Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008
Drum roll, please…
It’s time for the one, the only, the ever anticipated Tomato Frenzy that the world has been waiting for! Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 can now commence as there are ripe tomatoes on the vine in my garden.
For those of you who may not be familiar with Hanna’s Tomato Tastings, let me lay this out for you. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be posting my personal opinions of the tomato varieties in my garden. I encourage… no, implore you to add your own opinions, good or bad, to my review. If you do not agree with me, that is ok. I have said it several times. Tomatoes are like wine. Different varieties grow best in different areas and people have different tastes. Your input is vital.
If you do your own tomato tasting (which I highly recommend), you can either link to it from the comments here or shoot me an email and I will link to it from within this post. The point of this is to create a real review of all the 100s of varieties of tomatoes available. Life is too short to have to rely on seed sellers descriptions (have you ever heard of a bad tomato from them). Share your tomato love with the world.
Here is my list of tomatoes growing in the garden:
- Bear Claw
- Early Giant (crop failure)
- German Red Strawberry
- Heinz 1439
- Italian Tree Tomato (crop failure)
- Omar’s Lebanese (crop failure)
- Matt’s Wild Cherry
- White Currant
- Chocolate Stripes
- Vintage Wine
- Blue (crop failure)
- Noir De Crimee
- Purple Calabash
- Hugh’s
- Marmande (tag mix up)
- Japanese Black Trifele
- Cosmonaut Volkov (tag mix up)
- Hillbilly
- Kimberly (tag mix up)
- Winsall (tag mix up)
- Green Moldovan
- Celebrity (tag mix up)
- Wayahead
- Russian 117 (crop failure)
- Manitoba
- Kellog’s Breakfast (crop failure)
As I finish each review, I will link from here back to the review.
So, here’s to a summer full of tasty tomatoes. I can’t wait to try every one of them!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with these posts, take a look at previous year’s tastings:
I am so excited to see the 2008 Tomato tasting post up! I stumbled across your tomato Tastings back in 2006, and I have been hooked since. It even inspired me to keep my own record of likes/dislikes among the varieties I grow.I don’t grow as many different varieties a year as you do (once the kids are grown the pool comes down and the ‘mater garden expands LOL)But I do try to grow 5 or 6 of something different every season.
Here is a link to what made it into the garden this year, I included some things other that tomatoes, but the top of the list is where those kings of the garden reside LOL!
http://veggiemylove.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-made-it-to-garden.html
Once we are near the end of the season I will post my tomato season critique.
Thanks for being so fantastic!!
I am excited for this year’s tomato tastings! I have a question about your past year’s tomato tastings: I noticed in 2006, most (if not all) of your plants were from http://www.heirloomtomatoplants.com/. Would you say the company is a recommended one, in light of the two tomato-plant mix ups? And how was the shipping? I live in Chicago, which is not Ohio, but I would love a ball-park figure.
I had no idea there were so many tomato varieties! I’m growing some beefsteak tomatoes; first time growing any type of vegetable for me. I planted two sprouts in the middle of a little garlic patch that my dad made, and I swear the tomatoes that came from those plants taste a tiny bit like garlic. Man, that’s cool.
Donna – I am so excited to hear that you are doing tomato reviews as well. I look forward to reading them!
Jen – The company was good, but I have since then found a less expensive company that does a fantastic job with their tomatoes. It is http://www.tomatobabycompany.com/ . When I get live plants these days, it will be from her company.
Poe – Mmmm… garlicky tomatoes. That is tasty.
I’m excited to read your results. Since I live in NE Ohio, the ones that work well for you should work well for me. I can’t believe you can fit so many tomatoes in you garden.
Happy Tasting!
Woot! Been patiently waiting.
Unfortunately, only about half of my plants are doing well the other two—tons of dropped blossoms. =/
I’ll be ordering from these companies next year and perhaps increase my rate of success.
I can’t wait, I love these! I’m growing persimmon this year based on your review.
I’ve been looking forward to your tomato tastings all summer.
ooooo, I cant wait for the german red strawberry, I have wanted to grow these, they sound fabulous. This is my favorite annual blogging activity, waiting on your maters!
I am only growing 2 kinds this year, but in containers, 1 larger cont 1 smaller. being scientific about it, inspired by you. Ive learned a lot so far.
Hanna, How do you have room for all of these plants!
I’ve just potted up three largish plants and they’ll end up taking up around three square meters.
so excited to see and read about your tomatoes! i grew brandywine’s last year and got to taste a few other heirlooms for the first time. it only took that one summer to get me hooked/in love with heirlooms! i’m growing 10 varieties and hope i can take your lead to document them as well as you do! thanks for sharing with us!
Hi Hanna,
I’m jealous of the gardening space you have! I love the idea of a tomato review. I’ve tried to keep my garden notes in a notebook, but it seems to keep disappearing…
I planted Brandywines last year and won’t be doing them again. They took forever to ripen. They all split and got fruit flies quickly, and the time from ripe to rotten was short.
This year I’ve got Super-Fantastic, Celebrity, and Juliet (grape tomatoes). So far, I’ve picked a couple Juliets and that’s it. The SF and one of the J’s are about 5′ x 4′ and have dwarfed their tomato cages. (I’m trying one called the Ultimate Tomato Cage.) While I’m not having to tie it up to keep it from falling over, like I’ve had to do with the standard wire cages, the plants have grown far beyond their support. Do you have a cage you like?