Tomato Advice and thoughts (i know this has been asked before!!)

[emarisa28]

Hi all, 3rd year of having an allotment and 3rd year of tomatoes (which was the main reason i wanted an allotment!!)
Year one - had loads and loads but taste wasnt always great
Year two - had to through about 60 away as got hit by blights - i had a mixture of plums, tigerella, an ox heart variety, black russian and garden peach

This year i decided to grow them in pots in the ground to try and control the growing and amount of tomatoes so that they would ripen before blight. It has sort of worked, my tomatoes are ripening. BUT the taste isnt always that great. Infact im very disappointed with Tigerella as even though they ripen they are pretty tasteless.

I have heard somewhere that a way to get them sweeter is to not water too much - is this true and if so how often have you watered or fed them this year. Over the past week for example i watered just once, which was a feed. However my mum has a couple of my plants in pots in her garden (not dug into the soil) and i couldnt believe how sweet they were!! Plus she has more shade!!!

So that is my first question - how to get them sweet

My second question is more for next year, what variety would you suggest for amazing sweet taste? That is not a cherry tomato and not Shirley...something like Ox size-wise. Any thoughts would be appreciated!! xxxx

ps - am putting this on the Fruit vine also, apologies if you see this twice!

[emarisa28]

Tomato Advice and thoughts (i know this has been asked before!!)

Hi all, 3rd year of having an allotment and 3rd year of tomatoes (which was the main reason i wanted an allotment!!)
Year one - had loads and loads but taste wasnt always great
Year two - had to through about 60 away as got hit by blights - i had a mixture of plums, tigerella, an ox heart variety, black russian and garden peach

This year i decided to grow them in pots in the ground to try and control the growing and amount of tomatoes so that they would ripen before blight. It has sort of worked, my tomatoes are ripening. BUT the taste isnt always that great. Infact im very disappointed with Tigerella as even though they ripen they are pretty tasteless.

I have heard somewhere that a way to get them sweeter is to not water too much - is this true and if so how often have you watered or fed them this year. Over the past week for example i watered just once, which was a feed. However my mum has a couple of my plants in pots in her garden (not dug into the soil) and i couldnt believe how sweet they were!! Plus she has more shade!!!

So that is my first question - how to get them sweet

My second question is more for next year, what variety would you suggest for amazing sweet taste? That is not a cherry tomato and not Shirley...something like Ox size-wise. Any thoughts would be appreciated!! xxxx

ps - am putting this on the veg vine also, apologies if you see this twice!

[Scarlet]

I think taste is subjective. What you may find bland, others may love. Cherry tomatoes are much sweeter (imo) to ox type toms - you won't find much sweeter than Sungold, much too sweet for my tastes but the kids love them.
This is worth a read http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...5-a_86401.html
I'f you grow in pots and keep the plants saturated with water I do think the taste is "diluted". I grow in the GH border and in pots and water every day in the Summer, I think watering once a week isn't enough and you'll soon get sick plants and could well drop their flowers.
What variety of tomato is your Mum growing?

[Thelma Sanders]

You have to keep trying varieties til you find ones that you like the taste of. We all have different taste buds so what tastes good to me, might not to you. It's a pain but it's true, having tried many 'best flavoured tomato' recommendations

I haven't found a good sweet large yet, I find they all need a dressing or cooking to make them taste perfect. We struggle with our weather and soil
Even in the greenhouse I'm still looking to grow my 'best tasting big tom' and I've been trying for years n years n years lol
I've cracked it with cherry and medium size, but not the bigguns!

[emarisa28]

She has grown some of my cast offs. So Garden Peach and one of my Ox types. Her GP were fantastic, mine were bland. I think next year i may not put the pots in the ground, in the hope that less tomatoes get produced so more time that allows for ripening. As quite a few of mine are still green.....im especially disappointed with the Tigerella as they arent even that large a tomato!

[Scarlet]

Tigerella are a medium size tomato.
Taste can change with the soil, position, weather, ripeness when picked etc.

[emarisa28]

What medium size do you use? My Ox ones arent really that large, nowhere near as large as Beefsteak..... id like something that size that is sweeter than my ox

[emarisa28]

Yup i know, but this has been a pretty good summer.... and they have been in full sun. Is it true that you shouldnt water too often to encourage sweetness? xx

[Thelma Sanders]

A yellow tomato, Jaune Flamme is perfect for me, it's a blend of sweetness with a bit of a lemony taste as well, but I do grow it in the greenhouse.

Too much blight for me to risk any without cover.

[Scarlet]

Is it true that you shouldnt water too often to encourage sweetness? xx

Never heard of that. If I watered only once a week in my GH they wouldn't survive long.


Pantano - this is one of my favourite of the larger tomatoes although I won't grow many. I get much better return per plant on a cherry and medium size varieties. If the Spring is cold I will cut it down depending on numbers and grow cherry/medium instead depending on how well they have grown so far. They need a longer growing season - so I wouldn't grow them outside.
They often vary hugely in size on the plant.

[Scarlet]

. I think next year i may not put the pots in the ground, in the hope that less tomatoes get produced so more time that allows for ripening

To reduce the number of tomatoes produced on each plant you can just stop the plant after its grown the amount of trusses you require. If you grow in pots at an allotment you will need to go everyday to water.

[rary]

This year I have grown Mountain Magic and I find quite tasty, along with cherry tomatoes, which the children enjoy, I have tried growing a plant of M.Magic with minimum feeding which I think alters the taste, they are quite bland without feeding, but just to cause me some confusion, I have just pulled a tomato from a plant called Red Robin which is growing in a 6ins. pot on my conservatory window, watered every day but last fed over a week ago and it is very sweet

[Snoop Puss]

I've not grown either. From your message, it seems you've grown Mountain Magic before. Is the Red Robin new to you? Apart from the feeding regime, what other differences are there in the way you're growing them? Is the Mountain Magic outdoors?

It could, of course, just be that Red Robin is a sweeter variety.

[bramble]

I dont think any two people will get the same flavour from the same tomato. We have to take the soil type into consideration. We all water, feed, and grow our tomatoes in different conditions.
Some of us grow outdoors, as against indoors. Some of use containers/buckets etc as against plsnting directly into the soil. We can really only take the advice thats offered to us and adjust it to our own way of growing.

[MarkPelican]

I say this all the time, my favourite tomatoes are Summer Cider and Pink Brandywine. However, these are both late ripening beefsteak (I've had fruit in an unheated greenhouse in Late November). I struggle at the allotment for exactly the reasons you comment. i grew Crimson Crush from the free plants last year and was unimpressed, I'm trying Mountain Magic for the first time this year but it looks as though my "control" plants (Alicante, Bloody Butcher, Ailsa Craig, and Black Plum) are going to do better and there's no sign of blight(yet).