A Poor First Impression

I have grown many varieties of tomatoes in my gardens since 1986. Most of them were open pollinated, and most of those were heirlooms. The grocery store tomatoes of winter catch a lot of criticism (rightfully so, I will add), but does that mean that every tomato that is grown in gardens is a winner? Absolutely not! In fact, if I were to think about all the tomatoes that I have tasted, and tested, over the years, quite a few fit into the middle of the road. There are a couple of dozen or so shining stars, tomatoes that will be in my garden every year, forever. The flipside, of course, are those tomatoes that I would not grow again; well, I cannot say never, because some varieties are finicky about geographic preference and weather. Or, maybe I was unlucky enough to get a plant that came from crossed seed. The problem is, though, that with so many options available (just look at the number of listings in the Seed Saver’s Exchange Winter Annual!), there is just not a lot of opportunity for second chances.

Here is a story of unfortunate tomatoes that were not a hit in my garden. These are the losers, the tomatoes that tend to rot on the vine because no one wants to put the effort into picking them! If any of the readers has had a very different, very positive experience with any of these, please write to us and tell us about it. Who knows, maybe I will be persuaded to give them another try!

Starting with red, or scarlet colored, tomatoes, two varieties come to mind as being particularly horrendous! I was sent seeds for Muchamiel by J. D. Green (of Cherokee Purple fame) a few years ago, and had a devil of a time getting any of the seeds to germinate. Finally, after doing the microwave/nitrate soak routine, I was rewarded with a healthy seedling. In retrospect, it would have been better if the seed was dead. The tomatoes that grew on the plant were cracked, hollow, and had a very tough skin, as well as a poor flavor. Last year I grew Heterosis, which I obtained from the USDA collection. Halitosis would have been more appropriate, since the tomatoes really stunk! They actually looked like a smaller version of the dreaded Muchamiel. My experience with Jung’s Wayahead was actually “waybehind” my expectations. It seemed to be stunted and diseased, and actually infected or otherwise negatively influenced all of its neighbors! Bellstar, touted as a Roma type of larger size, would make a good substitute for an elongated baseball, being hard and flavorless, and perhaps, dangerous! One year Burpee sent me a free sample of a new cherry tomato called Baxter. If Bellstar were a baseball substitute, Baxter would be the golf ball substitute, and was hard and without any noticeable flavor. Other reds that were not memorable in any way were Sasha’s Altai, Perestroika, Oregon Spring, and the old commercial varieties Essex Wonder, Excelsior, Early Ruby, and Beauty of Lorraine. Finally, I found Cuostralee to be very disappointing in both yield and flavor. Many seem to like it, so perhaps it did not fancy the spot it had in my garden.

Moving on to the pink tomatoes, I find that some of the heart shaped varieties are just not juicy or sweet enough to make them worth growing. In this category are Wolford Wonder and Dinner Plate. Beefsteak types that suffer from the same texture and flavor problem are Sabre, Una Hartsock’s, Magellan Burgess Purple, Whittemore, and Frank Williams. They look great, but do not deliver on the palate. The old favorite Ponderosa really struggled in my garden, with very low yield, weird shapes, and an off flavor. Another well-liked tomato, Grushovka, did nothing for me, and was dry fleshed and hard textured, though very productive.

As for the rest, I cannot decide why Banana Legs is so popular. I found it to be very tough skinned and bland. Verna Orange, a large gold heart shaped tomato, was very successful in Pennsylvania, but has been terrible in North Carolina. It has a lot of hollow spaces, and is very dry textured here. Yellow Beauty is a very attractive canary yellow, but don’t let that fool you. There is simply very little flavor to back up that beauty. Plum Lemon came highly recommended from both friends and catalog descriptions, but was perhaps the worst of the more than 90 tomatoes I grew this year. Sure, there were lots of them, but most of them hung on the vine until they rotted as a testament to our enthusiasm in picking them. Elberta Girl wins my award for the “prettiest” awful tomato. The foliage is a beautiful silvery, fuzzy green and the fruits are red with gold stripes. This is, however, the hardest tomato I have ever grown, and actually would hurt someone if it were thrown at them. Oh yes, the flavor is not very good either! It is a good candidate for the flower garden, actually, as it is a better ornamental than edible.

This really just scratches the surface, but at least gives you a good idea on what I do not like in a tomato! But, your favorite may be somewhere in this list. And my favorite may be on your list of never-again-in-my -garden! Isn’t gardening fun!