Newbie trying to find varieties

[Shule]

I had heard Carbon was a good one. Have not tried it yet.

I grew two Carbon plants this year, each from a different source. Both fared about the same. The plants flowered vigorously in the early season. The first fruits were the biggest. I pretty much dry farmed them, with black plastic. The flavor was fantastic (and still fantastic dehydrated). Very sweet, with plenty of tartness, too. They were the sweetest tomatoes that size I had ever tasted. They were more tart for me than other people report. One of my favorites for flavor, now that I think about it (and I'm craving them talking about it). Production was modest, but they had little water, and the soil maybe wasn't prime. I didn't give them any fertilizer unless you count wood ash (the same as many other tomatoes, this year). Wood ash is mostly calcium and carbon, but has trace minerals and an appreciable amount of potassium, with some phosphorus. It can raise your pH. I used three handfuls per plant. Maturity wasn't late, nor was it particularly early. I'd guess 78 days. The plants weren't huge.

I plan to grow it again next year.

It's as close to candy as I've come in a beefsteak. It doesn't taste the same for everyone, from the sound of discussion I've read, but it's kind of popular, and some people love it.

[lee53011]

Good to hear. If I added wood ash, it would probably screw up my PH since it is already at 7.2. I do want to dehydrate more tomatoes this year, so that's good to know!

[Amateurinawe]

I use wood ash too but you do need to check on the ph

[lee53011]

How would Red Rosso Sicilian be for a determinate to grow in a grow bag or container for sauce?

[lee53011]

[mention]Shule[/mention] I see you grow Japanese Black Trifele. How do you like it? Yield? Since I have to space my indeterminates a little further apart, I will be losing the yield of 4 plants, so I need to make it up somewhere! How about Brandy boy hybrid? Have you tried that one?

[zeuspaul]

The reason I grow Japanese Black Trifele every year is because it is easy to identify it with its shape and color. My labels often get taken by a bird or hide in foliage.

It tastes like a tomato to me! The best I can say is it is not bland or I would have crossed it of my regrow list.

[karstopography]

Since many of us can’t grow everything we wish to (lack of space or time) I sort of think about what do I want to accomplish with my tomatoes.

I want enough for fresh slicing and eating, caprese salad, BLT sandwiches, hamburgers.
I want a tomato or tomatoes in the mix that has the best chance to survive disease and pest attacks, a sort of bulletproof, high production type.
I want some visually interesting types, looks good on the plate and vine and hopefully tastes amazing as well.
I want some to freeze and stash away for sauces in the off season.
A number of “I’m curious what this one is like”
Something that produces a big tomato.
A cherry or grape to toss in salads.

Some tomatoes check more than one of my boxes. Carmello, a hybrid (there is an OP version) checks good fresh eating, bulletproof, and good to freeze boxes. I’m hopeful Big Beef is sort of in the same category.

Something like Pineapple or Cherokee purple would be in the interesting on the plate category. Pineapple also hits the big tomato category as well.

I don’t want too many fussy, disease prone, but possibly delicious types, as then I won’t have enough to supply my basic needs should the fussiness result in next to zero production. Wet, cool weather or blazing heat waves can tilt some tomatoes into total failure.

Last season, I really only failed in not freezing enough. I had enough to freeze, but waited a little late and gave too many away.

So, I suppose, what are your goals for your tomatoes? Your goals may be different than mine. How much does disease and weather, short season, too hot, too cold, various pests factors in where you are?

A disaster would be not having very many tomatoes because I or one picked low production, tricky types and most of them failed.

Others might say a disaster would be having plenty of boring, bland, and or what they consider to be tasteless tomatoes.

Some people want to cover season as best as possible, with short, middle and late season types.

Figure out what’s important to you and select varieties that best reflect what you want to accomplish, just an idea.

[lee53011]

[mention]karstopography[/mention] I will be canning 95% of the tomatoes into sauce and diced tomatoes, etc. We eat a ton of Sunsugar cherry tomatoes in summer, and maybe 20 or so larger tomatoes for BLT's etc.

[lee53011]

Chocolate stripe looks good also. Any info on it?

[Shule]

@Shule I see you grow Japanese Black Trifele. How do you like it? Yield? Since I have to space my indeterminates a little further apart, I will be losing the yield of 4 plants, so I need to make it up somewhere! How about Brandy boy hybrid? Have you tried that one?

I've only grown Japanese Black Trifele once. It was pretty prolific, in flushes (not every day). The plant is probably medium-sized. I plan to grow it next year.

I've grown Brandy Boy F1 once. It did about as well as Thessaloniki did next to it, and the fruits were about the same size and shape. Taste was good. They both had a late start that year, so neither were terribly prolific (they did well considering, though), but Thessaloniki was very prolific for me in 2016.

I have more experience with a Brandy Boy F11 cross and its descendants (I'm breeding some tomatoes). I've grown a stabilized Brandy Boy F10, too, but it got a late start, too (the F10 was not a cross). Let me know if those interest you, and I can send you some seeds, if so.

[lee53011]

I am also interested in tiffen mennonite, since it comes from my state, and Delicious, since it says they get huge!

[Shule]

I am also interested in tiffen mennonite, since it comes from my state, and Delicious, since it says they get huge!

You might be interested in these, too, if you're into giant tomatoes:

* Domingo (holds a world record)
* Big Zac F1 (holds at least one world record)
* Terhune
* Church
* Bill Bean (I don't know anyone who has grown this one—[mention]Tormato[/mention]?—but Seed Treasures has a picture of a tomato that pretty much fills a spade head.)
* Omar's Lebanese
* Cuostralee (there's also a Pink Cuostralee)
* Chapman
* George Detsikas Italian Red
* Dinner Plate

I've only grown five of those. Domingo and Omar's Lebanese didn't get big for me, personally, but I've read they can get huge (and in retrospect, they likely were in tough soil). Cuostralee, Chapman, and George Detsikas Italian Red were each about 2lbs for me (without any special fertilization that I recall, but they were watered well).

[lee53011]

[mention]Shule[/mention] those look great. Some are even listed as good for sauce!

[sjamesNorway]

I've tried lots of varieties, including many mentioned in this thread. I now grow more plants of Indian stripe Potato Leaf and EM-Champion than anything else. ISPL is a black indeterminate. EM-C is a red heart "determinate", but produces over 2 months here. Both are delicious slicers (not sauce tomatoes), and both have a 65 DTM here.

Steve

[Dee]

Black Prince was just OK for me. Decent production but not a particularly interesting taste profile for a black tomato.

That was my experience as well - great production, uniform shape, crack resistant, really nice looking, but somehow "meh". I might grow it again because it's dependable, but there are so many other black tomatoes that blow it out of the water in terms of flavour.

I have tried to grow paste tomatoes, but I almost always end up dealing with BER. Over the years, I have come to focus more on growing oxhearts, many of which are very meaty.

I can a far bit of sauce using a mix of tomatoes. My favourites tend to be any black or pink beefsteaks (e.g., Paul Robeson, Black Krim, Russian Rose, etc.), Black Sea Man, pastes if they make it intact to the end of the season (last year, Bellestar did well), and oxhearts (Work Release Paste, Hungarian Heart, Brad's Black Heart, and Mazarini...Jewish did well for me last year, too). I also grow "dependables" to add to the sauce. While on the juicy side, they are productive and mature early in our short season (e.g., Scotia, Early Annie, Bonny Best, etc.) I have been known to toss an Amana Orange or two in the pot as well. *L*!