Marble-sized tomatoes

Lotus-eater

Primrose wrote: »

Let's not argue about Moneymaker. Yes, there are more tasty varieties, but if you've just grown a Moneymaker tomato plant, which is the first vegetable you've ever grown in your life, it has survived the blight and you've just picked the first sun ripened tomato off the plant and popped it into your mouth whilst it is still warm, it will still taste like Heaven! We only learn by experimenting for ourselves.

If you read back, isn't that almost exactly what I said?

Anyway, as I said before, if you like moneymaker, try some others because you will be blown away.
And as I also said before, I don't think there is any reason to grow MM, if you like them, there are improved versions that will taste better, have better disease resistance and are better in so many ways. the only reason MM survives I think, is because of reputation and the fact that growers don't know any better, or just stick with ol reliable.
So I think it might be a good idea to try and let them know that there are better alternatives,

Primrose

I think the Moneymaker addiction probably goes back to the Second World War when many people 'Dug for Victory' by growing their own, and in those days the choice of vegetable seeds must have been extremely limited. Moneymaker was probably the standard variety on offer and many people would not have realised that over the years, the choice has become much wider. Tomatoes are by far one of my biggest crops so I too love experimenting with different varieties, although I do need to grow a good crop to supply our cooking needs throughout the year so I usually try to scrounge just a couple of seeds of an untried variety in case they are a disappointment (provided they're not an F1 variety). I've one Tomina plant this year, bought from a car boot sale. It has just three tomatoes on it and no more flowers appearing so I'm glad I didn't put all my eggs in that particular basket although I suspect that some car boot tomato plants sold are probably the weakest seedlings after the growers have naturally taken all the best ones for themselves, so perhaps this isn't necessarily a good guide.