Tried and tested tomato varieties

Daisymaisy

Sungold is a must for me, everyone likes them and I can pick them like sweets to have while I am gardening.

thelurch

My all time favourite yellow is Golden Sunrise, medium size fruits and really tasty.

Favourite cherry is sweet olive, loads of fruit and really sweet.

I always grow tumbler in containers and hanging baskets too, they are the best of the varieties advertised for growing in hanging baskets

The first year I grew tomatoes, I grew 30 varieties!

yumyums

twinkle06_123 wrote: »

I'm planning on planting my first seeds this year. I've only got a balcony but I'm planning to buy some large plant pots to plant some tomato's in. So it seems Gardeners Delight are the most recommended seeds, where can I get them? (Apart from Homebase/B&Q) because they are quite far from home. Ta

You can get these in Wilkinsons. Probably in B&M too. One of the gardening magazines this month also has a free packet of gardener's delight seeds with it so if you can easily get to WHSmiths or a supermarket with a good magazine section you can get the seeds there (though it will mean having to spend a bit more to get them).
Or try Ebay? Plenty of seeds on there

BOGOF_Queen

Tumbling Tom gets my vote - grew them last year (bought plants early May) and had fruit by the end of June (in the greenhouse) - they were very tasty and had loads of fruit - ended up giving them away and freezing some for spag bol etc. My later varieties ended up getting blight in July and thefore the fruit was mainly ruined.

Already started my seeds off indoors so hoping for a bumper crop again this year. Will start some more off in a month or so for a later crop so I will have them right over the Summer months.

morg_monster

We're in surrey too. I grew alicante last year, bumper crop but nothing special taste wise. didn't pinch them out properly so a few plants collapsed under the weight, we have litres of green tomato chutney as a result!
Also tumbling tom - couldn't believe how many we got off these. Think we had 6 plants and we were collecting a fruit punnet's worth about twice a week. Was gorgeous weather for us though.
Both got blight eventually but I was able to keep picking clear fruit off them for a while.

Won't do alicante again, so will read through this thread for other recommendations. Not sure about tumbling tom - fancy trying sungold for cherry but it's great having cherry toms as a bush variety as they're so easy to move (all mine are in containers). Another one I've been considering is gartenperle, seems to get good reviews and again it's a tumbling one.

Oh I also had some Brandywines which I rescued dying from homebase for 20p, unfotrunately they got blight pretty early and I only got a couple of fruit off. They were YUM though! beefsteaks just seem so much extra effort though.

red-boxer

sorry for butting in, but i have a tomato related question,i am looking to grow medium / large sized tomatoes this year, but i don't know which variety to go for. Last year i bought gardeners delight thinking they were medium sized tomatoes - i got a huge surprise when they turned out to be cherry tomatoes no-one eats cherry toms in our household as they are too sweet, so i was giving away bagfuls of them at work.

Any advice would be appreciated

anotherbaldrick

morg_monster wrote: »

We're in surrey too. I grew alicante last year, bumper crop but nothing special taste wise. didn't pinch them out properly so a few plants collapsed under the weight, we have litres of green tomato chutney as a result!
Also tumbling tom - couldn't believe how many we got off these. Think we had 6 plants and we were collecting a fruit punnet's worth about twice a week. Was gorgeous weather for us though.
Both got blight eventually but I was able to keep picking clear fruit off them for a while.

Won't do alicante again, so will read through this thread for other recommendations. Not sure about tumbling tom - fancy trying sungold for cherry but it's great having cherry toms as a bush variety as they're so easy to move (all mine are in containers). Another one I've been considering is gartenperle, seems to get good reviews and again it's a tumbling one.

Oh I also had some Brandywines which I rescued dying from homebase for 20p, unfotrunately they got blight pretty early and I only got a couple of fruit off. They were YUM though! beefsteaks just seem so much extra effort though.

I grew Alicante last year and was quite pleased with them, taste was good was thinking of growing them again this year. I suppose this means that not all seed is good stock and even named varieties can be variable.

twinkle06_123

Had anyone grown 'hundred and thousands' tomato seeds? I've just ordered some from ebay (it was the most convenient way of getting hold of some seeds!). I've also ordered some Alpine strawberry seeds - hopefully they'll grow well in pots!

Farway

red-boxer wrote: »

sorry for butting in, but i have a tomato related question,i am looking to grow medium / large sized tomatoes this year, but i don't know which variety to go for. Last year i bought gardeners delight thinking they were medium sized tomatoes - i got a huge surprise when they turned out to be cherry tomatoes no-one eats cherry toms in our household as they are too sweet, so i was giving away bagfuls of them at work.

Any advice would be appreciated

Large, beefsteak type are Marmande, I had good crop in 2009, but 2010 was rubbish, which I put down to change of growbags

Medium would be something like Moneymaker, which whilst common is cheap & easy to grow, the classic red, round & 8 to the pound beloved by supermarkets

icecreamdogpark

I`m in Surrey too and vote for gardener`s delight had loads last yr really sweet made great chutney !