I did a brief search on the topic of Wild Boar tomatoes, but I didn’t see the information I was looking for.

So, I’m already thinking about 2025 and what to grow. I received several Wild Boar farms varieties in the recent package I got from MA and the MMMM swap.

If I ended up growing any Wild Boar types, I probably will only grow one variety, but which one should I grow, which is the best of the bunch and why?

Besides all the stripes, swirls and crazy colors, is there an overall theme or characteristic to these tomatoes? Heat loving, heat hating, thick skin, early or late, firm or soft texture, finicky, prolific, disease prone or bulletproof, variable sized tomatoes within one type, well formed, off types, or what if anything can be said, positive or negative about the series?

I’m already sort of prejudiced against early and the small saladette sized tomatoes, unless they might be something that dehydrates well. Saladettes and early tomatoes just aren’t something I’m interested in. I’m not interested in patio, small bush or dwarf types either, if there are WB dwarves, patio, container or small bush types. I’m not into globe type tomatoes either.

How do Wild Boar tomatoes line up against some of the more well known and loved heirloom beefsteaks?

No right or wrong answers if anyone cares to answer, I just want to possibly grow one wild boar type just to see if I am missing something or if this thread leads to some additional information about these tomatoes that seems negative to me I might just save the garden space and continue growing and searching out the heirloom tomatoes I already love.

As an example, Girl Girl’s Weird Thing is on my potential 2025 grow list. So is Ananas Noire. Both are as I understand it rather recent open pollinated stabilized, spontaneous or otherwise, crosses and sort of have the Wild Boar Farms/Brad Gates look. How do the WB farms tomatoes stack up against Anasas Noire or GGWT?

In my garden, GGWT is a must grow. I get amazing yields, the tomato tastes fantastic to us and it produced longer than most others for us. I did have a few fused blossoms last year on one of my 2 plants so will keep a closer eye this year.

I tried Annas Noire twice. First year, chipmunks took a bite anytime something new showed up so we never got a chance to sample, it came back last year. In my garden, it was a disappointment and will not return.

Not answering your question, but iwll be interesting to see how both fair in your garden.

It would be my guess that most of Wild Boar Farms varieties are rated less than exceptional in flavor. I've seen many come and go, and basically disappear from any online chatter. Especially most of the furry ones.

My recommendations for true Brad Gates tomatoes, not selections made by others, would be...

#1 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye - likely the most popular of all of his varieties, purely by taste.

#2 Black and Brown Boar - not much talk about this one, but more than a few people say it's the best striped tomato that they've ever tried.

One thing that I've noticed, long before I even got into tomatoes, is that it seems many people taste with their eyes. Simply, the better it looks, the better it tastes, to them.

So, as for Ananas Noire, sure it looks great. But, I've heard lots of comments that it is either lousy or great tasting. I've never tried it because of all of the negative comments.

I’m getting more picky about tomatoes with every season that goes by, at least for what I want to grow. One thing that discounts a variety for me wanting to grow it is if the tomatoes are all zippered up or have massive blossoms scars or have one pretty perfect looking fruit and the rest all cracked, split, poorly shaped. That doesn’t mean I want uniform round red globes, but I don’t want a variety that’s prone to having a lot of runts or multi-lobed fruit that can’t possibly ripen evenly.

Even the photos of some of the Wild Boar fruit on their own website lead me to wonder if these tomatoes in general are prone to putting out a lot of “off type” fruit.

I didn’t like Brandywine OTV last season, I know that’s not a Wild Boar creation or offering, because while the flavor was very good, the tomatoes tended to have ginormous concave blossom scars and other defects when virtually nothing else in my line up did not. I get that Brandywine OTV might produce great shaped tomatoes in some locations, but if there’s any other growers growing that one or anything else that makes ugly fruit it’s nice to know about it. Cherokee Purple is the same way, great taste, problem fruit, in my garden and I’ve come to learn that is true in many other gardens as well.

It is good to get some fair and honest feedback about a tomato. I’m glad when someone says they don’t like such and such variety if that’s how they truly feel about it.

I do have many of those variety and yet I have not tried any yet.. again back to what tormato said you eat with your eyes..I dont mind a few striped that look nice but I'm finally over gotta have that color or this one.. Im also just looking for a darn good mater that I can grow every year..

I grew Pink Berkeley Tie Dye two years ago and loved it. So last year I did a comparison grow in Earthboxes against GGWT - which is one of my favorites.

Side by side (literally and figuratively), they grew at about the same rate, produced at a similar volume, though PBTD produced some larger fruits. They had similar issues with occasional BER - that was most likely on me misjudging the need for water in a strangely cool and unusually late rainy weather season.

I noted that GGWT seemed to be more of a "red" striped when compared to PBTD. Both were sweet and tasty, but for my palate, GGWT was the better tasting. There is nothing wrong with PBTD - I raved about it the previous season as a solid producer and great tasting tomato. I just prefer GGWT all around.

This year I am trialing Golden Hour and Lucid Gem, and regrowing Pineapple Pig. I will report back my results.

I grew Pineapple Pig as a replacement plant for a San Marzano that died early in 2020. It was a medium producer but I loved the taste and texture.

You may want to try Large Barred Boar. It was the first "large" tomato I could actually grow and have ripen at my place. It is also tasty and a nice sized slicer...

Last year, one of our local community gardens (clay soil) ranked Large Barred Boar up there with Black Krim and Cherokee Purple in their taste test and said they have a similar output. A few years before, a different community garden (more limestone, less clay), said Large Barred Boar was one of their worst tasting tomatoes but highly ranked Black and Brown Boar.

I have heard that the striping fades in hot temps. No idea about fruit shape regularity, though. A friend did mention that Black and Brown Boar got some cracking at the top. This will be my first year growing Large Barred Boar and I'll let you know how it goes. I've also heard good things about Pork Chop, Pineapple Pig, and Pink Berkeley Tie Die.

Blueberries tasted awful and people accused me of trying to poison them. But that was a really wet spring and I'm guessing it was related to growing conditions.

I grew GGWT last year, and wasn't impressed by the taste. I guess I am obligated to give it another chance, judging by the comments on this thread.

I’ll put another plug out there for Solar Flare.
It’s not the most productive tomato on the face of the earth but I’ve consistently had great flavor, and it’s drop-dead gorgeous imo.
It almost never gets mentioned when folks talk about Brad’s tomatoes and I can’t figure that out.

karstopography wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 12:21 pm I’m getting more picky about tomatoes with every season that goes by, at least for what I want to grow. One thing that discounts a variety for me wanting to grow it is if the tomatoes are all zippered up or have massive blossoms scars or have one pretty perfect looking fruit and the rest all cracked, split, poorly shaped. That doesn’t mean I want uniform round red globes, but I don’t want a variety that’s prone to having a lot of runts or multi-lobed fruit that can’t possibly ripen evenly.

Even the photos of some of the Wild Boar fruit on their own website lead me to wonder if these tomatoes in general are prone to putting out a lot of “off type” fruit.

I didn’t like Brandywine OTV last season, I know that’s not a Wild Boar creation or offering, because while the flavor was very good, the tomatoes tended to have ginormous concave blossom scars and other defects when virtually nothing else in my line up did not. I get that Brandywine OTV might produce great shaped tomatoes in some locations, but if there’s any other growers growing that one or anything else that makes ugly fruit it’s nice to know about it. Cherokee Purple is the same way, great taste, problem fruit, in my garden and I’ve come to learn that is true in many other gardens as well.

It is good to get some fair and honest feedback about a tomato. I’m glad when someone says they don’t like such and such variety if that’s how they truly feel about it.

The ugly ones don't bother me. You want zippering/stitching? You have no idea what stitching is until you've tried Aunt Gertie's Gold. Iit's often lumpy, and it's very late, and it ain't very productive. I think that I once called its looks as that of... a baseball, run over by a car, and peed on by a dog. But, ohh, has it got flavor. You bite into it, and it bites back. And, I eat right through the stitching. Unlike...

...Shuntukski Velican, which is one of my favorite reds. Often the blossom end is a huge patch of russeted skin. It's like chewing on sandpaper, because I've tried eating that patch of skin...once. I now know to cut/peel that patch off. Like AGG, I put up with its faults because of the exceptional flavor.

And, on to the one singular greatest tasting tomato that I ever tried. It was a Kellogg's Breakfast being multi-blossomed, about two pounds, with uneven ripening. I cut it into wedges, stem to blossom, like sectioning an orange. The top portion of a wedge was just slightly under ripe, the middle portion was perfectly ripe, and the bottom portion just overripe, producing the most complex taste, in one bite, of a tomato that I've ever had.

Luckily, I can grow enough tomatoes that all I'm looking for is one great tasting tomato off of a plant. Sure, I'd like many more, but my year is made with that one tomato that shocks me with a flavor that is almost too hard to believe.

So PBTD is fairly similar to GGWT?

I keep on a seeing a seed packet or two for PBTD, I think 2015. Been meaning to grow it out for years but never do. I did not particularly like GGWT, off a couple different plants last year.

Seems like there is more positive things being written or not too negative things people are saying about these WB tomatoes. Feeling encouraged to try one or two.

PBTD is the only one I've grown, and it was a nice producer, decently early, and very much enjoyed the taste.
Only one thing to add about this fruit, you have to eat them or freeze them the day they're ripe and no later. As soon as they start to soften, they go straight to overripe in a flash. It's fine for a home garden where you can give them that personal attention.

I'm growing Anana's Noir for this summer. I'll get y'all know how it goes.
Has anyone grown Summer of Love? Someone sent me seed to that but I won't have room for it this year.
Black Beauty and Blue Beauty, so far, are my favorites from Brad Gates.

I’m growing limelight this year which is supposed to be a container friendly semi-inderminate type. I’ll let you know how it turns out

No, I don't think there are really any common themes among them other than that they look exotic. They're about as varied as tomatoes generally are.

Here are most of the ones I've tried that they're currently selling in their store:

Black Beauty: Excellent tomato in 2017. Firm, prolific, and tasty in tough soil. It was late, but very prolific. The fruits were pink with anthocyanin skin. The fruits were perfect with no blemishes, as far as I remember. When I grew saved seeds, they were a cross with a cherry (I think Sweetie); the cross was very prolific, but pretty much every fruit split before I could harvest it. I think I tried to grow it a third time from another source, and it didn't work out (I had a crop failure or something).

Blue Beauty (pink offtype; no anthocyanin): The fruits were small. It was unproductive (it was shaded and by some blackcurrant bushes, though). I don't have anything to say for or against the taste. I don't think it was soft.

Blue Berries: I kind of liked these all-around, but it looked like it had more fruit than I actually harvested and ate from it. I'm not sure how that works, since I think I harvested all the ripe ones and at the end of the season, as many of the unripe ones as I could. So, I didn't re-grow it the next year.

Brad's Atomic Grape: I got a few late fruits. It could have used fertilizer, I'm sure. I don't remember the taste.

Chocolate Chestnut: Lots of leaves compared to fruit. I think I grew it twice. It wasn't prolific for me, but it has been for others. I don't remember what the fruit tasted like offhand; I think it was maybe kind of a brown sugar kind of taste, if I remember right. I liked it the taste.

Cosmic Eclipse: This was kind of cool at first, and seemed like it would be prolific, but then it kept acting like it had herbicide poisoning. The next generation in a different location had the same problem, and was less productive (quite leafy). The fruits were soft. The taste was mild, I think.

Costoluto Genovese (I don't think they released this one): I think I grew this. Whatever the case, I grew something like it (probably a cross with it) that I liked, so I think I tried Costoluto Genovese afterward (not in the best soil), and I don't remember exactly what happened.

Dark Galaxy: In tough soil, this one struggled. It didn't set any fruit.

Dark Queen: A rock squished this plant a few times when it was young; so, it underperformed. However, it seemed like it might be able to be decent. I don't remember the taste being bad. This might have been Queen of the Night instead of Dark Queen. I don't remember.

Green Zebra (Tom Wagner variety): Decent flavor. Slightly acidic sweet taste. Kind of firm; maybe slightly mealy. I've grown Orange and Green Zebra, too, which I think was softer and less tasty (but also less mealy).

Indigo Apple: I don't remember much about it, but it wasn't very prolific. A lot of the tomatoes in that area weren't prolific, though.

Large Barred Boar: I think I started a plant for my neighbor; it seemed initially vigorous in their garden; I'm not sure how it did later.

Napa Giant: This is basically a large selection of Mortgage Lifter, as I understand it. It wasn't super prolific for me, but it did get some fruits, and they weren't tiny.

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye: The first time I grew it, it was super late and got tiny fruit, but when I saved seeds and grew them in a different spot, it was super prolific and had large fruits; it was surprisingly early for having such large fruits. The fruits were very soft and very sweet with very little acid flavor. It was a fairly simple taste.

Pink Brandywine (They didn't release this one.): This is prolific for me and I like it a lot. I've grown it twice so far and plan to grow it again this year. It seems to have good fertilizer-salt tolerance, making it a good fit for pre-fertilized soil. I prefer the flavor of Brandy Boy F1, but this isn't bad. The fruits can get quite large. Mine actually did well in the heat, even (I don't know if that's normal for the variety).

Red Beauty: This is an excellent variety. Great taste (it's a tomato soup kind of taste). One of the best-looking tomatoes I've ever seen (both before and after it's ripe). It's about a 70-day tomato. Decent production. Salad-sized (about like Early Girl, but the shape is more like a beefsteak than Early Girl's fruit). I don't know why I haven't regrown it again, yet (oh, I think it's because I prefer tomatoes this size to be earlier). I only grew it once, in 2017. There's another tomato with the same name that isn't striped (it's unrelated to Wild Boar Farms). I gave someone seeds years ago, and they told me this year that they've been growing it regularly, and somehow they ran out of seeds. They loved it. The plant habit for me was similar to Manitoba's.

Summer of Love: This is possibly the most vigorous true-to-type tomato I've ever grown. It's super prolific. The fruits are large. However, for me, it was very prone to cracking/splitting before harvest, and it didn't taste how I had hoped. Although it was a bicolor, it was essentially a green-when-ripe (and not a sweet one, nor was it tart; astringent is probably the word to describe it). This is actually related to Pink Berkeley Tie Dye; however, it tastes totally different, and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye isn't prone to splitting/cracking. To get any uncracked/unsplit fruits from Summer of Love, I had to harvest them a while before they were ripe and let them ripen indoors. The fruits are quite soft.

The following aren't Wild Boar Farms varieties, but as they've been mentioned, here's my experience with them:

As far as Ananas Noire goes, I tried it in 2016 and didn't get any fruit. The plant either got smothered by other tomatoes or died.

GGWT was decent (with regard to days to mature, fruit size, production, and fruit quality), but the flavor was too mild for my tastes. I'm not sure if mine was an offtype or not. It's a sport of Green Zebra discovered by a dog named Girl Girl, but it's a big maroon beefsteak instead of a roundish green salad tomato. Most people seem to love GGWT's flavor. FYI: I saved seeds from Pink Missouri Love Apple that year, and the next year, they looked like GGWT (except more prolific and bigger fruit; impressively so). It could have been mixed up seed, I guess. I gave seeds of that to the same person who liked Red Beauty and that person loved it.

A tomato I was breeding, which I labeled Horse_A, was related to GGWT. It completely died of Verticillium when the fruits got to a certain stage, but it was a very stately-looking plant before that. Verticillium wasn't rampant in the garden when I grew GGWT; so, I don't know how well it fares.