Tomato Taste Test 2023

My 2023 review (with an overall score out of 10), note that all of my tomatoes are grown outside and have to make do with whatever the weather throws at them.

Old favourites:

Green Zebra - remains my favourite raw tomato, medium tomato with green and yellow stripes, zingy refreshing flavour, soft skin, firm texture yet juicy, perfect in every way. 10

Golden Sunrise - pleasant yellow medium cherry, mild with a slight tang. 7

Auntie Madge's - small red plum tomato, thin skin, juicy, proper "old fashioned" flavour, heavy trusses with 30+ fruit on each, superb little tomato. 9

Gardener's Delight (2005 vintage) - so happy to have the "correct" Gardener's Delight again, juicy, great flavour, thin skin, productive and vigorous, excellent all round. 10

Sungold F1 - small orange cherry tomato, strong flavour, always does very well, grown from overwintered cuttings. 10

New to me this year:

Girl Girl's Weird Thing - large multicoloured beefsteak, wasn't productive for me (although I expect that growing outside), okay flavour, didn't blow me away. 5

Ananas Noir - large multicoloured beefsteak, again this much hyped tomato didn't blow me away, it is very very beautiful though. 5

Reinhard's Purple Sugar - small purple cherry, productive and vigorous, superb flavour, my only criticism was that I found the skin a bit chewy. I haven't grown this one before so I don't know if that's inherent in this tomato or if it was down to the challenging weather this summer, will grow again. 8

Piglet Willie's French Black - medium dark red/chocolate tomato, excellent flavour and texture, will definitely grow again. 8

Black and Brown Boar - medium multicoloured tomato, very pleasant sweet flavour, I wasn't a fan of the brown interior flesh though. 7

Jaune Flamme - medium orange tomato, zingy, think skin, juicy, I liked this one a lot, will grow again. 8

Red Zebra - medium red tomato with orange stripes, good sweet flavour, thin skin and juicy, a definite improvement on Tigerella which I usually grow. 8

 

I had quite a few that were not what was written on the packet, so I won't include those.

Hartzfeuer. Cordon. Grown outdoors. Dull as anything. Apparently it's a parent of Moneymaker. I should have read that in advance. Good productivity. Was culled when a nearby plant showed blight.

Galina's. The few fruits that ripened on the plant were of good flavour but this was supposed to be super-early and it simply wasn't. Culled along with Hartzfeuer.

Brad (not Atomic Grape). Another precautionary cull. The flavour wasn't bad but the texture was too soft for my liking.

Tamina. Okay but not up to the hype that it was better than Bloody Butcher. Culled as above.

Karos. Unremarkable pointy-ended salad. Culled as above.

Latah.The saddest of the outdoor culling as the flavour was really quite good for an early. It's an untidy sort but was easy to maintain in a netting cage. I'll try Latah again.

Onto cheerier matters.

Outdoors at the front of the house:

Black "Russian" Cherry. Cordon. Huge, handsome vine with super productivity. Once Summer returned, the flavour was really sweet. The flesh is a bit soft for my tastes. Still cheerfully cropping. I lopped off some suspicious looking leaves yesterday but the stems still look sound.

Mango Lassi. Cordon. A new, red cherry supposed to be a byproduct of the dehybridisation of a popular hybrid. Only once did I catch the supposed Mango hint for which it was named, but a very decent standard cherry with great productivity.

Big Sungold Select. Cordon. Healthy and productive but the taste really wasn't much good.

Lost Marbles. Cordon. Another vigorous and productive red cherry but nothing remarkable on the taste front.

Der Kleine Doctor. Cordon. Tastes very good and chucks out loads of dusky purple fruit but the shapes and sizes are all over the place.

Kiss the Sky. Cordon. Very late sowing. Plenty of fruit on there but nothing ripe yet. Will update.

Haley's Purple Comet. Cordon. Dusky cocktail toms and plenty of them. Haven't tasted one except the ones I left to overripen for seed, so not really a fair assessment. Will update. EDIT: Tested at full but not overripeness, this is very good. It gets compared unfavourably to Haley's Sweet Mystery but don't let that put you off. HSM is richer, while HPC is brighter. Both get a thumbs-up from me.

Dwarf Wild Fred. Wow! I never thought I'd grow such big tomatoes up here, let alone in a tub outdoors. And so many of them! Early flavour okay, improving a lot as the season got going. I moved the tub into the greenhouse before going on holiday and the final fruits ripened well. Great stuff!

Continued in my next post.

 

marks out of 10 for flavour, notes on other properties

Sevryuga, pink beef heart shaped russian, early, tasty 8

Gordost Sibiri, early Russian beefsteak not the best yield this year but only 1 plant. 8

Cherokee Purple, purple beefsteak, great flavour 9

Sungold, classic cherry. 10

Azoychka, nice early and prolific yellow beefsteak, 8

Bloody butcher, early, tasty, prolific salad tomato. 7

Banan krasnyi, torpedo shaped. Massive producer on the most vigourous of vine, probably twice as much as any other plant by weight. Tasty too, will grow again 8

Crimson crush for outside only 7, did get affected by blight in the end.


Barrys crazy cherry, large number of tasteless tomatoes. 4

Berner Rose. Got a bit neglected by me and didn't produce as much, but tasty 7

Blue gold berries, fairly prolific great looking cherry, but not particularly flavoursome 5

Skycomish. Vigorous plant producing pea to large salad sized average tomatoes. 6

Dwarf Melanie's Ballet. Dwarf that got crowded out by a couple of other plants. Were decent though 6

Cappuccino. Earliest cherry was a bit tasteless to begin with but improved a fair amount as the season went on. Its the only one still standing and was prolific. Vigorous vine too. 7.


Next year I'll be growing half the number of tomatoes as I want to try a few other plants in the greenhouse

 

In the Conservatory:

Cherry Roma. Went bananas, up the wall and above the doors in my north/west facing conservatory. Oodles of red mini plums that really punch above their weight for flavour. Odd leaf shape.

Fat Frog Micro. Yellow/green cherries on a micro-dwarf bush. Bright, "green" flavour. Frustratingly slow to get going, considering I sowed it in January.

Florida Petite. Another micro-dwarf. Same slow progress as Fat Frog. Flavour is flat and dull so far. I've yet to retrieve the plants from their holiday home in my friend's greenhouse, so I may have to re-assess. EDIT. When I got back, my friend had scoffed the lot and said they were lovely, so obviously another one that improves with the season.

Bloody Butcher. Still my must-have early. Proper tomato sarnies before July. Still got a plant churning 'em out in my friend's garden.


In the greenhouse:

Dark Stripe Micro. Micro-dwarf. A true cordon but in miniature. Took a long time to fruit but very good flavour. Pretty, striped cherries. A little bit soft.

Dwarf Mary's Cherry. Dwarf Cordon. Just lovely. Not a cherry at all. I had one fruit that topped 150g. Juicy, thin-skinned, rich sweet flavour. Still fruiting outdoors from a rooted side-shoot.

Santiam Sunrise. Cordon. Golden-yellow oval cherries with a bright, sweet tang. Recommended.

Kraft's Purple Sugar. Cordon. Another one that seemed a bit meh until the summer came back. Lovely little sweet taste-explosions with a definite hint of grapes. Small and fiddly, though.

Kazachka. Cordon. Black cocktail. Took a long time to ripen. Great finish to the taste but something missing up front. Soft texture.

Gobstopper. Cordon. Oodles of slightly flattened small yellow/green cherries. Bright taste with that slight kiwi suggestion you find in, say, Green Zebra. A bit split-prone.

Petit Chocolate. Cordon. Very vigorous plant. Unstable. Supposed to be up to 40g deep red, shiny red fruits. I planted two; one had the described fruits but only half the size. The deep colour developed very quickly, (such handsome fruits!) giving the impression that the fruits were ripe. However, testing for softness was more accurate. Very decent flavour when actually ripe. The second plant had small, medium red fruits which tasted pretty good.

Miss/Mrs Kennedy. Cordon. Really beautiful deep red salad sized in tight clusters. First fruits were tough and tasteless but the later ones are really quite good. May re-try with more shade.

Anna's Multiflora. Cordon. Supposed to be a multi but set very few fruits per cluster. Okay taste. Better cooked.

Haley's Sweet Mystery. Cordon. Deep red cocktail with dark green shoulders. Very slightly thick skinned but the flavour makes up for it. Lovely tomato.

Ron's Carbon Copy. Cordon. Very pleasant, productive pink/purple cherry. Very similar to Rosella Cherry. Hubby prefers Ron, I prefer Rosella. Which makes us sound more swinging than we actually are...

Tumbling Monster. Hanging. A selection from Tumbling Tom. Masses of tiny, sweet, tangy red cherries. A pain in the bum to pick but great if you like to "graze" in your greenhouse.

Gerald's Mystery. Cordon. A grow-out from an unknown natural cross in an American plant nursery. Fairly stable, although my plant gave unusually yellow fruit. Lovely big flattened sweet toms with wonderful juicy texture.

I think that's all of them.

EDIT! I forgot Zauberstab! Cordon It's a new mini-plum. Texture between plum and cherry. Nice sweet flavour and so far keeps well off the plant. Lovely long trusses. Really attractive looking.

 

I only grew a few plants of one variety this year, 'Gardeners Delight'. I had one self-sown plant which looks identical to the other plants but seemed to taste a little sweeter than I remembered for this variety.

The other plants seemed to me to taste like this variety should (used to) taste like. So for the self-sown I would give an eight (for being sweeter) while a 10 for vigour & all other respects. The rest of the plants I think I would also give an 8 for flavour as they tasted more like they should. In regards to any other respect I would give the majority just a 7.

I never get blight on my plants on the balcony so can't rate for that respect! They are outdoors with no protection except from rain.
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Here's my verdict:
In the greenhouse:
House tomato earliest but I started off under lights, Flavour 7, no blight but indoors. In a pot which I shall take indoors and hope to get more fruit ripening.
Sungold Flavour 10, earliness 8, no blight
Rosella Very similar to Sungold apart from colour.
Black Russian Flavour 10 (smokey) earliness 2, no blight indoors
Skykomish Flavour 8 earliness 4 no blight indoors
Moneymaker grown from sideshoot off sister's plant:
Flavour me 4 my husband 7 earliness 4 no blight

Outside:
Black Russian just didn't like it outdoors, I had to put it out of it's misery
Skykomish Flavour 8 earliness 5 no blight. Still have a green fruit on the plant and its looking very healthy.
Primabella Flavour 4 earliness 6 no blight

Next year I hope to try more sorts outside and will give my daughter in Bristol some plants for outside so will get her family's verdict too.
Am hoping to try Honey Moon and Crimson Crush as well.

 

In the Greenhouse....

Alicante....10
Roma....10
Beefmasters 20

After an iffy start this years toms have been fabulous and still going strong ,sweet and flavorsome

 

Here are my taste tests for 2023 - will be growing Sungold, Honeycomb, Consuelo and Apero again in 2024 and trying Rubylicious and Garnet for the first time!