Spitters and other Insipid Tomatoes

[piegirl]

Great thread - I will agree with early posters on Brandywine. Had one or two that were fantastic and the last ones were sourish, icky tasting. Could be if all the stars, the sun and rain align, they are fantastic. Later setter here. Some of the worst I've sampled:

Ukranian pear
Pink Accordian-although it makes terrific tomato lips-like the old wax ones

And Roman Streak or Italian Streak - probably THE most beautiful tomato I have ever seen, we had a display of 3-4 at our Fest, and yikes, they were horrible. These guys are so beautiful they make a love tomato lover cry and then ICK

And Paul, what was the one we actually spit out last summer? Can't remember but it truly was a spit it out fast. Piegirl

[PaulF]

The one I remember was Yellow Brandywine and there was one other we thought looked great and tasted awful but the name escapes me now.

By the way, a couple from Wahoo called me the other night and we have another grower for our gathering. I will e-mail you the details.

[velikipop]

Yellow Brandywine for sure. Huge plant that produces one or two tasteless tomatoes.
Yellow Pear, Stupice, and Purple Prince are true spitters for me.

This might be heresy on this site, but Early Cascade is one of my favourites. It does really well in the wet cool climate of the pacific northwest and when we finally get the nice warm weather in August, along with the drought, it still keeps producing

Alex

[greggf]

Watch it, Alex, you could be crucified as a heretic for your Early Cascade talk! (I've just been watching "Fahrenheit 451")!

=gregg=

[reg]

You guys are crazy, Kelloggs Breakfast is a great tomato. It's like a giant piece of juicy candy. I'm with you on the brandywines the one or two you get off each plant are ok, but not worth the space. I'll agrre that yellow tomatoes generally aren't worth growing or eating.
Last year I was really disapointed with box car willy and arkansas traveler, maybe because I grew them in zone 5?

[Grub]

X-FACTOR: Seed from a large red version of GMG RL grew into a full-blown determinate... we just ate some of them... EEK! X-factor tastes like a cross between tomato
, carrot and cardboard, with a strange texture.

[Mantis]

YUM

[spyfferoni]

I love tomatoes sooo much, that I can't say I have actually grown one that was a spitter---maybe I haven't grown enough varieties. I greatly favor some over others though.

I didn't like Black Cherry if it was overly ripe---gross, but just ripe it was good. Jubilee was beautiful and I liked the meatiness of it, but it didn't have much flavor. Early Girl isn't great, but if there are no other tomatoes around I will eat it.

Maybe my thoughts will change as I gain more experience.

Tyffanie

[kimera]

Any idea about what factors cause Brandywine to sometimes be great, sometimes be watery and mealey?

[TomatoDon]

Here's the thread about "tomatoes not to grow." Quite a few interesting choices here.

Don

[Fert1]

Tastes are subjective, but I also think soil and growing environment can cause flavor to vary a lot. For example, I had always read that Cherokee Purple had a smokey flavor. In my garden it has a very good, strong flavor, but there is nothing the least bit smokey about it. I always thought that was just a subjective description.

Then I went to a tomato tasting last year. I tried someone else's Cherokee Purple, just for the heck of it. I found it to be VERY smokey flavored. It surprised me it had such a strong smokey taste. So obviously that is a flavor component that is brought out by certain growing conditions that are absent in my garden. I like it either way, but it was a vastly different flavor.

I've also seen people describe certain tomatoes as bland that are strong flavored to me and the opposite is also true. A tomato I find to be bland, someone else will say has a robust flavor. While a certain amount of it can be subjective, I really think growing conditions make a big difference. Most people do not seem to like Early Wonder. I've grown it 3 times. Twice it had a very good flavor. The third time, it had no flavor. What gives?

Matina is a popular early variety, but in my garden it was as flavorless as the things from the grocery store. For so many others to like it, I have to believe it had more flavor in their gardens.

Back to the subject at hand, spitters:

Silvery Fir Tree - nasty bitter aftertaste
Matina - flavorless
Brandywine Cherry - flavorless
Red Brandywine - almost flavorless
Black Russian - totally flavorless
Cuostralee - bland

Most commercial varieites are bland to me, tomatoes with boy or girl in the name - trying Brandyboy this year hoping it will be an exception. I tried it at a tomato tasting and liked it.

[OmahaJB]

Don, Nice of you to move this thread back up. I had just posted to the new thread then saw this one. Don't know how I missed reading this one when it was originally started.

Alot has been made about different growing conditions causing tomatoes to taste differently from one garden to another. But I really have to wonder about a lack of seed purity and how much that is the culprit of tomatoes often being bland tasting or "spitters". I'm not doubting the fact that different growing conditions affect taste though, don't get me wrong.

Last year two of the plants I sent to my mother back in Ohio, were Kellogg's Breakfast & Cuostralee. I had read very good things about them on GW and from my trading partner. Then when I drove to Ohio in September I tasted a slice of each of those two varieties. The first was Cuostralee - totally bland & tasteless. Then KB - out of this world good. It had that great blend of acid and sugars you read about in the seed catalogs. Wow!

Then when I returned back to Omaha and read some posts on GW, I noticed Carolyn (I believe it was her) had mentioned there is more than one strain of Cuostralee going around, and that one is possibly crossed and has a bland taste. Probably the one I had received seeds of.

I'm kind of wondering if maybe some of the folks who didn't find Kellogg's Breakfast very tasty, may have received some impure seeds? It probably happens quite often in trading and even with the big seed companies. Either that or people are eating Habanero sandwiches before they eat their tomatoes.

I definitely love the 'strain' of KB I have seeds of. Hope the last few seeds I have left are still viable and stay that way for quite awhile.

Jeff

[nctomatoman]

Good points, Jeff - but we have to be careful. There really should not be "strains" of a particular variety - it is what it is. I do agree with your point that there is no certain way of knowing if you have pure or crossed seed - or even if pure, seed was saved from the line that got crossed up somewhere along the line.

Again, as I posted in the other thread, this is incredibly complex - it is a multi variable situation, with the seed purity/authenticity factor weighing in quite significantly, especially as more and more people get into seed saving and trading and more and more companies offer them.

I guess the way to sort it all out is one huge centrally located tomato tasting where we can all bring what we grow, compare, argue, agree...and even though we won't solve the problem, it would be quite a time!

[OmahaJB]

I totally agree with what you said Craig, that there shouldn't be different "strains" of a variety. I've often wished I had land so I could gather seed of a variety (probably Kellogg's Breakfast) from different sources, then compare the tomatoes off each plant to the others. Just an experiment. Maybe someday. I live in apartment so I'm unable to carry out something like that at this point in time. I'd be real curious to see how that experiment would turn out. I'm sure others have tried little experiments like that.

Jeff

[nctomatoman]

Ah, Jeff....if I only had acres! Odd you mention Kellogg's Breakfast - I've grown it quite a few times, tasted fruits others grew, used several seed sources - it just doesn't do anything for me, yet friends rave about it. to me, that is a personal taste issue...

But, an example of seed source being critical - years ago, as I was just getting into heirlooms (and reading in Fred Dubose' book on Tomatoes how great Brandywine was supposed to be), I ended up ordering it from an old company called The Tomato Seed Company. well, it was potato leaf, large fruited, pink - and amazingly ordinary in flavor. Then I got Brandywine from an SSE member who got it from Ben Quisenberry himself - the flavor was magic! I've grown out the ordinary one a few times, and each time...yawn. The one from Ben Q....great flavor year in and year out.

So - somehow, the Tomato Seed Company is selling something that they may have gotten as Brandywine, looks like Brandywine...but it is far inferior in flavor. Just an example of how you can have variation in the flavor controlling genes that don't necessary have an effect on fruit shape and color.

I can map out the family tree of every tomato I've ever grown - one thing I'd love to do someday is to grow out every vial of Cherokee Purple that I've saved, just to see if I am doing any inadvertent selection in my single plant seed saving.