Best tomato of the year

[duajones]

in my garden taste wise is noneother than Cherokee Purple.
I ate the first one off of the plant awhile back and it was very good. Todays CP reminded me of why it is my favorite. It was a perfect representation of the variety, nice texture, juicy and just flat out delicious. Much better than the earlier tomatoes off of the same plant. Noticing that with several varieties this year for whatever reason.
And to top it off, I harvested my 30th tomato from this plant yesterday and it still has tomatoes on it. Looks like my best year so far with my favorite variety. Life is good

[ShallotteNC]

Cherokee Green was my favorite last year. Cherokee Purple and Cherokee Chocolate a very close second. All are in the garden this year. Can't wait

[duajones]

I want to try CG badly

[gflynn]

This is the first year I don't have CG and it is really by accident. I do, however, have the F2 of a cross between White Current and CG and I am growing about 20 of them to see what I get. I am hoping for a green-when-ripe cherry out of the group. You never know.

To answer the question my favorite last year was the F1 of this cross. I called it MORX and it came in first in our tomato tasting contest at MAGTAG last year.

Greg

[camochef]

I've found Cherokee Purple to vary greatly in taste, year to year. even in the same year, the different CP's in the garden produce different tasting tomatoes.
Last year my CP's didn't do well at all,and I placed them at #43 in my listings. Cherokee Green did much better at #25. Now the year before(2008) Cherokee Purple was #1.
This past year my three top tomatoes were Black/Purple tomatoes. Dana's Dusky Rose, Amazon Chocolate, and JD's Special C-Tex.
I just finished planting 81 tomatoes in garden#1 today and will start garden #2 tomorrow, so it will be awhile before I'm doing any taste tests this year, but my mouth is watering for a good tomato already. Keep enjoying yours and let us know what others satisfy your tastebuds.
Camo

[duajones]

I have JD's, Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple all represented in my garden this year. Having grown all three before, this is the first year that CP has out produced IS and JD's has been spotty for me as far as production goes.
I find them to be very similar in taste at times but give the edge to CP at its best. I started growing CP in 06 and it faired poorly for me but I loved the taste so I continued to grow it in both spring and fall with not so great results.
Commercial seed source which I dont remember right now.
I recieved seeds from Suze and Craig through a request and had my best growout the first try with plants from both sources. For whatever reason my success with the variety had improved alot since I started with their seeds. Both of my CP plants this year are from Suze's original seed and I have friends that are growing the variety from seed I saved from both Suze and Craigs original, and they are having pretty decent success considering their late start.
I dont know why I had much better success with the variety once I recieved seeds from these fellow TV members, but it has improved immensely once I started with their saved seed.
Next years growout will be my own seed from this year, it will be interesting to see if there is any difference.

[duajones]

I should have also mentioned that seed from Suze was fairly recent, maybe 2 years old or maybe 3 at the most. Craigs seed was maybe 7 or 8 years old. They both produced identical fruit with more of the beefsteak shape than I got when I grew the seed from the commercial source. I have also averaged larger fruit from seed that I received from the both of them.
I appreciate both seed sources and feel that I have the real deal. Their original seeds will be my base for the variety for years to come.

[rnewste]

duajones,

Have you grown Indian Stripe, to compare vs. Cherokee Purple? I have had good results from I.S. and as I recall, Carolyn highly recommends it. Glad to hear that you are getting an orgasmic treat from CP.

Raybo

[duajones]

Indian Stripe, JD's Special C-Tex, Paul Robeson and others, but I still think Cherokee Purple is the best tomato on the planet. Orgasmic? Not quite but todays tasting reminded me a little bit of heaven.....LOL

[b54red]

My best this year so far was Stupice since it was the first and honestly do they ever get any better than that first one. Will be comparing to others very soon and I'm sure many would taste much better in a comparison but Stupice had it easy this year only being compared to the store bought varieties.

[bigbubbacain]

Last year my CP Paul Robeson got diseased. I had JD's and Indian Stripe to compare. I.S. is my favorite so far, but I've got some Purple Haze starting to ripen.......

[duajones]

Its funny how much everyones taste differs. CP for me of course and I have several friends that feel the same way based on the different varieties I have given them the past few years.
But I also have friends that pick others. An old friend of mine liked Break O'Day best last year and this year picked Moskvich. They reminded her taste wise, of tomatoes her family grew when she was younger.
Another good friend that has sampled every variety I have grown, really liked the tast of Momotaro for the same reason. Reminded him taste wise of tomatoes his Dad used to grow when he was a kid.
Green Giant, which is a fantastic tomato has only gotten rave reviews from one friend. I think it is wonderful but some folks may not be able to get past it being green when ripe.

[KLorentz]

Originally Posted by camochef

I've found Cherokee Purple to vary greatly in taste, year to year. even in the same year, the different CP's in the garden produce different tasting tomatoes.
Last year my CP's didn't do well at all,and I placed them at #43 in my listings. Cherokee Green did much better at #25. Now the year before(2008) Cherokee Purple was #1.
This past year my three top tomatoes were Black/Purple tomatoes. Dana's Dusky Rose, Amazon Chocolate, and JD's Special C-Tex.
I just finished planting 81 tomatoes in garden#1 today and will start garden #2 tomorrow, so it will be awhile before I'm doing any taste tests this year, but my mouth is watering for a good tomato already. Keep enjoying yours and let us know what others satisfy your tastebuds.
Camo

Ya sure your cutting back Camo? LOL. Growing some CP this year and Amazon Chocolate. Gonna be an interesting year.


Kevin

[Lee]

I should have also mentioned that seed from Suze was fairly recent, maybe 2 years old or maybe 3 at the most. Craigs seed was maybe 7 or 8 years old. They both produced identical fruit with more of the beefsteak shape than I got when I grew the seed from the commercial source. I have also averaged larger fruit from seed that I received from the both of them.
I appreciate both seed sources and feel that I have the real deal. Their original seeds will be my base for the variety for years to come.

Even more evidence, (IMHO) that some Cherokee Purple that
is being sold commercially is NOT CP. I'm convinced of that
now, mainly due to major size/shape descriptions folks are
using to describe what they get out of the plant.
I believe Craig is doing a grow out of seeds from Johnny's this
year to see how it compares. Since they were the first commercial operation to receive his seed of CP, it will be interesting to see the results.

Lee

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Lee

Even more evidence, (IMHO) that some Cherokee Purple that
is being sold commercially is NOT CP. I'm convinced of that
now, mainly due to major size/shape descriptions folks are
using to describe what they get out of the plant.
I believe Craig is doing a grow out of seeds from Johnny's this
year to see how it compares. Since they were the first commercial operation to receive his seed of CP, it will be interesting to see the results.

Lee

Lee, your post just empahsizes to me why I've kept every saved seed of those not distributed, going back to about 1990. Yes, I've got a boatload of seeds around here, but why not?

I cringe when I see pictures of some varieties that I know especially well, many I introduced by first listing them in the SSE YEarbook and it truly saddens me deeply when I see how wrong some of them have become, not just shape, not just a different leaf form which dosn't mean it's the same otherwise from the original leaf form, not just plant habit, and not just taste, which I know can be variable depending on the person doing the tasting for the most part, but also due to loss of some of the taste genes which can happen when a variety becomes crossed.

I was able to help out Linda at TGS by sending her original seeds of Rostova aka Sunset Red Horizon b/c the latter as sold by TF has morphed into a heart shaped variety. I was able to help out Neil L, with the gold/red bicolor called Indian Reservation ( I'm amazed I remembered that one) and there have been others I've been able to help out when a variety goes AWOL.

I was looking at a website today and cringed again when I saw that Isis Candy was represented as a German Heirloom and Stupice was represented as a Czech heirloom, and other errors of fact.

In a thread here about OSU Blue there's a Sophie's Choice that isn't and the variety Box Car Wille has gone on the road at some places as something that doesn't look BCW-like to me.

Well, I'll stop here about the errors.

I've sent seed to many places for trial but I've never followed up all that much after they offered those varieties as Craig is with CP at Johnny's b/c in most cases when a wrong variety is received it's just plain a wrong variety,I mean not even close, in which case I have been asked for new seeds and I know Craig has as well for other varieties.

A couple of years ago Craig and I tried to count up the varieties that each of us had introduced and I think for me it was around 400 or so, some became well known and are grown by many, some not so well known, and when I was looking up Speckled Siberian at Tania's site yesterday I started laughing when I saw Spadaro, another one I introduced and I know that Craig still grows it from time to time; it's not even listed in the 2010 SSE YEarbook. And I don't remember if Tania even posted a seed source for it. All I can say is that it's someone's loss by not knowing it.

I just had to look it up in an older SSE YEarbook b'c even I couldn't remember what color it is. And there it was, a great large pink heart, an Italian heirloom from Joe Huth's barber. Harris Seeds used to have a store in Menands where the regional commercial farmer's market was, not what any of you would know as a farmer's market of today, and Joe Huth was the mananger of that Harris Seed Store.


On that same page 318 from the 1994 Yearbook where I found Spadaro here are some others I introduced or listed that I think few of you have ever heard of, well yes, some many of you will know:

Russian Heart, from Jerry Murphy via Peter Phillips of PA
Russian Walco, 1-2# pink hearts, seeds via Thane Earle (SSE member)
Sandul Moldovan, my seeds from the Sandul family
Soldacki, my seeds from Carm Artino
Steve, large pink PL beef, my seeds from Don Podolia ( coal miner, PA)

That's just on page 318.

There's a thread about it here already, but when I think of the many hundreds of varieties that have been introduced to the Yearbook over just the years I've been a member, and that's since 1989, how I wish that many of you had the chance to grow many of them. But these days what I see is a rush to get the newest, the latest, the most hyped about varieties and so many of the wonderful ones from years past get ignored completely for one reason or another.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but sometimes nostalgia kicks in and well there you go.