rate your tomatoes ...... new ranking after the season

[Botany]

Old top 10

1) Brandywine ..... heirloom taste of the Gods

2) Jet Star .... good for the midwest great taste ...... produces like a champ

3) Juliet ..... Roma grape tomato ..... I just had my first .... pushing hard to be #1

4) Cherokee Purple ..... So good and so pretty ..... better than sex in many cases.

5) Sun Gold ...... cherry tomato ..... hot off the vine ...... they never makes it to the house

6) Lemon Boy .... low acid and makes awesome salsa with red & purple tomatoes (habanero pepper, cilantro, & green onions too)

7) Marglobe .... the sandwich 'mater .... burger, blt, and or salads .... far better than a big boy, better boy, or beefsteak

8) Roma ..... makes pasta possible

9) German Queen ..... heirloom only problem is they grow so big they rip from the vine

10) Santa ..... red grape tomato ..... early fruit.

New Ranking

1) Brandywine ..... great fruit, awesome looking, good taste

2) Lemon Boy .... very productive & low acid

3) Cherokee Purple ...... wonderful

4) German Queen ..... very good and will ripen if whole vine is picked before frost and hung in a window

5) Sun Gold ..... the very best cherry tomato

6) Jet Star ...... good all purpose tomato great for midwest

7) Roma ..... a must have

8) Mariglobe .... a modern hybrid but a very good tomato ...... made for BLTs

9) pink girl

10) Black Krim

[Blue Gardener]

1. Sun Golds are my favorite

I eat them by the handful.

[Botany]

2. They never make it inside

1st year I grew them.

[gardenista]

3. Hey where'd you get your Santa seeds?

I heard that all the seed stock was bought up and can now be used exclusively by the sole distributor of "Santa Sweet" tomatoes.

We saved some, of course because it's a hybrid, they're not as reliable, but...

I still love Sun Golds the best of all.

[Retrograde]

4. Some people swear by Lemon Boy - I swear at them

I grew them one year, and they were very productive. However, they tended to crush under their own weight on the way from the garden to the kitchen (about 10'), they were horrible for canning and they cooked into mush. Raw, they were insipid. A waste of space in my Bay Area garden, where tomatoes can be marginal anyway.

My current favorites are Roma (prolific and make good sauce), Abe Lincoln (good eating tomato) and Rutgers (all around useful). I'm at the edge of the morning fog belt, and even my sunniest spot doesn't always get enough to make for good Brandywines.

[bvar22]

5. Rating them is tough.

On pure stand alone taste my favorite is the Creole, an heirloom from South Louisiana.
MY wife agrees.
This plant did not produce and abundance of tomatoes, but the ones it did produce were to die for. Low production could be due to last year's bizarre weather, or the fact that we are three hundred miles north of the Gulf Coast where these tomatoes originated. These tomatoes are not even available For Sale in this area. We had to mail order the seeds.
We will be planting several of these next season even if the low production continues.
They ARE that good.

Close behind,
*Cherokee Purple/ Black Krim (I am unable to tell the difference in a blind test.)


The next two could change places on any given day:
*Rutgers

*Arkansas Travelers

The most prolific producer has been a Yellow Pear.
Nice, unusual salad tomato. Good, sharp taste.
Grows out of control, and keeps making little pear tomatoes long after other plants quit, then reappears next year as volunteers in the compost pile.

And of course, Romas for sauces and canning.

We haven't grown Brandywines yet, but are looking forward to it.
They are on the list for this Spring.

Coming Attractions this Spring (tomatoes we are going to plant):
Creoles, Brandywines, Rutgers, and a Cherokee Purple for the main crop.

A couple of Romas for sauces.

A cherry tomato of some variety, just because.
We may plant the Santa on your recommendation.

Experimental:
Bloody Butcher (can't resist a name like this)