Favorite Tomato Varieties?

What are some of your favorite tomato varieties? I don't really have a favorite, but I do like goliath, brandywine, pineapple, and jet star.

My Mom has fond memories of tomatoes her Grandmother used to have on her farm. She remembers brandywines, and ponderosas.

I have several favorites.
Husky Cherry
Hillbilly
Brandywine
Black Krim
Jet Star (produces more toms per plant than any other)

I tried a black krim 2 years ago. They were really tasty.

As far as cherry tomatoes go, I do think sweet million is my favorite. I also tried a black cherry two years ago and thought that was pretty tasty.

Hi, Too Tall,
Welcome to the forum.
I used to like Sweet Million the best, but Sun Sugar has stolen my family's hearts. Same great taste and productivity of SunGold, but more resistant to cracking and thinner skinned for my garden.
Chocolate cherry has an earthy taste that is totally different, and I love it. Not productive, though.
Favorite slicer is Momotaro, a Japanese hybrid. Sweet, tangy, juicy, baseball sized, and pretty, too. Mmmmmmm.
janezee

thanks janzee

Ahhhh....I forgot about Sun Sugar. I had one of those 2 or three years ago and it was excellent.

My problem is that I want to try different varieties from one year to the next and it's just hard to keep track of. I REALLY should write that stuff down.
There's a garden center not too far from me that used to carry all sorts of crazy varieties. They used to have Hillbilly, Amana Orange, and Mr Stripey. Last year they didn't carry those.....I think that maybe people were turned off by the weird names.

I am sticking with my Gilberties for canning and table fruit they are just great! I liked the purple cherokee and the yellow pear tomatoes I grew this summer.
There are several previous threads that talk about the same subject if you want to hunt them up. A lot of varieties are mentioned.

I like to rotate mine, too. I tried Oregon Spring this year, and it produced early, but the first toms were mealy, though they got better as the summer wore on. Not a fave, though. Bloody Butcher, (talk about an odd name!) didn't ripen fast enough in our cool summer, but was delicious when I got some. I had trouble telling when Green Zebra was ripe. Sweet Million were weird here this year--tiny ones, huge ones, none in between. Roma didn't ripen at all. Too cool, with late blight putting an end to the season early.

Bloody butcher?? LOL that's funny

I saw one at a garden center called Mortgage Lifter. That just made me laugh. If I can find that, I'd like to try it.

I choose my favorites if they are compatible with our cold state, and they have to be very high yielding. Among the cherry-types are: Sugar Cherry, a small red currant-size cherry, high yields, intensely flavored and sweet. Millefleur is a cluster cherry tomato, small, yellow and have up to 50 fruits in a cluster. Very tasty. Yellow Centiflor is a larger yellow cherry, again a cluster type with about 50 fruits on a stem. High yields in all the above.



The red ones are the Sugar cherry, with Yellow Centiflors on left and Millefleurs on the right.

For sauce and slicing, I liked the Carol's Beefsteaks pictured below that were originated with a local family from the old country. Very prolific for a larger tomato and great for both slicing and for sauces.



Moskvich, below, a slicing indeter, is a good producer of tasty small tomatoes.





Above are Sausage tomatoes, great for sauces but I also liked the smaller San Marzano Nano for sauces below.



There are many more I liked but they aren't as prolific. The Valencia is a great tasting tomato that is orange like a Valencia orange and very tasty, a great slicer, so I'll grow them again just for color in the salads.

Some of those weird ones are really tasty, but not very productive. I loved Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra and Black from Tula, but only got only a dozen nice fruits on the plants. Their flavors were terrific. With limited space, I like the high productive toms. I want lots to roast and freeze for the winter.



This is Black from Tula. Its not black at all but a deep wine color when ripe but the shoulders are very dark. They are very meaty with few seeds.



Above left to right: Green Zebra, Moskvich, Cherokee Purple, Delicious. All have great flavor.

Hey quiltbea...thanks for posting those pictures and info

Vorlons and black cherries... though some posted above look very tasty.

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:Bloody butcher?? LOL that's funny

I saw one at a garden center called Mortgage Lifter. That just made me laugh. If I can find that, I'd like to try it.

Funniest thing about Bloody Butcher is that my first ones were heart shaped!
Here's the story behind Mortgage Lifter.


"M.C. 'Charlie BYLES: What I did I took ten plants and put them in a circle and put one in the center.
YOUNG: McCormack has studied this part of the tape carefully and says Byles invented an unorthodox but elegant system.
McCORMACK: Well, he started with four varieties of tomatoes and he placed a tomato called German Johnson in the center of a ring of 10 tomatoes. All these tomatoes were the largest seeds he could find in the country at the time. So, he would go around to the other tomatoes, collect pollen in the baby’s ear syringe, then squirt it on the flowers of the German Johnson. Then he would save seed. After seven years, he felt he had a stable tomato with all qualities he was looking for, and once he was satisfied with that he never worked with any other tomato plants, did any other plant breeding. But he really ran with it after he developed it.
YOUNG: Ran all the way to the bank. Turns out Radiator Charlie Byles had quite a knack for marketing, and sold tomato seedlings for a buck apiece—a lot of money for a little plant in those days. He sold enough of them to pay off the mortgage on his house.
BYLES: I didn’t pay but six thousand dollars for my home, and paid most of it off with tomato plants.
YOUNG: So, there you have it: Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomato."

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:Bloody butcher?? LOL that's funny

I saw one at a garden center called Mortgage Lifter. That just made me laugh. If I can find that, I'd like to try it.

Too Tall - you should be able to find both of these at tomatofest.com. Beware, however, that once you enter that site you may come out with 15 different varieties of tomatoes that you just HAVE to try, and on top of it, they always send a free pack of a different variety for you to try out! All heirloom varieties, and so far, for me they have all been great successes growing. Every year I tell myself 'only one new variety'. NEVER WORKS!!! So far my personal favorites have been: Orange Roma, Purple Russian, and Russian Big Roma, but I grow for making sauce and crushed tomatoes - not a big slicer eater, but even that is changing due to my Manitoba's!
GG

SuperSteak....the bigger the better for me. (Maybe I have a complex, though?)

Honestly, I am having more fun with the SuperSteaks this year. It's now a race against frost to get them ripened on the vine after being completely shut down by a wicked hot summer. They bounced back really well, and I have another dozen I should get (over 30 forming) on one plant that is over 10 feet high and coming back down my trellis.

Hmmm, maybe it's time for an updated pic.

I loved my Banana Legs this year. I need to find a HEAVY producing roma variety for next year. I want to wean myself from jarred tomato sauce. We rarely eat fresh tomatoes, but eat about a quart of jarred sauce a week.

I am aiming for 40-60 quarts to be put up next year. I will be sticking with...
gilberties

Mamachibi wrote:I loved my Banana Legs this year. I need to find a HEAVY producing roma variety for next year. I want to wean myself from jarred tomato sauce. We rarely eat fresh tomatoes, but eat about a quart of jarred sauce a week.

I loved my Banana Legs too - but since only one plant survived my idiocy this year, I didn't get any pure yellow sauce made. BUT, that one little plant must have given me at least 60 toms, and it was only 18 inches tall! Definitely planting more of those next year.

GG

How is the flavor of Banana Legs? Is it a slicer or sauce tomato? With you folks having good luck with Banana Legs in zone 4A, it sounds like a good one for me in 5A. I hope you've saved some seeds to swap this spring. I've saved seeds from my faves to swap.

Hey goosegirl....thanks for the link. Gonna have to check it out.

Hey Backyard....PLEASE take a picture of those 10ft tall tomato plants!! I'm dying to see them!

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:Hey goosegirl....thanks for the link. Gonna have to check it out.

You won't be thanking me when you have to narrow down your shopping cart from their 600+ selection of heirloom varieties!

GG

quiltbea wrote:How is the flavor of Banana Legs? Is it a slicer or sauce tomato? With you folks having good luck with Banana Legs in zone 4A, it sounds like a good one for me in 5A. I hope you've saved some seeds to swap this spring. I've saved seeds from my faves to swap.

It is a sauce tomato, and puts out 3" long thin fruits that are BRIGHT banana yellow when ripe. Mine all had a little nipple on the end which I didn't remember seeing in the picture online but it made it look even more like a little curved banana. My poor little seedling got fried while hardening off, then planted out too early (cool) and too little (stunted from being fried and wilted) but as soon as it was 12" high it started putting out blossoms. I counted my first round of tomatoes at 27 hanging on it to ripen. By the time I harvested those it was 18" tall, and I got at least 2 more slightly smaller rounds of fruit-set. I can only imagine what it will do next year when I take care of my starts properly! I have a few more seeds in the packet if you would like me to send you some.

GG

Wow....that is one heck of a tomato selection they have!

Now if I could only order those seeds and have someone start them for me, I'd be all set. I don't have the room to grow seeds.

Goosegirl, please check your PMs.

quiltbea

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:Wow....that is one heck of a tomato selection they have!

Now if I could only order those seeds and have someone start them for me, I'd be all set. I don't have the room to grow seeds.

http://www.heirloomtomatoplants.com Check out Laurel's site. The link is posted on Gary Ibsen's tomatofest.com. If you don't have the space to start seeds yourself, you might find some interesting ones here!

GG