Given the extensive popularity of several on your list and knowing, as we all do, how much of an effect growing conditions have, I'd have to wonder if the problem isn't the growing conditions you are providing them rather than issues with the varieties themselves?

For example, Stupice, while most would agree it is not a great tomato, is quite easy to grow and loved by many for its early and prolific production. It 'breaks the fast' so to speak and that alone is worthwhile to many.

Opalka may be a somewhat funny looking plant and tomato but many find its taste to be quite good and IME it is less prone to the BER common to other paste-types. Not to mention it is much bigger than most of them.

And Mortgage Lifter and Rutgers have been garden staples for decades, including me, with easy growth patterns, dependable production, fairly good disease resistance and good taste.

I too have a limited interest in cherry types and am not a big fan of the black varieties with 1 possible exception. But NAR, I take it anytime. :)

JMO

Dave

As stated, based only on my experiences. I have had wonderful success with:

Cowlick Brandywine
San Marzano Redorta
Kellogg's Breakfast
Persimmon
Oxheart
Amish Paste
Cherokee Purple

Not trying to denigrate any other varieties....they just don't work for me.(Zone 5) I really looked forward to the alleged production of Mortgage Lifter for years and it never came close to expectations. Rutgers/Stupice.... blah (though I understand that others have had different experiences). Hey, there are hundreds of heirlooms out there...can't please everyone.

Hey, there are hundreds of heirlooms out there...can't please everyone

*****

Actually there are far more than 100's, there are many thousands. About 8K available commercially, many more via the SSE YEarbooks and many more in various seed banks around the world.

I've grown a bit over 3,000 varieties and have data books for most but not all of them and each year I note which do best and taste best with my conditions and where I grow them and how I grow them.

My philosophy is, if a variety comes to me with high praise by others and it doesn't work out the first time grown I always give it a second chance b/c no two seasons are the same. I also suggest not paying that much attention to the blurbs written at most commercial sites, with few exceptions. After all, commercial sites, most anyway, are in the business of selling seeds as a source of money. Nothing wrong with that really, since those folks have chosen to go that route. Some, like Sandhill Preservation, are greatly concerned with preservation of varieties so they don't get lost, and that not just for tomato varieties, but seeds for other crops as well, and also for heirloom poultry.

So I move forward every year growing perhaps some faves but always discarding certain varieties when I find a better one amongst the current ones I grow.

I've been doing this for many decades and always look forward to the next season to see how the various ones I've chosen for that season perform.

Summary? Regrow what you like but constantly grow new varieties to see what you might like better.

Carolyn

Couple suggestions for you to consider: 1)Substitute KBX for Kellog's Breakfast and you should get more & nicer tomatoes. 2)
Pruden's Purple will throw a lot more tomatoes than any of the old Brandywine strains and they taste just about as good-maybe even equal. 3) I can't imagine why your Muleteam is not working for you-should be a great main crop. I suspect some bad seed, and I have had this problem over the years on several occasions. Then I try again with new seed and all goes well!

I feel that most grow for a combo of motivations but with a primary concern also. For some it is taste, others productivity and some size of fruit. I dont really care for tomatoes that are not at least baseball size. I prefer globe shape to beefsteak but size is the determining factor. With that all said I have grown some on your list and many not there and have never tasted a tomato from my garden that I didnt like. Some are just better tasting to me than others.

I guess I would have expected a list more like this one-
Garden Peach
Striped Cavern
Yellow Pear
Purple Calabash

two of which I am growing this year, but the stuffers seem like a novelty to me, and the others seem to work out fine for some and become blacklisted by others.

I kept wondering about Stupice too, and had come to the conclusion Dave stated, that people must like its earliness, not its flavor. Well, unless they do like its flavor, to me it always tasted weak and acidic. I would rather have a tasy tomato than an early tomato, but that is only my personal preference. But not liking cherry tomatoes? *gasp!* Them's fightin' words! ;) I do love my Sweet Baby Girls for eating out of hand and sundrying.

I don't understand the blanket statement, which I've heard from more than one person: "I don't like cherry tomatoes!"
I'm curious as to why. And IMHO, Romas are great for what they're for: making sauce.

Mudman93...I agree about yellow pear...I was so disappointed in it (I only grew it because I couldn't find yellow cherry seeds locally) because I expected more flavor. I did find, though that it was excellent if I threw some in the skillet...heat really brought out the flavor.

For me, Persimmon isn't worth growing.

I don't understand the blanket statement, which I've heard from more than one person: "I don't like cherry tomatoes!"

Mytime, you would be amazed at the number of folks who maintain that cherry tomatoes aren't even REAL tomatoes. :) We hear that all the time at the Farmer's Markets we sell at. When we are selling plants in the spring you mention cherry tomato plants and they look at you like you must be from another planet. I suspect, in part, it is a regional thing but for me it is that eating cherry-types is eating mostly skins and I much prefer to eat tomato meat rather than skin.

As to Romas for sauce, trust me there are many, many varieties out there that make much better sauce than Romas.

Dave

I'd probably add "any early varieties" to my list but I have not tried them all. Of the dozen or so I did try, they were watery and tasteless. I'd rather wait a couple weeks and eat the real thing.
Most everyone claims the wonderful taste of the Sun Gold cherry tomato but, while they produced a lot, I couldn't get rid of them. Is there any cherry tomato that tastes like a tomato? If so, I would try it.

Is there any cherry tomato that tastes like a tomato? If so, I would try it.

*****

Just my opinion and those of quite a few others but I would suggest Riesentraube, which means large bunch of grapes, but the fruits are not grape shaped at all. It's a multiflora type which means that each blossom stem has upwards of 200-300 blossoms of which only maybe 40-50 fruits are set, but there many of those blossom stems on each plant.

It has a full taste unlike most cherries, more akin to a great tasting beefsteak variety. etc.

We know it by it's German language name but it was widely grown in several European countries known,in several languages, as far back as the early 1800's and was brought to this country about 1850, or so where it was noted it was used to make wine, as well as fresh eating.

I was gifted with a bottle of that wine and it reminded me of an excellent pale sherry.

Try it and see what you think and I'm going to link to Tania's superb website and the page for this variety below and when on that page scroll down to see the seed sources.

It was an SSE member, Curtis Choplin, who got this variety from Prof Klapprot at the German Seed bank in Gatersleben, Germany, listed it in the SSE Yearbook and from there it became known to many folks and the variety is sold by many seed sites, as you'll see on the page for it at Tania's.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Riesentraube

To repeat myself....size drives my tomato boat but sun warmed right off the vine sweet cherries esp the orange ones are great. I put them in salads but like diced large tomato better. I grow white-yellow, orange and black cherries every yr and make gifts of them mixed in sandwich bags and believe me, I never have trouble giving them away. Some people dont like chocolate...........go figure!

Thank you, Carolyn. Gonna get me some Riesentraube. Heard about it a couple times and didn't pay much attention. Don't see it on many 'to grow' lists but I will grow it. Maybe I will learn to like a cherry tomato.

Yup, echo the sentiments about Yellow Pear. It was so watery and flavourless, but that being said, I love SunGold!

I also don't care for Roma - surprisingly tasteless and won't grow it again. I made better pasta sauce with a mix of the other heirloom tomatoes I grew last year.

MyTime... you don't like Persimmon? That is my favorite orange tomato and one of my overall favorite. The plant itself is huge.
Are you guys speaking of Beams Yellow Pear. I have one growing in the garden right now. Never tried it. I will be disappointed if it is watery and non flavorful.
But, to the OPs point... seems like your list includes quite a few tried and true winners. Maybe you need to give them more than one season's of a chance.

Re: Persimmon...yes the plant was huge, but there was very little yield for me, and the taste was okay, but nothing special. I've noticed, though, that the flavor of the tomatoes on a plant can really vary from week to week...so if there is a low yield, one might not get the true flavor. So maybe it's better usually than mine was.

Mytime... I have grown the Persimmons for three years now, and each year thay are one of my most prolific producers in that size range. All meat, hardly any seeds and gel. Leave them on the vine for as long as you can for a more complex flavor. Mine produce just about as big of fruits on top of the plant as on the bottom. Produces all the way to frost. I am in Charlotte , NC.
Other posters... were you speaking of Beams yellow pear?

Mine was a seedling from a nursery which simply had the label "Yellow Pear" on it. It was an indeterminate, with cherry tomato-sizeish fruit. I later saw similarly labeled seedlings available at big box stores like Home Depot. None of them said "Beam's". Hope that helps!

There are several selections of Yellow Pear and I've linked to Tania's page below. Beams is one of them.

There are some who think that another one, Yellow Submarine, which is PL , is an improvement over Yellow Pear with regard to taste/

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Yellow_Submarine

You won't find these different selections of Yellow Pear at big box stores or most nurseries. But if you wish to try them you can see the seed sources that Tania indicates.

I prefer the small Red Pear for taste and it isn't as susceptible to Early Blight ( A.solani) as is the yellow one.

Both are pre-1800 varieties as originally known, selections coming much later, and when I was selling fruits one of the most popular items were pints of cherry sized fruits, either mixed with regard to colors and varieties, or all one variety and they always sold very well.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Selections of Yellow Pear

As for Cherry tomatoes, my friends and I like Chocolate Cherry. They seem to have a full spicy flavor. Last year I slow roasted them (cut in half first and baked at 200 degrees. Then marinate in EVOO, garlic, rice vinegar, oregano. Everyone loved them.
Keski

what I don't understand is why I am such a nut about growing tomatoes, when I don't even like them! This year I have 15 varieties started. My husband likes tomatoes, so you could say it is for him, but I'm the one who studies the catalogs & reviews & makes the choices. As a small home gardener, it is a challenge to find places for all of them, but they are one of my favorite things to grow.
This year we have
yellow pear (not a favorite with dh, but I had the seed)
chocolate cherry
black cherry
pink oxheart
principe borghese
sweet orange
big rainbow
green zebra
black krim
black from tula
goose creek
german johnson
caro rich
marmande
kellog's breakfast
& will purchase starts of brandywine & pruden's purple because they are favorites.
Most on the list are new to us.

Love tomatoes of all kinds. I can't picture doing without cherries. They are even great for those drive by snackings in the garden, or the fresh garden salad. Roma is for sauce, not much else. I grow lots of them for that purpose. Can't say I've met too many I didn't like. I don't like them too seedy though. Got about 50 plants ready to go this year, many varieties. Same for peppers. Going to be fun finding room for them all. Will have to do more containers.

Capoman - 50 tomato plants? Wow, I really envy you! I wish I had enough room to have more, even though I'm squeezing mine everywhere I can. I was reading the threads about doing them in containers - what size container do you use?

Growsy - it's really sweet that you grow tomatoes even though you don't like to eat them. Your hubby is a lucky man!

I've always done tomatoes in ground until now. I keep adding new beds each year. I do have a large property so space is not an issue. But I've always had issues with peppers in the ground and discovered I could get much earlier, healthier, larger yield in pots. So this year I am planning on trying some tomato varieties in pots. Last year, I determined there was little advantage going above 3 gallon pots for peppers in my climate. I may try a few different sizes for tomatoes, as well as some pot appropriate varieties to determine what's best. I don't want to use larger pots then I have to as I make my own soil less mix (5-1-1 from the container forum) and prefer to use less if gives the same yield. I suspect that pot tomatoes will be fine in smaller pots, but might need to go much larger for bigger varieties.

I just started last yr with the 5-1-1 mix and had limited success with tomatoes. I am putting one indet plant in a big plastic tote. I enjoy sifting the pine bark in the winter when there is very little to do(I am retired). I did have good luck with egg plant in smaller containers and bell peppers in 10 gal trash cans. They all like the manure water made of rain water and bagged composted manure. I have three tomatoes about 6 weeks old just set out yesterday. My time of yr....hooray!

Just to defend the Yellow Pear a little... it is cute, it taste fine, and it is by FAR the most gigantic, productive plant I have ever grown. That being said, if I have that many tomatoes from one plant I want to like them a lot.

bigpinks: I get an incredible yield in peppers using MG 24-8-16 and espom salts with rain water in 5-1-1. I think organic is much more difficult in pots, although I use organic practices in my soil where there is much more environmental benefit. My peppers didn't taste any different as I grew both, but the main difference was I got much higher yield and almost two months earlier in pots (I started plants in feb). I will probably use the same methods for tomatoes in pots. It'll be interesting to see the difference.

I would of suspected the list to be like MudMan's too, lol. Though I do wonder about Roma also as there are many better paste choices in my opinion.
Stump of the World in my favorite tomato of all time. It tastes the best to me, sort of like Brandywine, but with a bit more sip to the flavor. It also is an excellent grower here in WNY where as Brandywine has always been a poor grower here.. Now somewhere else maybe Brandywine performs better and Stump of the World won't perform as well. Also flavor of tomatoes can vary by location. A long time ago I grew Kellogg's Breakfast. It wasn't so great tasting. I grew it one more time since I do like to base opinions on more than one year. It was bland again. Well then one year, I went down to the CHOPTAG tomato tasting, I tried one grown in KY, and it was great!
Remy

remy, what paste tomatoes do you suggest? I experiment with slicers, but always found Romas did the job for paste. You got me curious.

I'm not Remy, whom I know well, but many years ago most of my tomato friends stopped using what are called paste tomatoes and switched to using heart varieties and beefsteak varieties that have dense flesh and few seeds.

Most paste varieties are very susceptible to BER as well as Early Blight ( A.solani) and the tastge is not always the best.

There are lots of threads here about paste tomaotes so I'll list just a few that I think do have some taste and do perform well:

Heidi
Mama Leone
Martino's Roma
Sarnowski Polish Plum
Opalka
Wuhib
Kenosha Paste
Tony's Italian

.....just to name a few and I'm sure Remy will add to that list as well.

And at another message site 4 folks are growing out seeds I sent them from saved seeds in 1994 , of Tadesse, b'c there are no correct seeds for Tadesse out there on the internet right now. And it looks like all 4 will be able to do seed production with the rejuvenated Tadesse.

Tadesse Wuhib was a former student of mine from Ethiopia and brought back what we named Tadesse and Wuhib.

Heidi was brought back from Cameroon by a former Student Heidi Iyok.

Carolyn

Also not Remy...but thanks to Carolyn I am growing Kenosha Paste for the first time this year. I also now have Sheboygan on my list to grow every year after trying it last season. It is a great pink paste that is large and meaty. Of course, as a Cheesehead I am partial to varieties named after Wisconsin cities.

Great input, thanks. I'll have to check some different ones out. Luckily, I have sandy soil, and I've never dealt with early blight or blossom end rot (I suspect due to good drainage). I do tend to get late blight though, especially on the older beds, the reason I keep digging new ones. I also plan on some containers as well this year.

Just a thought after reading this thread I began a few days ago. Anyone posting or reading here owes gratitude to the input of Carolyn, who has more knowledge and insight than any of us will likely attain. She may not always be right but, if I had a choice, I'd certainly follow her advice because she is far more likely to be accurate than any that I could possible provide. Thanks.

Yes, thanks Carolyn! I love reading your posts, they are so informative!

What a surprise and thanks so much M and R.

When you're as old as I am and have participated at the number of message sites as I have, you pick up info all the time.

Aside from having grown over about 3,000 varieties, my main interest has always been histories of tomatoes.

My birthday is in June when I'll be 73, so if you wish to thank me properly I always accept dark chocolate, but only the kinds I like. LOL X 10

Carolyn

Hi I'm Remy, lol. I agree with everything Carolyn said. I like hearts and meaty beefsteaks too. The Italian giant red pear (piriform) types are also big and meaty. The list Carolyn gave is very good for actual pastes. My favorite paste which is not on that list (I'm not sure Carolyn has ever tasted it) is Rinaldo. It is an Italian heirloom first introduced to gardeners here on GW by Bully(no longer posts) who is from the Detroit area. I also think Polish Linguisa tastes very good too.
Remy

Substitute KBX for Kellog's Breakfast and you should get more & nicer tomatoes.

That was stated in a post above. And what would KBX be?

Ummm, KBX is "KBX". It is a variant, I believe, that came from Kellog's Breakfast and is supposed to be an improvement on it. Same fruit, maybe earlier and more prolific, with potato shaped leaves instead of regular leaves. I have never heard it called anything else but after a little search I found it may mean "Kellog's Breakfast cross (x). One parent is likely Kellog's Breakfast, that was probably crossed with an unknown variety for the other parent. Carolyn I think could tell you the entire history. :)

Oh. Thank you for the explination. I have never actually tried Kelloggs Breakfast and was planning on growing it next year.

Kellogg's Breakfast 2 yrs ago edged out Brandywine as my favorite tomato and was the first tomato ever to be able to do that! Just by a bit, but edge it, it did! I had hoped to compare KB and KBX this year, but the "permanent" marker I used washed off every plant marker except Anna Russian, so I will still be left guessing at what the difference in performance might be for me. Must be I need to learn to relax about it, because I usually even use initials to label the fruit as I pick it so I will know which one it is and if I like it and how the plant does, but the fates are laughing at me this year. :)

Humm, I never even though of using marker on the tomatoes as I picked them so as not to get them confused. I will have to try that.

Sorry your markers faded and you will not be able to decide on a favorite. At least not know what variety that favorite is.