Hydroponic Tomatoes

[Jonathan_E]

All,

What do you think of the flavor of hydroponically grown tomatoes? An increasing number of commercial tomatoes are grown this way, including the majority of those grown in Canada. I ask this in part because a month or so ago I bought a bunch of high-priced tomatoes at my local Whole Foods store that were labeled as heirlooms and indeed probably were. One looked much like a Cherokee Purple. There was also a large pink and a couple of red beefsteaks (unfortunately they were not labeled by variety).

I was getting quite excited about having finally found decent tomatoes for sale in a supermarket, until I got them home and tasted them. They were all tasteless. The label on each one said that it was grown in Canada. This means that they were probably grown hydroponically, I suspect. I also suspect that because it was too early for any field-grown tomatoes to be coming from Canada.

So is it just impossible to grow tomatoes with good flavor hydroponically? Or was something else wrong?

There is a tomato produced in Israel hydroponically called Desert Sweet that apparently is quite successfully sold in Europe. Has anyone here tried it?

Also, if you grow in potting medium (non-soil) in an earthbox, as many of us do (including me), is that a hydroponic tomato? All hydroponic growers use some variety of growing medium, not just water, for the roots.

Thoughts welcome.

Best regards,

Jonathan