comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

foreign_correspondent

Well, my tom results may be skewed, as I appear to have either an unidentified virus, or weedkiller damage - I am getting quite a few distorted and stunted plants and curled up leaves!!!

However, I have picked few toms this week - all look ok except for marmande, which is ugly and catfacing - just as my colstoluto fiorentino did last year - this is the last time I bother with beefsteaks!

Lotus-eater

FC have you used manure? Sounds like you have the distortions from the weedkiller residue?
Marmande is ugly, how does it taste though? That's the important thing.

Primrose

I'm with foreign correspondent on growing beefsteaks. They're ugly, mishapen and I don't think the flavour is exactly awe inspiring either. Whenever I've grown them for salads, I've afterwards asked myself "Why did I bother?". Don't think the yield is that great either compared with some other varieties and there's always the danger that the few tomatoes you do get are too heavy and risk breaking the fruiting stem away from the plant before the last tomatoes have ripened. My Black Russian tomatoes are looking much bigger than my other varieties so I'm looking forward to trying them for the first time, although they don't seem to be very prolific to date and the foliage looks a little sparse. Perhaps that's a trait of this variety?

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

I have'nt got a clue what my tomato plants are.
They are grown from the seed I bought last year.
The seed I used from the packet last year grew huge tall plants but I got very few tomatoes.
This year the same seed has produced plants that are quite dwarf but already have an abundance of flowers and baby cherry tomatoes.
I'm a hap hazzard kind of gardener so I'm always just pleased with whatever I get realy.
I'm very pleased with my little tomatoes this year though.

foreign_correspondent

Right - just been picking and eating - here is the update on my varieties.... however, I have had some stunted and odd looking plants, and I am beginning to suspect some spray drift from a neighbouring cornfield has affected them, which may account for some of the poor taste results, especially with gardeers delight, as these are neares the door and the plants look the worst affected.

The yields on all plants is far less than last year, so I will assume this is due to the damage to the plants.

Tigerella - nice, as always, reliable and fairly good taste, and pretty toms!

Gardeners Delight - rubbish this year - no idea why unless it is to do with the damage to the plants, not a great flavour and a bit of a bitter aftertaste to some!

Marmande - big variety on toms, some large and distorted, others medium sizd and look quite nice, some small! Taste better than they look!

White Queen - not ripe yet, toms look a good chape and size though

Golden Gem - lots of lovely, bright orange, egg shaped little toms, really nice sweet flavour - love these!

Carbon - not ripe yet

Paul Robeson - ditto!

Purple Russian - plants still look like they are dehydrated all the time, toms not ripe yet

Green Sausage - as above, droopy and stringy plants, some toms are ripe - look unusual, taste ok, but not very sweet or exciting!

I also have a mystery yellow tomato plant!!! It looks like a 'golden sunrise' to me.... I wonder if some of the seed were mis-labelled!?

A._Badger

A quick (late) vote for Gardener's Delight.

My wife usually dislikes raw tomatoes, but wandered in the other day with a beatific look on her face, having been tempted to try one from the greenhouse, while my back was turned.

"I didn't know you could get raw tomatoes that tasted like that!" she said.

Last year's Alicante were a disappointment, incidentally - too thick-skinned, though that may have been due to watering problems as I got used to a new greenhouse.

RHYSDAD

We got some plants via freecycle and were told they were Sungella. Well, unless Sungella are huge, ugly beefsteaks that all have BER!!! They aren't anything like Sungella, they're mis-shapen and the rot is a pain. I dis-mantled a greenhouse yesterday ready for our garden next season and i mentioned to the old guy yesterday about them rotting out. He said the best way he's found to get the watering right (and elimnate BER, cracked skins etc) was to pot the plants and knock the bottom of the pots out, place on pea-shingle in a growing tray and just keep the water topped up an inch above the shingle. Feed once a week through the pot but otherwise, water from the bottom. Has anyone else done this? Sounds perfectly logical to me but i wonder if it works?

Lotus-eater

I've just tried our first Purple Ukraine and it is lovely, well up on the list. A almost smokeyish well rounded flavour... the plants still look awful

My self saved Gardeners Delight are also coming out well again, super sweet and massive trusses, I know I swapped some seeds with some people (from another web site) and I hope theirs are coming out just as good.

Smeg77

I'm really happy atm, my 1st year of growing Tom's and so far so good.

All of my Tom Plants are outside, as I don't have room for a greenhouse, and out of the four plants only one is on the short side.

Gardener's Delight - is about 5ft tall and currently has about 30 fruits ripening atm
Golden Nugget - about 4-5ft tall with 15 fruits
Black Cherry - only about 2ft (and is looking sorry for itself) on 10 fruits
Tiger - About 5ft tall with 20 fruits

So all in all looking like a good crop for me, can't wait to try them out

katiel

I'm puzzled by my Coeur de Boeuf toms. This was a packet of seeds I bought in France three years ago. For the first two years they produced very strong healthy plants. This year the plants from the same packet look really ill - although the tomatoes seem to be growing fine. None of my other tomato varieties look like this. I know seed is less likely to germinate as it ages, but can the age of the seeds affect the health of the plant too?