Results from my garden –unabashed opinions on some varieties

[where_with_all]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share the results from my garden this year with everyone on this message board. I owe a lot of thanks to a bunch of you ( suze, korny) for recommending some varieties for me last year. I know some tomatovillans don’t like critical comments because of the variability of environmental factors, but I think it’s important to tell it like it is, especially if others are looking for advice on what to grow.

My season was turning out to be one of my best growing seasons ever. The weather here on long island was great up until mid August. I was ready to put a stand out in front of my house and sell tomatoes. But the ferocious rain storms in mid to late august really damaged my crop. I lost several plants to disease from all the water and I lost a few plants from some hail storms.

So here goes:

Brandywine Sudduth- I used two different seed sources which will remain unnamed. One seed source has been the one I have used for a few years now. Tomatoes were wonderfully balanced sweet/acid taste, but as usual, low yield. I got a total of 8 tomatoes from two plants. The other seed source had much better yield (18 tomatoes from three plants). The taste from the high yield variety was less spectacular, still good, but not AS good. Anyway, I am not making the trade off so I will try a new seed source next year to compare to my standby

Cherokee Purple- Nice tomato- smoky taste. A good addition to my garden.

Sun Gold- Never a disappointment- great cherry tomato.

Rosalie’s Paste- A great yielding paste tomato that tastes like something slightly better than cardboard. Never again.

Joe’s Plum- Nice plum/heart tomato- but not a keeper- ok taste. Meaty

Kalman’s Hungarian Pink- Great variety, sweet heart shaped pink tomato. Good in salsa, good for fresh eating. Ok in Sauce

Wagner Italian- Small pink paste tomatoes- great taste- almost indistinguishable in taste from Kalman’s above. Good in salsa, ok in sauce. I did about ten different taste tests and both of these tomatoes are very close to each other. I will probably grow both again next year if I can’t decide.

Sarnowski Polish Paste- A surprise- some good reviews but I was not expecting to be that good- A great tasting paste tomato. Meaty but good enough to eat fresh- very high yield. Great sauce, great salsa. Not as sweet as kalman and wagner above. Plant was really resistant to mold and rot.


Next year- I will probably replace Joe’s plum and Rosalie’s paste with Martino Roma and Prue. Although after reading piegirls post a few minutes ago- I am having second thoughts about martino's roma- I decided last year that my past tomato absoulutly has to taste good too when eaten fresh because there is no room in my garden for bad tasting tomatoes. I could always just but roma tomatoes to make sauce.

I am also intrigued by San Marzano. If I could just decide between Wagner and Kalman, I might try to squeeze this one in.

Anyway – thats it for my garden this year. Thanks again for everyone’s input. As always any input is appreciated.

Where_with_all