comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

foreign_correspondent

Hi Folks,

I wondered if anyone fancied comparing tom varieties for the purposes of learning which people would recommend, and which are not worth bothering with....? It is frustrating to spend time and money planting and caring for plants only for the crop to be dissapointing!

Of course, I may be the only person interested, but its worth a punt, so here goes!!!

I know there will be some variety due to cultivation conditions and timings, but still I would be really interested to hear how others have got on with particular varieties ... of course the seed companies always make them sound fabulous, which of course tends not to be completely accurate!

Maybe, if anyone wants to compare notes it would be helpful to state cultivation conditions first....

I grow all my toms under glass, using either grow bags, or compost filled plastic crates, sideshoot, support with strings and that's about it!

ok, last year, I grew:

San Marzano (plum)
Vigorous plants, Plenty of fruit but late in the year. Little flavour, not much cop raw, ok for cooking. Wasn't over impressed.

Costoluto Fiorontino (beefsteak type)
Late ripening, loads of blossom end rot, (BER) lots of large, ugly, misshapen fruit. Taste nothing special, will not bother again, the worst tom I grew this year. Overall, a waste of space and compost!

Golden Sunrise (yellow, average size)
Not many fruit, and a fair percentage affected by Blossom end rot. Unblemished fruit were nice enough though.

Red Pear (plum cherry tom)
Healthy plants, Loads of toms, looked nice enough, not impressed by the flavour. No BER

Gardener's Delight (cherry tom)
Lovely - loads of small round toms, really nice sweet, flavourful tomatoes - very popular with all who ate them! No BER

Tigerella (stripy, average size)
Loads of tomatoes, very, very little BER, nice flavour, good all round tomato.

This year I can only comment on the plants so far, but will happily update with the fruiting results later:

Tigerella - plants look good so far!

Gardeners Delight - as above!

Marmande - big strong plants, toms setting well.

White Queen - again, lovely plants!

Golden Gem - very attractive plants - the best looking so far!

Carbon - nice so far!

Paul Robeson - ditto!

Purple Russian - look like they are dying of thirst all the time, droopy, stringy looking plants. Not looking promising so far!

Green Sausage - as above, droopy and stringy!

PS. as I know strains can vary from supplier to supplier, all last years seeds were from Wilko, this year they are from Wilkos (Tigerella and Gardener's Delight) and Nicky's seeds online (all other varieties)

- so, what have you grown and loved, what have you grown and hated, and what are you growing this year?

MRSMCAWBER

oohhhhh Im up for this :T

Im planning on making note on my blog so i can decide which to miss out next year (so I can have room for other varieties )
I will list all of mine tomorrow when I have more time...

MrsBartolozzi

Only grown Toms once before as we usually go away for a few weeks in the summer and neighbours are not keen on watering:rolleyes:.
So, I grew Gardener's delight and loved them! It's what I'm growing again this year. Had loads of tomatoes - about 900 (I was sad and kept totals ) from 4 plants - there were loads of green ones too, but by late September we had had enough of them and I made about 6 jars of chutney. Contrary to what I'd been told I didn't pinch out many of the branches and I think that's why I got so many - I needed to support the branches (?trusses?) they were so heavy with fruit. Oh and I only used organic feed.
Definately recommend.

Taye

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

Only grown Toms once before as we usually go away for a few weeks in the summer and neighbours are not keen on watering:rolleyes:.
So, I grew Gardener's delight and loved them! It's what I'm growing again this year. Had loads of tomatoes - about 900 (I was sad and kept totals ) from 4 plants - there were loads of green ones too, but by late September we had had enough of them and I made about 6 jars of chutney. Contrary to what I'd been told I didn't pinch out many of the branches and I think that's why I got so many - I needed to support the branches (?trusses?) they were so heavy with fruit. Oh and I only used organic feed.
Definately recommend.

my dad has done almost every variety imaginable but for the last 5 years he's forsaken all varietys for gardeners delight which he now swares by. I don't normally like tomato's but i will always eat my dads for some reason.

This year i have about 5 varietys including gardeners delight and i have to admit they seem to be the ones that are coming along the best so far.

mardatha

Gardeners Delights were lovely and so were some called I think Moneymaker.

HappyIdiotTalk

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

So, I grew Gardener's delight and loved them! It's what I'm growing again this year. Had loads of tomatoes - about 900 (I was sad and kept totals ) from 4 plants

:eek: Bloody hell, you got 900 toms from just 4 plants? I've got about 40 odd plants on the go and about half of those are Gardeners Delight. I've been jokingly saying I want more tomatoes that I know what to do with... looks like I might get my wish! :rolleyes: Actually I wouldn't mind that!

Anyway, foreign correspondent, I think I read that San Marzano has been bred for the continent and doesn't do well here in our crazy wet weather.

foreign_correspondent

I think I have got 24 gardeners delight in this year - I do like them!

San marzano are an italian variety but I have even heard of people growing them sucessfully outdoors here! I think they will do better under mediterrannean sunshine, but maybe they would also be better planted a little earlier too.. however, I would not bother playing around with them as the end result wasnt great, but then again, paste/plum tomatoes do not tend to be full of flavour anyway, and are limited in their uses.

Mardatha - did you find moneymaker well flavoured? Did you grow them under glass or outdoors?

mardatha

Mine are all grown inside on a south facing windowsill, and they tasted GORGEOUS. I was eating them like sweeties LOL
and I am NOT a veg or salad lover in any way!

MRSMCAWBER

ok -here are the ones Im doing this year -I have 2 of each

1. Principe Borghese
2. Maskotka
3. Minibel
4. TomatoBerry
5. Red alert
6. Yellow pear
7. Villma
8. Harbinger
9. Andine cornue
10. Zuckertraube
11. Buissonante
12. DiplomF1
13. Pink brandywine
14. Yellow Brandywine
15. Sub Arctic
16. Cream sausage
17. San Marzano
18. Purple cherokee
19. Nickos -these are from a salad my mum had when we were in Kefalonia -so named after the owner who grew them
20. Fleische -a german "meaty" one
21. eire -a german egg shaped one

As you can guess I have a tomato fetish :rotfl:all are grown outdoors -i will edit the post tomorrow to add if they are determinate/indeterminate etc
The ones in Bold are ones I did last year -the others are all new ones :j

mardatha

......cream sausage ???????

HappyIdiotTalk

Wow, thats a lot of variaties Mrs M, and none of the toms I'm growing appear in your list... I wonder how many varieites are available? I think I'm growing:

Gardeners Delight
Cherry
Marmand
Garden Pearl
And something F1...

I wasn't very organised when planting them though, so dont have a clear idea of whats what in my grow bags and pots... so commenting on how each did later might be difficult.