Your best variety this season?

[Fred Hempel]

Was it BBH47? I am looking at my notes, and I think that is the one you had.

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

Best tasting was Rebel Yell, though I didn't get very many. I planted everything late.

All the rest of my larger tomatoes seemed overly watery. Juicy is ok; these seemed beyond juicy. We get no summer rain, and I generally water sparingly by hand every 7-12 days.

One of Fred Hempel's (unreleased) bumble bee hybrids was outstanding -- easily the best tomato of the year! (I'm lucky enough to live in the area, and I got some extra plants.)

I also liked Iva's Red Berry, which was quite small -- between small cherry and currant size -- and took forever to pick, which is why I usually don't grow currants, or grow them only in containers where their size is restricted.

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by Fred Hempel

Was it BBH47? I am looking at my notes, and I think that is the one you had.

Yes, it was. I've been picking them at first blush, if I can get to them before the squirrels and roof rats get them, and they keep a loooooooooooooong time with great flavor and texture.

[green_go]

Sweetest: Esterina F1(yellow cherry) and Sunsugar F1 (orange cherry), first one is even sweeter than second.

Best tasting reds/pinks: Grightmire's Pride, Rebel Yell, Russian 117

Best tasting orange: Orange Strawberry

Best producers: Independence Day F1 and Yablonka Rossii

Independence Day is a tomato-producing machine - the plant is huge with loads of identical-looking perfect tomatoes (too perfect maybe )

Yablonka Rossii is incredibly productive - for such a compact plant (only about 4 ft tall), it is loaded with fruits from top to bottom. They start to ripen very early (about a week after Latah - my all-time earliest tomato) and continue pumping more and more fruits till frost. Even when the frost killed all leaves, the bare stems still have clusters of tomatoes in different stages of ripeness. I grew a single plant and let it grow multi-stems. Here are the pictures of the same plant from 2 different sides - difficult to show the entire crop due to good leaf cover.

[AlittleSalt]

I know I sound like a broken record, but Porter way out produced all others by far in our gardens.

A few others that did really well even through the RKN infestation were:

WOW
Sweetie
Indigo Blue Berries
Medovaya Kaplya
Rebel Yell

[GrowingCoastal]

I also enjoyed growing one Blueberries this year. It was a healthy looking plant with interesting fruit that were sweet when red and ripe. No disease until it got too cold for it which seemed to be sooner than for other plants when the leaves on the cold side turned quite blue.


Large tomatoes have never been a must for me. I always thought they need more heat than what there is here on the coast. Madam Beauce is one I bought later and grew in a container and did quite well along with good flavour. It was more compact than other indeterminate varieties.


The first truss is resting on a 5 gal. pot.


One more I enjoyed this year was Baby Wine (PL). If that taste is what Brandywines are about then I am going to grow more in future. A pretty slicer, not really a true red, more toward purple.

[MarianneW]

The best tasting one I grew was black krim. It was out of this world with very intense flavor, even when still partially green & ripened on the counter. The shame was my weather is so harsh that it kept getting BER so I didn't get great production. I saved seeds to see if I could get it to adapt to my yard, my seedlings will go out when it is finally under 95f next week or two. Since this should be a warm winter here, I'm hoping to at least get them established for when spring starts here in 6-9 weeks.

[charline]

I am growing for flavor. Not interested in huge yields of a medium tasting tomato. So nothing comes back under a note 8/10.

thats what it should be:
- cant wait to taste it because beautiful
- taste the first fruit slightly underripe because cant wait
- eyes get wide and wider.......
- forget to take seeds because ate it so fast
- take every single seed of the next ones to share with friends
- not giving away any fruit, only to VERY best friends
- putting it straight away on next years grow list
- cry when eating the last one


I had 3 of them this season:
- Flanders Contrast
- Reinhards Green Heart
- Coeur de Surpriz

[oakley]

I'll re-visit these pages over the NewYear holidays when i make my final grow list.

I had one of the best seasons yet for toms. In fact, right now, we could pic just our top 12 and be happy. We have room, and grow, about 120 plants. Yield is less important than taste.

I just need to stop reading these pages as i have a no-grow pile of 22-ish, after giving them a few years. And have a new list i want to try.

Every year list...AnnaRussian, GermanRedStrberry, SunGold, CubanYellowGrape.
Russian117,

Best this year...CherokeeChocolate from my own saved seeds and more stable that the original pack from TGS. (or just slightly better shape grown next to the original and more fruit, clean shape, no checking or folds)
And GirlGirl'sWT.
Both of these will get 5-6 plants each. We need more of those two.
Best of the best for us.

I'll still do my trial bed that holds about 36. Room for new ones to test. And give a second year of a few goodies like MagliaRosa that needs a better location now that i know its grow pattern.

[decherdt]

Paul Robeson, because, Paul Robeson
beautiful, tasty, plenty enough, survived the gray mold

[wildcat62]

Really the worst year I've ever had as far as disease but the winners would be:

Paul Robeson
Big Cheef
German Queen
Zeke Dishman
Hillbilly

[kath]

The BEST of 2016 was Black Star (thanks, gardenboy!). Since it was new to me it will have to prove that it's not a flash in the pan and will be trialed for several seasons along with the previous and still reigning keepers: Blackberry, Terhune, Barlow Jap and Not Purple Strawberry, as these have been grown here for 2-6 yrs. and have been amazing for taste, productivity and longevity every season. Sungold F1 is the ONE tomato I love the best, though, but DH can live without cherry tomatoes but not without a slicer and we both agreed on Black Star as this year's best.

kath

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by green_go

. . . about a week after Latah - my all-time earliest tomato . . .

Do you have any idea about Latah's Days to Maturity for you? Latah seedlings started off impressively for me, but didn't produce early at all relative to others. I've seen it suggested that the early varieties may produce early only if planted earlier than one would plant others . . . which might accord with what I've seen in early varieties . . . but anyway, considering your location, I wondered what DTM you were seeing.

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

. . . A few others that did really well even through the RKN infestation were:

WOW
Sweetie . . .

Was that cherry Sweetie or beefsteak Sweetie?



Pritchard (originally Scarlet Topper) was my best workhorse this year. The Marglobe family is my reliable workhorse group, but this year only Pritchard did well enough to defend the family honor -- hopefully the others will be back to normal performance next year.

The workhorse Indian Stripe family (original, PL, Heart?) produced pretty well, too, but I had such a lot of them that I'd expect some of them to produce better than average.

And, as usual, my best little-fruit workhorse (workpony?) was 4th of July.

In the non-workhorse group, I was most impressed by Orange #117 -- I didn't know whether it would do anything at all here, considering its long DTM, and it didn't produce as it does in warmer areas, but produced a number of decent fruit and performance compared favorably with many varieties that are usually much shorter season. Hope it can repeat, or even do a little better, next year, I'll certainly do all I can to help it.

[AlittleSalt]

JLJ, it was the cherry Sweetie.

[nancyruhl]

My best tomatoes of the season depended on the garden I was growing in. One of my community garden sites was awesome with great soil and southern exposure. In that garden Klara, Virginia Sweets, and Girl Girls Weird Thing were amazing. At the cottage I have a resonably good space that we have managed to keep the deer out of for a second year. It is in the northern part of the state and surrounded by water on three sides, so it takes longer for the soil to warm up in the spring so I plant short season varieties. I tried a new old variety called Early Detroit that did well, but Casey's Pure Yellow and Berkeley Tie Dye Heart really outdid themselves in that setting.

In my containers, the output from Tasmanian Chocolate and Dwarf Scarlet Heart were, hands down, the best. Dwarf scarlet Heart is a bit mild, but all have great flavor in my book.

My favorites this year, out of about a hundred varieties, were these (but others like Creole, Aussie, Mountain Princess, and Chocolate Pear, probably would have made the list if they weren't smothered so much by other tomatoes; as it was those varieties were great for taste and earliness, though):

* Matina (early, productive, all-season, indeterminate, large plant, people liked the taste a lot)
* Thessaloniki (good quality tomatoes; large; productive, though not early; easy to find and pick; firm)
* Medovaya Kaplya (taste and appearance)
* Chapman (very large fruits, taste, appearance)
* Cuostralee (decent late-season production, some very large fruits, decent taste cooked)

None of the tomatoes I listed were mealy, which is awesome.

Matina was the clear overall winner.

I liked a tomato that was supposed to be Ambrosia Red, but turned out to be a golf ball sized yellow tomato. It wasn't early, but it was a very vigorous and heavy indeterminate producer. The first fruit or two I had were lacking in taste, but beyond that it tasted excellent. It was quite robust. They ripened very fast. They did split easily, though.