And the winner of the tomato varieties contest is ...
Those of you who read these columns on a regular basis know that I test a few different tomato varieties each season. Usually these are plants that I have been given by friends that are in cell packs and often very overgrown.
I cannot remember exactly when I started growing my favorite variety “Big Beef,” but it has been my mainstay for at least 15 years now. In fact, if people did not give me these other varieties, I probably would not even bother trying any of them.
This past spring, I was given a yellow, cherry or grape, type variety called “Sweet and Neat, Yellow.” I transplanted one of these into my garden and potted one up in a large container in my driveway. It did produce the earliest fruit I harvested, as cherry tomatoes often do, and the plants also seemed quite disease resistant, especially the one in my driveway. The fruit were sweet and tasty, but had a very thick skin that some might object to. They are also determinate, which means they tend to set most of their fruit at one time and do not continue to grow all season, producing flower clusters after every three leaves as indeterminate varieties do.
The one plant in my garden was overwhelmed by its taller neighbors, and the local catbirds ate most of the fruit before I did, but the one in the container in my driveway turned out to be a great addition. The yield was impressive, with only a little cracking of the fruit at the end of the season. I would highly recommend this variety for container culture, and I will look for it next year. It is nice to have a close-by-the-house source of tasty cherry tomatoes that you can snack on all summer long!
I was also “gifted” an indeterminate variety called “Mountain Fresh” by my friend Lester Gass. This variety was reported to be early yielding and produce large fruit, comparable to “Big Beef.” In some ways, it was quite similar to Big Beef in that it grows vigorously to the top and even beyond my 6-foot-tall cages and it did produce medium size to large fruit that tasted good, but it was later to ripen than Big Beef by a few days and yielded only about half as many fruit. The plants also were highly susceptible to a host of diseases, and, by now, there is not a green leaf left on the plants at all. Lester had the same experience with his plants.
A pleasant surprise was another indeterminate gift plant called “Lemon Boy,” which produces bright yellow colored fruit that turned out to be as large as, or even larger, than Big Beef. It was also about a week earlier to ripen the fruit than Big Beef and had comparable disease resistance. I think it may have even produced more ripe fruit than Big Beef to date and that has never happened before! Of course, yellow tomatoes are not as acidic as red ones and the flavor was good, but just not the same tomato flavor that I enjoy so much. I would grow this variety again as a novelty, and it really makes my homemade tomato sauce quite colorful.
I do not know the variety name of the third type I was given, but it is also an indeterminate “heirloom” variety that produced mediumsized fruit. I had a hard time figuring out if the fruit were ripe, because they never really turned red. They were sort of a brown, mottled, green color both inside and out and did not look very appetizing. The taste was quite good, better than they looked, but the skin was very soft and yield was poor. They also had little-to-no disease resistance. In most cases, there are good reasons why “heirloom” varieties are no longer grown by most commercial growers, and this is a classic example why. Poor yield, little disease resistance, soft fruit are not desirable traits for commercial production.
So the good news is
So the good news is that I did discover two new varieties that I will likely grow again, “Lemon Boy” and “Sweet and Neat, Yellow.”
that I did discover two new varieties that I will likely grow again, “Lemon Boy” and “Sweet and Neat, Yellow,” but, as usual, when it comes to earliness, fruit appearance, overall yield, taste and disease resistance, Big Beef once again wins by a landslide!