comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

MUMMYTO2BOYS

Had the first tumbling toms today and was disappointed with them. Never grown this variety before and thought they were more like a mini 'ordinary salad type(!)' tomato than a more flavoursome cherry tomato. They were very fleshy with not much juice.

HariboJunkie

Can't comment on taste yet as things don't ripen that quickly in the frozen Higlands.

Yield wise, the gardener's delight are producing as well as they did last year despite we not supporting them very well ( I got a bit mixed up with my varieties at the start of the season but they don't seem to mind growing horizontally. ) I have 6 of those plants.

I also have 2 window boxes filled with Italian cherry plums which are cropping very well and are lovely little pear shaped toms.

Then there are 2 moneymakers in a grow bag (was given the plants) which have lots of flowers but few fruit yet.

The best so far are 4 hanging baskets of "Hundred's and Thousands" which have at least 150 toms per plant and hundreds of flowers :eek: and 2 baskets of Garden Perle which have about 100 fruits per plant and more on the way.

I will either have alot of pasta sauce or another green tomato chutney marathon like the last 3 years.

Also have 2 unlabelled tom plants (from a boot sale) which are taking up lots of room but not doing much else.

mum_of_4

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I have a few pots of bush toms outside and the rest in the greenhouse 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.

I've had to take out my tomato plants (in the polytunnel)due to blight but noticed that the tomatoes that were going red had BER and like you they were San Marzano.

On reflection I won't be growing them next year. Although they appear to be a heavier cropper two of friends have also suffered from BER so it looks like it's typical SM2

Lotus-eater

mum_of_4 wrote: »

I've had to take out my tomato plants (in the polytunnel)due to blight but noticed that the tomatoes that were going red had BER and like you they were San Marzano.

On reflection I won't be growing them next year. Although they appear to be a heavier cropper two of friends have also suffered from BER so it looks like it's typical SM2

Do you know, I've never experienced BER before and I am a bit confused why I've got it, because of stuff going on here at home, my watering is a little hap hazard this year, but still, I don't think anything else is that different.
The SM haven't cropped anything like as much as the 1 scatolone I have grown. This has cropped one tomato which I haven't eaten yet, but has loads more, the SM have definitely less and smaller fruit. Have to see what they taste like, let you know

mum_of_4

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Do you know, I've never experienced BER before and I am a bit confused why I've got it, because of stuff going on here at home, my watering is a little hap hazard this year, but still, I don't think anything else is that different.
The SM haven't cropped anything like as much as the 1 scatolone I have grown. This has cropped one tomato which I haven't eaten yet, but has loads more, the SM have definitely less and smaller fruit. Have to see what they taste like, let you know

I've already cooked some up into a pasta sauce and whilst tasty I still don't think that I would grow them again. They were also the first plants to give up to blight. All the other plants are still doing quite well, pulled most of them up but decided to leave 6 plants as they were at the other end of the PT. I'm picking ablut 400g of small tomato's every other day.

This is my first time growing tomao's for making a sauce for storing so can't really compare the taste to anything else. I would cofirm that mine were heavy croppers but they went into there planting spaced by the middle of April.

Lotus-eater

Well I tried the scatolone fresh and I'm not impressed, very bland taste, try cooking the rest. Maybe I left it on the plant too long, it was very dry.
SM are not ready to eat yet.

foreign_correspondent

I dont think any of the plum/paste tomatoes taste any good raw - they are dry and bland, but they are better for cooking as less water comes out. I am not over-impressed with them as a whole though.

Primrose

Be patient all you folks who are worrying about your tomatoes not ripening. They will start to turn soon and Gardeners Delight ripen quite quickly. I would advise leaving them on the plant to ripen, especially if they're in a sunny position. Once you remove the truss or a single tomato, you stop any further moisture going into it, and they can be left until mid September on the plant. Fay - yes, once your tomatoes start changing colour they won't grow any bigger. The trick is to know which variety of tomato plant/seed to buy for the size of tomato you want. Humpries - sound's like your tomatos mhave have caught blight when leaves curl up and go brown. Pull them up and put them in dustbin otherwise the disease will spread rapidly to your other tomato plants and kill them.

Lotus-eater

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

I dont think any of the plum/paste tomatoes taste any good raw - they are dry and bland, but they are better for cooking as less water comes out. I am not over-impressed with them as a whole though.

Thanks, I think that nicely explains my experience. I will definitely try cooking them next then.
I've just picked enough normal toms to have enough to make up a tomato sauce, Purple Ukraine (which are growing on me tbh) and Ferline, so we've reached the fresh tomato saturation point, where we can no longer keep up with the amount coming off the vines.

foxgloves

Haven't grown a huge amount of varieties as tend to stick to the ones which do well for me.
Gardener's delight - cherry variety - tasty, lots of them, make good pasta sauces.
Cream sausage - Oh, what anaemic strangely phallic looking (not in a good way!) things those were. Just didn't look remotely tomatoey.
Subarctic plenty - Supposed to grow in cooler climates, which they did, but I didn't think they were that tasty to be honest.
Gartenperle - Almost pinky-pearlescent coloured skins - cherry tomatoes - nice.
Tigerella - Very pretty, but never yet grown any that haven't succumbed to blight yet depiste some expensive seeds from the Eden Project last year.
Super marmande - Huge beefsteak variety, some of them come out in odd shapes but good flavour.
Ferline - My current favourite because it's supposed to be one of the most blight resistent varieties around. Last year, all my tomatoes got blight, starting with my greenhouse tomatoes, then the outside ones. I had one Ferline plant from my Mum amongst those and it didn't fall to the blight until well into September, by which time I'd had a good crop from it & didn't lose anything. This year, am growing Ferlines inside & out, & so far no blight. They do get it in the end if it's bad, but because they seem to hold out for longer, you at least get a chance to get your crop ripe before the plant goes sick. Big really red juicy tomatoes. I'm going to stick with these for next year too.