Tomato Crimson Crush - thoughts?

[ChingfordHarry]

hi

just back from the allotment where my entire crop of outdoor tomato plants has succumbed (since the weekend) to blight. I've been growing two heritage varieties for many years (Scotland Yellow and Clibran's Victory) and both are very nice tomatoes. You can imagine that I'm not very happy with binning this year's crop when until a couple of weeks ago I thought I could forget last year's disaster.

I've been reading a little about blight resistant varieties, and noticed that Crimson crush gets some good reviews about blight resistance, but some very variable reviews about taste etc of the tomatoes themselves.

I was wondering what people here thought of it, or if anyone had suggestions for alternatives.

[greenishfing]

I have grown Crimson Crush for several years and they are my favourite ever tomato.
Sorry to hear about your tomatoes.

[ameno]

I'm growing it for the first time this year, and I'm very happy with the taste. It's not like it's the very best tomato I've ever tasted, but it's definitely very tasty. No sign of blight at all, either, despite the potatoes next to them succumbing.
I've also been growing Mountain Magic for the last few years, which is also very good (tastes good, very blight resistant).
Mountain Magic is a small salad size and quite firm.
Crimson Crush are large salad size (some almost beefsteak size) and quite soft.

I also grew Cocktail Crush this year, which is in the same range as Crimson Crush. They've done pretty well, and taste quite nice, too, but they're the exact same size as Mountain Magic yet don't taste quite as good or crop quite as heavily, so I probably won't grow them again.

There are also cherry, beefsteak and plum varieties in the same range as Crimson Crush. I can't comment on the taste as I've never grown them, but given their lineage they are probably just as blight resistant. I plan on trying the beefsteak one ("Rose Crush") myself next year.

As far as I know, only the "Crush" range and Mountain Magic are reliably blight resistant. Other varieties that claim to be are more resistant than normal varieties but can still become badly infected eventually. But the "Crush" range and Mountain Magic often won't be infected at all, and even when they are infected the infection spreads only very slowly and usually does not affect the fruits.

[Mr Bones]

Another thumbs up for Crimson Crush - produces well and good flavour.

[greenishfing]

The first year I grew Crimson crush I got the seeds free from Gardener's World on TV. They were doing some kind of experiment with blight resistant varieties. I got seeds for 3 varieties. I can't remember what the other 2 were now but I thought the Crimson Crush were the better tasting which is why I've stuck with them.

[ChingfordHarry]

Many thanks for the replies. I hadn't noticed Mountain Magic in my searches, but have now found it described by various sellers as "cherry", "large cherry" and "small salad" (seems that US sites tend to go for the "cherry" more than UK sites, maybe that's because everything is bigger and better over there!). The weight range indicated (55-80g) is very much what I see with Clibran's Victory and what I'm really looking for in a tomato in terms of size.

I think I'll try both Crimson Crush and Mountain Magic and see how I get on.

[ameno]

Many thanks for the replies. I hadn't noticed Mountain Magic in my searches, but have now found it described by various sellers as "cherry", "large cherry" and "small salad" (seems that US sites tend to go for the "cherry" more than UK sites, maybe that's because everything is bigger and better over there!). The weight range indicated (55-80g) is very much what I see with Clibran's Victory and what I'm really looking for in a tomato in terms of size.

I think I'll try both Crimson Crush and Mountain Magic and see how I get on.

In my experience the size of Mountain Magic can to somewhat variable. The trusses are pretty long, and the fruit near the end of the truss tend to be on the smaller side, and the fruit near the stem end tend to be larger. I find they range from normal cherry tomato size at the smallest to golf-ball sized at the largest.

[bramble]

Growing Crimson Crush here as well.
My second year growing it, under glass and in a bucket.
Good flavour and no problems with it.

[Penellype]

I've grown several blight resistant varieties, notably Crimson Crush, Oh Happy Day, Mountain Magic and Ferline. Of these, the first 2 are similar and produce very large almost beefsteak size tomatoes with a reasonable flavour. Oh Happy Day has produced larger yields for me in general, on one occasion producing nearly 100 large tomatoes per plant, grown outdoors in soil. Supporting both is a challenge as they tend to fork rather than produce sideshoots as they get older. This year I have tried growing Oh Happy Day in a topless growhouse and it hates it - much better outside. I found Oh Happy Day slightly more blight resistant than Crimson Crush - they will succumb eventually.

Mountain Magic is a much more conventional cordon tomato, with smallish fruit - I would hesitate to call them cherry as they are bigger than something like Sungold. Good blight resistance, but for me poor flavour. Again they are best outdoors but will succumb to blight eventually.

Ferline has some blight resistance, produces large salad tomatoes and has much better flavour than the other 3. The tomatoes don't keep, tending to go soft around the stalk end quite quickly. They will get blight a little earlier than the other 3 varieties, but will survive longer than ordinary tomatoes, giving you a chance to pick the fruit and some of it may ripen without rotting. They are slightly harder to grow than the other varieties, and the odd plant can sulk and produce very little fruit. This year I tried one in the greenhouse and it has done very well. Individual trusses of fruit can become very heavy and may need extra support.

[Mr Bones]

In it's favour Mountain Magic is a very firm tomato and as such has quite a decent shelf life. Most years we have some in the kitchen until Dec 5th so for us it's worth growing just to have fresh toms long after the others have gone.