself..
Might try some Sungold Select if I can find a supplier - http://rareseeds.com/sungold-select-ii.html - maybe??
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But is it my imagination that Sungold tasted better a few years ago. Do F1 varieties loose the plot after a few years?
Tasted my first red alert yesterday flavour ok pity about the nasty tough skin.
Decided to move what I wrote to a new thread.
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Barrie, rareseeds aka Baker Creek one is not stable, it throughs a red now and again.
XX Jeannine