CELEBRITY TOMATO , What Do you know About It ??
 

I have heard about it here and there. I get the impression that it used to be very popular... But I have not grown it myself and know very little about it.

Now, what got me interested is that I saw Bonnie is selling them at BBS. The plants looked real nice. I thought I might buy one just for the heck of it ( $3.78 plus tax !! not cheap) but then I decided to investigate a little more about it and here I am, starting this thread:

[B]What do you know about it ?
Have you grown it ?
How do you review it in terms of taste, production, growth habit, disease issues, etc. ?[/B]
BTW: I searched for a thread on it , here at TV, but could not find one.

I have already have 32 varieties growing so one more is not going to hurt. :lol:
Thanks in advance .

I've never grown it. But a friend of mine lost most of his tomato plants to Fusarium Wilt. After googling some resistant varieties, he planted a few of those Home Depot $3.78 specials right there in that nasty soil, and those things just trucked on like it was nothing. He got great production, and the taste was pretty good as well. It appears to be a very hardy variety!

I grew it several years in the past and it performed great- but in recent years I have had weird issues with it. at first it was a perfect globe shape- then I got fruit strangely shaped with nipples! taste was diminished too- I just lost interest and stopped growing it. big Beef has pretty much replaced it in my garden.

Many of us here feel the new celebrity is not like the old celebrity even though they dont claim to have a new celebrity.
Did you get all of that?:lol:
I have grown it and I used to like it.
What I feel is this NEW celebrity isn't anything close to the old one.
Still one of the best hybrids out there for home production in my book.
I have had many plants like 50 just loaded with them.:yes:
Worth

I grew it once, let it sprawl and it went crazy. I was begging for people to take them. Too sweet.

Celebrity was our "safety" tomato for several years. It was really good! But something happened to it after about the third year - not sure what, but I don't like growing that anymore. The taste went way down hill.

I have bought Celebrity from two growers and they are very large with very little flavor and the texture can be a bit on the soft side.

Grew it once, will not grow it again. Produced lots of bland supermarket quality fruit. Too many good ones around to let it take up my garden space. Meh!

You're seeing it because you're in the South now and it is (or has been) a tried and true disease resistant, productive variety down here. Small commercial growers all over Mississippi grow Celebrity and fill patches up with medium to large red maters. Taste is so so vs better toms to me but still a fresh grown tomato. It was an AAS winner years back.

I have a guy I buy boxes of ugly Celebrity tomatoes from for 1/3 normal cost to make fresh salsa with. Good salsa...

[QUOTE=JohnJones;623531]You're seeing it because you're in the South now and it is (or has been) a tried and true disease resistant, productive variety down here. Small commercial growers all over Mississippi grow Celebrity and fill patches up with medium to large red maters. Taste is so so vs better toms to me but still a fresh grown tomato. It was an AAS winner years back.

I have a guy I buy boxes of ugly Celebrity tomatoes from for 1/3 normal cost to make fresh salsa with. Good salsa...[/QUOTE]

This is all my Dad grows and is a good producer in So. Louisiana. It is not my favorite, but is far from a bad tomato. Dad prefers it because it is very disease resistant here in a place where moisture, humidity and fungal diseases reign supreme.

[QUOTE=Worth1;623503]Many of us here feel the new celebrity is not like the old celebrity even though they dont claim to have a new celebrity.
Did you get all of that?:lol:
I have grown it and I used to like it.
What I feel is this NEW celebrity isn't anything close to the old one.
Still one of the best hybrids out there for home production in my book.
I have had many plants like 50 just loaded with them.:yes:
Worth[/QUOTE]

I grew the older ones. The new seeds are not improved - they're the opposite.

The older Celebrity produced an abundance of tomatoes that tasted much better as fried green tomatoes. Otherwise, they were boring supermarket crapola.

The new ones - :sleepy: :bummer:

Y'all must get a lot better supermarket tomatoes than I do...;)

I know i wont be growing it any time soon. Way to many better tomato varieties to choose from.

I grew it last year and will grow it again this year. It did very well and I didn't notice that it was bad tasting. I grow a lot of different varieties and my wife fixes them sometimes and I don't really know which ones I'm eating but I didn't hear any complaints. I would say grow one and see for yourself, since everyone's tasters are different.

A lot of people like Celebrity. When I tried it, my tomatoes were as hard as rocks and not much better-tasting than the grocery store. Big Beef, Jet Star, and Early Girl all have far superior flavor...at least in my garden.

Treat it as a "Semi-Determinate". I've grown it about every other year for a while now. It will definitely produce the fruit. The taste is what I would call "better than the super market cardboard", but is not anything to rave about. I buy mature plants early in the growing season to get homegrown as early as possible.

Most of the time, the plant I purchase is about 30 inches tall with lots of blooms and some set fruit. I grow them in 18 gallon containers up here around the house. Once, I even bought some seed from a commercial vendor. Remember, I said "ONCE". Not a memorable tomato, but it still beats Walmart's product 3031.

If you've not grown it, then find a plant and try it. Your results may be different from all of us.

[QUOTE=ContainerTed;623672]Treat it as a "Semi-Determinate". I've grown it about every other year for a while now. It will definitely produce the fruit. The taste is what I would call "better than the super market cardboard", but is not anything to rave about. I buy mature plants early in the growing season to get homegrown as early as possible.

Most of the time, the plant I purchase is about 30 inches tall with lots of blooms and some set fruit. I grow them in 18 gallon containers up here around the house. Once, I even bought some seed from a commercial vendor. Remember, I said "ONCE". Not a memorable tomato, but it still beats Walmart's product 3031.

If you've not grown it, then find a plant and try it. Your results may be different from all of us.[/QUOTE]
Well said, I agree completely, with the exception that I have never had a Celebrity tomato that wasn't WAY better than all but the most expensive Heirloom grocery store tomatoes.

This is from a 2014 Nola.com article on Creole Tomatoes...

"In the 1980s and 1990s, the "Celebrity" cultivar was the one most commonly used by Creole tomato growers, but they also grew others. When someone in New Orleans purchased a Creole tomato back then, it was most likely a "Celebrity."

When the farmers in St. Bernard and Plaquemines called their tomatoes Creole, it meant they were grown in the rich alluvial soil of the area and vine ripened because they did not have to be transported long distances to market. This gave them a rich flavor. It did not designate a particular cultivar.

The public in general has not understood this. In many minds, the Creole tomato is a particular variety with a wonderful flavor. The name Creole has become mythic for "that old-fashioned wonderful tomato flavor I remember from the old days." And in actuality, there never really was one specific variety used by the Creole tomato growers.

These days, the term Creole is used to market tomatoes from a much larger geographical area. I was roundly chastised by a grower in St. Tammany when I mentioned on my radio program that Creole tomatoes were historically grown in St. Bernard and Plaquemines. He also called his tomatoes Creole (although he did not grow that particular cultivar) because it made people want to buy them.

I suppose someone growing tomatoes in Shreveport could call them Creoles as well. As far as I know, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry has not placed any state regulations on how the name is used.

So there you have it. You can find tomato transplants labeled as the 'Creole' cultivar at local nurseries. Feel free to plant them as thousands of Louisiana gardeners do. But it never was the cultivar primarily used by Creole tomato farmers in the "old days."
When farmers called their tomatoes Creole, it meant they were grown in the rich alluvial soil of the area and vine ripened.

"Celebrity" is still around. It's one of my favorite cultivars and wins blind taste tests at LSU AgCenter home garden tomato trials."

Thank you everybody for your feedbacks.
Reviews are [B]MIXED[/B] at best. If it is a good producer w/ average taste I will take it. I don't slice and eat most of my tomatoes but use them in cooked form (sauce, on the grill, canned, soup ..) I can always improve taste by salt, herbs and spices, very much like in Italian cooking.
Disease resistance in the deep south is a big plus for me.
[B]In conclusion[/B], I will buy and plant one to see for myself.
BTW: I am also growing Creole, another southern favorite.
I am growing 32 varieties , mostly popular OP/Heirlooms. So I can afford to take a chance on the 33rd variety, [B]CELEBRITY.[/B]
THANKS AGAIN.

[QUOTE=Gardeneer;623681]Thank you everybody for your feedbacks.
Reviews are [B]MIXED[/B] at best. If it is a good producer w/ average taste I will take it. I don't slice and eat most of my tomatoes but use them in cooked form (sauce, on the grill, canned, soup ..) I can always improve taste by salt, herbs and spices, very much like in Italian cooking.
Disease resistance in the deep south is a big plus for me.
[B]In conclusion[/B], I will buy and plant one to see for myself.
BTW: I am also growing Creole, another southern favorite.
I am growing 32 varieties , mostly popular OP/Heirlooms. So I can afford to take a chance on the 33rd variety, [B]CELEBRITY.[/B]
THANKS AGAIN.[/QUOTE]
You had to grow it after all that typing we did.:lol:

Below is that article. It discusses the Creole cultivar developed at LSU. Quite a few seed companies sell it, but a few of us on here and elsewhere have doubted it is consistent with the original LSU variety. I have grown both the Bonnie's Celebrity and Creole in the past and don't remember thinking much of the Creole.

Hope they both produce well for you. Sounds like you have no problem making use of a productive plant.




[URL]http://www.nola.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2014/03/the_truth_about_creole_tomatoe.html[/URL]

I grow Celebrity every year, it never disappoints, good flavor, uniform fruit and no problems, other than a few cherries the rest are all weird and wonderful heirlooms. Not a lot of plants, some are in tubs, small garden, have to keep room for all those beans :).

Annette

Now that there is a new twist to Celebrity and Creole, I will grow them side by side. It should be entertaining.:lol:
But my understanding is that LSU bred and named a tomatoe and they gave it the name "CREOLE" . :dizzy:

Another good article link below. From that article...

"In 1969, horticulturalists in LSU’s vegetable program developed a new tomato cultivar that was resistant to certain diseases and had characteristics favorable to the region’s conditions. In a move that resulted in “humongous confusion,” says Gill, the scientists gave this new variety the official name “Creole” despite the existing, informal use of the term.

Gill says that Creole cultivar never caught on among growers, who stuck with field-tested varieties or began planting others. LSU’s Creole was an indeterminate plant, meaning it would grow taller and require more staking than the bush-like determinate varieties that came to dominate the world of commercial growers. The Creole was a flash in the pan, and it wasn’t archived at LSU.

“The [Creole] cultivar has been lost along the way,” Gill says, which is why he puts little faith into the idea that tomatoes sold as Creoles are the LSU Creole. “But the name has such magic associated with it because people remember buying flavorful tomatoes from growers years ago that were called Creole.""

[URL]https://www.225batonrouge.com/food/will-real-creole-tomato-please-stand[/URL]

[QUOTE=Gardeneer;623497]I have heard about it here and there. I get the impression that it used to be very popular... But I have not grown it myself and know very little about it.

Now, what got me interested is that I saw Bonnie is selling them at BBS. The plants looked real nice. I thought I might buy one just for the heck of it ( $3.78 plus tax !! not cheap) but then I decided to investigate a little more about it and here I am, starting this thread:

[B]What do you know about it ?
Have you grown it ?
How do you review it in terms of taste, production, growth habit, disease issues, etc. ?[/B]
BTW: I searched for a thread on it , here at TV, but could not find one.

I have already have 32 varieties growing so one more is not going to hurt. :lol:
Thanks in advance .[/QUOTE]
I grow Celebrity every year, not because it is the best tomato, for that I plant several other varieties, but it's always a steady producer for me when some others fail.

[ATTACH]70453[/ATTACH]

Well, had some issues seeing the pic above after I posted it, but this is the entrance to the Creole Tomato Festival in the Big Easy. 8-)

Celebrity
 

I have grown it.

Well known, disease resistant and boring.

May serve well as a "safety" plant.

I grew it off and on for 20 years, some years it was pretty good tasting, other years sorta bland. On another note, it produced 90 counted tomatoes from one plant one year. It is semi determinate, fruit looks nice, but it is in my history books now.
Mountain Fresh blows it away, bigger fruit, same great yield, but MF is one tasty hybrid, and is a determinate too, semi for me up here.

Mountain Fresh is out ahead of everything else I started. It is tolerating the cool weather very well.

I,m gonna get one [B]Celebrity[/B]. I have already my own 32 varieties started from seed.

About a week ago WM had some very nice ones ( @$3.57). I was there again 2 days ago. They were toasted by the frost. I will check again in about a week to see if they get fresh ones.

About taste : I like juicy tomato with old fashion tangy taste. They are also good for canning. You don't have to acidify the sauce too much. I think part of the acid in tomato is vitamin C. That is good for you.:))

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;624491]Mountain Fresh is out ahead of everything else I started. It is tolerating the cool weather very well.[/QUOTE]

Are there many differences between Mountain Fresh and Mountain Merit?