Choosing Tomato Varieties

[DonDuck]

Worth is right. LGS is a great tomato and I may have originally got my seed from him. The only thing that bothered me about LGS was my reluctance to eat and enjoy a green tomato so I almost had to close my eyes to eat them. I'm still old fashioned enough to believe tomatoes should be red when ripe. That rule doesn't apply to LGS.

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by GoDawgs

When the RKN thing reared it's ugly head in the garden and I had to move tomatoes to containers, it really cut down on how many tomatoes I could grow. So I kept the varieties that have done best for me in this part of Georgia and every year I try one or two new ones. That's a slow "research" pace but oh well.

It's the "What new somethings should I try this year?" that's the hard part. The Celebrity, Better Boy, Early Girl Bush and Juliet remain from the Old Guard. Last year I tried Homestead and Creole and am doing Homestead again this year while Creole makes way for others. It was a nice tomato but is temporarily going away to make room for new.

The new this year will be Stump of the World, Rio Grande paste and Bella Rosa for spring. Maybe two other kinds for fall. Guess I need a few more buckets!

Good luck choosing your new 'maters!

That is one of the main factors in my choices. We have RKN and Fusarium Wilt 3 in our soil, so we went to containers too. The varieties I am choosing produced well even when planted in the infected soil a few years ago. They produced well in containers last year, so why not stick with a winning hand.

Tastes is the other main factor, and the ones I chose are varieties that everyone likes a lot that I grow for.

[AlittleSalt]

I have grown Lime Green Salad in the old infected garden before I knew it was infected. As it turns out, they had no chance at all. If you were to draw a target where the soil diseases are worst - I planted LGS in the bull's-eye. I didn't know. I don't have LGS seeds, but the local nurseries/grocery stores might have them as transplants in March through May? You never know what they will carry.

Sungold that I wrote as a maybe on my list is because I haven't found any seeds for it yet in my collection. Sungold has been available as transplants locally in 2017 and 2018, so I'm hoping they will have them this year too.

Looking at my seed books - SO MANY VARIETIES - lol.

[Tormato]

Variety selections of either being pulled from a hat or placed on a dartboard is the easy way out.



With SO MANY VARIETIES, you can first pull from the hat, and place those on the dartboard.

Originally Posted by Tormato

Variety selections of either being pulled from a hat or placed on a dartboard is the easy way out.



With SO MANY VARIETIES, you can first pull from the hat, and place those on the dartboard.

That's the method I'm missing! Trying to narrow gazoodles down to just oodles right now.

[AlittleSalt]

I did find my Sungold seeds They were in plain site.
So far:

Porter
Japanese Pink Cherry
Sungold
Medovaya Kaplya
Anna's Multiflora
Brad's Atomic Grape

[AlittleSalt]

Anna's Multiflora - I don't know much about. Have any of you grown them?

[HudsonValley]

Haven't tried Anna's Multiflora, but Brad's Atomic Grape was great as a container-grown variety! My seedling was the saddest, droopiest thing I'd ever grown, so I didn't give it a spot in the raised beds. I stuck it in a pot that was way too small (2 gallon, maybe) but it produced the most unusual tomatoes and lots of them. Very, very tasty. Took some time to figure out peak ripeness, but worth the effort. Maglia Rosa (delicious) also produced like a beast in a container.

[AlittleSalt]

We liked Brad's Atomic Grape too.

A variety that I can't find any info on has a really good sounding name, "Black Striped Heart Cherry". I PMed the person who sent the seeds to me. It may take a while to get a reply, I don't know?

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by Tormato

Variety selections of either being pulled from a hat or placed on a dartboard is the easy way out.



With SO MANY VARIETIES, you can first pull from the hat, and place those on the dartboard.

That's what I've been doing except this year. I would pull from the MMMM swap envelope and just grow one I knew nothing about and didn't even look up. Last year's one was great and productive. I need to look it up; I've never seen it mentioned on TV either.

[Barb_FL]

I grow Big Beef for insurance but this year I also grew Damsel which is suppose to be nematode resistant. I grow in containers, so nematodes are not an issue for me; otherwise it would be a show stopper.

Damsel is a winner.

[730dcm]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

I grow Big Beef for insurance but this year I also grew Damsel which is suppose to be nematode resistant. I grow in containers, so nematodes are not an issue for me; otherwise it would be a show stopper.

Damsel is a winner.

how the flavor ,size of damsel? i bought a a pack of seed from johnny it suppose to have light blight resistance . i searched before buying and found hardly anything. good to see you mention it in good light.

[AlittleSalt]

The seeds have set there on the bar waiting for me to plant them. I haven't changed any varieties, and I have given a lot of thought about where to plant them and why.

I plant tomato seeds on Sundays. It's easy to keep with how many weeks they've been planted as Sunday is the first day of the week on the calendar.

My must grows are very individually tasting. Although Porter was our first favorite - the other three are tied as our favorites.

Japanese Pink Cherry - once sold as a hybrid, but is OP, sweet, perfect shape, PINK.

Medovaya Kaplya - looks like Yellow Pear - unbelievable taste. Russian.

Porter - PINK - a tomato with origins 50 miles away - eat fresh/canned/cooked - likes drought.

Sungold - we like the 3 varieties above better.

The other three, well I didn't mean to pick 7 varieties in all, but you know.

Brad, your Atomic Grape made it a long time in our RKN/FW3 soil. It tastes as good as it looks. I have a wind sheltered sunny area to protect the foliage in 5 gallon buckets with the best tomato feeding solution I know of.

Anna's Multiflora - I like nipples, Russian, I got the seeds from someone in Germany. An all around tomato fresh/canned/cooked.

Black Striped Heart Cherry - I have no info, but it sounds cool. I got it from the same person I got Japanese Pink Cherry from.

[nhardy]

The tale of two years. Last year, I grow Damsel. It was a La Nina summer season and made it a loser in my eyes. The early heat beat it down with little production. This year I gave it a second chance with El Nino starting off the season. So far it has had a good production of fruit on steady tall bushy vines. Even though the description said compact indeterminate, it's growing a better plant than Big Beef. To me it's two different plants almost if I did not plant them myself from the same package from Harris Seeds.

[730dcm]

Im really liking Damsel . got the seeds from johnnys seeds . very vigorous plant and productive plant. very uniform decent size pretty tomato. good flavor if it can show some tolerance against the blight it will be my main tomato next year.