which "brand" of tomato do you grow??

royg_2

Last year I tried about 15 variates due to seed buying addiction but this year limited myself to 3 of the best as was away for a lot of summer and had to downsize:

Sungold - best flavour and nice orange colour with quite early ripening
Floridity - great tasting decent sized plum - seems to need a bit more care than some
100s and 1000s - couple only as very fiddly to pick and ripened late this year but currently have into hundreds of grape sized sweet fruit. Great for the kids to pick and eat.

Will focus on these again next year with perhaps a few extras as still have other seeds.

cyclonebri1

royg wrote: »

Last year I tried about 15 variates due to seed buying addiction but this year limited myself to 3 of the best as was away for a lot of summer and had to downsize:

Sungold - best flavour and nice orange colour with quite early ripening
Floridity - great tasting decent sized plum - seems to need a bit more care than some
100s and 1000s - couple only as very fiddly to pick and ripened late this year but currently have into hundreds of grape sized sweet fruit. Great for the kids to pick and eat.

Will focus on these again next year with perhaps a few extras as still have other seeds.

Yes, that was exactly my intention this year, but I'm already thinking do I actually want a tomato factory?, or the interest in growing as many varieties as practical.

I think I may be doing that anyway by buying from 1 local nursery:A, I bought 3 plants of the same variety, I ended up with 3 very different types of tomato inspite of them bearing the same label:D

ALIBOBSY

Grew quite a few myself this year, I agree about moneymaker-waste of space tbh and haven't grown for a couple of years. But have got some seed packets I got for free stashed away as can't stand to chuck stuff out. May see if school want them for any of the lessons-they do stuff like plant seeds under differing conditions to see what will happen with the kids. Or perhaps grow them myself and flog them really cheap at a car boot?

I like yellow pear for the colour as well as taste, but you don't get huge quantities. San man were lovely fleshy tasty toms, will grow more than one plant next year. My Lidl "hildare" were brilliant, they germinated easily, grew fast, early flowers, first toms and ripened brilliantly. No signs of any desease/blight etc. Still got one in the ground outside in a sheltered area which is producing ripe toms now-didn't feed this one either, but it grew into a real monster and sprawled about. Loads of tasty tomsthough.

Meant to make lots of sauce and soups to freeze, but we ate most of them as we went along even tho there was loads.

Stuck a couple of extra gar delight plants in pots in a side return sw facing and they did pretty well-almost as good as the greenhouse. So going to do more against the wall next year. Will be mostly the hildare I reckon next year. The garden pearl were okish, but a lot of small toms not that much use tbh, will grow less next year.

Davesnave

royg wrote: »

Floridity - great tasting decent sized plum - seems to need a bit more care than some.

This is what I found. Got some blossom end rot till I upped the feeds of comfrey water. Wouldn't be sensible to pay for feeding toms.;)

sussexbaker

I grew Sungold and Super Sweet 100 this year as I got 'free' plugs of the former and was given seeds for the later. Both grew to a similar size in my greenhouse in bottomless pots on growbags. The Sungold started to ripen first and I'm pretty much finished them, while the Super Sweets are still going strong. Tastewise I much preferred the Sungold, a nice lovely sweet flavour to them, particularly when fresh off the vine.

I'm planning on grafting for next year, and going for some larger varieties.

My uncle's crops suffered from blossom end rot, and the biggest difference seemed to be in watering schedules. He was watering every three days whilst I watered every day using plastic bottles on watering spikes ( I slowly moved from 1l bottles through 1.5l to 2l bottles).

Farway

I may have been a premature, with the warm weather some of my Lidi are turning yellow, so I may just get to taste some

cyclonebri1

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Grew quite a few myself this year,
will grow less next year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what we all say:D:D:D


I think the issue is, that they are such a relatively simple plant to grow, (I say that with reservations as some do find difficulty), and they are also a gorgeous looking wine with luscious red against green that it is hard to not plant a good few.:D:D

Given also the cheap cost of seed and the fact that surplus seed keeps, the versatility of the produce, well................;)

kerleytops

Had good results for the second year running with Maskotka which came free with Gardeners World magazine or were picked up for free at Gardeners World Live.
They are slightly bigger than Gardeners Delight and were
grown in a small growhouse
Marmande were very tasty but suffered with blossom end rot, they grew quite well in a small raised bed.
Red Zebra were very disappointing as were Moneymaker and Alisa Craig.
Lots of foliage this year but quite pleased with the end results.

cyclonebri1

Well, I'd already bought next years seed before I posted this topic.

Super Marmande and Beefmaster F1 plus a few left over seeds of whatever variety I have in the draw just for "bankers".

Went for quantity this year, my challenge next time is to grow them as well as possible, ie take a little more care in growing and select for flavour.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Well, I'd already bought next years seed before I posted this topic.

Super Marmande and Beefmaster F1 plus a few left over seeds of whatever variety I have in the draw just for "bankers".

Went for quantity this year, my challenge next time is to grow them as well as possible, ie take a little more care in growing and select for flavour.

I can't remember the last time I bought tomato seed. I am still saving mine, and at the end of the year will be swapping mine for new varieties to try, plus growing the best of this year's saves.

If you really want taste though, you need to start investigating the heritage varieties.