Favorite Tomato?

[klsm54]

What are your favorite tomatoes to grow and why?

 

I'm always looking to try something different.

[lavender]

Super Marzano is the best canning tomato I have ever found. It is large (about 5 inches in a good year), easy to peel and not at all watery. It ripens evenly and cooks into a nice red puree.

[VikingPrincess]

My grandpa always planted the Big Boy tomatoes, and I still swear by them for the best yummiest sammiches ever!  They're really meaty and flavorful.

[mosha]

For many years I have found the Celebrity and Big Beef varieties to be the best for sandwiches and general use.  For paste and sauces we mix Heinz 1765 and Viva Italia (paste) tomatoes.  Sweet Million is a very good cherry tomato (flavor, less splitting).  Will also try Lavender's suggestion for Super Marzano this year along with Viva Italia.  Some paste tomatoes (Roma) are too long-season for my garden in NW PA.

[niecee1963]

I usually plant Celebrity, Rutgers and Roma's. WE mostly eat ours in salads and sliced up. WE make Luigi's tomato salad out of the roma's. My daughter works there and makes it all the time. Cannot wait to eat it with fresh tomaotes!!!!

[lavender]

Celebrity is a tomato that grows well in my garden. They are nice and round, don't split and are tasty.

I like to grow the novelty tomatoes( green, pink, yellow, purple, pyramid shaped, doughnut shaped) but no one will eat them. Too weird!

The sausage tomatoes are good for stuffing and salads.

[klsm54]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I've planted Big Boy's and Early Girl's for years.  I used to plant Roma's but they seemed too susceptable to Blossom End Rot. I usually stick with hybrids as they are more disease resistant.

 

I see Brandywine winning taste contests all the time, but I never knowingly tasted them. They are an heirloom, which would break my hybrid theory, but I see Burpee has a hybrid Brandy Boy that I might give a try. I never mail-ordered plants before, but I doubt I'll find them around here.  

[lavender]

I've planted Brandywine and didn't really care for them. I thought that they were sort of watery. I don't remember any blossom end rot or any other disease problem. They were kind of late too. I seem to remember them ripening after I picked almost all of the Romas. There is a reason I remember that.  ;D

Some of the heirlooms sun scald. I remember Cherokee purple doing that. They were so bad I don't think I got many tomatoes.

[klsm54]

I ordered 3 of the Brandy Boy Hybrid plants. I guess I'll find out in a few months. Hopefully I'll have better luck than you did, lavender, with the Brandywines.

 

 

Don't know why I'm trying anything different, I love the taste of Big Boys. I think I'm going to dump the Early Girls though, they don't come on that much earlier and I think the Big Boys taste much better. We don't can much, so the tomatoes are for fresh use most of the time, and of course for fried green tomatoes, my favorite food in the world.... ;D

[Guest snellma]

I can't grow tomatoes in my garden because I have a virus in my soil called fusarium.  We did try baking the garden last year to try to get rid of it.  I was supposed to plant tomatoes this year to see if it worked, but forgot to do that - oops.  I guess I still have some room so I may go get 1 or 2 and give it a try.  I don't want to plant a lot and then have them die.  I have a large wooden box where I plant 3 plants.  I am the only one who likes to eat them (my husband is allergic to them) so I really don't need a lot.  I do can spaghetti sauce and tomatoes so really would like to be able to plant more in the garden for that purpose.  Of course I can't beat $5 a bushel to pick them when I come for my grapes every year.  They are $30/bushel to pick here.

 

I have 1 Big Boy, 1 Celebrity, and I forget what the other one is.

 

Someone at our local nursery told me how to try getting rid of the fusarium.  I lined the whole garden with newspapers.  Then as we cut the grass we laid the grass clippings over the newspaper.  After than we lined the entire garden with a heavy tarp and made it as air tight as possible.  We left it that way the entire season.  The hope was that all that hot sun and no air would bake out and kill the virus.  After it started to get cool we took the plastic off and tilled anything that hadn't broken down into the soil.  My garden is doing beautiful this year so taking the year off and fertilizing it really helped.

[lavender]

That is a great technique to get rid of weeds as well as disease, Snellma. It gets rid of everything including seeds. The only thing I have seen escape alive was mint which had put its runners under a concrete surround. I've never used the combination of all three but have tarped soil with black plastic. I use newspapers for weed control all of the time. Anything that makes life easier!

There are tomatoes that are fusarian resistant. I don't know which off hand but the catalogues should say.

As for all of that early, early, early stuff sometimes when you look it is 2 or 3 days earlier than your main crop. I used to get some fairly nice Early Girls back when we actually got some rain. Tomatoes have been lousy for the last few years. I've stopped playing with them and plant the old standbys.

[badmonkey]

Since my wife LOVES green tomatoes, I always plant at least six Granny Smith Tomatoe plants. They produce well and stay green all season. I got mine from the greenhouse in the Sarvey Plaza. Sometimes they don't have them there but you can tell them what you are looking for and they can usually get them in a couple of days. I believe that they are affiliated with The greenhouse along 255 near Weedville. I also plant several ox heart or beef heart tomatoes. They are low acid and meaty. Great for sandwhiches.

[steelnut]

Super Marzano is the best canning tomato I have ever found. It is large (about 5 inches in a good year), easy to peel and not at all watery. It ripens evenly and cooks into a nice red puree.

Are there any available locally?

I used to always plant Big Boy and Better Boy. but last year I tried some Celebrity, they are much better tomatoes, yum!

I love to try a few varieties each year. Those different colored ones sound great, I'll have to do some shopping!

[steelnut]

I usually plant Celebrity, Rutgers and Roma's. WE mostly eat ours in salads and sliced up. WE make Luigi's tomato salad out of the roma's. My daughter works there and makes it all the time. Cannot wait to eat it with fresh tomaotes!!!!

How would you feel about sharing the recipe?  

I'm a recipe hound, always looking for new ones and we love fresh veggies!

 

[Bon]

Since my wife LOVES green tomatoes, I always plant at least six Granny Smith Tomatoe plants. They produce well and stay green all season. I got mine from the greenhouse in the Sarvey Plaza. Sometimes they don't have them there but you can tell them what you are looking for and they can usually get them in a couple of days. I believe that they are affiliated with The greenhouse along 255 near Weedville. I also plant several ox heart or beef heart tomatoes. They are low acid and meaty. Great for sandwhiches.

 

The Valley Rainbow is the name of the greenhouse. I was there today!!!

 

[mosha]

Kudos to Bon for Valley Rainbow.   They have one of the largest variety selections of any greenhouse.  I have been buying there for years and can find many varieties listed in the catalogs that most 'houses don't carry.  Am only in the area occasionally for business, but make a point of stopping there before planting season.

[mosha]

Kudos to Bon for Valley Rainbow.   They have one of the largest variety selections of any greenhouse.  I have been buying there for years and can find many varieties listed in the catalogs that most 'houses don't carry.  Am only in the area occasionally for business, but make a point of stopping there before planting season.

[lavender]

 

Are there any available locally?

I used to always plant Big Boy and Better Boy. but last year I tried some Celebrity, they are much better tomatoes, yum!

I love to try a few varieties each year. Those different colored ones sound great, I'll have to do some shopping!

I grow all of my tomatoes from seed so I don't know what you can get locally. Valley Rainbow will have them if anyone does. They even had some local heirloom tomatoes one year. I am guessing that they start their tomatoes in the greenhouse. Gotta get down there or maybe they will be in DuBois again this year.

[Petee]

They are in the process of setting up a greenhouse in the spot they were in last year at the plaza where Rosie's is.  Different people have had it in the past but last year it was Rainbow Valley.

[gypsywannabe]

So, which is better? I like the big tomatoes that have a lot of pulp viens and not much seeds. Am I looking for Beef steak or Big Boy or what?

[mosha]

Try Big Beef.

[badmonkey]

I was there today and bought some very small Granny Smith plants. The lady working there told me that they sold through there first plants and had to do a second planting. The plants that I bought are small (four leaves) and I hope that they make it. I plan to let them grow in the cell packs for a week or two before planting them.

 

 

 

The Valley Rainbow is the name of the greenhouse. I was there today!!!

 

 

[lavender]

Smaller transplants, providing they have a good root system, really do better than the big things they sell in most nurseries. There is less shock when they go into the ground because there is not as much leaf surface to lose water from. I don't know where the mania for the giant plants came from.

The only thing I would suggest is to make sure they do have more than the one or two little roots that are on seedlings and keep them well watered. That shouldn't be a problem the way things are going.

[Petee]

We will have very well rooted tomatoes at the BUDS Gardeners plant sale on the last weekend of May and the first weekend of June.  Our plants are good sized too!

[badmonkey]

The plants now have six leaves each. I will plant them tomorrow and see how things go!

 

 

Smaller transplants, providing they have a good root system, really do better than the big things they sell in most nurseries. There is less shock when they go into the ground because there is not as much leaf surface to lose water from. I don't know where the mania for the giant plants came from.

The only thing I would suggest is to make sure they do have more than the one or two little roots that are on seedlings and keep them well watered. That shouldn't be a problem the way things are going.