Which Tomato Variety do you like?

Hopefully not too early to be posting this, and everyone has ripe fruit to comment on.

I am growing (Greenhouse):

Gardeners Delight
Ailsa Craig
(have grown both for years)

Shirley F1 (first year)

We like the Shirley. Firmer than Ailsa Craig, better flavour, skins are better.

Gardeners Delight is good too, an old favourite here, although I seem to remember reading that there are different "strains" of Gardeners Delight and some folk swear by this-one or that-one. I might hunt some down for next year.

We've still got too many plants (18), I need to discipline myself to cut back next year.

I have not grown Moneymaker this year, thought it was disappointing last year.

Don't cheat! but here are some previous threads I found:

Oct-08 http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/tomato-variety-taste-17804.html?t=17804

Feb-07 http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/which-variety-tomatoi-3382.html?t=3382

 

Gardeners Delight and Sungold, I also have Black Cherry but the purple colour seems to put some folk off, flavour is good though.
I have Moneymaker and Alicante, mainly for cooking.

 

Sparta - Tried it for the first time last year after I'd read a review of it in trials conducted in one of the gardening mags. It came out top for taste and is now our family favourite.

Vanessa - Trying this for the first time. It is supposed to keep very well on the vine so doesn't have to be picked as soon as it is fully ripened. Can't comment on the claim as we've got no toms ripened yet!!!

Gardeners Delight - I've grown this for years, but I let my outdoor ones develop as bush plants as they are in a bed beside my green house and if grown as cordons would cut out the light. I still get a massive crop, though last year for the first time I lost 80% due to blight.

Alicante - Just a single plant in the tunnel growing it really just to see how one of the older varieties compares with more recently developed ones.

As I said above no toms ripe yet (one just about ready). This is the longest we've ever had to wait as we usually pick our first in early July. I suspect that some of the lateness is due to our son letting a mass of side shoots develop when we were away for 3 weeks in June. I had to do a lot of side shoot removal which has set things back a bit.

 

Sungold and Gardeners Delight for me too.

 

Gardeners Delight as they are tasty and very reliable. Might try the Sparta next year for a change, thanks for the recommendation Dave W.

Had only about half a dozen ripe ones for far too, I think it's this cold and pretty dull wet weather. What happened to the 'barbeque summer' that the MET office promised us earlier in the year?

 

Sungold has the best flavour for me although the skins are tough. Not many of mine make it home from the plot! I hear there is a new 'son of sungold' or whatever it's called, has anyone grown that?

Brandywine on a good year with plenty of sun takes some beating for flavour although the yield is disappointing.

Whatever variety you grow the flavour will still vary with the way it is grown, soil grown with manure and not too much water gives the best flavour

 

Shirley and Ailsa Craig, though as mentioned this weather hasn't helped them and I've only had half a dozen ripe Shirley so far. All the rest are still small and green. This next week doesn't look good either. :(
But yeah the Shirley tasted very good, my first ever toms though so I have no frame of reference. Maybe any home grown tomato would taste good to a first time grower.

 

Years ago I was given a few plants from a specialist grower to try. One of the plants produced huge peach sized yellow toms, smooth skinned with no ribbing. They tasted fantastic but I never found out what they were :( Do these sound familiar to any one as I'd love to grow them again?
I've tried Shirley F1's but found them thick skinned and lacking in taste although they cropped well. This year I've got Lidl, Tumbling toms, Tamina and Costoluto growing. I tried Tamina last year and couldn't make up my mind if I liked them or not so they're getting a second chance

 

Had gardeners delight last year so wanted a change this year. Got sweet 100, alisa craig, plum, golden sunrise and a yellow plum that i cant remember the name of. The sweet 100's have about 100 little toms on them already, very similar in taste to the gardeners delight.

 

I have this year tried a couple of types i brought in Cyprus plus

Gardeners Delight ,they seem to grow very tall or is it just me, plenty of flowers on and the lower ones have set. I really might not bother with this again.

Money Maker , I like the look of this plant not so tall and very sturdy loads of flowers ,with again the bottom set very prolific

Marmande , A very sturdy looking plant with loads of tomatoes allready, and still flowering

Roma , A Plum tomato a very short plant, it doesnt seem as prolific as the others but it does have tomatoes and flowers

 

"Gardeners Delight ,they seem to grow very tall or is it just me, plenty of flowers on and the lower ones have set. I really might not bother with this again."

I have huge trusses on my Gardeners Delight ... but the fruits are small, so they need to have large trusses :thumb: I reckon the spacing of the trusses is the same as my other Toms - so the same number of "trusses-per-vertical-foot"

 

I grew Moneymaker for years.........until I discovered Shirley.

 

Whats those red things :D

 

Whatever they are, Ive got loads of them in green.