Tomatoes and flavour

[Bill HH]

Last year I have to admit I was dissapointed with the flavour of my toms, the co-op ones were better in fact.

I grew gardeners delight, Alicante and Shirley (not Sharon) I grew them in grow bags in the green house and fed them weekly with Tomorite. Despite very good yields they tasted second rate, very low on sweetness.
This year each plant is going into a 35 litre container and I have added a small handfull of BF&B to each. I will feed them weekly or twice a week.

This year I am growing Gardeners delight, Shirley and sungold. I will also have three tumblers in individual baskets outside.

If they don't taste superior to shop bought ones there is no point growing them.

What more can I do?

[Kristen]

What more can I do?

I think you need to treat them a bit more "mean"

Grow them in the ground (if you have borders in your greenhouse), so you can water less frequently. (Bigger containers might achieve that, grow-bags are probably the worse for needing frequent watering).

I am thinking that they got too much water (which would have been necessary with grow bags).

I don't grow Toms outside, but folk that grow both tell me that the outdoor ones (i.e. same variety) taste better. Short season though.

[Bill HH]

I think you need to treat them a bit more "mean"

Grow them in the ground (if you have borders in your greenhouse), so you can water less frequently. (Bigger containers might achieve that, grow-bags are probably the worse for needing frequent watering).

I am thinking that they got too much water (which would have been necessary with grow bags).

I don't grow Toms outside, but folk that grow both tell me that the outdoor ones (i.e. same variety) taste better. Short season though.

Kristen,
I loathe and detest growbags, I think you are probably right, they were either soaking or dried up, no matter how attentive I was. I have no beds in GH its built on slabs and no room in the garden so im stuck from that point of view. I read somewhere to restrict watering as they come to harvest to increase sweetness but they dont all reach maturity at the same time so that won't be easy.
Although labeled as 35 litre pots each one took a lot more and I have just one plant in each.

[mothhawk]

I've not tried it myself, but recently I read that if you sprinkle baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) around the plants once every week or so, it lowers the soil acidity, and is absorbed by the plant, giving sweeter, less acidic toms.

[Bill HH]

I've not tried it myself, but recently I read that if you sprinkle baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) around the plants once every week or so, it lowers the soil acidity, and is absorbed by the plant, giving sweeter, less acidic toms.

And probably helps fend off mildew and blight.

[Mikey]

Shirley, surely not.

You should do better with the sungold this year, they are burst in your mouth loveliness.

I always like to have a beefsteak as they are superior in salads IMHO. Colour is important actually, if you want sweeter fruit you should choose lighter colours, yellows oranges and especially whites. Reds have a balanced sweet acidic flavour while blacks and greens are more generally less acidic than reds and a little earthier in the case of blacks.

I love tomatoes, I only have the 16 different varieties this year, shame really, with me looking for another greenhosue I'm sure I could manage a few more.

[Bill HH]

I like Shirleys because they are such heavy croppers and I am not expecting them to be so full of flavour, the sungold are new to me and I did choose those for flavour. But you can buy firm red vine tomatoes (usualy the medium sized ones) that are so damned delicious it brings tears to my eyes. It also seems the deeper red they are the better they taste. If the sungold are as good as everyone says then next year I will grow mostly them.

[Mikey]

I like a good healthy mix, so I have some beefsteak, some pear, some cherry, some plum, some standard, some white, some black, some yellow, some green, some striped, some purple, some orange, and some red. I stayed away from the standard fare you find in garden centres this year as I want to experiment and see if I can find something to whet my whistle.

Oh and I wasn't being negative about your choice of shirley, merely playing with the words.

[Bill HH]

Nice, I wish I had the room, looks like more flowers are scheduled for the chop next year. Where seed catalogues are concerned they describe every tomato as having exeptional flavour which doesn't help one bit.

[Philthy]

Sungella are a good choice; essentially they're a larger fruiting Sungold, and crop very heavily.

For flavour, I've been most impressed in the past with Black Cherry, Tomatoberry (heart shaped red cherry), and Sungold / Sungella.

Smaller fruiting tomatoes, cordon or bush, are more reliable and consistant all round in my experience. Medium and beefsteak types, for me, have never produced a crop that didn't leave me disappointed in some way (issues with taste, texture, yield, size etc). This is probably due more to my irregular watering than anything else, but if that is the case, cherry types seem much more tolerant. Anyway, I've given up growing anything but cherry tomatoes for the time being. I don't find them worth the effort.

[Bren In Pots]

For the last couple of years I've grown Amish paste but last year they didn't taste of anything not sure why so I've not sown them again.
I'm sticking with my usual Black cherry, gardeners delight, lemon tree, Shirleys plus San marzano for cooking.
Mine are grown in the GH border that I rotate with the soil in my garden beds.

[Potstubsdustbins]

The problem we face is everyone has different taste buds. For me the three varieties you mentioned Bill aren't worth growing with regard to taste, but my mate swears by Shirley.

I think you may have gone a bit over the top on the size of containers I grow all my toms in the hallowed Morrison's black buckets about 10 to 14ltrs dependent on which size you get with no problem,I do feed heavy though at every other watering.

Black cherry are not as sweet as Sungold but are excellent on cheese on toast. I grow the original Tumbler not Tumbler Tom and find them much better. Another one I like is Green Zebra, nice firm flesh and tangy taste.

Tumbler and Sungold are both very prolific. I run my Sungold to 5 or 6 trusses depending on the year and get around 20 toms per truss.

A few pic's to make your mouth water.

Potty

[bravo2zero]

Last year I have to admit I was dissapointed with the flavour of my toms, the co-op ones were better in fact.

I grew gardeners delight, Alicante and Shirley (not Sharon) I grew them in grow bags in the green house and fed them weekly with Tomorite. Despite very good yields they tasted second rate, very low on sweetness.
This year each plant is going into a 35 litre container and I have added a small handfull of BF&B to each. I will feed them weekly or twice a week.

This year I am growing Gardeners delight, Shirley and sungold. I will also have three tumblers in individual baskets outside.

If they don't taste superior to shop bought ones there is no point growing them.

What more can I do?

grow them in the ground and treat em mean. pick the ripe ones before watering. never grown mine In pots or bags never had bland tasting toms. I plant a 2 litre pop bottle with the bottom cut of and a couple of small holes drilled in the lid. this gets the water deeper than surface watering making the plant work harder.

[Keeks]

grow them in the ground and treat em mean. pick the ripe ones before watering. never grown mine In pots or bags never had bland tasting toms. I plant a 2 litre pop bottle with the bottom cut of and a couple of small holes drilled in the lid. this gets the water deeper than surface watering making the plant work harder.

I am assuming you plant it upside down with the bottom just above soil level


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[Alison]

For the last couple of years I've grown Amish paste but last year they didn't taste of anything not sure why so I've not sown them again.
I'm sticking with my usual Black cherry, gardeners delight, lemon tree, Shirleys plus San marzano for cooking.
Mine are grown in the GH border that I rotate with the soil in my garden beds.

Amish Paste are great, massive great beef steak tomatoes that had masses of taste and meaty flesh. Very ugly though .

I'm unusual in that I don't really rate Sungold, too sweet and not that lovely bite that a fresh tomato needs to have to give you the feeling you're really eating something. Most of the ones I grow are old fashioned types as the ones that have stood the test of time are usually pretty good. Quite a lot of them are from HSL or Real Seeds but I'm still growing the French Black one that Piglet Willie saved many years ago.

Re the original query about lack of taste, I'd agree that it's probably too much water, it really does make a difference as I think they end up tasting watery.