Best New Tomato From Last Year and Your Must Grows Every Year

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by Sun City Linda

I'm a member of the (small) club here that loves Silvery Fir Tree! Tart is GOOD.

Not (small), EXCLUSIVE!

[charley]

it was not a good year for me last year but as always earl faux was good and my f3 cross of cherokee green and earl faux turned out to knock my socks off.red and green bicolor

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by Tormato

Not (small), EXCLUSIVE!

This year I'm going to try the Silvery Fir Tree in my hotbed. If it works, so I join the club. So far I have two nice seedlings.
Vladimír

[DianesGarden]

Every year I grow Sun Sugar (where or where are you all finding Sun Golds that don't crack??), Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ruby's Green, Azoychka, and Druzba. This year I'm looking for a new full bodied red with a little more acid than sweet. Recommendations welcome!

[PNW_D]

Was just browsing through Carolyn's book and spotted Aker's West Virginia ...... thought I might recommend that - but then I see you already are growing Druzba - seems to be almost her favourite for what you are searching for ........

so many new varieties, but so many classics yet to try ........

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by DianesGarden

Every year I grow Sun Sugar (where or where are you all finding Sun Golds that don't crack??), Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ruby's Green, Azoychka, and Druzba. This year I'm looking for a new full bodied red with a little more acid than sweet. Recommendations welcome!

Bacon Lettuce and This is what I would call balanced. I don't think I've ever trialed a red that was more acid than sweet, as nearly all reds in my garden are flavor duds. Yellows and golds are usually the sharpest.

[kath]

Seems like there's no "What are you growing this year?" thread. Maybe this one is even more interesting because it weeds out all the "losers"...relatively speaking, of course. I'm really enjoying it, that's for sure.

Last season I didn't try any new tomatoes and my Must Grow Every Year list consisted of Sungold F1 and Blackberry. Feeling left out, somehow...

This fall/winter, I've been bitten by "the bug" again and my list of hopefuls is swelling beyond the bounds of available garden space, so maybe next fall I will have a Best New Tomato and more than 2 on my Must Grow Every Year list.

[Tropicalgrower]

Originally Posted by Tormato

AGP is the ONLY tomato that makes my knees go wobbly.

I'm going to order some seed of AGP simply because of this post Tormato.Now,my knees go all wobbly these days largely because of my age,but I could see an exquisite tomato do the same, but for a different reason.

[oakley]

Not new to me being year four but now available, dwarfMetallica.
It is an early dark slicer, in the NEast. Fruits with the early cherries.
Being dwarf and stocky I can start a month early...never leggy.

Growing at least 3 dozen this season...
The only issue I have is the heavy weight for the size. I did need
to give support to the fruit tying up to the frame/post. But they
hold up on the counter for a long time after blush.

[Sun City Linda]

Originally Posted by Tormato

I'll chime in, farther up north.



Of approximately 1,500 varieties trialed and ranked, Aunt Ginny's Purple is #1, and Prudence (Pruden's ) Purple is somewhere between #4 and #8, on any given day. They don't taste the same, to me. AGP is the ONLY tomato that makes my knees go wobbly.

I'm growing Aunt Ginnys Purple for the first time this year because anyone who gives a shout out to Silvery Fir Tree is my kinda guy (or gal as the case may be).

[Labradors2]

I found Aunt Ginny's Purple too sweet and Silvery Fir Tree too tart. Pruden's Purple was purr-fect .

Goldilocks

[JosephineRose]

My best tomatoes last year were a surprise:

The first was a strain of San Marzano from Calabria that had been grown a couple of seasons here in the Bay Area so it had acclimated. The seed came from a friend and it was highly productive, strong, resistant to the onslaught from the Russet Mite and had virtually no BER, which is often a problem for me as I change the soil each year in my Earthboxes.

The second was an unknown black tomato we were calling "Jen's Mystery." Again, seeds came from the same friend who saved seed from fruit from the garden of someone named Jen in San Leandro. The way she described it, I expected something akin to Ananas Noire, but instead I got an early producing black slicer with green shoulders that was also resistant to BER and the Russet Mite. I saved seed this year and am going again. Both are now must grows for me.

My usual Must Grows let me down last year:

Sungold went down hard and early to the Mite (and grew in the most bizarre horozontal sucker pattern I have ever seen).


GGWT was late and not a heavy producer.


Cherokee Purple was outproduced by Spudakee.

[RJGlew]

Originally Posted by DianesGarden

(where or where are you all finding Sun Golds that don't crack??)

SunOrange F1 or Golden Cherry F1 do not crack as much. Both are from Tokita, the same breeders who produce SunGold F1.

[sic transit gloria]

Originally Posted by b54red

I have only tried between 400 and 500 varieties and neither tomato has made my best tasting in any year I have grown them. Some years AGP is in the top 5 but I don't believe Pruden's has ever been in my top 5 but it has been in the top 10 numerous times. I agree AGP is a bit larger usually but productivity wise I would not say that. I have grown both nearly every year for the past 10 years and a few times AGP beat out Pruden's in productivity but usually Pruden's out produced. One of the reasons is I am in a much hotter and more humid climate where Pruden's is one of the top tomatoes for setting in extreme heat and I mean above 95 daily with nights in the 80s. Very few pinks thrive in that heat especially when it comes to setting a lot of fruit but it and sometimes Limbaugh's Legacy will set really good during the hottest weather. That is probably the biggest difference in Cowlick's and Sudduth's. Cowlick's is far superior in setting fruit when the temps get really hot and Sudduth's usually shuts down fruit setting then. Both have been my taste topper several times over the years and when they aren't number one they are usually in the top 5 most years. Only a couple of other varieties have ranked number one more than once for me.

The 1884 I grow is the red or purple one and it is extremely good and it sets well in the heat. Cowlick's unlike Sudduth's will also set fairly good in the heat and the taste is so similar I usually can't tell them apart. I grow German Johnson PL and it is usually in my top 10 every year also. I had really great production and quality of fruit out of Giant Belgium for the last two years but the three before it was only good not great. I always give a fairly good tomato at least three seasons before relegating it to my don't plant list. One that is totally bland or way too sweet usually only gets two years to make the cut. As I said before I like a well balanced tomato with a lot of sweetness countered by good tartness. Omar's is one that I grow every few years just to get a few really large fruits off of but it is not in the league flavor wise of the others mentioned in this post. It is frequently really bland and sometimes it is even mealy textured but it is a good show off tomato. Last year it produced less than a half dozen fruits but the taste was better than usual.

I will give you a list of my top 10 or so that get more than one spot each year in my garden because usually they are just so good but with tomatoes you never can be sure from one year to the next. No particular order to this list just tomatoes that have made it into the top three spot a few times and seem to be consistently better than most others in my garden and to my taste buds.

Dester
Brandywine Sudduth's
Brandywine Cowlick's
Arkansas Traveler
Red Barn
Giant Belgium
Neves Azorean Red
Spudakee
1884 (red or purple)
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Limbaugh's Legacy
Stump of the World
JD's Special C Tex
Granny Cantrell
Indian Stripe rl or pl
German Johnson pl

Most of the tomatoes that I plant tend to set fairly good or even really good in the heat except a few which are so good I have to have them so I make sure I plant them early.

Bill

Based on what you're saying, we have similar tastes, and I would agree with a lot of your list of "must grow." A couple that I have on my list that you don't are KBX, Caspian Pink, and the most recent "must grow" that I have added to my list, Rebel Yell.

[clara]

Due to the incredible heat we had in Germany last year, 2019 was very disappointing for me - almost ALL biggies refused to produce even blossoms. But there was one exemption: LaLeLi, which I had got from southern Germany. It's said to be a family heirloom. I had no info on this variety. It turned out to be indet. and RL. The first tomatoes I discovered were yellow with green stripes and all more or less heart-shaped. Beauties! Very fresh and juicy - I liked them. Then, a few days later, I found a tomato, well hidden under the leaves, which was pink (or red? I did not check the epidermis) with no more green stripes, but stripes in pink (or red). Apparently this is what they are looking when fully ripe. Still fresh and juicy, perhaps a bit sweeter. But I liked them both, yellow and pink, so a perfect tomato at every stage of ripeness.

As I'm afraid of the third hot summer in a row, I've started lots of seeds for my own garden, family and friends.

Don't ask me what that weird name means - I don't know and yes, it's written with capital letters inside the name: LaLeLi