[JayG]

In the hope that this year most people had much more success growing tomatoes than last year, I'm resurrecting the members' tomato popularity survey for 2013 as the previous two (in 2010 and 2011) appear to have been of interest to many forum members and users, and a potentially useful guide to different varieties to try in the future.

Include as many varieties as you like, but please remember we are trying to compare the yields and flavour of successful plants rather than, for instance, how quickly your entire crop was ruined by blight, as that is something that can unfortunately affect all varieties.

Against each choice, please give a rating out of 10 for yield and flavour so that they can be included in the final list.

Your entry should therefore look something like:

Red Firecracker; yield 8, flavour 10
Yellow fever; yield 10, flavour 7

I will collate the results into a table after a few weeks, and will again add information such as fruit size, colour, shape, and whether cordon or bush. Feel free to make any additional comments about them, but don't forget to include the above information.

Thanks in advance for your participation - needless to say the more people who make the effort the more meaningful the results will be! 

Jon (JayG)

[JayG]

Inca F1: Yield 9, Flavour 7
Sweet Million F1: Yield 10, Flavour 8
Sungold F1: Yield 6, Flavour 9
Red Alert: Yield 10, Flavour 7

Possibly a bit unfair to mark Inca down for flavour because they are a cooking plum tomato, and a good, fleshy one at that.

Second time around for me with Sungold (a very popular variety in previous surveys) but my 3 plants only produced half the crop of 2 Sweet Million plants, and I was unable to prevent the majority of them splitting, although I really do like the flavour of them.

Red Alert did what they have always done – produced pounds and pounds of quite decent tasting tomatoes from just two plants. 

[mumofstig]

Rio Grande - yield 9, flavour (cooked) 8 - cordon plum, always on my planting list

Black Sea Man - yield 8, flavour 9 - bush beefsteak-size early, smaller later in the season new to me this year but will add it to the regular list.

Black Cherry yield 10 (still cropping!) flavour 9 - tall cordon another regular.

Kibitz - yield 10, flavour 7 (better cooked) - early small bush plum, I'd say it has some blight resistance as it carried on longer than most outside, I will grow it again to make sure.

Carlton - yield 8, flavour 6 - tall beefsteak tom. Fruits were huge but taste not as good this year 

[surbie100]

Black Russian - Yield 7 Flavour 10

Tigerella - Yield 6 Flavour 6

Green Zebra - Yield 7 Flavour 9

Garden Pearl - Yield 9 Flavour 5 (better cooked)

100s&1000s - Yield 10 Flavour 10

First time successfully growing tomatoes. Both Garden Pearl and 100s&1000s are still cropping well, though the 100s&1000s are now splitting a little.

I just don't like Garden Pearl uncooked - mine were mushy to eat fresh, though good to cook with. Tigerella were a bit bland, but the Black Russians & Green Zebra were beautiful.

[Annen]

Bambino - yield 4, flavour 9 (very leggy plant)
Black Cherry  -  yield 9, flavour 9
Black Russian - yield 1, flavour 7 (lots of flowers didn't pollinate)
Gardeners delight - yield 8, flavour 8
Sweet Million - yield 7, flavour 9 (too sprawly)
Sungold - yield 8, flavour 10
Marmande - yield 8, flavour 8 cooked
100&1000s - yield 9, flavour 7 (too sprawly)


My choices for next year will be Sungold, Black Cherry, Marmande, and perhaps Gardeners Delight and/or Garden Pearl if I've got room...and maybe Red Alert 

[devonbarmygardener]

Gartenperle (bush) - yield 10; flavour 8 

My cordon toms:

Roma VF  - yield 8; flavour 6
Sweet Million - yield 10; flavour 10
Shirley  - yield 3; flavour 7
San Marzano  - yield 2; flavour 4 

Gartenperle were prolific and very long cropping in hanging baskets.
Roma VF didn't taste great - then told they were a cooking tom!  - not bad amount of fruits but succumbed to something mildewy I think!

Sweet Million, Shirley and San Marzano were a grafted collection - 1 plant of each - Sweet Million lived up to their name - delicious and prolific - would probably do as well from seed.
Shirley and San Marzano were poor considering they were supposed to be more vigorous and prolific (being grafted - not many fruit on either plant!

Would not waste money on grafted toms next year but grafted aubs and cukes - oh yes!!!

Oh and all the above were cold greenhouse grown

[sunshineband]

Gardener's Delight - yield 9  flavour 8
Golden Sunrise - yield 6 flavour 3
Sungella - yield 10 (still going)  flavour 10 (These are developed from Sungold)
Polish Paste - yield 4  flavour 4 (cooking tomato really though)
Moneymaker - yield 7 flavour 7
Yellow Pear - yield 6 flavour 4
Tumbler - yield 9  flavour 8
100s & 1000s - yield 8 flavour 10

[VegGirl7]

wish I could comment on more (have grown 12 varieties this year) but I don't want to sway the results because the yield score would be very low    - think I have to accept my greenhouse is in the wrong spot (not enough light!).  The one I can comment on though is

Currant Sweet Pea - yield 9  flavour 9 (bush) has done really well, even without a great deal of light

[cadalot]

Gardener's Delight - yield 7  flavour 8
Moneymaker - yield 7 flavour 7
Plum - yield 5 flavour 9
100s & 1000s - yield 10 flavour 10

I found that one get only 8 seeds in a pack of the 100s and 1000s - my daughters love these the best and Emma has requested more of them next year wanting to take a plant into the Children's Nursery where she works so I've collected seeds.

Interesting to see this result here as I already have seed from the Garden Centre 50p sale

F1 Sweet Million - 20 seeds
Sweetboy -20 seeds
F1 Lizzano - 7 seeds
Gardeners Delight - not stated
Harbinger - 30 seeds

[Growster...]

Sungold - yield 10, flavour 10.
Gardener's delight - yield 8, flavour 9.
Black Krim - yield 5, flavour 8.

Note - Most of Sungold were in the greenhouse, as was one each of the others. The greenhouse plants reached seven trusses in some pots.

[gypsy]

Red pear - yield 9  flavour  8.  amazing texture with silky smooth skin
Gardeners delight - yield 7 flavour 8
Money maker - yield 7 flavour 5

[TheWhiteRabbit]

Gardener's Delight:  yield 8 flavour 8
Latah: yield 8 flavour 9
Amish Paste: yield 5 flavour 6

Note - Amish Paste is a plum tomato so not as tasty raw as the others but does make a very nice sauce. Very large tomatoes but not many on a vine.

Very impressed with Latah - nice sized toms with very good flavour. Grows happily outdoors but is incredibly messy and sprawling.

[polly nator]

Maskotka  Yield 10  Flavour 8
Befsteak    Yield 8   Flavour 5
1. Sweet Million   Yield 7   Flavour 9   - not sure why but yield was much lower than in previous years in my garden
2. Sweet Milion    Yield 10  Flavour 9   - grown in daughters garden

[Ashurstman]

Sungold - Yield 8 Flavour 10
Roma - Yield 8 Flavour  8

The Roma were superb for cooking and turning into tomato sauce for storage.

[Headgardener22]

A sample of the plants I grew this year:

Sunset's Red Horizon:Yield 9: Taste 7
Tamina: Yield 8: Taste 7
Cherokee Purple: Yield 8: Taste 9
Limmony: Yield 7: Taste 8
Pink Brandywine: Yield 7: taste 9
Marvel Striped: Yield 7: Taste 8
Green Grapes: Yield 8: taste 9
Japanese Black Trifele: Yield 7: taste 8
Jubilee: Yield 7: taste 7
German Gold: Yield 6: Taste 8
Aunt Ruby's German Green Cherry: Yield 6: Taste 8
Rambling Gold Stripe: Yield 7: Taste 3
Nikolayev Yellow Cherry: Yield 6: Taste 7
Rio Grande: Yield 0: Taste 2
Roma: Yield 2: Taste 3
White Currant: Yield 4: Taste 5


I'm interested in what people consider to be a "good yield". My plants are grown in a polytunnel but its in partial shade so I don't think I get as good yield as I could. My best yield this year was Sunset's Red, 3kg from a single plant but then the Rio Grande only got 3 tomatoes (all the rest had Blossom End Rot).