comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

frivolous_fay

Couple of questions...

1. O/H (not a big gardener) seems to think I should be removing some flowers, to allow the rest of the toms to be growing / ripening better. Is this advisable or unnecessary? (To give you an idea of progress... I have 1 x Alicante, most small but one ripening, (I predict about 50 potential toms based on the flowers)several garden pearl, and 1 x golden cherry (only just flowering now)
I have been nipping out side shoots in my amateurish way.
2. Has anyone had success using seeds from bought toms? I have my eye on Jester and Santini from M&S!

Lotus-eater

Primrose wrote: »

Lotus-eater. I've just caught up with it on BBC IPLayer and like you, was terribly disappointed. Here was an opportunity, with somebody growing 50 different varieties of tomatoes, to have provided a real professional comparison, naming the varieties as they were tasted and giving an explanation. All we got was some showy chef muttering "Delicious, Amazing" etc, but with no descriptions of actual flavour. Another case where the programme could have been really educational, and it failed completely. Now if we could have had an RHS judge doing that programme, it would have been completely different and we might all have learned something useful about which tomato varieties we might want to try growing. Another case of BBC dumbing down I'm afraid. Alas I can't give you much help with container tomatoes. So far I've only grown Tumbler Red and Tumbler Yellow, neither of which have exceptional flavours. Of the cherry types, Gardeners Delight is still my favourite so far for flavour. It would be lovely if a grower could somehow reproduce it in a tumbling form, rather than an upright as it's rather too tall to grow successfully in pots. I certaintly won't be growing "Cherry" again. I was given some surplus seedlings but the tomatoes are absolutely tiny, and not a good yield for the growing space taken up. Gardeners delight, which admittedly is a larger cherry size tomato, provides double the yield for the same amount of space, which is an important factor for me, with flavour, when space is limited.

More or less what I thought, in more eloquent language than I written

I already grow GD and love it, but as you say they take up alot of room for the yield.
I have a few pots of bush toms outside and the rest in the greenhouse now, anymore outside and it takes too long to keep them blight free. This year I grew Garden Pearl outside in pots and have just tasted some, certainly better than Tumbling red or yellow and I think I tried tumbling red 2 as well, if such a thing exists.
But it's still not great.

We are now well into eating my Ferline and Purple Ukraine. PU I have come to the conclusion that it isn't worthwhile, I've had a problem with BER in the greenhouse which I haven't ever had before, inside or out and it's the PU and the San Marzano 2 which have succumbed. No problem with the GD, Ferline or Scatolone.

Also the PU, although interesting looking, doesn't have the taste of the others. ATM Ferline and GD are still the winners way out in front, for taste, ease of growing and disease resistance.

Scatolone, we haven't eaten yet, nor the SM 2. So await these with interest, although they will be cooked I think.

Lotus-eater

frivolous_fay wrote: »

Couple of questions...

1. O/H (not a big gardener) seems to think I should be removing some flowers, to allow the rest of the toms to be growing / ripening better. Is this advisable or unnecessary? (To give you an idea of progress... I have 1 x Alicante, most small but one ripening, (I predict about 50 potential toms based on the flowers)several garden pearl, and 1 x golden cherry (only just flowering now)
I have been nipping out side shoots in my amateurish way.
2. Has anyone had success using seeds from bought toms? I have my eye on Jester and Santini from M&S!

It's a question of experience when knowing what to do with toms. Difficult to give you advice without seeing them.
Alicante you should stop at about 4 trusses if outside. GP you can chop off as many flowers as you think is needed. It will continue to probably grow more anyway.
Never used seeds from bought toms, but I know you can, just the results may be all over the place, as with using all F1 seeds, which they almost certainly are.

frivolous_fay

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Alicante you should stop at about 4 trusses if outside.

I'm guessing a truss is a flower shoot?
I reckon I have around 10 on that plant, so perhaps it's time to be brutal and get rid of the unfertilised (?) ones.
Darnit, O/H: 1, me: 0!

Primrose

fay - I never nip any tomato flowers off. Some experts advocate removing all flowers after the fourth truss. I never do, because if we have a late Indian Summer and you continue feeding your plants you can often continue to get another truss of tomatoes out of them, even if you have to pick them green and ripen them off indoors on a window sill.
Yes, I've saved the seeds from a previous tasty mini plum tomato bought from a supermarket two years ago. Unfortunately I don't know what variety it was, but last year it produced another good yielding plant, from which I saved some seeds, and this year it's great grandchild looks like giving me another good crop. If the plant is an F1 variety, its seeds may not produce tomatoes true to type but it will still produce tomatoes. It's always worth experimenting but if you're interested in growing tomatoes for flavour, check whether they're F1 if you can. Googling for this information on the internet may provide an answer. If you like tasty cherry tomatoes Gardeners Delight are probably the best ones to grow. They're not F1 and always reproduce well from seed.

Primrose

Lotus eater - Interested by your good reports of ?Ferline. This year I'm growing them for the first time and very impressed with the healthy looking foliage and fruit although none have ripened yet. My GD's also looking good. Ailsa Craig, Alicante and Cherry all giving pathetic small crops. One first time Roma looking good but understand it's a tasteless variety. 2 x Ildi looking healthy & fruitful but nowhere near ripe yet. My "runt" plant - a self seeder mini-plum sprouting from my compost heap is laden but no idea what variety it is - Sainsbury's Special maybe??

sillywilly

Hi guys,

Can anyone help with our Gardeners Delight plants please?

We have 4 plants in pots. We cut them back when they all reached around 4 trusses each. The plants are about 4 - 5' tall at the moment.

We have about 90 - 100 green toms so far on all plants. We also have loads of flowers.

My question is - should these be turning red now? In a sunny, as can be in this rubbish summer, location. Watered everyday and fed twice a week.

Also, if and when they ripen - do we just pick the tomatoes off and will more grow or do we cut the "branch" off so they are like vine tomatoes?

Any help will be great!!

Thanks

wadsleyowl

Sillywilly, I have the same problem, not sure of type of toms as donated, but mine aren't repinening either, although neighbour who gave them to me says hers are. Keeps nipping off tops and trusses so just hope this will start to get them ripening.
Any other suggestions accepted willingley.

HappyIdiotTalk

The 2 plants I bought partly grown (but half dead) in Homebase for 15p are starting to ripen the green fruits. The toms I started to grow from seed a couple of weeks later (so probably weeks behind the Homebase plants) sound much like your green fruited plants.

The weather here has been dreadful for the past month and a half. We've had some sun, but not much. I'm therefore expecting the ripening to happen eventually, but probably not for a few more weeks. Optimistic eh!

Lotus-eater

sillywilly wrote: »

Can anyone help with our Gardeners Delight plants please?

We have 4 plants in pots. We cut them back when they all reached around 4 trusses each. The plants are about 4 - 5' tall at the moment.

We have about 90 - 100 green toms so far on all plants. We also have loads of flowers.

My question is - should these be turning red now? In a sunny, as can be in this rubbish summer, location. Watered everyday and fed twice a week.

Also, if and when they ripen - do we just pick the tomatoes off and will more grow or do we cut the "branch" off so they are like vine tomatoes?

They will start turning red soon, if blight doesn't get them. put all your banana skins around the bottom of the plant, it may help a bit and I always like to think it gives something extra to the plant as well.

Just take off one tomato at a time as it goes red. That branch, or truss as it is known, won't grow any more fruit after they have all been picked.