Are you chasing the perfect tomato, it’s all about flavor, period? Is it so that all other factors are secondary, superior flavor is first and foremost?

Or is it about production for you? How many tomatoes can be squeezed out of one plant, one garden, in one season?

Is reliability the name of the game? Just make sure I know I’ll have a reasonable crop come what may with the weather, bugs, diseases, etc.

Or is canning or preservation your jive and therefore tomatoes are selected for how well they related to that pursuit?

Me, I’m into variety, at least for now. Give me a pretty plate of colorful tomatoes that all look and taste different, hopefully all delicious in their own right, and I’ll be happy. I’ll sacrifice maxed out reliablilty, the sure fire, the bulletproof, for some variety and I’m not in the camp of there’s a perfect tomato flavor out there, then therefore, a perfect tomato, nothing wrong if that describes you, it just doesn’t describe me, at least not at this time.

I imagine our tomato goals could evolve over time, though, so maybe they will for me and maybe they have for you.

What say you, why do you grow the tomatoes you do?

As a realist, I grow tomatoes for the frustration.

"...I'm not in the camp of there's a perfect tomato flavor out there...".

Could there be a perfect flavor for you, in say any prepared meal that you've ever had, being more of a combination of flavors?

For me, there is one single tomato that has the "perfect" taste, Aunt Ginny's Purple. Somehow, it makes my body quiver with delight, while the other 4 senses have been put on hold. Of the well over a thousand others trialed, none have that effect upon me.

I grow for fun, food and money.

The quest for another great tasting tomato, the ultimate sauce tomato, the flawless red round high yielding blah tomato's that sell like mad, and the pipe dream of finding a red round tomato with great flavor.

It's a blast and being able to make some coin in the process is a bonus!

@Tormato I’m not sure I understand the question you presented about perfect flavor and a prepared meal.

Maybe I’ll understand it better if I ask you a question about apples. Is there a perfect apple? Certainly where you live, you have had a chance to sample a lot of apples, is there one apple like the one tomato, Aunt Ginny’s Purple?

I grow tomatoes to have some for fresh eating all summer but mainly to prepare my chopped tomatoes, pasta sauce and stewed tomatoes for the freezer.

I also supply lots of tomatoes to the local Independent Living Home and I really enjoy the happiness that brings to so many elderly people who no longer have the opportunity to grow their own tomatoes. I probably take them at least 100 lbs. per year and it brings me as much happiness as it does to them.

I usually try 1 or 2 varieties per year but I always grow the ones that we have liked in the past such as Red Brandywine and Big Beef.

I like to eat them!

@brownrexx that does sound very nice giving your delicious garden tomatoes to shut ins and those elderly that cannot grow their own. I like to give some of my surplus away to my folks and their friends, most all of them are in their 80s. Most everyone appreciates a garden tomato.

I grow tomatoes for a wide range of reasons. I use them for canning salsa, vegetable drink and a Ro-tel type concoction. I freeze some to add to soups and various winter dishes. I also give away tomatoes to relatives, neighbors and friends and I grow a special patch of Indian Stripe tomatoes for my older backpacking friend. And that still leaves plenty for my wife to sample frequently.

And thinking about this post, I remembered that I also grow certain types of tomatoes to refresh memories of loved ones no longer here on this earth.

@Tormato the more I think about it, the more it may be that my sample size is just too small. Some of y’all have either tasted or grown and tasted a lot more varieties than myself and have likely or possibly honed in on some outstanding examples that rise above the rest. I’m still working through a variety of tomatoes to see what I like more than others.

Pleepleus wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 7:59 am I grow for fun, food and money.

The quest for another great tasting tomato, the ultimate sauce tomato, the flawless red round high yielding blah tomato's that sell like mad, and the pipe dream of finding a red round tomato with great flavor.

It's a blast and being able to make some coin in the process is a bonus!

The closest that I've ever seen in a flawless red roundish (slightly flatish) high yielding tomato (sorry, but this one actually has good flavor) is Supersonic F1. I've only trialed it 3 times, all with superb results. It may have been that the growing conditions were great in all three years. I don't know if more, or most, of your customers prefer a certain size of tomato over another. Supersonic is a "medium" sized tomato, like most round tomatoes that I've experienced. It is highly recommended for a limited trial.

It took me about 15 years to find the pipe dream, in Bulgarian Triumph.

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:40 am @Tormato the more I think about it, the more it may be that my sample size is just too small. Some of y’all have either tasted or grown and tasted a lot more varieties than myself and have likely or possibly honed in on some outstanding examples that rise above the rest. I’m still working through a variety of tomatoes to see what I like more than others.

The biggest question is, do you know what you like in a tomato, of the ones you've tried?

Sweetness? Tartness? In-between?

"Traditional" tomatoey flavor? (usually found in red globes) Citrusy flavor? (many of the yellow/gold/orange ones) Fruity flavor? (SunGold and others)

And, as I've often mentioned, I consider Stump Of The World (in good growing conditions), as the benchmark, a starting point to find out what one likes in a tomato.

Whether someone is an average taster, a super taster, or a below average taster could be a huge factor, but people have to come to that conclusion by themselves. Most already know my conclusions on many, but not all, dark tomatoes.

Tomatoes here are grown for fresh eating and if any are left over from that, for freezing to be used later to be used in other dishes. The tomato eaten at the current time that elicits a "MMMMMMmmm" is thereby the perfect tomato (of the day) and could be surpassed as soon as the next one eaten. The list of perfection changes from year-to-year, week-to-week and even day-to-day. For me, the sweeter the better and darks are very welcome. Green when ripe need not apply.

bragging rights.
biggest or earliest.
Big and early.
Big tomatoes in july when the neighbors have to wait til mid august.
Tomatoes indoors in winter when store bought tomatoes taste like mr yuck.

Spike wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:01 am I like to eat them!

Ditto!

Once tomatoes start ripening, not a day goes by that I don't eat tomatoes, usually in more than one way. Of course, that's probably true of all of us.

I eat so many tomatoes that I become what I call "tomatoed out", but the time they stop coming in. Eating the canned ones and frozen ones is better than store-bought, but still, nothing like fresh.

I try new varieties every year, to see what will be disease resistant, as well as what will have the best flavor. I have side-by-side taste tests, when enough of them are ripe at the same time.

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:21 am @Tormato I’m not sure I understand the question you presented about perfect flavor and a prepared meal.

Maybe I’ll understand it better if I ask you a question about apples. Is there a perfect apple? Certainly where you live, you have had a chance to sample a lot of apples, is there one apple like the one tomato, Aunt Ginny’s Purple?

My opinion is that there are two near perfect apples. The first is Reine des Reinettes (King of the Pippens). Much like Brandywine Sudduth and Stump of the World in tomatoes, this apple has both the taste of high sugars/sweetness and high tartness, which balance out into an intense flavor. Apples, like tomatoes, and grapes, and melons, etc... can have up and down years because of the weather. But, I've yet to try an off RdR.

The other apple is Hudson's Golden Gem. This one is sweet, with close to pear-like flavors. I like pears more than I like apples.

The selection of readily available supermarket apples is slowly getting better. The best that I've ever tried is Sweet Tango. However, in something to do with licencing the intellectual property rights around it, it has been pulled from most markets, and I haven't seen it in the past few years.

Gala is a very good, but not quite great, apple. I would never turn one down unless I had about 25 pounds of RDR on hand.

Red Delicious and Golden Delicious are OK/good, a bit milder than I like.

Many people rave about Fuji. I've never had a good one. Because apples can have flavor changes over a long period of time (including during cold storage), I think I'll have to try a Fuji every month until I find the correct ripeness.

I don't think much of any other widely available varieties, other than I find McIntosh horrible.

This year, the search is on for the perfect melon. It's a long story, as I gave up searching for this variety about 20 years ago, reading that it was believed to be extinct for decades. I just recently found out that it wasn't, and now have seeds.

What I'm attempting to convey with a prepared meal, is that do you think you can find the perfect flavor in a single natural food, like a tomato, an apple, a watermelon, etc..., or would you more likely find it in something like a mixed salad with dressing or a cooked meal with all sorts of ingredients?

I find it in the single fruit or veggie, in most cases. The only way that I could improve upon my perfect bean, Supermarconi, is to serve it with just a tiny bit of butter. My perfect pea, Super Sugar Snap, is ruined with cooking, as it becomes too sweet for me. And, some tomatoes, the far from perfect ones, taste better with a bit of salt.

I grow tomatoes for 1 they are amazing to look at on the vine 2 its my white whale joke between my husband and I but truly I want to make sauce pass it down to my kids and grandkids and just to plain enjoy on a good sandwich and truly just for the pure enjoyment of growing things..winter and summer because I cannot just sit around and not grow a tomato plant.. haha

The garden peach has fuzz on it like a peach,but because of the heat last year it was bald and boring.
A yellow tomato with 1 thin green stripe that turns red when ripe.
Holding it in your hand you would swear it was a peach.

AKgardener wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 12:30 pm I grow tomatoes for 1 they are amazing to look at on the vine 2 its my white whale joke between my husband and I but truly I want to make sauce pass it down to my kids and grandkids and just to plain enjoy on a good sandwich and truly just for the pure enjoyment of growing things..winter and summer because I cannot just sit around and not grow a tomato plant.. haha

"They think me mad -Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened!"

Welcome to the club.

Tormato wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 10:11 am

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:40 am @Tormato the more I think about it, the more it may be that my sample size is just too small. Some of y’all have either tasted or grown and tasted a lot more varieties than myself and have likely or possibly honed in on some outstanding examples that rise above the rest. I’m still working through a variety of tomatoes to see what I like more than others.

The biggest question is, do you know what you like in a tomato, of the ones you've tried?

Sweetness? Tartness? In-between?

"Traditional" tomatoey flavor? (usually found in red globes) Citrusy flavor? (many of the yellow/gold/orange ones) Fruity flavor? (SunGold and others)

And, as I've often mentioned, I consider Stump Of The World (in good growing conditions), as the benchmark, a starting point to find out what one likes in a tomato.

Whether someone is an average taster, a super taster, or a below average taster could be a huge factor, but people have to come to that conclusion by themselves. Most already know my conclusions on many, but not all, dark tomatoes.

I don’t have a particularily long history of growing my own and haven’t had any other heirloom types except maybe here and there at a farmer’s market and once in a while at some locavore kind of restaurant. I’ll stick with ones I’ve grown. So I’ve grown Celebrity, Creole, Carmello, Big Beef, Super Fantastic, Blue Ribbon, Top Gun and several other hybrid reds. They all are good, really good, but I can’t think of one that stands out as far and above the others. I wasn’t crazy about Dixie Red, Creole, Moneymaker, tasteless, bland, no big tomato flavors at all, I’ve had Early girl out of a friend’s garden and didn’t particularily like it. I can’t think of a smallish/saladette type of tomato I’ve ever had and really liked. San Marzano was pretty bad, dry, no juice, but it isn’t made for fresh eating.

So, are any of those pink, I don’t think any are and it may be possible that Mortgage Lifter (no idea as to strain)is the only Pink I’ve grown in past seasons. It was different than the reds, I found it to be more bland, but my wife that has the most developed sense of smell of anyone I have ever met loved Mortgage Lifter.

I am growing several pinks this season. Gregori’s Altai, 1884, Hoy, ML (again), Pink Fang, German Johnson, maybe another one I can’t think of at the moment.

Bicolor tomatoes were a revelation to me as I didn’t realize tomatoes could taste like that, and that was fruity and sweet on my tongue, but more than simple sugar and water, other more robust tomato flavors in them also. Pineapple, Hillbilly, Old German, all were really tasty.

Lemon Boy and Golden Jubilee were great tasting tomatoes.

Cherokee Purple and Cherokee Carbon are wonderful. Earthy, tart, robust, just good.

I can see I’m deficient in Pink tomatoes and knowing what they offer. Plan is to see what I think of the ones I’m growing, evaluate the flavors and go from there. I plan on trying SOTW and couple more PL pinks in future seasons.

I’m growing a couple of white tomatoes this season, plan is to grow at least one GWR tomato next year.

Apples, yes, Macintosh is awful fresh, texture mainly, good maybe in a dessert. Fuji is awful also. I don’t like Gala either, both those are sugar water and bland. No thank you on Red Delicious, either.

Pink Lady, HoneyCrisp, Empire, Evercrisp, Jazz, Winesap, I like those and a few others. I like a firm apple and usually some tartness with the sweet like Honey Crisp has, but Evercrisp is a honey crisp minus most the tart. Granny Smith is good for cooking, but too tart for eating fresh.

In general, anything sweet needs something sour or tart or bitter to balance it out. Do not like sweet things without anything to offset it.