KBX is the king!

Or at least it is in my garden.

This has been a tough year for tomatoes in my garden. Between torrential rain through the month of May and insects which lay eggs on or in small tomatoes, I feel lucky to get any tomatoes at all.

I grew fifteen varieties including a mix of the best red, pink, black, orange, and yellow tomato plants I've grown in past years. I planted multiple plants of each variety including six KBX and six Lemon Boy. While most plants have only produced a few tomatoes worth keeping, the KBX and Lemon Boy have produced heavily and continue to produce.

Lemon Boy is a hybrid variety with very good disease resistance and very good, but not great taste. KBX as usual has been one of the two best tasting tomatoes in my garden. It has to share that honor with Dester again, but so far I've only been able to sample two or three Dester tomatoes while KBX is almost covering the kitchen counter. My KBX tomatoes are large, perfectly formed, abundant; and taste great. One thing I really appreciate about KBX is it performs the same way every year without any regard to changing growing conditions.

I'm curious if the orange color of KBX and the yellow color of Lemon Boy help protect them from insect damage. I think I probably lost a total of two or three fruit from those varieties too insects while I probably lost fifty percent of my other varieties to severe insect damage causing them rot on the vine. I'm curious if the yellow and orange colors simply don't present the fruit as targets for the insect pests.

Ted

[gssgarden]

In my top 3 every year!!

Greg

[tam91]

I LOVE KBX!

I have to wonder if KBX wouldn't make a good commercial tomato variety. It has all the good characteristics of commercial varieties including earliness and long time storage plus taste which exceeds anything I've found in a grocery store. A bin of KBX sitting next to a bin of hot house red tomatoes would certainly look enticing to shoppers.

I know many shoppers think it isn't really a tomato if it isn't red. Once someone tastes a KBX, they should be convinced it is not only a real tomato, but it is also better than any of the red commercial varieties.

I've seen many displays of "Heirloom" tomatoes in grocery stores. The display usually consists of multiple color varieties and most of those are mushy when they arrive at the grocery. I suspect most of those find their way into the garbage bin instead of shopping carts. KBX should be marketed as an Orange tomato which stores well and tastes great and not as an heirloom.

The only problem I see with KBX as a commercial variety is it is an indeterminate tomato instead of a determinate and the plant grows very large. Commercial growers prefer short, compact plants loaded with tomatoes.

Ted

[greenthumbomaha]

People that aren't fans of red tomatoes <gasp> love KBX. A great performer and gets the honor of being on the short list of growing multiple plants of the same variety every year. Keeps me happy. Prefer to mix it with reds for sauce though.

- Lisa

-

Yep,

Bright orange tomato sauce doesn't sound appealing, but bright orange salsa with chopped onion, jalapeno; and cilantro sounds pretty good though. I have all the ingredients in my garden, so I may need to try some orange salsa tomorrow. KBX is also firm enough that it would probably make a good pickling tomato when cut into chunks.

Ted

[peebee]

I always have KBX in my salsas. The color brightens up anything you put it in. Try KBX, any reds, and a blue tomato for a really appealing salsa or salad. It's a great way to use up all the blues that otherwise don't taste so great on their own, as they sure are prolific.
KBX will always be in my garden.

[Gardeneer]

This season, I had to decide between KBX and KB. I did a lot of search, read a lot of growers' reviews. The bottom line , most said there was no significant difference between them. Some liked KB and some KBX.
Because of Grey Mold in my area , where PL are more susceptible, I picked KB (RL).
As of this date it is at the bottom of nearly 30 varieties that I am growing. NO flowers yet while the rest of them are loaded with flowers and even have tomatoes. They all were planted out April 8 to April 20th.
Anybody else has problem with KB ?

SEEMS THAT I PICKED THE LOSER.

Gardeneer

I grew KB many years ago and it performed very well. The next year I grew KBX and it performed very well also. The next year I simply grew KBX again without thinking about any difference in quality between KB and KBX. In my garden, PL plants normally outperform RL plants grown side by side.

If you had problems with KB this year, you would probably have experienced the same problems with KBX.

Ted

[zipcode]

I keep hearing great things about this tomato. But I still haven't tried it.
How would you describe the flavour? I currently consider the best big yellow-ish tomato to be Aunt Gertie, but that one is kinda stingy, has pollination problems.

[tam91]

I like Aunt Gertie's Gold, and still grow it - but I like KBX better. For me, it just has a very full rich taste, and nice firm texture.

[carolyn137]

I just did a long post about KBX and lost it, so I'll try again.

We have MarthaHufford to thank for it:

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/KBX

Martha and I were still posting at the AOL tomato Forum when she found it and she shared seeds wih several of us, so I wasone of the first to grow it.

I wanted to compare it with the KB I'd known for a long time, so set out both in the same season and IMO they were the same except for leaf form. Others at AOL did the same and said the same.

For many years Martha was sending seedlings from seed I had sent her, up to me , then there were personal medical problems , her DH, not her, and he was a pediatric MD.

That's when Craig L took over and then bcday, then more recently Rob, who got very interested in heirloom tomatoes, tried to make a go of it with seeds I gave him, but it just didn't make enough money for him, so he moved on. Rob islocal, also a Tville member and isstillraising seedlings forme from seeds I give him and this year brought too many seedlings which I shared with Martha, who prepares food for me, Angie who does some grocery shopping for me and is a great source of those wonderful pastel eggs, and still left with a lot and Cheryl, my USPS sub took all of them.

Ihave just 10 varieties in containers out there that Freda hopefully will take care of and since my old cat doesn't eat tomatoes, well, if they perform well I'll have to find others to share with. Both Freda and martha were here this AM and both said that cats that have/do own them eat veggies, my cat won't

I read the link above more carefully since I would love for martha to know how popular her KBX has become, and noted that she joined Tville early on, in Feb of 2006, but had not made a post since 2012. Now that I know her user name here, which Tania had noted, I'll try to contact her that way.

Many of us have what we call our favorite varieties we've introduced and I know Martha would be so very pleased to find out that KBX is now offered by several seed vendors, still being listed in the SSE Yearbooks by several as well.

I once had her e-mail address but that was a computer or two ago, and while Wayne, my computer man and friend ,was able to transfer all that stuff going forward, it never occurred to me to look for it.

All to say,I'll try to reach her and ask her to stop by since this is the only thread I know of that has just KBX as a thread title.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

I just read the comments at Tanias and did find a few differences between the comments and my experience.

1. KBX is the earliest full size tomato in my garden. It normally has some ripe tomatoes on the vines about the same time as my small "early" varieties such as Fourth Of July and Moravsky Div. It continues producing into and sometimes through the high heat of summer.

2. It is highly productive over a long period of time.

3. I've never experienced a single crack or split in even one KBX tomato. Considering the amount of rain we have experienced this year, cracking and splitting should have appeared but hasn't. The only surface flaw I've observed has been some scarring around the blossom area on a few tomatoes.

If you look at the photos on Tanias site, you can see that the KBX is almost coreless. This is nice because it allows the tomato to be used as a large slicer for hamburgers and sandwiches. Only one slice covers most sandwiches from edge to edge. I don't like hamburgers with multiple slices of small tomatoes because I usually wind up with one or two small slices in my lap.

4. I've never experienced a RL seedling germinate from KBX seed. The KBX seed typically is one of the first to germinate for me and the seedlings grow quickly and are usually very strong and healthy when planted out.

If I could find a red or pink tomato with all the attributes of KBX, I would only grow those two varieties every year.

Ted

[gssgarden]

Look at my Avatar! 1 lb 15 oz

Greg

[tam91]

I will be interested to see what others think, but George Detsikas has performed similarly for me so far. It is, at this point, my favorite red.