Just harvested these tomatoes today.
Tony
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Has anyone else grown King of Siberia? For me, it has a unique dough-like taste to it. I’ve never tasted that in another tomato. It was fairly surprising the first time I tasted it, but it seems to be consistent in all the KoS’s I’ve had this year.
I think King of Siberia translates to Korol Sibiri, which I did grow a couple years ago. I believe it was a yellow oxheart variety?
Anyway, what i remember is that the plant was kinda weepy looking, but quite productive. I don’t remember it having a dough like flavor though. To me it was OK, just a mild yellow variety, not real flavorful. But, I didn’t get to try too many of them as the plant got hit with disease and didn’t ripen enough of them.
As a follow-up to my earlier post. This year I planted the tomatoes in a new area. We have tomatoes coming out of our ears. There are also some volunteers that came up where the blighted ones grew last year. They are also fine. I didn’t do anything any differently than I did last year, and the weather was similar. Go figure!
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Looks good. This site says it’s “disease resistant”. How is it for you in that regard? I’m most worried about early and late blight.
Not to answer for Maria, but I grew Romeo tomatoes this year for the first time. Just about all my heirloom varieties get blight due to our growing conditions- warm, rainy and humid. But Romeo seemed to have better disease resistance than most of the varieties I have tried.
The fruit was huge Roma-type tomatoes. The plants had very dense foliage, usually not good to have in these conditions, but seemed to do pretty well. The two plants were on average about 4ft tall, and somewhat productive. We will probably try them again next year.
We tried another Roma type variety, San Marzano, and it had a similar form to Romeo, short and dense, but was always was a blight magnet, seemed like it got disease sooner than other varieties. Hence we haven’t grown it anymore after 3 years of trying.
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Some standout tomatoes for me this year included: Big Cheef, Not Purple Strawberry, Mocha Splash, Marmande Garnier Rouge, Chris’ Greek Mama, Blue Pear, Russian Queen, Rebel Alliance (F7), Komnatny Surprise.
Big Cheef, Not Purple Strawberry, and Mocha Splash: excellent dark tomatoes, far outproducing Cherokee Purple, which I grew the year before. And taste was better in my opinion! Big Cheef might be the best tomato we grew this past season.
Marmande Garnier Rouge and Chris’ Greek Mama: produced some very large red beefsteaks with ribbing, and the taste was great. Marmande Garnier Rouge produced the highest quantity of huge tomatoes in our garden, many 1lb plus.
Blue Pear and Russian Queen were tomato machines, producing until first frost and outproducing plants that were in-ground. These were in five gallon pots but we still had plenty. Blue pear has a particularly good taste, very rich.
Rebel Alliance is a multiflora heart-shaped cherry tomato with dark flesh that produces in mega-trusses. The trusses have 50-100+ flowers, and the flowers open and get pollinated as the season progresses. One plant can probably produce hundreds and hundreds in a season if given a large growing area and well taken care of.
Komnatny Surprise is a determinate paste type that kept cranking them out all season long. Taste was great and they seem like an excellent alternative to Roma or San Marzano, outproducing both of them for me.
Many of these varieties are available through small sellers online, but I hope to do a better job collecting seeds to send out to anyone who wants them next year. Here in humid zone 7 NC there is a lot of disease pressure, so it was nice to see how well these varieties did.
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I’m putting together my tomato seed list now.
For those looking for a good seed supplier, I highly recommend http://www.sampleseeds.com/ . Incredible selection, great prices, and excellent customer service. It’s just a single woman operation, and the website is pretty basic, but it’s my go to place for seed.
Also, great reviews on garden watchdog (one of which is mine!) The scoop on 'The Sample Seed Shop'
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So, here is my seed list from my order placed yesterday:
Gary O’Sena
Golden Queen
Grosse Cotelee
Hillbilly
Northern Lights
Plan 9 From Outerspace
Remy Rouge
Black Mountain Pink
Purple Dog Creek
Goose Creek
Fantome Du Laos
Most of these are new for me, and I just wanted to try them out. My decisions were largely made based on the descriptions on the site.
I grew Fantome Du Laos two years ago and it was by far my most productive. Started early and kept producing all season. Lots and lots of tomatoes, too.
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Sample Seed Shop is great, and they have a great selection of vegetables in addition to tomatoes, too. Here are some seed sources that I have had great luck with or have heard wonderful things about:
Heritage Seed Market: https://heritageseedmarket.com
-they have an excellent selection of tomatoes and peppers. I will be trialing some of the disease resistant black tomatoes developed by Ellie of Bunny Hop Seeds this coming year (Prime Rib and Daifuku). I am very excited to grow Giant Sweet Devil’s Horn sweet pepper, which she says is the best she has trialed.
Renaissance Farms: https://www.renaissancefarms.org
-huge selection of tomatoes! I am excited to try Giant Italian Beefsteak this upcoming season, which is Curtis’ most productive beefsteak-type that he grows.
Sandhill Preservation: https://www.sandhillpreservation.com
-best selection of heirloom vegetable seeds I have seen on the internet! I will be putting in an order with them this season. They are running a truly impressive project it seems.
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Thanks for the review!
I ordered some Komnatney Surprise. I tried San Marzano and Opalka and they set very few. It could be environmental or soil, but I like the sound of productive determinate plants.
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I have a great climate for San Mariano (sp?). I hade the same problem. Set very few. I had only three plants and each plant only set five fruits. Ugh.
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Stan, where do you get your seeds? I have never heard of any of these!
Colleen 6a
These aren’t difficult to find, I got seeds from www.sampleseeds.com and www.rareseeds.com. In other years, I also got seeds from tatianastomatobase.com.
Old thread here, but be aware that sampleseeds closed down when the owner passed away a few years ago. It was a great little store.