Tomato Taste Test - again!

The tomato harvest is now at it's peak, yesterday's pickings:




It's been a funny old year in the greenhouse. I've been plagued with grey mould (Botrytis), mainly because I crammed in too many plants and the poor light levels/high humidity didn't help either. But there have been more than enough from the 10 varieties I've grown, some have failed and others have had a bumper crop.




In order of my preference:

1. Golden Sunrise is my favourite again, very soft and thin skinned. It's got a distinctive medium sweet and not tangy taste. Mrs JWK says it's too watery for her. It always has a low yield and is susceptible to fungal attacks. I need to find another yellow variety that has disease resistance.

2. Floridity F1 (RHS taste trial winner) Very firm nice texture and much sweeter this year. This is Mrs JWKs favourite. It has lost some leaves to grey mould but because it's so vigorous it's hardly affected. The plants are enormous, on their 10th truss, with a couple more trusses still to ripen.

3. Sungold is small, sweet and very tasty - very prolific and not much affected by grey mould.

4. Black Cherry, a small soft slightly savoury fruit, thicker skinned than the rest of my trial, not much affected by grey mould.

5. Amish Paste (seed from Capney) are nice and firm not mushy like other beefsteak types I've tried in the past. They are great in a salad and cooked. The grey mould has taken it's toll on these, I've only managed two trusses and no more to come.

6. New Girl (not in photo), exceptionally early but the plants succumbed to grey mould so I pulled them up a month ago. Taste wise they were excellent, nearly all the fruit unmarked and very firm.

7. Shirley F1 (seed from Kristen) - I've not grown this before, it has a classic tomato tangy taste with firm texture.

8. Koralik (seed from Shiney) - this is a bush (Determinate) type which can't be tamed! However the small fruit are lovely and sweet, and as the season goes on it gets better and better and is the only tomato not affected by the grey mould. I meant to grow this outdoors as it has blight resistance, next year...

9. Oxheart (plant from Shiney) - I only managed half a dozen fruit from this before the whole plant succumbed to mould and they have been a bit bland.

10. Gardener's Delight, in past years this has been my favourite with a very sweet, firm, tangy taste - this year it's been stunted by the grey mould attacks which has affected the taste.


All in my humble opinion of course

 

Hi John.

An excellent assessment, thanks for sharing :thumb: I grew a couple of those (Shirley and Sungold) amongst others, and by a long way Sungold is my favourite. I think it'll be mostly Sungold in my greenhouse next year

Cheers...Freddy.

 

You've certainly got a good crop John, even though it's been plagued with disease.

 

My outdoor Koraliks are an impenetrable jungle!

 

Are the fruit very big outdoors Scrungee?

 

About 18 - 25mm diameter. I must get into this jungle and measure the spread of the plants to get the spacing better another year. I wonder just how rampant they they would have grown if I'd added more compost before planting out.



I've a few sweet million, sungold, red alert and brasero plants lost to blight over the past week or so, but none of these or or any of the other 'blight resistant' varieties, but that could be just because they're in a different location - might scatter them about a bit another year. Seeds have already been saved, dried and packaged ready for 2012.

 

I've just got back from measuring the spread of my Koralik tom plants as 1000 - 1200mm, and I normally plant bush toms in double or triple rows at 600mm staggered centres - no wonder it's a jungle!

Also picked a bag of fruits and they're generally 22mm diameter - is that normal size?
(they're darker red than shown - the flash has washed the colour out)

 

I am growing Koralik for my seed circle and they are certainly sprawling everywhere,decent yield but unlike on the packet they are not as sweet as Sungold.

 

Is anyone growing other blight resistant varieties?

 

I haven't had even a touch of fungal disease on my Golden Sunrise toms, John - despite the fact that I have crammed my plants into far too small a space. It's just unfortunate that I haven't had many tomatoes, either.

 

I have only grown Gardeners Delight, Sungold and Alicante this year, I have had Black Cherry but found the skins too tough, the same with Sungold which always split. GD is still my favouite dessert Tom. I also found Golden Sunrise tasteless and too watery. Sungella is supposed to be an improvement on Sungold but thought it tasteless.

 

Hi John.

This year, after three years of being sick to death with blight, I tried Ferline (I guess you've already tried them?) After I planted them out, maybe second week of June, they really got knocked back with the cold nights, as did my other outdoor toms. Along with the rest, they took quite a while to really get going. The plants haven't been producing for that long, but they're really getting going now and cropping well. I'm no great lover of tomatoes in general UNLESS they have something that some tomatoes don't have, flavour. Ferline are nice and firm, of good size, and certainly have a good flavour, imo. Although they are reputed to be resistant to blight, I (for the first time) used Bordeaux Mixture, no hint of blight. I shall definately be using them again next year.

Cheers...Freddy.