Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2010
It is that time of year again. When the summer gods and goddesses converge on the garden and conspire to make the magic of garden ripe tomatoes happen. Actually, they are a little lazy this year in that regard. I think it is due to the heat. It is too hot for tomatoes to ripen, but I do have one plant with ripe tomatoes (out of 18), so this sets off the season for Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2010.
I know, I know that I dropped the ball on the 2009 season, but my tomatoes plants ended up being destroyed by a groundswell of critters in my garden. Not only could I not get tastings done, I could not even get tomatoes for myself. I was sad.
But this year, thanks to an ingenious obstacle course consisting of a series of buckets, pots and garden tools, the animals have stayed away and my tomato plants are heavy with… um… green tomatoes. I am sure they will be turning soon…
So here is the list for this year:
- Micro Tom
- Rainbow
- Reisetomate
- Henderson’s Pink (crop failure)
- Juliet
- Violet Jasper (crop failure)
- Lemon Boy
- Matina
- Black Pearl
- Purple Smudge
- Black Cherry
- Aunt Ruby’s Green
- Chile Verde
As always, your opinions on the tomatoes are wanted and encouraged. What may do well here may not do well where you are and vice versa. These tastings are so that we can place a record of how a tomato really tastes out there in cyberspace. I also encourage you to blog about your own tomato tastings experiences on your blog. I will happily link to any tomato tastings that other people do as well.
Here are links to previous years:
Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2006
Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2007
Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008
Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009
Hi, Hanna: A great looking list! Interesting – I didn’t know this excessive heat delays the ripening! I would have thought the opposite. Thank you for the information.
Regards, Kimberly
I find it kind of funny to see “Reisetomate” mentioned everywhere this year – when I first saw it a couple of years ago, no-one I knew had ever seen or heard of it.
Yes, they actually can’t produce the right chemicalswhen the temps are over 85F. normally, in the summer,night time temps drop low enough so that they can ripen, but not this summer – even at night the temps are too high. You can read more about it here:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/tomatoesnotripening.html
I got mine from the Baker’s Creek catalog, I think. Iamlooking forward to trying it, but I have heard that it does not taste all that good. :S
I don’t know if I agree with the heat theory on ripening. I would blame the excessive cloudy rainy days we had earlier in the season if anything. Personally I got tomatoes earlier than ever this year. This was around June 23th I had enough to take to market that week. My dad who is an hour north in zone 5 had tomatoes a week before I did. As always I planted boldy early (in the first week of April). So some of it may have to do with your planting date (mine is incredibly early and risky), the weather, or well who knows…
Hope you get a good harvest!
thanks for the info. This makes me feel much better about my tomato plants! Noe I just need to figure out why my dang peppers & cucumbers aren’t blooming 🙁
I normally have ripe tomatoes 2 weeks earlier than this and there have been green tomatoes on the plants for 3-4 weeks now – and they do nothing but stay green. Even the cherries are not ripening. It has been extraordinarily hot (and sunny) here in Cleveland, even at night… well not the sunny part at night, but you get my drift. Anyway, here is the info on heat and ripening for you as well. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/tomatoesnotripening.html
It is interesting that a heat loving plant like a tomato would be stopped from ripening by heat.
We have a lot of little Romas on the vine turning red and not growing bigger. I was thinking it was because of the heat. We only grew 3 kinds of tomatos this year, I’ll have to expand our varieties.
None of these are on my list so I am anxious to see the tomato tastings begin! Black Pearl??? All of a sudden I see visions of Jack Sparrow carrying a bounty of tomatoes on board! No wait, I’m just going to search for that one right now.
We live in VA. Really hot here this year. Ours finally started getting ripe, but going bad fast. And our whole garden has the worst of bugs I have ever seen in over 20 years, and now all the squash is dead with hardly any squash. Cukes were on the bitter side, and now all tomatoe plants are dying also. I am so disappointed ready to pull out all the plants. Also, tomatoes we do get have no lasting quality, they go bad really quickly. I guess it is a combo of temps. and no rain, ugh!
Hey, delurking here since you asked for other people’s tomato tastings. Here’s mine: http://feralbiologist.blogspot.com/2010/07/2010-tomato-reviews.html
Here in Texas, tomato season is already done and over. I also grew Black Cherry and it was delicious, but I’ve heard that black tomatoes like hot climates.
I grew Lemon Boy years ago, and seemed to remember it did well for a yellow tomato, but I don’t remember anything especially remarkable about it.
Thanks for this! Keep up the great work.
I grew Lemon boys summer 2009. One plant produced thousands of fruits (so it seemed!). They were great for snitching as well as an appetizer with basil and balsamic vinegar. They were covered in 2′ of snow almost all winter and then at least a dozen plants came back from the grave in the spring, I guess from the seeds of the ones I missed on the ground! Longmont, Colorado, just north of Boulder. Great for little hostess gifts as they never stopped producing.
Another gardener told me sweet peppers also don’t like the heat–she said they drop the flowers. My hot peppers were gang-busters.
We both love tomatoes and enjoy experimenting with new and different varieties. This year we have planted the following list of plants: Better Boy (our reliable standard), Big Boy, Best Boy, Early Girl, Brandywine Red, Mortgage Lifter. Costoluto Genovese, Sugary Hybrid, Bistro Hybrid, Black Krim, Juliet, Sungold (our all time favorite), Chocolate Cherry, Sweet 100. Last year was a miserable year for tomatoes in coastal N. Carolina. It was extremely dry and very hot. Just after the plants began to bear, the vines began dying and one by one, we lost them all. But hope springs eternal and we’re at it again this year with renewed vigor.