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Question by Sara: Southern gardeners, what is the best tasting tomato variety?
I’ve grown so many ordinary tomatoes of all colors and sizes and types, but I was wondering, have you personally grown a tomato that can take the heat but also has a superior flavor?
Thank you for your suggestions.
Best answer:
Answer by Marduk
Most tomatoes like an 85F soil temp. They stop flowering/fruiting at 90F air temp. I have grown dozens of different kinds of tomatoes over the years. I think all homegrown varieties taste as good as any other. Supermarket, no way.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Hmmph. Rub it in why don’t you ?
I struggle to make any tomatoes grow at 1400 feet in Scotland. They are strictly greenhouse for me. I have only had a handful from eight plants – Alicante, Shirley, Moneymaker and Ailsa Craig. All much of a muchness. Still ripening and it’s nearly October.
Grrrr.
Hope you get some good answers (((Sara))).
I like Early Girl and Beefsteak. Early Girls can ripen earlier in the season than the regular varieties which keeps them out of the worst part of summer here (I live in the desert), while the Beefsteak are very hearty and are BIG.
Some new ones that I started from seed indoors last January and planted early last spring (March) – Green Zebra, Brandy Wine and Black Cherry. All 3 have a great deal of eye appeal and very nice, different flavor. I live in south Louisiana and spoke to the seed provider about regional suitability. Johnny’s Seed. Very helpful and provide quality seed.
No GMO – hybrids and heirloom only!
Good luck
Brandywine is a good heirloom tomato, large fruit, odd colouring. Cherokee Purple is another. Rutgers is a slicing tomato, Early Girl makes a good patio tomato if the plant is determinent.
I’ve always loved the Cherokee Purple, as Reef has already stated. I grew it out east and did great but our season was too short to produce many…now I live in the southwest and the Cherokee stood up to our 100+ degree summer days and produced, produced, produced so many that we lived off of ’em for a few weeks.
Make some homemade whole grain bread, smear it with mayo or pesto and cut a thick slice of the cherokee… heaven!
Grosse Lisse,Tom Thumb, Burke’s Backyard Italian tomato.
Tomatoes classified as determinate are usually bush types that mature up to five feet tall before setting fruit, after which production declines. Determinate tomato plants usually have early-maturing fruit, but do not produce for extended periods.
Indeterminate types are generally vining plants and can grow until frost or disease kills them. They require some support from poles or frames designed for the purpose or home made from 30″ High Welded Wire Galvanized Fence with 2″ x 4″ Mesh Grid or from Concrete wire mesh, to keep the fruit off the damp soil, Indeterminate type tomatoes produce larger crops over a longer period of time. Indeterminate plants can and have produced fruit for two or three seasons before losing vigor and production decreases.
Tomatoes range in size, color, and shape-from bite-sized cherries to the 2-pound Bigboy. Colors include pink, yellow, orange, purple, striped, and even black. Depending on the variety, they can be rounded, oblong, or pear-shaped.
When considering plants for your climate and growing seasons, maturity time, adaptation to your climate and soil conditions, and disease and pest resistance . Larger types of tomatoes require more time for ripening, so you might consider planting asmall or medium-sized varieties.
The following tomatoes are excellent growers from the deep humid South to the desert Southwest, even in Phoenix, Arizona. I will put an asterisk* beside my favorites.
Yellow Pear
Cherry*
Sweet 100 Earlypak
Earlygirl*
Small Fry
Patio*
Champion*
Earliana
Sunripe*
When looking for resistant varieties, the letters “VNFT” indicate a plant’s resistance to: Verticillium Wilt (V)
Nematodes (N)
Fusarium Wilt (F)
Tobacco Mosaic Virus (T).
Below I have listed the best tasting purpose tomato varieties grown in Southern gardens and again I have placed an asterisk by my favorites for ease of growing but mostly for taste.
Slicing Tomatoes
Better Boy
Brandywine*
Big Boy*
Celebrity
Cherokee Purple*
Early Girl* (already listed)
Cherry Tomatoes
Super Sweet 100*
Sungold
Black Cherry*
Sweet Million
Tomatoes forPaste and Canning
Roma*
Amish Paste
San Marzano
Opalka*
Really Big Tomatoes
Beefsteak**
Mortgage Lifter
Brandywine*
Park’s Whopper
Better Boy
Saladette and Pear Tomatoes
Yellow Pear*
Roma*
Juliet
Red Pear
Red Fig**
Non-Reds
Cherokee Purple* (already listed)
Black Krim*
Green Zebra*
Lemon Boy*
Persimmon*
I like the heirloom varieties: brandywine, costaluto genovese, creole, cherokee purple, arkansas traveler,
I do need to note: the creole handles southern heat just fine but it tastes best when it’s grown in the silt of the Mississippi delta. it’s kind of like trying to grow Vidalia onions when you don’t live in Vidalia, GA.
to our Scottish friend: have you tried a Black Krim? they’re from Russia & may like the climate of Scotland. or Buffalo Heart? they’re from Poland.
beefsteak in New Zealand also grosse lise in Australia , they are big, juicy and flavorsome . you may have a different name for them in your country
At farmers’ market last week, we agreed that the best tasting tomatoes are also the ugliest.
I like Abe Lincoln.
The variety called better boy and also big boy are favorites in the south, there are many varieties sold but these seem to be the best sellers and also have the best taste.
Tomatoes have to be watered and fed to make them produce in the south and watched over for deseases and pests, root rot and cut worms are the most common problems in the south.
A good mixture of soil and compost and planting beds work best, compost tea or miracle grow works great on tomatoes.
To me any home grown tomatoe is good for the taste, nothing beats the taste, hate those store bought tomatoes grown in green houses.
Home grown every time.My favourite’s that just keep coming are Celebrity,Early Girl, and Arkansas Traveller.Yes I know just a tomato but you can’t beat the taste and they do well in the heat.
I have been a fan of the “black” tomatoes like Paul Robeson and Purple Cherokee, but this year I have to give a star to Berkley Tie-dye. Complex flavor and beautiful fruit.
I moved from SE Indiana where we have a clayey-loam to Toledo, OH where the soil is sandier and my old favorite tomatoes do not taste the same. I also had a Red Zebra that was pretty and prolific, just not so flavorful as the Berkley Tie-dye.