Tomato reviews likes & dislikes 2015 - 2020

[maverick451]

I grow them in those Quadgrow things I tried this year, I agree its a great variety, I really love the look of them.

I still got a good harvest but was a shame to have to throw some really big ones away, ill definately grow them next year.

[Tripmeup]

Black Russian - vine/medium

Tall plants with around 6 tons per truss. They aren't the first to produce but they are really worth the wait. Full of flavour, really juicy with a bite that goes well with that glass of wine and some olives. They are a deep mahogany colour with green shoulders, to be honest I just love all "black" tomatoes fresh! It's still producing fruit now, picked another 4 today.

Health and vigour - 8
Taste - 9
Grow again - yes, always do
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Big fan of Black Russian too..try to grow them every year...

[Lisasbolt]

I have been meaning to post mine for some time now.
It has been a very bad year for my tomatoes, the heat has been unbearable at points with temperatures in July up at 45degrees. You could water all day and it wouldn't make a difference. So i have really suffered with blossom end rot, good to know as i will most likely suffer again. On a possitive I've never had such a good year for chilli´s and peppers!

Also all my beefsteak have completely failed, just as they have started to ripe, tiny little bugs would get to them first. So don´t think i will bother again and anyways i prefer medium sized and cherry sized fruits. So i won´t even waste my time writing about them.

Orange Banana

Health and vigour 2/10
Taste 6/10
Grow Again - Never-the worse out of all the plants for the blossom end rot, think i got only one or 2 tomatoes that were not effected


Orange german Strawberry

Health and vigour 5/10 the plant grew enormous and very healthy till it produced it fruits again bad blossom end rot.
Taste 5/10
Grow Again - Definitely Not, only tried 1 tom!


Black Cherry- but it wasn't really black cherry

Health and vigour 8/10
Taste 8/10
Grow Again - I don't know as they were mislabelled so god knows what they where!!! but will try and buy more black cherry and try again, you never know.


Valencia

Health and vigour 5/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Probably not, nice healthy plants but hardly any fruit. But very very tasty, although no problem with blossom end rot.


Red Zebra (improved!)

Health and vigour 6/10
Taste 7/10
Grow Again - Not sure it did get slightly effect by blossom end rot, but such lovely tomatoes and very tasty


Tigerella

Health and vigour 6/10
Taste 6/10
Grow Again - Maybe i have plenty of seed, but was disappointed, little critters generally got there first. But i did over crowd which really did not help.


Charlie Chaplin

Health and vigour 7/10
Taste 5/10
Grow Again - Don´t think so, the tomatoes seemed very dry, maybe this was my fault. No blossom end rot and quite a few tomatoes


Chocolate stripes

Health and vigour 6/10
Taste 7/10
Grow Again - Don´t think so, but i think it was my fault for over crowding. But the tomatoes i did get were nice.


Golden sunburst

Health and vigour 9/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, lovely fruit plentiful and very tasty


Sun Drop

Health and vigour 9/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, be hard to know which one to choose between Golden Sunburst, Sun drop and sun gold, think i will do a pick and mix


Alicante

Health and vigour 9/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, love this tomato, so many on each plant.


Red alert

Health and vigour 9/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, was very impressed by this plant. At first i was annoyed that i had to stake as it is meant to be a bush variety, the plants did get very big, then seemed to stop after a while, but couldn´t hold their own weight. They gave me my first red tomatoes, and hundreds throughout the season and tasted wonderful. its a must for every year, i think!


Tamina

Health and vigour 8/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, maybe not every year but def again. A potato leaf variety with lovely medium sized tomatoes and gave fruit early in the season, did quite well with the heat (being in the polytunnel as well) Fruited for a long time.


Roma

Health and vigour ?
Taste 7/10
Grow Again - they did so poorly in the beginning of the season (blossom end rot and the flowers falling off) i had a lot of plants for jarring etc, i nearly lost it and was going to pull them all up but they seemed to bounce back and gave lovely tomatoes at the end


Yellow and red pear

Health and vigour 10/10
Taste 10/10
Grow Again - Definitely, i think these are my favourite 2 plants, will always hopefully grow, great for cooking, salads everything really



Cherry Tomato

Health and vigour 7/10
Taste 9/10
Grow Again - Definitely, i buy them as young plants 10 for 1e did not do as well as last year but my garden is not complete without them



I won´t be around must next year for growing so need plants that will take care of themselves for 3-4 weeks at a time, will have irrigation and someone to pick them so any other bush varieties that you can think of or plants that take care of themselves will be appreciated.


Wow that took longer than i thought and i forgot how many plants i had. The last of my summer tomatoes are all being pulled up this weekend. bye till next year.

[Scarlet]

Orange banana suffered for me in the past with blossom end rot, they really need correct watering. I tried growing them in a pot and it was a disaster. I'm sure I read recently that Nellie-M had the same problem.
Black cherry isn't really "black" not like the indigo rose or the dancing with smurfs black. It's more a purple/ mahogany/ brown with a hint of green on the shoulders.
Being away in the summer for a month and trying to grow toms can be really tricky. I find being away a week is too much. Bush tomatoes can be quick to fruit and finish. I think your best bet would be to grow something slower like the beefsteak types. I know it's different growing over there but what insect were eating them? What do your locals grow?

[Lisasbolt]

Locals tend to grow RAF tom´s like a beefsteak and cherry tom´s

I have no idea what little critters i had, all i know is that they were tiny very tiny.

If i had to guess i think my black cherry was an Ukranian purple Tomato, very much a plum tomato i have had a few issues with this seller this year, one of my spaghetti squashes was a Harlequin and they all came from the same packet! Does´t really bother me though.

[rosiepumpkin]

I grew in an east facing greenhouse not in full sun, in London:

Cherry vine: Gardener's Delight, Yellow Pear, White Cherry, Black Cherry, Galina
Plum vine: Principe Borghese
Medium size vine: Green Zebra
Storage: de Colgar
Bush: Grushovka, Latah

Best performers: Black cherry, White cherry, de Colgar, Grushovka (before the caterpillars got it), Latah probably as it looked like it was about to kick into high gear before the caterpillars arrived

Best taste: Black cherry, Latah

Worst taste: White cherry, Grushovka (it's been a bad year so not taking low taste this year as an indicator)

Good keepers: They all kept well. I won't know about the storage variety keeping well until January Ok so far.

On your grow list for next year: (choice partly determined by wanting to grow other varieties so I am being ruthless)
Latah, Grushovka, White Cherry, Green Zebra, de Colgar. (I'm only not growing Black Cherry because I want to grow other similar varieties)

(Galina looked unhappy after only a few weeks so I took it out. Plants from the same seeds I gave to my friend further up the site growing outside, hers did well.

[nellie-m]

Orange Banana, yes, I grew it in pots for the first time this year and nearly didn't get a single fruit without BER. If that had been the first year of trying it, I would definitely not grow it again. Black Icicle, Purple Ukraine, Gelbe Königin, Pink Ponderosa all did well in pots (they are buckets really so large enough). Only Orange Banana didn't.

In previous years I planted it in the ground and it was wonderful. I think I'll add this caveat in the variety description next time I print out labels, so whoever tries it will be warned.

[Yasai]

All of my toms were grown outdoors in pots. Big fan of Black cherry, too, and will definitely grow again.

Harzfeuer F1

Got these seeds from good ol' Lidl. They're a medium sized, red tomato with a nice sweetness to them when fully ripe. I say that coz I tend to lose patience and pick a lot of my tomatoes a tad early; after waiting half a year for them to grow/ripen, one more week just seems to be asking too much, what can I say!?

Health & vigour: 9/10
Taste: 9/10
Grow again? Yes


White queen

White, beefsteak tomatoes. Great taste, lovely in a sarnie and very prolific. *Pedant alert* They're actually varying shades of yellow rather than white but what's in a name!?

Health & vigour: 9/10
Taste: 9/10
Grow again? Yes


Ildi

Yellow, pear-shaped cherry tomatoes. I grew these last year and had trusses laden with fruit; a good eighty odd fruit per truss. This year, didn't have more than twenty per truss and an average of around twelve, I'd say. Much bigger fruit this year but a lot more splitting as well. This year's seeds were not from the same source as last year, so I'm assuming that's why; then again, could be the weather or summat.

Health & vigour: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Grow again? Yes, in the hope that I can replicate last year's success.


Black opal

Black cherry tomato.

Health & vigour: 9/10
Taste: 3/10
Grow again? Nope

[Ryleh]

Scarlet - you mentioned Dancing with Smurfs. I snot Coke across this variety before and would be interested in giving it a go. Do you happen to know of any seed retailers that sell it?

A quick look around only netted me 1 seller on eBay and they dispatch from Greece.

[Ryleh]

Scarlet - you mentioned Dancing with Smurfs. I snot Coke across this variety before and would be interested in giving it a go. Do you happen to know of any seed retailers that sell it?

A quick look around only netted me 1 seller on eBay and they dispatch from Greece.

Amazing what the predictive text on my phone came up with. That was supposed to say I've not come across this variety before... for some reason I'm unable to edit my post though so can't correct it

[Nicos]

Ha !
I could change it for you, but that's so funny I'm going to leave it for others to see!

[Florence Fennel]

I've really enjoyed Golden Sunrise this year - prolific croppers, lovely colour and hardly any seeds.

[Scarlet]

across this variety before and would be interested in giving it a go. Do you happen to know of any seed retailers that sell it?

Welcome to the vine Ryleh.
I don't know any sellers but if you stick around and manage the 3months/50 posts rule I'm sure you will be able to swap some of your saved tomato seeds for some dancing with smurfs with the VSP or one of us in plenty of time for next years growing season. We are all busy drying seed at the moment

# I'm not correcting your post either made me chuckle that typo

[veggiechicken]

Amazing what the predictive text on my phone came up with. That was supposed to say I've not come across this variety before... for some reason I'm unable to edit my post though so can't correct it

Ha !
I could change it for you, but that's so funny I'm going to leave it for others to see!

# I'm not correcting your post either made me chuckle that typo

You're a mean lot - not editing Ryleh's post Drat, i seem to have mislaid my editing finger!
Welcome Ryleh. As Scarlet says, stick around, make your 50 posts and next year, the Smurfs could be growing in your garden.

[sparrow100]

Scarlet - you mentioned Dancing with Smurfs. I snot Coke across this variety before and would be interested in giving it a go. Do you happen to know of any seed retailers that sell it?

A quick look around only netted me 1 seller on eBay and they dispatch from Greece.

Ryleh, that's made my morning. Thank you!
If there are none in the VSP when you get to 50 posts, let me know, I've got some drying now. I can't imagine you won't see lots of other amazing things in the VSP...