comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

Lotus-eater

foxgloves wrote: »

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.

That sounds a pretty good amount of varieties to me!
Ferline I have had for a few years and although the seeds have to be purchased every year or two, I really like them, I think I have been saying that for a year or so on here, They taste good and the resistance to blight isn't bad at all. In fact it's very good.
Gardeners Delight though, they taste amazing, but they make awful sauce, way too much water.
But I am coming round to your thoughts on gartenpearle, they taste better all the time it seems to me.
This is great, everyone giving their opinions on tomato varieties they have actually grown and tasted.

foreign_correspondent

Alright, I know I am going to jinx myself here, but my plants never get blight - wonder why?

White queen are ripe - and quite nice!!

Lotus-eater

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Alright, I know I am going to jinx myself here, but my plants never get blight - wonder why?

I don't know, where are you? And where do you grow your crops?

Y'know that we all are now really jealous and all that

foreign_correspondent

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I don't know, where are you? And where do you grow your crops?

Y'know that we all are now really jealous and all that

North Derbyshire, in a big old glasshouse! I use compost in old plastic crates and/or growbags

Primrose

Am picking my Black Russians now. Not sure I would grow them again. Almost every one of them has cracked although I've been careful to water regularly. Sungold & both yellow & red tumblers have done well but I think next year I'll reduce the number of varieties grown and stick to Ferline, Gardeners Delight, a couple of tumblers for containers which seem to ripen earlier than the rest, and perhaps a Black cherry as my experimental variety

booskyeboo

Hi, I am growing tomatoes in the greenhouse and small ones outside, the ones in the greenhouse are ripening but have a very woody core and even though they are red on the outside when I have cut into them they are very thick skinned and green, could anyone shed some light onto what I have done wrong, I am new at this growing tomatoes, they aren't fit to eat on a salad so I have made some chutney with them.

Primrose

booskyeboo - There could be several reasons. What varieties are you growing? Some can be very thick skinned. Smaller ones like Gardeners Delight are thinner skinned. Often a thick woody core can be a sign of too little or too irregular watering, too much exposure to a hot dry atmosphere or sometimes that the plant in its early seedling stage has been neglected, insufficiently watered or allowed to grow too lanky before being planted out in its final position. Don't get dispirited. Even expert tomato growers (and I've been growing them for about 40 years) have disappointing results without really understanding why. Some varieties will thrive yet different varieties planted close can be give disappointing results.

Primrose

foreign correspondent - am not sure why your plants never get blight. I only started to suffer from it 5 years ago but for many years I've been the only person around here who has been growing tomatoes - my neighbours don't bother. In recent years there seems to have been an increasing trend to Grow Your Own, and tomatoes seem to be one of the first vegetables which most people grow, so I guess there are a lot more blight spores drifting around in the air and a higher chance of plants catching them. For the past two years I've been spraying with Dithane which grieves me as I much prefer to be organic but I'd rather get a crop than stick to my principles and lose the lot. Incidentally, what do your White Queens look like? They sound interesting. Are the skins a very pale cream or do they just turn a very pale pink when ripe?

booskyeboo

Thankyou Primrose for your reply, I am growing just three plants in the greenhouse, Shirley, Alisia Craig and Money Maker, I am growing all three in a grow bag, I have planted them into a large plant pot in the growbag to give the roots more compost to grow in, the plants themselves look okay, how many times a day should I water?

Primrose

bboskyboo - make sure the compost never dries out but water only round the roots and don't get the leaves wet as this could encourage Blight. Once the tomatoes are forming, feed once a week with a liquid fertiliser like Tomorite as most compost/grow bags only contain sufficient nutrients to last for about six weeks.