Larger Tomatoes With Real Taste

[cottonpicker]

don06... Did you ever see such WONDROUS PICTURES as what BULLY just posted above??? My goodness!!!
Don'ch jus' LUV it?? I DO!!!!!! Beooooutifuull!!!!
Something to encourage us & to strive for....
Bully... THANKS!!!!!! to you.

[Warped]

Bully whats the variety of tomato in the background of Wes and Ernest?
The Paste/Roma one lefthand side

[Grub]

Great eye candy, Bully. You have some real heavies there for sure. I'm glad I perused your post because Ernesto is a tank. Bit of uneven ripening, that's all...

[Fusion_power]

Cuostralee - Big and full of flavor.
Daniels - An outstanding large tomato with real tomato taste.
Omar's Lebanese - Big and beautiful. Tastes good too.
Deacon's Gift - huge fruit with a very good balanced flavor.
Zogola - a bit low on sweetness but excellent tart tomato flavor.
Brandywine - One of the best though rarely over 2 pounds.

Honorable mention for Lyuda's Mom's large red Ukraine.
Honorable mention for Aunt Gertie's Gold
Honorable mention for Tennessee Britches.

Fusion

[Raymondo]

I've all but abandoned big tomatoes. I have terrible luck with them. It always seems to rain at exactly the wrong moment then they split and rot! Big ones I didn't get to taste this year - Tennessee Britches (huge, bad sunscald), Orange Heirloom (huge, split, sunscald), Joe Thieneman's Australian Heart (mostly huge, badly split).
Sooooo frustrating.

[bully]

That tomato in the backround was Opalka.

cut em longwise in half, little salt and pepper MMmmm..start at the tip

[Warped]

a local guy gave us some seedlings to sell in the shop and just said they were roma and oxheart and i took one home and has some fruit on it now which looks like the opalka + we bought some tommies off him he brought in which had a few of the opalka looking ones

Saw your pic and was like ooh

[Mantis]

I grew lots over a pound this year (first time ever). I think my homemade compost did the trick.
Zogola
Brandywine
Soldacki (note the spelling Carolyn) LOL
Faux Box Car Willie
Gregoris Altai
Carbon
All taste good with the first three being the heaviest croppers for sure.
Delicious gave me a few over a pound but I wont be growing them again.
They were all grown in exactly the same way, so how they were grown had no bearing on Delicious being bland and only good for sauce.

[TomatoDon]

Wow, Bully! Those fine pictures you posted were enough to make anyone want to try some of the larger varieties! Great looking tomatoes.

Mark, I really don't know how to describe the "real tomato" taste. I see that term used here a lot, and maybe I just borrowed it. lol I guess I'm thinking of the taste of the mid size red slicers I remember as a kid. I ate tomatoes as a young kid, and then for some reason lost my taste for them and quit eating tomatoes for a few years. Then, we had a Youth Director work at the church one summer, who was in college and a track star. All the kids looked up to him. He ate lunch with us one day and loved tomatoes, and my mother had a huge plate of fresh ones, full red and sliced. The Youth Director persuaded me to try one, I did, and have been hooked ever since. I guess that's the taste I'm thinking about. Have no idea of the variety, and we weren't even growing them then.

We had another man here, "Pappy" a retired highway patrolman. Pappy grew about 250 plants a year. I once asked him why he grew so many tomatoes, and he said, "Well, I'm poor and don't have the money to help others like I want to. The Bible says to take care of the widows and orphans, and this is the way I do it. I don't have money, but I can grow tomatoes." It was common and routine for us and others to find sacks of tomatoes and other fresh vegetables on the front porch all through the season, all from Pappy. Pappy is no longer here to grow tomatoes, but the owner of the gas station has now filled the roll. He grows hundreds of tomatoes a year and gives them and melons away at the service station. It's a lot like Mayberry here!

Still studying the lists every one posted, trying to decide what to grow. Neves Azorean Red seems to be a favorite, and I'm leanging toward this one for sure.

Thanks for the great replies and pictures! More! Goober says Hey!

Don

[TomatoDon]

So far Neves Azorean Red and Cuostralee are the front runners for me, thanks to all the generous/helpful replies this thread has drawn. Both made Carolyn's and Craig's list, and Suze had Coustralee also. Many others did too. Never heard of it before coming here. Brandywine was mentioned often, as well, but it was already on my list!

I assume Coustralee is a red?

OK...no more list revisions for me! I've already added Burpee Delicious, and the two listed above. I think Brandy Boy got thrown in there somewhere, too. Now, at least two more of my beds will be devoted to tomatoes. I've got to stop this and order seeds!

The list now is:
Better Boy
Big Boy
Brandywine
Brandy Boy
Sudduth Brandywine
Rutgers
Mexico
Marianna'a Peace
Stump of the World
Cherokee Purple
Carbon
German Giant
Burpee Delicious
Neves Azorean Red
Cuostralee
Sungold

Sixteen, which will be fifty+ plants. At least three of each.

Now...are there any questionable ones here that you would advise me to skip? Again, outside of the world of Better Boy and Big Boy, I'm a novice. I like Mexico for some reason, but just don't hear much good about it. Is German Giant worth it? The other's seem to be in high favor with most. Another dumb question, of the sixteen listed, how many are considered true Heirlooms?

M, this forum is ruining me. Until this, I thought all you had to do was dig a hole and plant a Better Boy.

Don

Goober says Hey.

[COgarden]

Don06-Thank you for your story about Pappy! My initial reaction was "the world needs more Pappys!" My next thought was "the world is full of Pappys, but they never make the morning papers, the afternoon talk shows, or the evening news."

Do you suppose Pappy could have imagined that his kindness would be known by someone he'd never met in Colorado?

Kurt (A firm believer in the domino effect of good deeds.)

Just to stay on-topic here, what better way to show you care than to share your hard earned home grown tomatoes!

[carolyn137]

Yes Don, Cuostralee is red, but it's one that I had a skin mutation with and I have it in a pink form as well, but I don't distribute anything that doesn't match what it should be.

It's originally from France and was one of about 80 varieties that Bill Minkey, an SSE friend and I traded for with a Frenchman in 1992 after he approached us for same.

And I don't grow tomatoes for size, I could really care less. I grow them for taste, and taste alone.

Carolyn

[cottonpicker]

Don... After looking thru your grow-list above, I think you can do much better than Burpee Delicious. Other, better tasting choices are available. You don't have a green-when-ripe choice in there... Aunt Ruby's German Green.. or Grub's Mystery Green...or....??? Just my personal thoughts.

[Dunkel]

In the small mountain town where I live we have quite a few Pappy's. Folks here tend to look out for one another. No need to ask for fresh vegetables in season. Gardeners like to talk about gardening. You find out quick who doesn't garden and who does. When you hear "I love good homegrown maters, wish I had the chance to plant a few this year" you know there's someone that could use some. Also you find out quick what other gardeners are growing that you aren't and vice versa. Always good to bring a smile to someones face.

The world needs good news but it's rarely reported.

[Fusion_power]

Better Boy and Big Boy are tossables for me. Big Beef gives more production of better flavored tomatoes.

Mexico and Delicious aren't. Mexico has a mealy mushy texture with relatively low flavor rating. Delicious is in the same boat with stump water, dirt from under the floor of an abandoned house, and yellow snow. All are things I would never dream of ingesting.

Fusion