What are the best tomatoes you have ever grown?

[HotPepperQueen]

I have been thinking about this lately- what are some tomato varieties that you have grown that have had impressive yields? Healthy plants? Large fruit? Excellent flavor?

 

[ninnymary]

Japanese Black Triefle. Just love them!

Mary

 

[wsmoak]

One year in Florida we grew an *amazing* batch of Celebrity tomatoes. It was the first year for that garden and there was composted horse manure involved. It never happened quite the same way again!

-Wendy

 

[so lucky]

I used to grow really good "Big Beef" with a good yield, but last year they did really puny. Of course, all my tomatoes were bad last year. Big white cores and catfacing. Nothing to eat.

 

[digitS']

Perhaps, So Lucky's tomatoes have just been weather-challenged the last few years.

Here is a vote for Big Beef.

HPQ, I am glad that your question involved more than just flavor. On any question on any veggie we will quickly see that taste is subjective. Some people really like the taste of that one . . . some people really dislike the taste of that same one.

Healthy? Impressive yields? Yes, I will have to go with Big Beef. Of course, you are asking about slicing tomatoes and not cherries.

Altho' I've always struggled to have good choices for beefsteaks here where weather conditions are not often very favorable to tomatoes, cherries are a good deal more surefire. Many of the heirloom beefsteaks that can be grown elsewhere, just don't have time to ripen here. Or, they don't ripen without an inordinate amount of time in the greenhouse during the weeks of late winter and spring. I am continuing to try and there are several new-to-me heirloom varieties each year. I am also willing to go with smaller fruit size and plant size so that there may be a better chance of the plants moving thru their stages of development and producing a good crop.

The "best tomatoes I have ever grown" may be something that has just shown up in the garden or will be out there, next year.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

The best tomatoes I have ever grown are whichever ones I have in the garden that are actually going to get ripe for me. I'm not too picky .

 

[vfem]

Every year I have some heirlooms and some hybrid, each year I change and have lots of 'favorites': Purple Cherokee, Ester's Yellow Cherry and White Wonder are some.

This year, I'll go over the important part of the question... "best tomatoes you have ever grown". Well, I've grown lots, with lots of different results. This year I purposely tests a theory. MAYBE, I asked myself, its not the tomato... its ME... and what I do for the tomato that makes it great or not. So during my planting, I had a LOT of extra Roma tomatoes so I planted some separately from the rest in a bed with compost added, but none of my additional special tomato fertilizer. The results... smaller tomatoes with less flavor were from the tomato plants with out my special fertilizer mix (you can findthat recipe here ).

Here's a picture to see the difference... same type of tomato... same dirt... same compost... but only 1 got the fertilizer mix! Making that the most impressive of tomatoes I've grown this year.

 

[Smart Red]

Since I grow different tomatoes for different purposes, finding the best is more difficult.

Hands down, the best tomato variety that I've ever eaten out of hand is BLACK SEA MAN. First I had to get past the color - a puce-y brown rather than black. Then the interior color - green rather than red. Then the center of the fruit which was pink. I wasn't sure if it was ripe or rotten.

One taste and I knew! It was the best tomato flavor I'd ever had. My 7-YO granddaughter agreed and managed to eat most of the rest of my BSM.

They are large, beefsteak-sized fruits - great for slicing.

Granddaughter also found that my white 'Isis' cherry tomatoes were "more like candy than tomatoes".


Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Gardening in zone 4b-5a, newly 5b? -- anyway, Im still in the same spot in south-est, central-est Wisconsin

 

[Smart Red]

Thanks, Shannon. I'm going to try that fertilizer on next year's tomatoes.

I have my own special way to plant tomatoes that has worked well for me. First, I have compost - horse and/or chicken - added each fall. Second, I start my own heirloom varieties so I can get special tomatoes not available in the market. Third I plant the growing seedlings (at about 8-9 weeks) into the prepared garden bed. Fourth, I mulch the plants with brown grocery bags. Fifth, I cover the bags with straw. Finally, I prune the leaves at the bottom so none touches the ground or mulch.

Since I've started doing this I've had almost no tomato health problems with almost no watering. The past two years, my neighbors have lost their plants to virus or blight while mine showed no signs of problems until the growing season was nearly over.

Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Gardening in zone 4b-5a, newly 5b? -- anyway, Im still in the same spot in south-est, central-est Wisconsin

 

[desertlady]

I enjoyed 4th of July tomatoes sweet and juicy. This year was rather slow because of weather pattern changed. I had too much wind damages. which dries up the floweres or wind burned .