Yes, Purple Calabash is one Jezebel of a tomato. Pretty but astringent. Another truly disgusting waste of garden space. She's sort of like a really pretty transvestite: you get excited by the looks but when it's go time, you're in for a not so tasty treat.

Here is my list of seeds that I'm not planting this year because 2008 was its second try and others have pleased me more:
Delicious - Not productive
Early Girl - Not early and not productive
Rutgers - Not productive
Ramapo - Not productive
Silver Fir Tree - Very early, mushy, and finished early
Riesentraube - Good, but I liked Sweet 100 better
Mortgage Lifter - Late and mushy, many rotted on plant

I want to find a few Sungold seeds to try, since everyone raves about them being better than Sweet 100, but am not going to pay Burpee $4.95 + 6.95 S&H just to try a few seeds.

Other seeds that I stopped growing from 2006 & 2007 are Soldacki Polish Red, Campbells 1327, Rose Quartz Multiflora, Siberian Russian, Box Car Willie, Roma, Giant Yellow Belgium, Ultimate Opener, Whopper, Sweet Million, Champion, Early Harvest, Wisconsin 55, Hardrock, & Voyage. It just seemed that I had too many types and the "weakest links" just had to go. Doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, could have been weather conditions, crowding, etc. This season I will have 15 other varieties that have earned a spot in my garden. I call them my "best of the best" list. Paul

Purple Calabash - a beautiful tomato - but tastes like
bile.
Early Girl - lousy taste, kinda like what'd you buy from the
supermarket.
sweet million - didn't like the taste
isis candy- taste was not there
roma/la roma- I like opalka so much better.
celebrity - didn't care for the taste.
black plum-seedy and re-seeded readily (lots of volunteers)
soldacki- was very stunted in my garden. never got any toms
japanese black trifele- didn't care for the taste.
matina- stunted plant
jeff davis - never got any toms from this one.
pineapple - rots readily on the plant - happened once and I
can't get over that yuck experience.
lemon boy- taste wasn't there - may other yellows with better flavor.

Off the top of my head.

Paul (Rocklandguy), send me your address and I can send some Sun Gold seeds your way. No need for a SASE. I have an unopened pack that I could send about 10 seeds to you if that would sufficient. My email is Dukerdawg@gmail.com

Duane

I definitely wouldn't plant sugary again. No one in the family would eat them. Unfortunately, my 2 year old switched a lot of my labels on my starts last year so I don't know the name of the other tomato that we didn't like. I'm giving Opalka one more year. The plant was huge but the tomatoes were not that good for us. The best tomato we had was brandy boy; large, delicious and produced like crazy.
Rick

One's that won't make it into the garden...

4th of July - what a joke
Aunt Ruby' German Green - tasty, but not productive
Box car Willie - huge plant, small tasteless fruit
Caspian Pink - low production, severe BER among the others
Cherokee Purple - had disease problems
Early girl - not early and not tasty
Juliet - low production, didn't like the flavor
Mortgage Lifter - didn't like the texture
Whopper - another joke..my BHN444 was twice the size.

I'm hoping that this year is a better year for the heirlooms that I have.

Happy Gardening
GK

green doctors
coyote
snowball
white beauty
yellow pear

off the top of my head...

black prince - good taste but diseasy in my garden

eva purple ball - on the bland side to me

kelloggs breakfast - outstanding taste but not worth disease and yield problems. Go with KBX!

box car willie - in my garden extremely prone to blight

berkeley tie dye - cool looks and pretty good flavor but diseasy in my garden

So rocklandguy,
Is your Motto Get tough and grow or go for your tomato plants?

George

Brandywine...did zip here
Celebrity...like store bought

Mule, lol, at your rating system. I see Green Doctor's is 2 pukes worse than yellow pear.

Jan

Thought maybe it was my garden, but Purple calabash - A little acidic is putting it mildly! interesting I tried it at a tomato fest, it was sweet, knobby, not ruffled, very purple, very good. Also prone to wilt
Purple Russian - very prone to wilt, serious cracking
Pink Ruffled - very producive, very vigorous, below average taste\
Brandywines - may try again since I now have full blazing sunlight but depending on the strain they have been sour, low/late production and take a lot of space
Thessolinike (sp?) not sure what it should be since descriptions vary but it was low production, roma type, crunchy, tasteless, beautiful red and does stay well on the vine.
Togorific - may/may not grow again - not stable, very productive, real 'togo' flavor (bland) 2 plants grew true, three did not. Disease prone but probably earns lots of points for the cutest tomato ever! Hopefully the 100s of togo cherries - will not self seed.
Rutgers
Early Girl
That's all I can think of right now - piegirl

The only thing I have grown before that I will not be trying again is Kelloggs breakfast. It was plenty productive for me but most had rotten spots. I tried picking some before they were ripe to try to avoid the rotting issue but they just rotted on my counter instead of the vine. The few that did make it tasted good but with the rotting problems it was not worth the garden space. This year I am planting Aunt Gertie's Gold instead.

A few dozen I would not grow again, mostly because of disappointment compared to my expectations...a few are:

Yellow Pear...almost goes without saying, had no real expectations, big healthy plant, lots of pretty fruit, awful texture, awful taste, waste of space.

Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red...plants looked great, fruits looked perfect, but not much taste and were almost crunchy when ripe (like those crappy 'vine ripened' supermarket toms that have been turned red through applications of chemicals). From descriptions from seller I expected a lot more, and grew this in 2007 with constant sun and perfect weather.

Black Zebra...huge production on 3 plants (seeds were mislabeled, was supposed to have been Carbon), horribly bland flavour, spitter, not even salvageable for sauce

Kellogg's Breakfast...skins of ALL of these tomatoes were scarred and marred, did not happen with any other varieties. Fruits has stringy flesh like the inside of a pumpkin. Not good. However, recommendations are so positive for this that I will probably try KBX and see how it does.

Aunt Ginny's Purple, Aunt Gerties Gold, Stump of the World, Earl's Faux all looked great and produced fruit but none lived up to the tasting notes that I have read (all were grown in 2007 with perfect tomato weather)...but may need to try one or two again in the future, but not this year.

As for Brandywine Sudduth, production has been inconsistent, but taste has been top 3 (of 30 or more varieties grown over last 2 years). Problems be damned, tomatoes taste too good to leave off the list.

Same goes for Cherokee Purple...shame when plant bites the dust and only 3 fruits have matured, but they just taste so good. Also top 3 (black krim probably the other in top 3)

Green Zebra has always been tasty for me, complex and sweet and somewhat tart, but production reduced drastically due to extensive BER. Not on this year's list but would grow again...and I suppose I understand why others do not like it.

Delicious - I have to grow it this year because I didn't save seeds (for trading) the last time I did- It's just not a superior (or large) tomato.

Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red --I have to grow it this year because I didn't save seeds (for trading) the last time I did- Its a perfect looking plant and fruit, but the flavor is not what I like.

Yellow Pear--People around me have no sense of taste, and like the look, so I may have to plant it yet again so they can eat six or so of them and be happy.

Green Zebra--don't like the flavor.

Paul Robeson--don't like the musty-mushroomy flavor.

Carbon and Black from Tula--Prefer (love) Black Krim and JBT instead

Black Plum --did not develop much flavor for me and the total poundage of fruit was not enough for serious cooking.

Black Prince -- was identical in size and flavor to my Nyagous but tended to crack and was slighly less productive.

Yea geeboss, that is basically it! I am looking for what I can grow that I know will not be a waste of time and space. I'm sure you know it takes a lot of time & work starting from seed, all the way to the end product.

-Better Boy--no toms
-Early Girl--no toms
-Snow White--sunburned cracked fruit, low production
-Cherokee Purple--low production, and the toms were sooo yummy that my old dachshund destroyed every barrier I put around it, trampling everything in her short-legged way in order to eat them before I could
-mixed feelings about Sungold--was delish and productive but irresistible to every pest in the garden except the dog.

I know there are ones from the past that sucked which I can't remember right now. This year, the tomatoes that have disinvited themselves from my garden are:

Lemon Boy: Prolific but totally bland. Not different than a grocery store tomato.
Red Grape: Also prolific and bland.

Why is it that the most flavorless tomatoes are always so high yielding?

Sophie's Choice was the worst ever for me. Terrible taste, not early and very productive.

Green Zebra I may grow again but only when I have space to burn.

Ditto black cherry.

Sungold didn't impress here. I'm trying Black Cherry this year.
I've tried most Brandywines and have failed to find that unique can't be beaten taste so many rave about. I'm trying another one called Cowlick's Branywine this year. Lucky Cross was the best tomato I ever tasted the year I grew it but only two fruit. So it will be back.
Adelia, Ana's Noire, Box Car Willie, Condine Red, JD's Special C Tex, New Big Dwarf and Rio Grande are all ones that failed to impress. A few will get a second chance. For most there are too many to try to waste space on them. JD

I won't plant Early Girl again. I planted one last year, and it didn't taste any better than the supermarket tomatoes. Compare that to my mother-in-law's tomatoes (I don't know what variety she grew), which tasted AMAZING.

Then again, that might be unfair of me, because last year's Early Girl:

1. Was my first tomato plant.
2. My first plant ever, actually.
3. I planted it in too small a container (5 gal)
4. I tried to compensate by trimming some of the stems.
5. Tomato plant subsequently stopped growing.
6. Convinced that I had messed the plant up too much, I ceased watering it entirely and gave up.

Despite all that, the little sucker managed to sprout a flowering leaf, after which I resumed watering it and managed to get a single tiny little tomato out of it.

Made myself a promise not to grow WEEDS, you all know what I'm talking about......those wonderful and great looking tomato plants that only produce 2 or 3 fruits the entire summer. :-) Just how many growers continue to grow WEEDS

George

Ditto what George said

Corrie

What is KBX? Is that short for something, or an actual name?

I'm laughing my head off at the yellow pear comments. I absolutely detested it last year, gave all of them away, and people LOVED THEM and are asking me to plant it again this year! ROFL! Can you believe it? ;-)

KBX is Kelloggs Breakfast, PotatoLeaf form

I won't try Principe Borghese again. I knew the tomatoes were smaller, but the size of yellow pear?? Not to mention the flavor was very bland. I grew it for sun dried tomatoes, but I don't want them to be dime sized when dry. It was particularly disappointing as all my other varieties did well last year. I can't even blame it on a bad year.

Bellatrix

Last year was my first year with heirlooms, and I tried about 20 of them. Most were good, but some were not worth the space. Yellow brandywine is one of them. 2 plants in the ground for about 6 months and not a single fruit. Others not returning:

Aunt Ruby's German Green - didn't care for the taste
Big Zac - only 2 fruits on 2 plants, taste and size not there
Yellow pear - yuck!
Supersweet 100 - plenty prolific, but thick skins and sungold is so much better
Black brandywine - black krim and cherokee chocolate much better

jj

Won't grow:

Juanne Flamme (pretty but awful)
Kelloggs Breakfast (boring taste)
Rutgers (supermarket type)
New Big Dwarf (not much taste)
Prudens Purple (mushy)
Black Cherry (I don't understand all the hype for this, and I couldn't even give them away because they look so different.)
Lime Green Salad (they don't last after you pick them and they split just by looking at them.)

Good thread, keep 'em coming.

We just ordered a bunch of seeds before looking here; oh well, we will see how those work (Black Cherry - we liked the flavor of these from the farmer's market last year, Isis Candy).

As far as the do nots:

Brandywine - Serious yuck! Tasted like "Cello tomatoes." And they produced about 6 tomatoes on two plants.

Mr. Stripey - Not very productive and not very tasty

Green Zebra - This one is on the fence. I love green tomatoes, but they didn't have the intense flavor I was hoping they would have.

Kim

Opalka is a no no for me. It was so prone to blight last summer I even threw out my extra seeds. Would not give them to my worst enemy. A disease-prone variety is not worth growing no matter how good it tastes.

I am very surprised at some of the no no varieties listed by some folks. I think they would taste better if grown in lots of compost and manure, and allowed to FULLY ripen.

I know people who have grown tomatoes for 50 years, and still pick and eat them "green". They must not have any taste buds. lol

Early Girl is the BEST early tomato ever developed, and it tells me something when people bash it.

But, like my wife, everyone has a mind of their own. lol

Early Girl is the BEST early tomato ever developed, and it tells me something when people bash it.

I grew "Bush Early Girl" last year and was impressed. It tasted better than anything I could buy at the store and produced very well, even though it was attacked all season by russet mites (I think I bought it that way and didn't find out what it was 'til the end of the season).

However, with that said, I don't think I'll be growing it again this year. My garden is going to be purely heirloom (minus the cherries) this year. If I do decide to plant a hybrid, I may go with the BHN444 for comparison purposes.

I am avoiding all plum tomatoes as I never have any joy. Also, not planting cherry type apart from Sungold. I have got Sungella, Auntie Madge, Carter;s Golden Sunrise, Black Russian and Royeaux des Guinea (spelling?). I also like Ferline (modern, blight resistant). It is always a bit of a gamble isn't it and peoples tastes are very subjective. Even so, recommendations have been the most fruitful route for me since catalogues are always sooooo enthusiastic.

Kind of reiterates Carolyns advice that taste is variable from palate to palate, climate to microclimate and growing technique to growing medium.
A good thread to get an idea and base to make selections!

Tom

See also:

Tomatoes that suck

A great thread from '07...

These two will never grace my ground again. I pulled each of them mid-season, full of tomatoes because I couldn't stand to eat another.

Ceylon - sour, bag of seeds that quickly rotted, very pretty though

Coyote - something about the taste and my taste buds disagreed a lot! But it wasn't too sour or too sweet. I can't quite pinpoint why it tasted so bad. I just know it did.

I like reading lists like this too. Even if I know that our tastes, seasons and soils differ. I have a hard time getting any usuable info. from the catalogs regarding taste because the descriptions make every tomato sound awesome.

Cindy

Yellow and Red Pears - mushy, mealy, prone to split spitters, even if they are cute.

Tangella - zillions of cute little orange toms with zero taste.

White Queen - bland sacks of mush that tended to rot. Made for a pretty white salsa though.

Box Car Willie - no taste, thankfully had low production.

Eva Purple Ball - didn't perform well for me, lots of sunscald (only toms in the garden with this issue) and no taste. So bad I pulled the plant in early August.

Lemon Boy - pretty low on flavor. Golden Queen USDA strain is much better.

Aunt Gerdie's Gold didn't do well for me. Tasted like smoke. Given the rave reviews I will probably try it again sometime, just not this year.

Sweet Millions - I thought Sweet 100s were much better.

Brandy Boy, Better Boy, Cherokee Purple, NAR, Solar Set, Tropic, Gary O' Sena. All were disease ridden & the few tomatoes I did get were not good.

I've only grown a few varieties - this year is my second year growing tomatoes myself - but three that I grew last year I am definitely not growing this year. White wonder (too sweet and not enough tomato flavor); Great white (the two GWs I grew last year produced completely different fruit and since I didn't like the other white variety I am not growing this one as well); and Hank, which was acidic (which I don't hate) but it also had a slight bitter edge and way too many seeds, and produced lots of small 2-3 oz fruits not worth growing again.

This year, the varieties I am growing that I have not grown before are - Black plum, Riesentraube, Delicious, Hartmans Yellow Gooseberry (I might give the plants of this variety away if I don't have enough space in the garden), and Caspian Pink. So I am going for a couple large tomatoes, a couple small tomatoes, as well as a plum tomato which has won taste contests, and a couple varieties I tried last year (Homestead, which has a sweet tomato flavor; and Tiny Tim, which wasn't so great but I am giving it another try).

So there's what I'm growing and what I'm not growing and why. Hope you find this useful

This is interesting...some varieties that are known to be good seem to be giving bad results (or maybe it's just personal opinions)...I notice some bad reports coming on supposedly good varieties from areas like zone 5. I am in 6b/7 so what I grow could come out different...let's hope in a good way

Husky Gold grown once a few yrs ago was idiot proof but thick skinned and no flavor.

For me, Early Girl does not compete well in any way with Jet Star.

Health Kick was only grown last yr but I didn't finish a single one of em.

Grampa's Minnesota started out as a spitter but by late season was pretty tasty.

My Darlin likes Yellow Pear so I'm doomed to at least one forever and we both think Lemon Boy is well worth the little trouble it takes.

Aunt Gertie's Gold will get a second chance but it was low and very late production with unremakable flavor. I'll tolerate both production negatives but the taste has to be worth the trouble. Too many great ones out there to bother very hard with less than Missouri Pink Love Apple or German Queen or Brandwine OTV or Cherokee Purple or Gardener's Delight which would be my current top 5 for taste.

Some of you all that had trouble with disease, try moving your tomatoes to a different spot in the garden and mulch underneath them. Use newspaper, newspaper/straw, cardboard, leaves, newspapers/wood chip mulch, cardboard/wood chips or whatever you can get. I bet your results will be better.

I'm not growing Cherokee Purple this year. I LOVE the flavor but they just get so out of control and nearly every tomato had a problem last year. They were enormous but I barely got a bite of of them. Maybe they'd be better for advid veggie growers. I'm more of a flower person.

On the other hand, Solar Fire was AWESOME last year! I highly recommend it. I only got it last year because the name was kind of cool. :-)

Brandywine, I tried growing it three different years using seeds from different packages and the fruit always ends up rotting on the vine before it ripens.

Any large tomato, again they always rot before they ripen. Cherry tomatos are a pain to pick but at least I always get some edible production.

its crazy to hear such things!
it must have to do with the soil and locataion etc... because mortgage lifter has been one of the best overall plants for me. and as far as early girl i only grow it for an early tomato.but i have people asking for it all the time!!even over others!!! so ... thats a hard question to ask.
so bottom line, if you like it grow it!!!
dan

Oh no -- is Yellow Pear really awful? I just planted it -- now I'm wondering if I should take it out and give the space to Chia Tai.

What about Egg Yolk -- is that yucky too?

LOL, it just goes to show, one person's treasure is another person's doodoo. Lmao@seedboy's post. I hope the 'Big Boy' I planted this year is yummy.

It's funny because non of this really matters. Everyone has different tastes and everyone gets different results from growing the same plant.
I do have to say that just from what I've heard here. I will never plant a yellow pear it seems to be the overall winner in the bad tomato category.
Someone mentioned Paul Robeson as one they wouldn't grow again. I grew 3 plants last year and planted 6 this year. For my taste it was the best tomato ever. I also loved Kelloggs Breakfast didn't get a lot of fruit but ate them before they rotted, I guess.
Just interesting to hear peoples thoughts.

I totally agree. My Robesons are delicious, bountiful and nearly trouble free. No more Yellow Pear. I replaced them with Yellow Submarine, so I guess the Jury is still out on them. I'll never grow Hybrids, unless they are hybridized heirlooms.
I'm trying Black Ethiopian, Homer Fike's Oxheart Yellow, Green Giant, and I put in a Big Zac. Not crazy about Zac's flavor, I just want to see how big I can get one to grow.

yeah 4th of july is a joke / dont care for the yellows at all / gonna try to stick more to the late season varietys way better flavor

4th of July Supermarket tomato has more flavor
Cherokee Purple

This year, for the first time, I am planting(started) two of the
down graded tomatoes; BRANDYWINE, EARLY GIRL. haha.