One of my favourite growing topics! I've grown tomatoes for years and every year I like to try one or two new ones. The old 'Gardeners Delight' was a firm longstanding favourite and I grew it every year but it lost it's Award of Garden Merit status because the breeders let it slip and the flavour was lost. I agreed with that. Premier Seeds has a what they call an organic German strain which they claim is unaffected. I tried it for the first time last year and it was very good and I'll be growing it again this year.
'Lemoncito', a yellow cherry tom, was a new one for me last year and it was very flavourful but the seed is rather expensive as it's F1 and will not come true so didn't save any seeds.
'Castoluto Fiorintino' is a beautiful Italian bush variety with a quite good flavour and I'll be growing that again.
'Sweet Aparitif' and 'Rosella', both cherry tomatoes and both have good flavour but the tomatoes are really too small, especially 'Rosella'. I'll probably grow 'Sweet Aparitif' again.
Of the big heirloom varieties I've tried I recommend 'Brandywine Red' and 'Big Rainbow', both full of flavour and OK yields. I won't bother with 'Black Russian' again though. It had a good flavour but a terrible yield.
New ones for me this year will be 'Bumble Bee' and 'Banana Legs'. Look at the Premier Seeds website. They have masses of varieties, My new ones are from there and I just chose new ones that sounded good.
As others have said, forget about 'Moneymaker'; it's tasteless. 'Stupice' was recommended to me on this forum as a variety with a long growing season and it crops well with an average flavour.
Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
I'm going to grow tomatoes for the first time this year. As a kid I had bad reactions to fruit and tomatoes (I know they are a fruit) where they played up my asthma and made me very ill. Over the last few years I've mostly gotten over my fruit allergies and am hoping it's the same for fresh tomatoes. So with a complete lack of knowledge on the suspect I had a quick Google when I was looking at seeds and the advice was that often the tomatoes that don't fully colour up are nicest in flavour. I believe these tend to be heirloom varieties but the thought process is that people would be put off by them in a supermarket, so supermarkets just want perfect varieties at the cost of flavour. Supermarkets also pick the toms early so they don't have time to have developed their flavour fully and also with their ripening processes, they simply don't show the potential of what could be a nice variety if grown at home. It was also common to see people disappointed by the funny coloured varieties which are bred for colour and not flavour, most agreed they aren't worth growing. With that said I just went through premier seeds list and choose a couple of varieties I liked the look off and will probably go for something else next year.
Home grown tomatoes nearly always taste better than SM ones because you pick them as and when you need them and when rip and full of flavour whereas SM ones are picked unripe in order to travel and pack well.
Taste is very subjective but a main consideration is having well prepared soil with plenty of nutrients and notto over water once fruits set.
We really like yellow pear, Rosella, Rose de Berne, San Marzano (for cooking), Brandywine and Ananas. We've tried loads, growing 20 different vaieties a season - cherry, mid and beef size - over the last few years and these are the ones I shall concentrate on this year with only one or two experiments.
Really don't like runner beans or care much for green beans so don't grow them. Courgette and squash flavours depend on their being well fed. We like poitimarron/uchiki kuri and crown prince squashes best for growing at home and I buy butternut as they never seem to develop much flavour, even here where it's hot and sunny.
I also grow garlic, shallots and veg like PSB and cavolo nero that I can't get in shops here.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Tomatoes and runner beans are my favourite crops from seed, nothing like it in the world. I grow tomatoes outdoors with no protection (in the south east)—my favourite have been Rosella and Black Russian /Noire de Crimée; this year also trying Rose de Berne, Cherokee Purple and Latah (the latter of which is supposed to be a very early variety, the others I am growing for flavour purposes). My runner beans of choice are White Lady and Scarlet Emperor, trying Lady Di this year instead of the latter. Favourite squash /pumpkin is Crown Prince, I'd like to try Uchiki Kuri this year as I grow it up canes and they are more amenable size wise. I get my seeds from Simpsons Seeds and Real Seeds, or Chiltern, and usually all heirloom varieties so save seeds from what I grow from a year to the next
The Sungold Cherry and Rosella tomatoes are on the list, but are 'H1C'. Im in the South West (UK). Am I considered H1C in summertime? (might be a stupid question!). I dont have a greenhouse, so these will be grown out door.
Also, in the Squash category, it says "winter" next to some of these. What does that mean? That I can grow them in winter?
A Noire de Crimée (Black Krim) from last summer. I grew 2 plants in a Sylvagrow compost bag and up the sides of a steel ladder so they had good support. The compost bag had slits on the bottom and sat atop a shallow raised bed by a south facing fence
All tomatoes are tender, as far as I know. That's why we start them from seed each year, not too early so it's frost-free by the time they need to go outside (unless you have a heated greenhouse in which case they can be started a little earlier).
I think winter squash refers to the ones with tough skins like butternut squash that you can store for eating in winter, rather than growing them in winter, as opposed to summer squash like courgettes which don't store and have to be used (or prepped and frozen/preserved) pretty quickly after picking them.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I agree with @JennyJ - none are reliably hardy, other than perhaps a sheltered town garden in the south east or similar. My toms are grown undercover, because if you want a reliable crop, it's necessary here. I do the same as her re sowing etc. Mine get sown about mid March, in the kitchen, and out around mid May to the growhouse, when they're big enough to cope. It's light they need most when sown. I've occasionally grown a few outside, but that's only in the last couple of years when we've had hotter summers. It's too cold/wet otherwise, so they at least need protection from wet/windy weather. Overnight temps are also the important point - double figures to prevent them stalling.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I live in Sussex. I aim to sow my tomato seeds about 1 March. I keep the seedlings/young plants in front of a SE facing window in the house and usually plant them out into a cold greenhouse around the end of April, having potted them into individual pots. Sowed any earlier they get leggy with not enough sun. Overnight temperatures are important and some years I end up slowly transitioning them to the cold greenhouse....depends on the year. @Fairygirl says mid-May but she is 500 miles north of me so depending on where you live sometime between late April and mid May for planting in a cold greenhouse; that's my opinion.
Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
It's often just a case of experimenting to see what suits your conditions best @tuffnelljohn . If there's enough plants, you can put a couple outside sooner, and see how they get on. As you say @Redwing, how soon they're sown and put outside, or into a greenhouse, depends on conditions, location and altitude too. We've often struggled in the past to have decent temps in July here - low/mid teens at most. With the changing temps etc, I might be able to grow more of them outdoors in future, but I can't guarantee that will work every year. I always say - if in doubt, wait a week or two
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Posts
'Lemoncito', a yellow cherry tom, was a new one for me last year and it was very flavourful but the seed is rather expensive as it's F1 and will not come true so didn't save any seeds.
'Castoluto Fiorintino' is a beautiful Italian bush variety with a quite good flavour and I'll be growing that again.
'Sweet Aparitif' and 'Rosella', both cherry tomatoes and both have good flavour but the tomatoes are really too small, especially 'Rosella'. I'll probably grow 'Sweet Aparitif' again.
Of the big heirloom varieties I've tried I recommend 'Brandywine Red' and 'Big Rainbow', both full of flavour and OK yields. I won't bother with 'Black Russian' again though. It had a good flavour but a terrible yield.
New ones for me this year will be 'Bumble Bee' and 'Banana Legs'. Look at the Premier Seeds website. They have masses of varieties, My new ones are from there and I just chose new ones that sounded good.
As others have said, forget about 'Moneymaker'; it's tasteless. 'Stupice' was recommended to me on this forum as a variety with a long growing season and it crops well with an average flavour.
With that said I just went through premier seeds list and choose a couple of varieties I liked the look off and will probably go for something else next year.
Taste is very subjective but a main consideration is having well prepared soil with plenty of nutrients and notto over water once fruits set.
We really like yellow pear, Rosella, Rose de Berne, San Marzano (for cooking), Brandywine and Ananas. We've tried loads, growing 20 different vaieties a season - cherry, mid and beef size - over the last few years and these are the ones I shall concentrate on this year with only one or two experiments.
Really don't like runner beans or care much for green beans so don't grow them. Courgette and squash flavours depend on their being well fed. We like poitimarron/uchiki kuri and crown prince squashes best for growing at home and I buy butternut as they never seem to develop much flavour, even here where it's hot and sunny.
I also grow garlic, shallots and veg like PSB and cavolo nero that I can't get in shops here.
I grow tomatoes outdoors with no protection (in the south east)—my favourite have been Rosella and Black Russian /Noire de Crimée; this year also trying Rose de Berne, Cherokee Purple and Latah (the latter of which is supposed to be a very early variety, the others I am growing for flavour purposes).
My runner beans of choice are White Lady and Scarlet Emperor, trying Lady Di this year instead of the latter.
Favourite squash /pumpkin is Crown Prince, I'd like to try Uchiki Kuri this year as I grow it up canes and they are more amenable size wise. I get my seeds from Simpsons Seeds and Real Seeds, or Chiltern, and usually all heirloom varieties so save seeds from what I grow from a year to the next
The Sungold Cherry and Rosella tomatoes are on the list, but are 'H1C'. Im in the South West (UK). Am I considered H1C in summertime? (might be a stupid question!). I dont have a greenhouse, so these will be grown out door.
Also, in the Squash category, it says "winter" next to some of these. What does that mean? That I can grow them in winter?
A Noire de Crimée (Black Krim) from last summer. I grew 2 plants in a Sylvagrow compost bag and up the sides of a steel ladder so they had good support. The compost bag had slits on the bottom and sat atop a shallow raised bed by a south facing fence
I've occasionally grown a few outside, but that's only in the last couple of years when we've had hotter summers. It's too cold/wet otherwise, so they at least need protection from wet/windy weather. Overnight temps are also the important point - double figures to prevent them stalling.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
As you say @Redwing, how soon they're sown and put outside, or into a greenhouse, depends on conditions, location and altitude too. We've often struggled in the past to have decent temps in July here - low/mid teens at most.
With the changing temps etc, I might be able to grow more of them outdoors in future, but I can't guarantee that will work every year.
I always say - if in doubt, wait a week or two
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...