I like low acidity tomatoes for snack or in salad. I love the taste of sungold /sunsugar , super sweet 100, Kellogg breakfast. I tried pink brandwine last year and I liked its flavor. I grew Cherokee purple last year,it was very productive in my garden, priduced more tomatoes than I expected. the flavor is ok, not outstanding, so most tomatoes are left on the vine. I might end up with gardenful of tomato seedlings this spring.
I would like to try a new black tomato this year, doesnt matter big or small as long as it has good sweet flavor (already tried black krim and am not impressed). Anyone has a recommendation?
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Yellow tomatoes are great. Even yellow cherry tomatoes are good but the pear shaped yellow ones are an old favorite of mine! These are very easy to grow and in my opinion more productive than the red pears I like to grow.
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Iāve grown Yellow Pear for a couple years, the seeds were from OHS also. The plants grew up to be monster sized bushes, usually about 5ft tall and at least 4ft wide.
They are very prolific, but tended to split because of all the rain we would get. But the flavor was pretty good, a bit tart and a little sweet. It seemed to be a bit disease prone here, but most heirlooms are anyway. Passed on them last year and probably wonāt try again this year, but it still is a good variety.
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Thatās odd, we canāt seem to get Brandywineās to produce well here. The yellow variety is very tasty but very a very stingy producer. We did grow some pink BWās last year and they did pretty well, so I think itās the soil it was in. We might try them again this year.
Iāve raved about them on here a lot, but am quite enamored with Chocolate Cherry, itās very productive, good disease resistant, itās usually the largest plant (+6ft tall) in our patch. And the flavor is awesome, sweet, tart with a bit of that smokey flavor of a dark tomato. Probably our favorite.
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This volunteer from Sun Gold is clamoring along through our āwinterā (currently raining at 55F).
In my garden it has been a far better producer than Black Cherry.
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Donāt rub it in!
In your climate, you could almost grow tomatoes and peppers as perennials, plant 'em and forget about 'em. Maybe just cover them in case of a brief cold spell.
I hear a lot of good things about Black Cherry, but havenāt tried them. I think OHS sells seeds for them. Maybe I ought to try them this year and see how they compare to CC.
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Some cherry tomatoes grow as biennials here and a few hot pepper varieties grow as 3-5 year perennials. Iāve never had bell peppers overwinter. Iāve had a few non-cherry tomatoes make it into the next spring but the hardened stems stunt the plant and they die before summer.
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Are you talking about the heirloom black cherry? I have grown them three years in a row from Baker Creek. They are very tasty but they are very prone to cracking. I have to give them up because of it- seems I end up only getting 1/4 of the fruit inside, the other crack and rot.
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@subdood_ky_z6b I think Brandywines really need cool evenings and mild summers to set fruit. I think they get upset if it gets too hot. I remember reading some old GW threads where everyone was complaining about not getting any fruit from their Brandywines except for one other person who happened to live right near meā¦ On the other hand, there are definitely some tomatoes that really need heat to get sweet and they do awful here. Every time I plant a typical plum/beefsteak/sauce tomato that is recommended for high yield I get like 2 tomatoes while the better tasting brandywines will put out 30-50. Also some that were developed for this area do awful for me (Stupice and SF Fog I am looking at you), so you never know.
I will have to try the Chocolate Cherry. I havenāt had good luck with Black Cherry, so maybe it will do better. I havenāt liked any black tomatoes Iāve planted yet.
Sounds like we have the same weather up and down the whole CA coast today @Richard. Iāve had sungolds survive the winter most years, but they never produce like they did the first year, so I yank themā¦ do you have any varieties that are tasty good producers as Biennials?
I have a bunch of perennial hot peppers too. I canāt get bell peppers grow here summer or winter!
I wonder if the grape tomato I am looking for is the Porterā¦ anyone ever grow it?
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I guess they are heirloom, but Iāve never grown them. Did yāall get a lot of rain, because that would cause some tomatoes to crack. I guess three years of cracking canāt always be blamed on rain, though. My CC cracked last season, but we had a very wet summer, in previous years theyāve been pretty resistant to it. I remember Yellow Pear being susceptible to cracking as well.
@ReaLM, Brandywineās have usually been a shy bearer, until last year, but they were in very fertile soil and did pretty well, even though not a lot of fruit, but much better than before.
The reason I say it was the soil is because we grew 3 orange KY beefsteak in the same plot as the BWās, and we also planted them in another plot with the rest of our tomatoes. The OKB in the latter plot grew up to be big plants (~5ft) but I canāt recall getting more than a few fruit off 3 plants. Whereas the ones in the BW plot gave us at least 20 fruit, no not a lot, but these were planted later in the year, and werenāt as big.
I had soil tests done on both plots for two straight years and the āgoodā plot has much higher P and K levels compared to the ābadā plot. It also had a better pH, about 6.5 compared to 5.0. I really added the lime to get the pH up to acceptable levels as well as fertilizer, but it still needs a bit more nutrients.
We had a pretty hot summer for us, a lot of days in the 90s, but it drops into the 60s at night. That might have contributed to low fruit set as well.
Yes, try Choc Cherry, I think youāll like its results. But we are a world away as far as climates are concerned, but it might work out for you.
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Yes, sungold and several classic red cherries do. This year I yanked all my tomato plants in the fall but then the feral ones started up ā¦
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@ReaLM
You have me wondering now if weather was what the problem was with the low numbers of Cherokee purple my land produced. Big boy, Better boy, Rutgers etc. Do not seem to have any problems with heavy production in the same soil and in the same weather. Iāve also had problems with yellow pears and various cherry tomatoes cracking as mentioned above during rainy times.
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Has anyone tried Madame Marmande Hybrid? Iām hearing good things.
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Figured I would mention there are some great deals on tomato seeds on eBay right now from seed companies and individuals. Many seeds I purchased on there are from legitimate seed companies and others are leftovers from those used for education this year e.g. https://www.m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?sid=1.tropic.lady&isRefine=true&_pgn=1
Make sure seller rating is good like in the case of the seller I mentioned <99% , look at location, look at longevity before making a purchase. Some similar seed I purchased elsewhere cost me 2-3 times the price and a lot more seed comes in some packs than others! A normal packet has 30-50 seeds but some packs have 10 seeds and others 200 seeds so highly recommend you watch seed count this year because seed sellers have angles! As mentioned on other threads shipping should be free or close to it so watch these seed companies trying to make $5-$9 on shipping tomato garden seed. It does not cost close to that to ship seed but I can see a nominal shipping fee of a few dollars for large orders. As many others have said watch it on eBay and sites like it because there are lots more bad seed sellers than good ones. There are tons of bargains on eBay and some very difficult to find seeds from seed sellers who have sold on there 10+ years. .
Soldaki, large red cherry, Amish cherry, Kentucky yellow, black cherry , yellow brandy wine, pinapple,
Cherokee purple, bobcat hybred, giant belguim, mortgage lifter, mortgage lifter, celebrity, mountain fresh,
early girl, better boy, black krim, big beef, two each in 15 gal pots here in eastern NY and two each over in central NY in a garden, two hundred miles apart but both in zone 5 and the weather is the same, but here water is guaranteed.
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I notice a mention of Stupice. Some years ago members of the (now defunct) chapter of Canadian Organic Growers here in the Niagara Peninsula tested it, seed from Territorial Seeds. Growers on sandy soil thought it was a good plant but a mediocre tomato. Growers on clay soil raved about the flavour.
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This year I got more involved with choosing tomatoes for us to grow, partial due to the 2018 tomato growing topic being so useful.
This year, and the two following years, I am going to focus mainly on the 'Black/Purple varieties to see which of those grows best in our varying climate.
I was gifted seeds in 2010, some were tomato seeds, some where the āWeaverās Black Brandywineā variety. That is when I gained interest in the black/purple varieties, I love the fruit of that variety, we pick a lot of them green and let them ripen indoors, to keep pests from taking them/destroying them, they still taste great. As many people know that the variety is slow producing/slow ripening, and it starts production late, yet still we like it enough to keep growing it despite that.
Here is what we will be growing this year.
Slicing tomatoes:
- Black from Tula
- Cherokee Purple
- Paul Robeson
Cherry Tomatoes:
- Helsing Junction Blues
- Black Cherry
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Great lineup!
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@alanmercieca, do you have room for more black tomatoes? I have a few more varieties if you want some different ones to go with the ones you have.
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Thank you for the offer, I do have room for a cherry tomato plant or 2, Ever since I had seen the photo of your āHelsing Junction Bluesā, I have been thinking about the variety. Do you have any spare seeds of the variety?