OT: Tomato Experts
- Thread starter tbaydog
- Start date
Tomatoes are vile, poisonous devil fruit, but my guess is that, like so many other fruits and vegetables, they have been bred to hold up to packaging and shipping rather than for taste. Supermarket peaches and strawberries have been that way for many years. You used to be able to tell by smell, but lately I have bought peaches that smelled like the real thing, but had zero peach taste. Some kind of spray added to increase sales?
Grow your own. Buy heirloom versions if possible. Definitely avoid "hybrid" tomatoes as they sacrifice a bit of flavor in exchange for being more, "hardy" so they can be sold to grocery stores that count on them to stay sell-able longer.
Check and treat your soil to make it ideal for tomatoes. Research which kind you like based on the flavor they produce. Learn how to water the right way. Over-watering can produce bland results and/or mushy tomatoes. Under-watering can keep them from growing properly and invite blight, etc. See how much sun each variety prefers and plant them in a place that matches. On this note, you can put them in planters or grow bags and move them around if it helps. Tomatoes can grow in surprisingly small amounts of soil if you fertilize appropriately.
Growing your own, if done right produces a far better tasting tomato than you should ever expect to get at the grocery store.
ETA - Also I suggest pinching off the "suckers"...the little branches that come in at the junction of branches. If you want, you can take those and stick them in a bottle of water...watch them grow roots, then plant them in soil when you've got a healthy amount of roots growing. One tomato can turn into several this way. This is really good if you like the tomatoes from that plant.
Check and treat your soil to make it ideal for tomatoes. Research which kind you like based on the flavor they produce. Learn how to water the right way. Over-watering can produce bland results and/or mushy tomatoes. Under-watering can keep them from growing properly and invite blight, etc. See how much sun each variety prefers and plant them in a place that matches. On this note, you can put them in planters or grow bags and move them around if it helps. Tomatoes can grow in surprisingly small amounts of soil if you fertilize appropriately.
Growing your own, if done right produces a far better tasting tomato than you should ever expect to get at the grocery store.
ETA - Also I suggest pinching off the "suckers"...the little branches that come in at the junction of branches. If you want, you can take those and stick them in a bottle of water...watch them grow roots, then plant them in soil when you've got a healthy amount of roots growing. One tomato can turn into several this way. This is really good if you like the tomatoes from that plant.
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Most now days come from California where they clone them these days - at least that's what an agronomist told me, and the cloning gives them superior resistance to disease and other parasites but the kicker is a trade-off in taste ... usually have to wait on the summer for the local tomatoes to come in if you're looking for taste
We have 15 different types of tomatoes at the grocery store we go to- most taste great and some exist to for visual purposes only, im convinced.
The on vine ones we buy are pennies more expensive, smaller, and taste better than the Big Boy variety that's so popular(based on shelf space).
As mentioned- larfe scale fresh produce is grown for transport first then taste second. It has to be able to get to the grocer in good visual condition to ever even be purchased, so surviving packaging and transport has become a focus.
My company owns and distributes some produce- its wild to see when some food is harvested.
I have a friend that commercially grows tomatoes in Indiana. The ones you find at the store are artificially ripened while they are still green so that they make it to the store and last longer. If you grow tomatoes at home (or buy them at a farmers market) no matter the variety, they will taste better just because you’re going to pull them when they are ripe.
Consider yourself fortunate that you could get tomatoes with taste more than three years ago. I haven't been able to buy tomatoes with taste for a decade I think. Homegrown tomatoes are outstanding and you can basically eat by themselves or with a little salt and pepper. Anything else is just edible garnish.
If any of you live in the Golden Triangle, go visit the Mayhew Tomato Farm in Mayhew. It's our family farm. Just about to finish picking strawberries for the year. Next up is squash and blackberries, then tomatoes, peas, snap beans,okra, watermelon and more. All fresh.
I worked in Produce at the grocery store level for many years. On the Vine tomatoes definitely have better taste. Slicer/Big Boy tomatoes are tricky. In the Southeast, when we could source from Eubanks in Lucedale, they were really good. Winter and early spring they come from Cali, Rio Grande valley and Mexico, those have the thick hide and little taste because of artificial ripening.
There are regional farms that sell to grocery stores, so ask your local store produce guy where they came from.
There are regional farms that sell to grocery stores, so ask your local store produce guy where they came from.
actual nightshades are not meant for human consumption....they're part of the medical-pharma complex to stuff you full of more drugs to address your autoimmune disease
My Daddy believed tomatoes had to be grown using cow **** as fertilizer. He always kept a couple of steers in a concrete floored enclosure for our butcher beef. The dried cow **** was periodically shoveled into a side shed for garden fertilizer. For those of you who didn’t grow up on a farm, you have no idea how much grass seed a cow can process. You had to hoe the maters every day. He would take square bales of hay and line end to end against the garden fence, he would hollow out a bowl in the middle of the bale and fill it with cow **** and plant tomatoes in it. He could grow tomatoes as big as grapefruit that actually tastes like a tomatoes. Tomatoes are bacons best friend.
A few that still have great taste are: Cherokee Purple, Marion and Creole. The first two being heirlooms. I am not sure about Creole. I generally try about six different tomatoes a year, but I always include these three.
i've done a haybale garden before. works well. prepping the hay is timely, but works great and easy to maintain. you basically saturate the bales of hay daily for 2 weeks. every other day add a large amount of fertilizer. it basically breaks down the hay leaving the inside as a compost. when you plant, the dirt will still be hot from all the fertilizing.
3-5 Cherokee purple plants are in our garden every year. Love em. They can be tough to discern when they are ripe, at least up here in Iowa, because of the different colors and varying firmness of each fruit.
https://www.seedsavers.org/cherokee-purple-organic-tomato
I wish they would take the heat down here. Had a plant one year got 2 awesome tasting tomatoes, then it got too hot for them to pollinate.
Had luck with Homestead and Grape.
Trying Solar Fire this year.
Cannot Find Arkansas Traveler or Brandywine. (Heirloom breeds that still produce in the heat and humidity)
I’m a tomato snob. A store bought tomato is bland and useless. If you want a good tomato, you have to raise your own or wait til Summer and buy from farmers markets. I have been growing my own for most of my life and I have learned the key to tasty tomatos is composting. I put my coffee grounds and filter in my compost every morning...along with every egg shell, banana peel, and veggie/salad trimming we throw out during the year. During the Fall i rake the leaves and put them in the pile. It will blow your mind how big and plentiful your tomatoes will be each Summer.
You can also go to Cups, Starbucks or any other coffee shop and get their used coffee grounds(they are happy to give them away usually). Coffee is high in acid and tomato plants love acidic soil.
You can also go to Cups, Starbucks or any other coffee shop and get their used coffee grounds(they are happy to give them away usually). Coffee is high in acid and tomato plants love acidic soil.