Favorite red tomatoes?

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by Tormato

Dester and Brandywine Sudduth are way too good tasting to be reds. They're pinks.

Speaking of Dester, I did a cross with Dester several years back and stabilized it. Unbelievable taste, I broke it into two families, Small Pink and Old School. I'm going to send them out this fall, I am offering starts of them in our retail center this Spring. Oh yeah......

[hl2601]

Yay AK Mark! Love your work!

[Goodloe]

Here in Mississippi, the heat and humidity, and fungus, and nematodes make for interesting times when trying to grow tomatoes. My intent is not to disparage any variety, be they OP or hybrid, but I will say that Big Beef is absolutely the best all-around tomato that I have ever grown. It's decently early, VERY PRODUCTIVE, and has great disease resistance. We can argue the nuances of "flavor", or "taste" all day long, but Big Beef is my "go-to" tomato every year.

[JRinPA]

Originally Posted by HappyGardener23

I tend to love colorful, splashy, and unique tomatoes. As a consequence, I often realize too late in the season that I have neglected to plant many (or any) red tomatoes. As I plan for this season, I'm curious to know which red tomatoes are among your favorites/must-grows.

Cuostralee!!


And big beef, though they never get really a deep red they are my main production tomato.

[solutus]

Originally Posted by AKmark

Speaking of Dester, I did a cross with Dester several years back and stabilized it. Unbelievable taste, I broke it into two families, Small Pink and Old School. I'm going to send them out this fall, I am offering starts of them in our retail center this Spring. Oh yeah......

Can't thank you enough for your passionate pursuit of tomato perfection!!

Also cannot wait for a chance to try out these seeds - thank you again

[littleukgarden]

My favourite red last year was a variety called Gourmandia (F1) not sure if it’s readily available in the US or other countries?
Good well balanced flavour, good production and versatile! Went on BLTs, in soup and sauce and was nice fresh!

[Spartanburg123]

My favorites are Aker's West Virginia and Zogola, hands down

[Whwoz]

My favorite the last two years running is Garrote Bicolor Aracenes, a Spanish heirloom

[Milan HP]

Originally Posted by littleukgarden

My favourite red last year was a variety called Gourmandia (F1) not sure if it’s readily available in the US or other countries?
Good well balanced flavour, good production and versatile! Went on BLTs, in soup and sauce and was nice fresh!

Gourmandia F1 is probably a UK thing, perhaps by Thompson.

I wonder what the situation between US and UK is now that UK is not a member of EU any more. I mean in tomato seed exchange. Have there been any changes recently?
Milan HP

[Yak54]

Originally Posted by AKmark

Speaking of Dester, I did a cross with Dester several years back and stabilized it. Unbelievable taste, I broke it into two families, Small Pink and Old School. I'm going to send them out this fall, I am offering starts of them in our retail center this Spring. Oh yeah......

So Mark, what did you cross the Dester with ? Is that the Bloody Butcher cross ?

Dan

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by Yak54

So Mark, what did you cross the Dester with ? Is that the Bloody Butcher cross ?

Dan

We crossed Bloody Butcher, and other early producing varieties, into many quality heirlooms over the years. Bloody Butcher has proved to work very well, they are already flavorful, and are also very early. We have quite a bit of space to grow out many plants to get a good selection in each generation, that helps.

[Gardeneer]

My favorite it big beef. But out of seeds.
So this year I will grow Better Boy and Big Boy.plus Marclobe and Cuostralee.
Down South Big Beef Fights the heat Real well.

[D.J. Wolf]

Ok, disclaimer before I go on...I have only grown plants from commercially available seeds, meaning mostly hybrids.

That said, my favorite for size and flavor last year was Super Beefsteak from Burpee. I can't remember what cherry tomatoes I had last year, but they were really good. I had Early Girls (I think) as well, was not impressed with the size nor number of tomatoes I got. Seems that they only grew slightly bigger than the cherry tomatoes, and didn't have a lot of flavor.

This year I'm putting in 2 varieties of beefsteak, SB and Porterhouse.

I love my red tomatoes, but after reading a lot of posts here, and thinking about it, I believe I'll try a heirloom or two in different colors next year. I'm not a fan of the flavor of most yellow tomatoes, but might try some purple/blue ones.

[Yak54]

If you like beefsteaks try a pink heirloom beefsteak of which there are some really good ones.

[littleukgarden]

Originally Posted by Milan HP

Gourmandia F1 is probably a UK thing, perhaps by Thompson.

I wonder what the situation between US and UK is now that UK is not a member of EU any more. I mean in tomato seed exchange. Have there been any changes recently?
Milan HP

Hi Milan, yes the Gourmandia were a Thompson & Morgan tomato, but still very good by UK standards!

As for situation with seeds from abroad, I had no problem receiving seeds from both Farmer Shawn and Craig in the USA and also Vertiloom and TomatoEden (Belgium and Poland I believe) this side of the new year, also know a friend who ordered and received seeds this week from Renaissance Farms - so either it’s not a huge problem when buying for personal use, or they just slipped through the net and we were lucky!

Know a lot of sites selling plant stock like dahlias/lilies/bulbs/fruit trees etc from abroad have stopped all orders to the UK though now