comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

Primrose

As this is a tomato thread, I'm wondering if anybody can answer this question. I've noticed that tomato plants sold in garden centres often seem to have much thicker main stems than those grown by amateurs like us at home. In the young seedling stage I often make comparisons with commercial seedlings and those I've grown and think mine look quite weedy, although they generally seem to grow into healthy plants and have bear good crops. I suspect this must be something to do with the temperature and light levels in which they're germinated but wonder if anybody else has notice this with the plants they've raised.

foreign_correspondent

Primrose wrote: »

As this is a tomato thread, I'm wondering if anybody can answer this question. I've noticed that tomato plants sold in garden centres often seem to have much thicker main stems than those grown by amateurs like us at home. In the young seedling stage I often make comparisons with commercial seedlings and those I've grown and think mine look quite weedy, although they generally seem to grow into healthy plants and have bear good crops. I suspect this must be something to do with the temperature and light levels in which they're germinated but wonder if anybody else has notice this with the plants they've raised.

I think its most likely due to less light - often when people propegate at home indoors the plants get less light than they would in a commercial greenhouse with potentially more space and windows on all sides - as a result the plants can become 'drawn' - a little long, spindly, and sometimes a little paler coloured. This is because if a plant is starved of light it will grow taller to try and get more light.

surfsister

sungold (thompson and morgan) is my all time fave, it's so sweet even my dauighter who hates tomatoes will eat this one!

Big boy is great for quantity (not taste) if you make pasta sauce/soups etc as they are huge and easy to grow!

foreign_correspondent

Just wondering how people's plants are looking so far... (and whether anyone else is growing any varieties that look terrible!)

mine started off as the black text in the list below - any change in the last few weeks is noted in green. I have noted the seed supplier in brown for comparison purposes (if there is no note re: progressthen the plants are just progressing as expected, nice and healthy and setting fruit!)

Tigerella Wilko- plants look good so far!

Gardeners Delight Wilko- as above!

Marmande Lidl- big strong plants, toms setting well. Plants are not growing so well, shorter than most of the others, some large unripe tomatoes, most of which are ugly!

White Queen Nicky's seeds- again, lovely plants!

Golden Gem Nicky's seeds- very attractive plants - the best looking so far!

Carbon Nicky's seeds- nice so far!

Paul Robeson Nicky's seeds- ditto!

Purple Russian Nicky's seeds- look like they are dying of thirst all the time, droopy, stringy looking plants. Not looking promising so far! still look dreadful - are growing, but plants look elongated, stringy, droopy and generally wilted! (they look like this all the time, even when well watered and have ever since they had proper leaves!) small flowers, but no fruit set so far.

Green Sausage Nicky's seeds- as above, droopy and stringy! very similar to purple russian, but less upright. These look so bad they make me think tomato euthanasia would be a good option - they appear to be at deaths door, smallish, wilted droopy looking plants - however, they are still growing and some green elongated tomatoes have appeared and are now just over an inch long. Again these plants have looked dreadful since they were very small... perhaps this is how they should look, but they are starting to depress me!

Anyone else growing either of these two varieties? Are your plants similar? I am thinking it must either be the variety, or poor seed, as I grew hundreds of tomato plants this year, and these two varieties are the only ones I have had that have looked like this!

rhiwfield

Had to resow mine on 9th April as first sowing in late feb was in useless compost, germinated ok but never grew (same happened with all sowings in that compost)

Still trying to use up free packet of T&M Tamina (potato leaved tomato) so got 5 plants of those in greenhouse and 4 outdoors and another 7 of an italian plum tomato (greenhouse) given by a friend.

They've all caught up some, all very sturdy and flowering and the Tamina are setting fruit.

Based on this thread I'll maybe have to buy some seeds for a change!

RAS

More or less given up this year - my allotment neighbour insists on covering 80 percent of his plots with tatties and has had serious blight for the last three years. So my tomatoes go to pot.

Based on my previous experience (with somewhat better summers most years) Tangello, Sungold and Green Zebra beat blight resistant varieties like Ferline into a cocked hat.

Also had huge success in the past with Golden Sunrise, in drier summers.

What I have noticed is that despite the complete failure of outdoor crops on the plots in the last two years (blight), the odd potted plant grown by householders 200 meters away is going until the first frost. I used to cloche them against the frost and get ripe toms off the plot until November, then rip up the plants and use the ripening toms until the end of January.

Next year's plan is to oust things at home and plant them in front of the back door, unless I get a conservatory built instead.

foreign_correspondent

RAS wrote: »

More or less given up this year - my allotment neighbour insists on covering 80 percent of his plots with tatties and has had serious blight for the last three years. So my tomatoes go to pot.

Based on my previous experience (with somewhat better summers most years) Tangello, Sungold and Green Zebra beat blight resistant varieties like Ferline into a cocked hat.

Sorry to hear about your toms - when you say sungold etc are better than blight resistant toms like ferline - in what respects? flavour and productivity? The plants that you lost this year, were they supposedly blight resistant varieties or not?

Primrose

I grew just one Sungold plant last year

Primrose

I grew just one Sungold plant last year - the first time I've grown yellow tomatoes, as well as a Yellow Tumbling Tom, and although I suffered a little blight (and did spray against it from mid July), I found that the yellow varieties didn't seem to suffer from this disease as much as the others did. Don't know whether this was accidental, as these two plants were located in a different part of the garden to the other tomatoes, so not a very scientific result.

System

Hi folks - now this an interesting topic so thought I would be bold and chip in with my list - very few overlaps with yourselves though.
Varieties I have grown before:-
Suncherry Premium F1 commercial variety from Plants of Distinction. Loaded trusses, well behaved, sweet, less acid than Gardeners Delight.
Burpees Delicious - biggie - the winner of our homespun taste tests from previous years - reasonable grower though it peters out quite short for me.
Sunray Gold - from Organic seed library originally. A large yellow with excellent taste and sweetness. ripens late and only moderate yield
Shirley F1 reliable.
Japan Noir - dark variety highly rated by Raymond Blanc in an old rhs trial - extremely vigourous and quick to set, trying growing it a bit dryer this year as it was not a taste sensation raw but ok cooked.
Budai Torpe - nothing special in tomato dept but only 18" tall stocky so it fits on a shelf and gives us our first ripe fruit.

This year am trying these for first time (so can't comment on ultimate yield and flavour just yet)
Country Taste (Mr Fothergills) making big plant despite being sown last, good set.
Marinda (F1 version of super marmande) You can tell these are marmandes even small are rather crinkly
Orange Santa F1 Thompson & Morgan
Gold Cherry F1 sister of suncherry premium claims to be better than sungold - we will see.
Black Krim spotted at a plant fair - Sarah Raven recommended it in her seed list so bought one to test out.

Having tried numerous Heritage varieties with mixed, often poor results have moved towards more F1 - after all the time and effort it takes. Good to hear Brandywine still on the go - it only did well for me in the heat 2006 so it got the chop after 2007.

After numerous years of blight have somewhat sadly given up outdoor growing. Used to have rows of GDs and various bush varieties that yielded tons of green fruit to ripen off at home. Have progressed from a homespun construction made from plastic and pipe to a small polytunnel where I'm still risking planting them in the ground. Plus a small greenhouse with pots on soil where they can anchor through for water.