Need a bit of info?

[b54red]

It is still early in the season and some of the varieties are just starting to ripen. I am already making some observations on some of the new varieties and am finding a problem with one that is a favorite of mine that had crossed in my saved seeds so I ordered replacement seed. The problem I am seeing is on my Marianne's Peace I have both regular leaf and potato leaf plants from the seed. On St. Teresa I have two distinctly different tomatoes showing up as they grow. One is a large beefsteak while the other plant is a large plant producing plum shaped tomatoes.

I am planting pairs of the same varieties side by side as much as I can so I can easily compare them if there are major differences in some of the plants. So far most of the others seem to be true but I still have some that haven't produced yet due to the late planting.

I did notice one very interesting variety St. Lucie is the most densely foliaged plant that I have ever seen. Even with suckers pruned and single stem it is so dense you can't see the fruit except by parting the leaves. I have two of them side by side and single stem aggressively pruned yet they look like barrels of solid green leaves. It would certainly be a candidate where sun-scald is an issue if it does well in the heat which is yet to be determined. I will be interested in whether this super dense foliage creates disease issues down here where air flow is so important in preventing disease.

My Cuostrale plants both have huge first clusters and I fear I won't get any large fruit from those clusters. The tomatoes are starting to ripen on some varieties and these clusters are certainly looking like they should have been culled some.

I have only gotten to sample one of the new varieties so far and that was Italian Tree which was earlier to ripen a couple of fruits than any of my plants. It had an excellent well balanced flavor that really topped a grilled hamburger well.

Bill

[Fusion_power]

Mexican for me was a very bland tomato. Earl's Faux, Cuostralee, and Brandywine OTV have regular places in my garden... for very good reason.


IMO, Marianna's peace can be a very good tomato if properly grown. Do you have seed from me? or were they from Ibsen? Ibsen's seed often produced fluted shoulder fruit with less flavor potential.


I have had very good results with crosses involving Eva Purple Ball. It carries two highly important traits with very small core and very high production and tends to produce offspring that express these traits.


You have stretched your net very wide trying to find good tasting tomatoes. There are quite a few more that need to be tried as grafts.


Have you grown:
Daniels
Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Lynnwood

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Mexican for me was a very bland tomato. Earl's Faux, Cuostralee, and Brandywine OTV have regular places in my garden... for very good reason.


IMO, Marianna's peace can be a very good tomato if properly grown. Do you have seed from me? or were they from Ibsen? Ibsen's seed often produced fluted shoulder fruit with less flavor potential.


I have had very good results with crosses involving Eva Purple Ball. It carries two highly important traits with very small core and very high production and tends to produce offspring that express these traits.


You have stretched your net very wide trying to find good tasting tomatoes. There are quite a few more that need to be tried as grafts.


Have you grown:
Daniels
Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Lynnwood

I sure hope you are wrong about Mexican because I have 3 plants going. If there is one thing I don't like about a tomato it is blandness. I have crossed hundreds off my list due to what I consider bland. The other two important considerations are whether I can coax it to set a fair amount of fruit in this heat and whether it is juicy. I just don't care for relatively dry tomatoes although they are nice when making sauce.

I can't recall if I got my MP from you or not. I got it over ten years ago when it was rare. It was a terrific tomato and had smooth shoulders with really nice well balanced old fashioned flavor. As a result of crossing, my seed now produce a mix of either pink or red tomatoes that are usually fairly small and bland so I am getting rid of the seed and if I can't find a good replacement Marianna's Peace I'll just nix it from my list of must grows.

I haven't grown Lynnwood or Daniels if memory serves me right but Cy is a regular. There are just too many tomatoes to try and at my age I am fast running out of time to try them. This is the first year in a long time where I dedicated most of my growing space to varieties that I haven't had a taste of. I decided to cut back on hot peppers, squash, and will no longer grow melons due to the nematode problems, so I had a bit of free space.

Some of the new varieties I am trying like Cuostralee and Earl's Faux were highly recommended to me years ago but my fusarium problems made growing them impossible until I learned to graft. I am still culling my varieties but still wanted a few more top flight slicers if I can find them.

Bill

[b54red]

I have now been able to taste a few of Ibsen's varieties.

Marianna's Peace is an excellent tomato although I had both regular leaf and potato leaf and both are smooth large wonderful fruits. I believe it is supposed to be PL but the regular leaf one has so far been the larger plant with more and larger fruit but taste wise they seem to be the same or so close who cares.

Italian Tree has produced a number of very large fruits and the taste is excellent and the plants are medium size.

Cuostralee is very good slightly fluted fruit of medium size so far. I must say both plants had a first cluster that produced 11 and 10 tomatoes so I can't be sure what the size would be on a normal cluster. Both plants are on the smaller size for indeterminates.

Earls Faux I haven't tasted yet but it is a larger plant with really nice looking fruit of very large size at least the first couple I picked were.

I got replacement seed to see if I could get back to the Stump of the World that I used to have before the seed crossed and it became a poor producer of medium size fruit. Ibsen's is producing large and plentiful absolutely delicious tomatoes like I remember Stump to be.

My Neves Azorean Red seed seems to have gone from one of the more productive large fruited varieties to a more moderate producer of medium to medium/large tomatoes. Ibsen's is producing very large nearly perfect red smooth barely beefsteaks as they are so thick. I haven't gotten one completely ripe yet so I am hoping it tastes as good as it looks.

St. Teresa I haven't tasted yet but I did pick one or two this morning that were nearly ripe and the fruit off one plant was a huge beautiful beefsteak and the plant was big; but the other St. Teresa plant produced some small roma looking fruit on an absolutely huge plant. Though the plant is impressive the taste is not.

So far I am overall very impressed with the production and taste of most of the new ones that I have tried so far and I am looking forward to the results on the others I am trying. If the flavor and production of some of the new ones is maintained then some of my old standbys may not make the must plant list as I go back to a more normal amount of plants.

Bill

Bill

[biscuitridge]

Thanks for the update Bill, that is very helpful, I'm looking forward to your impression of Earls Fox as this is my first year growing it as well. When you say it has fruit of very large size , what do you think they weigh?

[jmsieglaff]

A good thread, thanks for posting, I'll be checking back for more updates!

[b54red]

I got to taste both Earl's Faux and Neves Azorean Red from Ibsen's seed and both were wonderful. Earl's was more dramatic in flavor but both had that good well balanced old fashioned taste that I am always looking for. Both plants are producing quite well and most of the fruits are large to very large and full of juice. We had a couple of inches of rain in the past week and that may affect the taste of the tomatoes I pick next but hopefully it wasn't enough to water them down too much. We have been very dry for the past two months so the rain was much appreciated and needed.

I will be saving seed from some of the varieties that I haven't tasted in the next week so tasting will take place before I squeeze the seeds out. Hoping for more great tasting tomatoes from these new ones.

Bill