Big Beef and Better Boy

Ozark · April 16, 2015

Having been so unimpressed several years ago with Big Beef OP (my post near the top), I think I'm using Big Beef F1 like others here. It's the workhorse of my tomato garden, the hybrid with good production and disease resistance and better-than-hybrid flavor.

The flavor doesn't compare with that of many heirlooms, but it's good. Production is heavy and dependable. It provides good tomatoes, in quantity, for frequent summertime batches of fresh pico de gallo salsa and for my wife's home-canned Italian tomato sauce (which is really excellent). For those uses, top-notch heirloom flavor doesn't come through anyway - natural tomato flavor mostly gets overwhelmed by other ingredients and seasonings.

I have 66 tomato seedlings growing under lights now, 8 of which are Big Beef Hybrid. I give most seedlings away to friends and neighbors and plan to grow about 24 tomato plants in my garden this year - 3 of which will be Big Beef. They're a little boring compared to heirloom varieties, but experience has shown they'll come through for me.

April 16, 2015	#28
Ozark Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Ozark, Mo. Posts: 201	Having been so unimpressed several years ago with Big Beef OP (my post near the top), I think I'm using Big Beef F1 like others here. It's the workhorse of my tomato garden, the hybrid with good production and disease resistance and better-than-hybrid flavor. The flavor doesn't compare with that of many heirlooms, but it's good. Production is heavy and dependable. It provides good tomatoes, in quantity, for frequent summertime batches of fresh pico de gallo salsa and for my wife's home-canned Italian tomato sauce (which is really excellent). For those uses, top-notch heirloom flavor doesn't come through anyway - natural tomato flavor mostly gets overwhelmed by other ingredients and seasonings. I have 66 tomato seedlings growing under lights now, 8 of which are Big Beef Hybrid. I give most seedlings away to friends and neighbors and plan to grow about 24 tomato plants in my garden this year - 3 of which will be Big Beef. They're a little boring compared to heirloom varieties, but experience has shown they'll come through for me.