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http://www.durgan.org/URL/?KOBAG 13 August 2010 Tomato types

Pictures were taken of the stem side and the obverse to indicate typical vine ripened growth. Perfect tomatoes are seldom vine ripened. Most commercial tomatoes are picked on the green side, hence tend to have a good appearance.

Of my selection the best for market is Supersonic VF and Lemon boy. Both are excellent in shape and are most prolific.

Most the dark fleshed types are usually scared, but probably have the best flavor. There is little to choose between the dark fleshed tomatoes, and side by side they appear almost identical.

The Japanese Momotaro is similar to many other tomatoes and has no special features. The tomato is nice in appearance, but it rather hard.

Tomatoes have been modified so much over the years that the names in many cases have no real significance. The current hybrids are amongst the best compared to the heirlooms. There are some other types in the patch, but either so few in number or appearance, that they were not worth photographing. My selection is varied from year to year.

I'm growing 20 types in 2012 - 15 will be heirloom varieties. My favourite last year was "Green Zebra" and that is the only one I'm repeating.

I like a change, me.

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:I'm growing 20 types in 2012 - 15 will be heirloom varieties. My favourite last year was "Green Zebra" and that is the only one I'm repeating.
I like a change, me.

I grew Green Zebra probably three or four years ago, and couldn't stand it. Maybe a mindset. Actually the three plants were very productive. Having grown several so called heirlooms over the years, few are worth repeating. Usually the fruit is twisted as if they all had 2-4 D treatment. Some of the hybrids are much better, certainly for most people who never had a tomato ripened right off the vine. During the Winter months I never buy tomatoes, since most if not all are hydroponic grown and leave me cold. They look like a duck, walk like a duck, quack like a duck, but somehow are not a duck.

Durgan wrote:During the Winter months I never buy tomatoes

Got a sunny south facing windowsill ?
Grow your own next winter, tis easy.

water the same time every day and the toms won't split so much

irigg wrote:water the same time every day and the toms won't split so much

I don't water my tomato plants. Rain is the culprit followed by a hot sun.

I find many heirloms to have a better flavour than the hybrids I grow, but the cultivation is more tricky. And, so you suggest, splitting after rain can be a problem, though less so when one is growing for home use.

I was particularly impresse with the Green Zebra, though I can understand the colour might be off putting. Amongst the others I rated from last season were Black Russian and Yellow Peach - both highly flavoured and high yielding.

But I fancied a change. I'm even leaving my long-term favourites of Roma, Marmande and Coeur de Boeuf on the shelf this year.

On the subject of hybrids, can I just contra-recommend Grinta and Borselina? Hopeless. Loads of fruit but with all the flavour of damp tissue.

So which ones are you growing then TRRE? I like trying different varieties too.

Hybrids: Zebrino, Modus (both cherry types), Hildares (very early), Timenta & Garance.

Heirloom: Brown Berry, Sweet Baby, Goldene Konigin, Rose de Berne, Green Zebra, Noire de Crimée, Malinowy Retro, Pruden's Purple, Royale des Guineaux, Johnson's Pink, Summer Cider, Omar's Lebanese, Purple Russian, Red Strawberry, Moonglow.

Some people say that it is possible to grow too many tomatoes. I don't believe a word of it myself.

Odsox wrote: Got a sunny south facing windowsill ?
Grow your own next winter, tis easy.

Really? what are you growing? My windowsills are only about 9 inches wide and the last surviving aubergine plant, which I tried to prolong till the fruit developed enough to eat, went sad and limp on the sunniest.

Christine wrote:Really? what are you growing?

All the details are in previous posts that you can follow back starting from here ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 12&t=25033

I think Aubergines need a lot higher temperatures than tomatoes, although I don't know for sure as I've never really grown them.
I did grow a Vietnamese aubergine hydroponically that flourished, but became so riddled with greenfly that I threw it out. It was only an experiment as I don't like aubergine fruit anyway.

I grow several varities every year,
My fav in Rutgers...I actually did an experiment last summer,
growing Rutgers from 5 seed sources, 2 of them I saved from previous years.
There were lots of differences in them...from size to blight tolerance.
I grow them in raised rows.



My fav heirloom is the Black Brandywine shown below in the cardboard box.
the tomato's in the plastic crate are some of the Larger Rutgers I harvested,
from seed from the seed company 'totally tomatoes' - many were 16 ounce.
The funny thing is, I accually prefer smaller sized friut...like 6 to 8 ounce size.

Oh yeah,
The Black Brandywine is very tasty and robust, Dark red flesh.
Unlike other brandywine tomatoes (I've grown 3), it surprisingly starts producing fairly early for a larger tomato ...but actually I get many various sizes of friut, the largest are just over 16 ounces and there are some as small as cherry tomatos. They continue to grow and produce friut for the rest of the season...But almost all of them will crack as you see in the photo (even with the best water regulation)...and they don't keep long either...and won't travel well if you are selling at a market.
that's my 2¢

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:Hybrids: Zebrino, Modus (both cherry types), Hildares (very early), Timenta & Garance.

Heirloom: Brown Berry, Sweet Baby, Goldene Konigin, Rose de Berne, Green Zebra, Noire de Crimée, Malinowy Retro, Pruden's Purple, Royale des Guineaux, Johnson's Pink, Summer Cider, Omar's Lebanese, Purple Russian, Red Strawberry, Moonglow.

Some people say that it is possible to grow too many tomatoes. I don't believe a word of it myself.

The only one I know on that list is Noire de Crimee! As for the 'too many tomatoes' - well we are still using the bottled sauce from 2010 tomatoes, haven't started on 2011's sauce yet....

MMM - do you get the Baumaux catalogue? It's exceptional. Hundreds of tomato varieties.http://www.graines-baumaux.fr/