what factors affect tomato flavor, if any?

[grasswire]

Are there certain things a gardener does or doesn't do that affect the FLAVOR of tomatoes?

I've got nine different heirloom maters. I must say that they aren't *spectacular* in flavor. They are good, but only one is really good.

Maybe I'm picking them too early?

Maybe they got too much water?

[appal_jack]

1. It all comes down to soil...

The variety of tomato you choose to grow will of course affect flavor greatly, but your soil is your basic building block for ANY of them. Tomatoes need lots of fertility: the macro-nutrients (NPK) are important, but so are the trace minerals. Calcium is especially important in order to prevent blossom end rot.

I use a mix of organic fertilizers on mine: chicken manure (I buy in bulk, but is also available as a bagged product such as Harmony, etc.), other bagged fertilizers (I have had good luck with NatureSafe 8-5-5), worm castings (make your own in a worm bin or buy from someone who does), kelp (for the trace minerals), gypsum (for the calcium), and lime (I live where the soil is acidic: tomatoes prefer it just south of neutral).

In other years, I have also used wood ashes (potassium), alfalfa meal (N, plus organic matter), bone meal (P), humates (boosts cation exchange capacity), and various other products as they were available and I could afford them. Most of all, I try to build up more organic matter by mulching and growing cover crops over the winter.

Best of luck next year!

-app

[grasswire]

2. do you dispose of all the plant matter at the end...

....of the season?

[Kolesar]

3. I picked all of my Rutgers tomatoes on 9/1/08 while still green because the plants were dying

Actually, the plants looked dead. I swapped them with bleach solution, and then put them in boxes in the basement. They taste rather bland.

That was the same preservation technique I use with Burpee Long Keeper (tm) tomatoes. I think that picking the tomatoes green was a mistake. Funny is that one of the plants grew a new branch and "came back to life".

I would throw away all of the dead tomato plant material. My tomatoes get bacteria and sometimes fungus, squash get squash bugs, cucumbers and beans get cucumber beetles. I threw all of those "out in the woods" and away from my compost. I put the cauliflower leaves and potato plants into the compost and not much else. Hope this helps.

[appal_jack]

4. I'm pretty casual about composting my plant debris

I'm pretty casual about composting my plant debris, but I do long compost cycles, and try to rotate garden beds away from any given family for at least three years. If you are growing tomatoes in one area more frequently than that, then it is indeed important to dispose of the debris by some method that will assure disease and spore elimination such as burning or hot-composting.

-app

[noamnety]

8. I have a new appreciation for the taste of dirt.

I grew hydroponic tomatoes for the first time this last winter. They were bland, and I assumed it was the type of tomato as much as anything. When spring came, I moved them outside to the flower garden, because I hate to pay for lights for them if the sun is out there for free. After being outside, tomatoes off the same plants taste completely different, and the first thing I do when I come home now is go straight to the garden and eat all the ripened tomatoes off them. They don't even make it into the house.

Other tomatoes grown in new sterile soil in a raised bed don't taste half as good, by the way - not even the brandywines. Next year the tomatoes are all going into my old regular soil.

[Venceremos]

5. I've always heard

that you should water tomatoes deeply and infrequently to develop intense flavor. So I always let mine wilt slightly before watering and they have spectacular flavor. But this year we had a ton of rain and my maters tasted bland. I'm using the same varieties as always, so I think the decline in flavor was caused by too much rain.

[grasswire]

6. hmm....that's interesting.

I think I'm probably overwatering.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Less frequent deep waterings really do make a difference in taste.

The soil and heat do too. Around here some farmers promote their tomatoes as "dry farmed," meaning that they receive as little irrigation as possible. If you don't want to figure out a less frequent schedule, another trick is to hold off watering for a few days before harvesting.

[hippywife]

10. Fruits such as tomatoes,

grapes, melons do well with less frequent watering, especially toward the end. It allows the sugars to concentrate rather than become diluted by the water.

[HamdenRice]

7. Timing, timing, timing

I have found that the single biggest factor is timing. The main things that give tomatoes flavor are acidity and sugar. The acidity develops first. Then lots of bright sunlight enables the plant to make sugar which is stored in the tomato fruit. When the sugar is at a high level, the plant turns from green to red.

So imo, the main thing is getting the plants out early enough that they ripen in August. I find that plants that ripen after the weather shifts to cooler nights (like right now in New York) have a more sour (acid) taste.

So the trick is getting them in early enough without them being threatened by spring frost or the general cold raininess of spring, but not so late that the ripen in September. About half of mine made it before the cool weather, but I am harvesting somewhat sour tasting ones nowadays.

[formercia]

11. The variety makes a difference in taste

For main season tomatoes, I have not found a better variety than Big Beef. They are not very acid, so they don't keep in storage.

I also save their seed. They don't grow true to type but ripen a couple of weeks earlier and taste just as good.

I add plenty of magnesium limestone and make sure they have adequate potassium.

The secret ingredient is love.