High tunnel tomato reviews

[Cole_Robbie]

My first crop of high tunnel tomatoes has started coming in. I wanted to share my experience growing several different varieties. Some of these varieties could be great tomatoes, but just didn't do well for me.

My favorite so far has been Terrenzo, a hybrid cherry from Territorial that is meant for container growing. It beat everything else by almost two weeks, and I really like the flavor. The plants grow in a bush without a main stem, so not only do they not need support, I don't think they would benefit at all from it. It might be smarter to grow them in a low tunnel, though.

BHN 968. This is an old commercial cherry variety that is supposed to be sweet. The plants got too tall for my liking. Terrenzo tastes better and sets fruit beter.

Lemon Drop. This plant flowers profusely and refuses to set a single fruit.

Sibirskiy Skorospelyi - this is an old Soviet commercial variety I got from Heritage. It was recommended by members of this web site. I have to say, it is the winner so far among the slicers. Good production, big fruit, and it has that real tomato flavor. I will definitely grow this one again.

Beaver Lodge. Hybrid from Territorial. Fruit are surprisingly ugly. Flavor is best described as tolerable. It tastes good enough for me to be ok with selling it, but the fruit are so unattractive, I don't know if people would buy them.

Bush Early Girl - better than most of the hybrids I tried. Tolerable flavor.

Taxi - My only yellow tomato in the high tunnel. I just ate my first Taxi today. It is not exceedingly sweet like a yellow Brandywine. Flavor is mild. At first I was off-put by the lack of strong sweetness, but the flavor is nice and mild, and I ended up eating the whole thing. I could eat a plate of them I think. Maybe it's the lack of acidity.

Northern Delight - my only saladette tomato. Great production and excellent flavor. The vines fell over from the weight of the fruit, which have green shoulders. I will definitely grow again.

Orange Blossom - a hybrid orange tomato. I haven't tried one yet. They look as hard as rocks.

I also have polbig, debut, and pilgrim. They are looking to be not that impressive, flavor-wise.

I was trying to get an early determinate tomato variety to grow in the future. I also planted a few smaller plants of Big Beef, Tomande, and Celebrity. They are growing like mad and already have tennis-ball sized tomatoes. I'm not sure how much of an advantage I get by growing compact determinates. It might just be smarter to grow Big Beef in the high tunnel, and build low tunnels for Terrenzo and Northern Delight.

[bower]

You must have the Beaverlodge Slicer? I'm growing Beaverlodge Plum, and the fruit are at least pretty (attached), no taste test yet.
Another heavy setter in the determinates I'm trying this year is Siberian Pink. The plant is a bit larger than BLP but not huge, very heavy setting though.

I'm waiting to see which of these plants has 'true' determinate characteristics, like 'ripening fruit all at once' which I've never seen on any plant, or 'not ripening any fruit until all flowers are finished and fruit set complete', which I think may be typical of true determinates.
Some of the others I'm trying are 'semi-determinates' or dwarfs.
Al Kuffa, Cold Set, Kimberley and Siberian Pink were early setters, with about half the number of fruit as Beaverlodge Plum at 90 days from germinating.

[habitat_gardener]

Cute photo, cole -- can you ID the tomatoes in it?

[Sun City Linda]

I am growing Siberian Pink from Sandhill this year. It has set more tomatoes than any plant I have ever grown!

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks. And yeah it is the Beaver Lodge slicer. From top to bottom in that pic, the tomatoes are Terrenzo, Sibirski Skorospelyi, Beaver Lodge, and Northern Delight.

The Orange Blossom F1 I got from Johnny's is proving to be a big yielder. And if I let them get so soft that the skin starts to wrinkle, they are actually not bad to eat. Unfortunately, one of my plants seems to have speck of some sort.

None of my red hybrid slicers are impressing me that much. I should have just grown Big Beef. I am going to taste Big Beef versus Celebrity and Tomande to see which one I like better. I should have put in a Jet Star, too, but I lost the seedlings to damping off. Territorial has a couple greenhouse varieties like Cobra that I need to try so I can see if they taste ok. I have a really hard time selling tomatoes that I don't think are good to eat. I don't have quite the connoisseur level of taste that a lot of people on this site have, but I am a lot pickier than the average market customer.

[travis]

Cole, I've have seeds for a tomato called Northern Lights whose description is similar to your Northern Delight, except they are supposed to be 6-oz salad/slicers. Is Northern Delight from the same breeder, do you know? Where did you get the seeds for Northern Delight? They look like perfect saladettes.

[Cole_Robbie]

I got it from Territorial. Production is excellent and flavor is good. Mine have very green shoulders, though. I end up slicing off the top third and throwing it out. I'm not sure how market customers will feel about that. I'd still love to have about a 300' low tunnel full of them.

[clkeiper]

Robbie, I grew lemon drop in my high tunnel last year and it grew to about 10' tall and was bearing bounteously all summer long. I am sorry it isn't bearing for you it is an excellent cherry tomato. I loved it and it was one of my favorites. I hope it starts setting for you.

[Cole_Robbie]

I finally did get a few of the Lemon Drop to try. They are ok. My only complaint against Lemon Drop taste-wise is that I happen to have Chang Li, a Chinese yellow pear, that I like a lot better. My Chang Li fruit are not pear-shaped, nor much bigger than the Lemon Drop, but they have incredible flavor. I did not put a plant in the high tunnel, the plant I have been picking from was one that I threw out onto a pile of discarded plants next to my greenhouse. I got Chang Li from Tormato's seed swap, so thank you very much to whoever contributed it.

To add some addendums to my reviews, the Sibirskiy Skorospelyi got sunburn very badly, much worse than any other plant in the high tunnel. None of my red tomatoes have impressed me at all. It looks like I will stick to Early Girl and Big Beef for red tomatoes. Taxi and Orange Blossom are my yellow & orange.

Something that really surprised me....I planted one Orange Minsk in the high tunnel. It unsurprisingly produced about five tomatoes, compared to the Orange Blossom F1, which had about 35 per plant. So I was thinking, at least it will taste awesome, right? But no, not at all, actually. The Orange Minsk might have been just a touch better than the Orange Blossom, but not by very much at all. I am wondering if the bland taste of my tomatoes in the high tunnel might be because my soil needs manure, compost, or more organic matter. My fertilizer regimen worked darn well in producing quantity of fruit. I need to work on quality though, especially flavor.

[clkeiper]

I have 40 tomatoes in a greenhouse, not a hightunnel, and yesterday was the first I picked any quantity. I started them in there in March. I have Early Goliath, Ultra Pink, Celebrity, Pink Cupcake, Cherry Falls, 4th of July and a few others maybe. We fertilize with an injector at least twice a week and water plain water once or twice a week. We have a fertilizer program from Millers specifically for greenhouse tomato production and that is designed around the flower cluster placement on the plant...it gets really technical for the really large growers of greenhouse tomatoes....and there is a lot of fertilizer involved. I poured 8 pounds of soluble fert into the injectors syphon bucket on Sat and it was all pumped out the same day (we use the same system to fertilize and water the garden and two high tunnels, too). I would love to do organics for this, but the organics are not water soluble, so we do what we have to to get production and taste.

There is a fertilizer (organic, too, I do believe) called High Brix fertilizer from Berlin Seed in Berlin, Ohio. I am not sure if there are other retailers of it or not, but I would think so. This was developed by a grower who wanted something more for his tomatoes and it is supposed to really make a difference. I don't side dress all summer long, but if you do, you may want to give it a try. I tried it last year, but I only put it on once and didn't remember to "taste test" the ones I put it on.

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks. I have a couple Celebrity, and they seem to be a very good high tunnel tomato, although I'm not quite convinced they are better than Big Beef.

To add to the high tunnel reviews, I am not impressed with Tomande, either for flavor or fruit set. I also have a Ramapo, and am not at all impressed with its fruit set, either.

[clkeiper]

I notice the 4th of July are really lagging behind whee they ought to be. I wouldn't plant them inside the tunnel again. They are mammoth in comparison to their outside growth. I never gave it a thought when we planted them as to how large they would get and they are reaching the top of the tunnel, falling over, not ripening and the ones that are ripe look like they weren't pollinated, but made a fruit. There is no gel inside with any seeds. weird looking and feeling when you bite into one. I wouldn't do this one again in here. We did plant them inside a high tunnel last year and they did better than this.

[Cole_Robbie]

I finally tasted one of my Celebrities. Blech! It was the most tasteless tomato I have ever grown. Big Beef tastes much better and also did not get any BER, unlike Celebrity. It is my big red tomato of choice.

[Deborah]

I couldn't stand Celebrity either ! It went crazy though and I was begging people to take them.