Tomatoes of 2015: Types, Tastes, and Pictures

yesterday’s tomato harvest.

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You folks sure have weird looking tomatoes. :smiley:

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It’s a big winner here, too. I like that it has just the acid balance that I want in a tomato, which is unexpected from its color.

Also, my youngest does not like tomatoes. She only eats them because they are available and good for her. Last week she took a handful of the sungold to eat with her lunch and called them delicious! She said they were the first tomatoes she’d ever tried that tasted good.

Fantastic!

All gardening is local. I can tell you that EG is a year round proven performer in my locale. You have to do a trial on your own lot to determine which variety works best for you. I know that EG isn’t a sexy choice, and there are a lot of great tasting runner ups that I’ve found.

‘Black Krim’ is good because it’s an earlier/smaller black slicer, ‘Sungold’ is the best cherry hands down, with ‘Husky Cherry Red’ being a special cherry too. All potato leaf varieties are so susceptible to spidermites that I’ve had to give up on them. I’ve had good years with ‘New Big Dwarf’ and ‘Ace 55’ but mites really make short work of them.

Tomatoes are a staple for us, I need a reliable and excellent year round producer.

Definitely. For me the main problem is diseases will wear the plants down. Also in the heat and humidity many tomato varieties decide to stop setting, it seems like half the varieties I try don’t set worth a hoot. We don’t have any spider mite problems and there is really no RL/PL difference. We still both have Sungold as the best cherry, its the only one I grow anymore.

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Ditto on the ‘Sungold’ tomato. I couldn’t agree more. The humidity here seems to bring everything including me to a stop. My tomatoes are now just starting to re-set and produce more blooms. They stopped for a little over two weeks. Ripening is going very slowly.

just picked some Cherokee Purple , Juliet, Sungold, and Ugly ripe tomato.

Another 5 pounds today. Mostly sun gold and black krim.

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For me, I have considered Sungold as the best tasting cherry tomato. But I have found another that I think a lot of this year. A friend who grows tomatoes for local markets (mostly paste tomatoes and a huge variety of cherry and ‘salad’ types) gave me a few new (to me) plants to try. This photo shows 4 of them - from left to right Sunchocola, Italian Ice, Indigo Apple, and Yellow Pear. I thought the Sunchocola was extremely good - a brownish orange color. The Yellow Pear was not bad, the Indigo Apple was better than I expected based on the reviews of others here, but I would not grow it again. Only have tasted one of the Italian Ice, decent but not memorable. A couple local grocery stores and restaurants love these different colored varieties, they buy all that my friend can grow.

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They are so much fun to grow! I don’t like the darker varieties because ‘purple’ is a really hard color to get. When you slice into a ‘Krims Black’ its more of a green rusty color (not pretty). Love ‘Green Zebra’ though and it tastes great!

I have no idea what I have. This cherry comes back for the past 2 years now

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That looks like some kind of Roma,Tom.
I’m growing some of the same as other people posted.Persimmon,I agree Ant Mary,they don’t produce many,but have a smooth,luxurious taste.There were more this year than last,though.
Cherokee Purple is thick and meaty and green around the seeds.
I’m trying a Brandywine and am not sure if there will be fruit as was late starting and only one flower so far,but they are in a greenhouse at work and that should extend the season.
Also,a lot of people’s favorite cherry Tomato,Sungold.
Plus,there are a number of volunteers that came up from last year,mostly Sweet 100’s and Sweet Millions.
Has anyone tried Kellogg’s Breakfast?Sounds interesting and has been rated highly. Brady


Persimmon


Cherokee Purple


Cherokee Purple Inside


Sungold

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I have 4 Kellogg’s Breakfast tomato plants for the first time this year. They are still green will let you know in about a week or so. Its a bright orange yellow color!

If its a cherry, it looks like ‘Grape’

Okay,thanks Mrs.G.Were they started by seed or small plant?I couldn’t find them locally. Brady

They were small plants.

I ordered some seeds of Wapsipinicon Peach Tomato after reading a post by @Chills this past spring. It’s an excellent tomato. Really nice, almost chewy – in a pleasant way – texture and great flavor. Definitely one I’ll grow again.

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I grew 12 varieties total this year and last. I didn’t use any fungicides and used a little Bt here and there. Drip irrigation in the second year. string trellis each plant pruned to 2-3 stems except for the determinants. Heavy leaf mulch. Started seeds mid Feb and transplanted first of April. No major disease or bug issues.
pink brandywine: clearly the best tasting of all based on my blind testing. I think the flavor hype is for real. but only 1-2 fruits per plant. I’ll probably always grow a few of these.
early girl: kinda boring but holds up well in the heat, decent flavor, productive. keeper.
big beef: productive, clearly not as tasty as brandywine, but good enough. keeper.
black crim: I’ve heard great things about this one for the south, but mine were terrible in terms of splitting/rotting, uneven ripening with over ripe on bottom but still green and hard on top. Flavor was pretty good, but a little watery. thumbs down.
celebrity: unremarkable nothing really stands out on this one. thumbs down.
rutgers: ok productivity, flavor ok, tend to rot on vine easily. nothing special. thumbs down
rio grande: really great for fresh pico de gallo, productive, susceptible to some sort of black spot mold, but the spots can be cut off easily. keeper
amish paste: somewhat low production. A really tall leggy plant. not great as a slicer but does make especially sweet tasting sauce. I may grow this one again.
ozark pink: produces very unblemished fruits, decent flavor, not super productive for me and the fruits are not ripening up right in this heat, but did great early on. possible keeper
tropic VFN: Not great flavor or texture, OK productivity. Some of the plants are setting and ripening a bunch of fruit in the heat. thumbs down
cherokee purple: nice flavor, but not mind blowing like brandywine. Bad splitting, rotting on the vine, uneven ripening like crim. I grew these in the midwest one year and they eventually ripened to a perfect even dark red/purple on the vine and flavor was awesome. Not so much down here. the bottom of the fruit is overripe and rotting by the time the hard green on top gives way. I’d like to say thumbs up based on experience up north but thumbs down.
better boy: nothing special about this one, but split and rot pretty bad. Flavor decent. leaning toward thumbs down.

I’ve been wondering if any variety could give brandywine flavor if each fruit cluster is thinned to 1-2 fruits early on. Has anyone tried this? It sure would be nice if that worked on Big Beef for example.

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I haven’t tried it myself but have read that in CA a few growers are increasing brix and flavor just like I do with certain fruits. That would be by reducing water. In CA it doesn’t rain all summer. So one technique would be to space the plants out, mulch heavily, and then grow the fruits with no irrigation or rain. Thinning does increase brix in fruits and should in tomato esp if water could be rationed.