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Growing Tomatoes

Which variety to grow?

17 years ago

I've been growing tomatoes since I was knee high to my dad (or almost, anyway!) and haven't decided which one is the very best to grow. I've tried many different ones over the years and Brandywines this year for the first time but I'm disappointed with the lack of production on the Bw plants. So here's my question for the forum...

Which tomato do you think tastes the best and has the best production? Is it a sweet tasting variety or on the acidic/tart side?

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Comments (4)

suterstomatoes
17 years ago
Here in the land of corn and beans (a.k.a. Illinois), we have great luck with tomatoes. I grow 30 + plants a year and mix in different varieties to try over the last 2 years. I have been monitoring by yield and flavor since both are pretty important to me and my boys (we are going to sell 'em here).

For me last year, the best tomato by far was Buck's County Tomato - Great flavor w/ exceptional yields - HUGE plants well over 6 feet tall. Nice large, smooth tomatoes.

Best just to experiment and find "The One" for you. That's part of the fun right there.

This year I have set Better Boy, Sunny Goliath, Golden Girl, Carolina Gold, Red Grape, Yellow Pear, and some others. I am banking on the Better Boy and Sunny Goliaths to be good. Better Boys I have heard are big yielders and have good flavor.

Take care and God bless,
suterstomatoes
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yardenman
17 years ago
To my nose and tongue, Brandywine is the single best tomato. Sweet/tart, with complex flavors. But I like Cherokee Purple for the intriguing taste and cherry tomatoes for the sweetness.

My Grandfather had a wonderful variety of Ponderosa Red that was from 2 decades of saved seeds, but they were lost. Caspian Pink has a good tartness, but I don't think as much of it as Brandywine. It is a good change of pace, though. I am going to try Black from Tula next year.

But I will always grow Brandywine!
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Planted today here in zone 5b, southern New Hampshire. I have raised beds and the next 10 days are forecast warm weather & fair so taking a slight risk. The traditional planting day here is Memorial Day weekend. Brandywine Belgian Giant Yellow Brandywine Beefmaster that's it. No cherry tomatoes at all this year and no early varieties. I have had enough of them. I expect that grape tomatoes will spring up near the compost heap all by themselves. We are down to 30 tomato plants this year so I limited it to large or giant varieties. This is half of what I had last year. The rest of the garden is dedicated to other vegetables including a lot of Asian vegetables. I actually prefer Lemon Boy to the yellow Brandywine but I could not find them this year. Last year I grew Celebrity they were nice shaped fruit, tasted nice and good yield -- but I want something better tasting and more variety. I wanted at least 1 VFN hybrid (Beefmaster) as insurance. The compost that I have been curing for 2 years and carefully sifted is unbelievable I put about 3" of it on the garden last month and every scoop I dig brings up an earthworm.
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gardener_sandy
Original Author
17 years ago
My grandfather and father grew mostly Rutgers on our small truck farm. That's the flavor I remember from growing up and I still grow them some years. The beefsteaks were great, too, but so terribly prone to disease that I've given up on them. The Brandywine is my first so-called heirloom tomato (What's the definition of "heirloom tomato" anyway?) due to the prevalence of all the nasty diseases here but I've got them on a totally new piece of ground and hope that helps keep them disease free. (Are you a total garden wacko when you take out a very nice azalea border next to the front sidewalk so you can grow veggies there? LOL)

It's hard to find a good variety of plants here, mostly the same old Better Boys and Early Girls (tasteless little ladies!) Better Boy is good and a good producer but not quite what I'm looking for. I've grown a number of varieties from seeds, too, and some of them were very good, also. Mostly I'm looking for new ones to try. You're right, suterstomatoes, experimenting to find the "right" one is a lot of the fun. Maybe I'll agree with so many others about Brandywines when I taste one. Never had that pleasure yet.
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foose4string
17 years ago
If disease resistance and production end up being an issue for you with Brandywine, then try Brandy Boy. Has much of the Brandywine goodness, but more vigorous and much more productive.
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