Hi all you gardeners. Are any of you growing tomatoes that really taste good? I have several types growing and am getting very pretty ones, but they don't really taste like a tomato should, you know? What variety names are you growing that taste great?

Hey,I can't believe you posted this.

Just this morning I picked a dozen Cherry toms and eeewww they were not sweet. Weren't bad, but not sweet.

We built raised beds this year and I made my own soil mix (organic) and the plants look great, some are 7' tall, but no other ripe toms as of yet. What gives? Guess I will ask the other Master Gardeners at our meeting Wednesday.

I have three Holy Land heirlooms, two Husky cherry, one other heirloom that was given to me, and two Mr. Stripey.
Except for the cherry ones, all the others are new to me so I cannot say how they taste yet.

I have notice that my tomatoes the last couple of years don't have that good tomato taste. They're not bad. This year I bought some beefsteaks tomato plants from a little old woman out in the country. Now this year they taste more like tomatoes. In the past I bought the tomato plants from the local nursery or big chain store. Wonder what the difference is?

'Same thing here is GA. They just don't taste the same anymore. I thought my taste buds were drying up or something. (Everything else is!)

I had one tomato plant this year in one of those Topsy Turvy thingies. I think it was a Better Boy variety. The plant was beautiful and so were the tomatoes. But when you sliced into them they were still green on the inside. Taste - pfffffttt. I have been watering that plant at least twice a day everyday since April. Yesterday I called it quits. I cut it down and threw it in the trash. And it was still blooming! Same thing with the cucumber plant. I'll just buy my maters at the store from now on. It's a whole lot less work.

Our tomatoes have gone crazy some plants are 7' this year hubby grows "German Johnson"and a couple Big Boys tomatoes and they taste oh so good.We have been eating lots of tomatoes breakfast,dinner,sandwiches as in drill cheese etc.


What i need is a good tomato juice recipe do any of you have one to offer?Thanks in advance

Beefsteak tomatoes are the best. My husband bought and planted the tomatoes this year. He said he couldn't find Beefsteaks. The ones he bought aren't nearly as good.

I planted Early Girl tomatoes a few years ago. The tomatoes came in earlier than the Better Boy and others I had. They were smaller, but oh, so sweet! Just delicious! I tried some Roma this year, and have only picked two ripe ones and they taste pretty good, but not as good as those Early Girls!

I know I live on the other side of the planet, but I have found many of the seedlings sold via garden stores etc. are actually hybrids. For really great tasting, old-fashioned tomatoes, see if you can find someone who sells "heirloom" or old fashioned varieties. Usually we can get them here from a couple of "seed saver" companies. The great thing about using old fashioned non hybrid types is the seed. You can save the seed from the nicest ones and have more for next year. Often hybrids are sterile or seed from them is not true to type, hope this helps.

I have an Early Girl that I'm trying to beat the rabbits to the tomatoes...also a cherry tomato. The cherries are terrific this year. The 3rd one is in the topsy tervy and some of them have rot on the bottom of the tomato...will toss that thing soon.

tomatoes in Indiana are not as tasteful this year

I've grown a little cherry tomato called Sungold in past years, and that was the tastiest I've ever had.

I agree...our normally delicious Indiana tomatos are not as good this year. Maybe it is the heat!

I have tomatos coming out of my ears (well, garden actually) right now! The problem is that I don't like them raw, I use them a lot for cooking. So I don't know how they tasting this year! :) LOL!

Have you tried some of the Heirloom varieties? I've heard that they have more flavor.

We have the grape, cherry, and some early girls. Ours taste pretty good this year, and MAN, did they get tall!!!!!!!!!

A really good heirloom tomato with great taste is Mortgage Lifter. You won't find it at the big box store though. Have to start your own seed from one of the catalogues. They weight about a pound a piece too.

What a funny name for a tomato! I have 2 beefsteaks, but they're not ready to be picked yet. In the past, they're my favorites. The Yellow Pear tomatoes are smaller than I thought they'd be (see what happens when you don't read the fine print??), and I really don't detect too much tomato flavor from them. The Romas I've gotten so far have been really good, but small. The upcoming ones look bigger. The fruit was late on all the plants this year, and the plants are very tall.

I have heard that too much chemical fertilizer will produce beautiful plants with no taste. My plants are doing so poorly due to the cold weather that I haven't even gotten a tomato yet!

I did not do a garden this year due to back problems but in the past I always planted Big Boy. They are not an heirloom but oh man do they ever taste good! I swear by Big boy variety.

We plant Early Girl, Better Boy and Arkansas Travelers and we have had more tomatoes than we can use and they taste great. We don't have any problem giving them to folks who don't garden. The heat here has just about done in our garden for the year...Arkansas.

Do most of you grow your tomato plants from seed? Or do you buy seedlings?

I always bought seedlings from a local family run greenhouse.

I have a Grape Tomato plant in a Topsy Turvy & they are the sweetest tasting tomatoes I have ever tasted. We also have a Cherry Tomato plant in one & it is good but not near as tasty as the grape tomatoes. We have a friemd that is growing beautiful JetStar Tomatoes. They are a high acid tomato & gosh they are soooooo good! I want to try those next year.

Have an Amish greenhouse nearby that starts plants. They have a lot of the open pollinated varieties, otherwise known as the heirloom plants. Gave up on the hybrid plants several years ago because of the flavor(less) issue. Love the German pinks, Ox Heart (a meaty roma type) and one that the Amish call Hillbilly. Have some blossom end rot going on right now, too much heat and watering problems binding up calcium. Will probably give them each a Tums in a couple of gallons of water in the morning and see if they won't turn around - not an easy project since we have 8 dozen of them in this year.

Years ago I always grew Better Boy and Better Girl and Beefsteak tomato plants, already started and they were good and I had tons. Kids are grown and gone and I don't even like to plant flowers, ground too hard and too hot and dry, of course, weeds do just great, hard to pull them out, ground is so hard.

I only buy tomatoes right now,from Tennessee.They have the best flavor so far compared to others.

I religiously plant early girls here in Ill. I always pick the first ones around the 4th of july. I also throw in a bag of mushroom compost before I plant and they just thrive and oh so yummy. The compost is at my local grocery store garden center.

Next year look for the heirloom varities. I always grown Pruden's Purple, think that's the name and they are to die for. Brandywine is also very good but both are slow to mature here in Maine and sometimes the frost wins out.

One thing my Nurseryman husband used to do
for our own tomatoes, was to add plain old
Epsom Salt to the soil. He added it to everything
we grew, and they used it by the hundred pound
sacks at the nursery in potted plants.

It made our lemon tree produce larger, thinner
skinned fruit with sweeter juice. Works nicely on
all citrus, among other fruits and veggies.

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My Nurseryman husband told me that here in California we
can not grow a lot of the ones that grow beautifully back east.
We have lots of nasties in our soil that prevents the less hybrid
ones from growing. The "Beefsteak" we get here does not taste
as good nor is it as big as the real thing we had in WV. And as
for a real mortgage lifter, there was one developed before the war years near my home town of Milton, WV. Still have pictures
somewhere that shows a small outbuilding totally covered with
them, roof and all. And my hill family says their veggies still taste good if they keep their own seeds from old varieties. They
have sent me lots of seeds over the years, and even in a sterile greenhouse, they die after growing 4 or 5 inches tall.
Might as well try to enjoy what we have and can grow.

I remember the taste of my mom's and grandma's tomatoes, and the ones today just taste "flat" compred to those. I am not sure what is going on with them, but I think that everything may be getting hybridized, including some of the "heirloom" varieties. That is just my suspicion, and I may be wrong too.

I live in Maryland and it has been extremely hot this spring and summer. I think that it has affected the tomatoes. The skins are hard to chew and not as sweet.

In my garden I have all kind of tomatoes, from cherry tomatoes to Tasty Toms and Pommodore and several wich name I don't know because they where give aways. But they all tast great and sweet even taste better then last year. Did your tomatoes catch enough sun and warmt? Tomatoes don't like watering from above, alway water them by their feet. When its very hot they must have a lot of water in the morning and in the evening.Tomatoes does like to be in the area with asperagus and beans (but mine are also near the corns)and they do also like a metal stick to grow at, not a wooden. Tomatoes don't like to be touched with smokey hands.

I don't know whats going on with your tomatoes but maybe these tips will help a bit. Oh and I never use hybride seeds because I can't use that seed again for the next year.

This year I grew Heatwave II and Sungold cherry tomatoes. Neither did as well as last year's Celebrity and sungold because of the heat and especially the $*&^%@(*($! leaf-footed bugs! Does anyone know of a way to control them other than with two bricks?

Sweet 100's, a prolific cherry tomato variety, has good tomato flavor.

Try using calcium for blossom end rot.

I have been buying the better boy and better girl tomatoes. When they make, they are terriffic. no tomatoes anyplace around here this year. First we had too much water too fast and too long,now we have scotching heat filled days that are burning the gardens up.

I have been buying the better boy and better girl tomatoes. When they make, they are terriffic. no tomatoes anyplace around here this year. First we had too much water too fast and too long,now we have scotching heat filled days that are burning the gardens up.

tomatoes are hybridized to look pretty and ship well and keep longer. to get something you have to give something. the old toms rotted easily, bruised up, were really ugly a lot of times and tasted great. there's nothing like the smell of a sliced tom right off the vine out in the sun, not in a greenhouse. we used to eat them in our grubby hands when we were kids. and that was even in the city. (not to mention that as you get older your taste buds become less sensitive and you miss out on some of the flavor of everything. that's why you hear older people saying: when i was young, soap [or something] used to taste much better than it does today. true!)


"I have been buying the better boy and better girl tomatoes. When they make, they are terriffic. no tomatoes anyplace around here this year. First we had too much water too fast and too long,now we have scotching heat filled days that are burning the gardens up."

both of those varieties were developed here in new jersey at rutgers university, which has an agricultural program with gardens open to the public at certain times of the summer. this summer their own tomatoes stink.