Garden Pearl, Golden Sunrise, Tigerella, San Marzano 2, Marmande
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Tigerella, Golden Sunrise and Garden Pearl |
Here's my review:
Tigerella
This was originally by far my favourite of the tomatoes. In addition to having an attractive tiger stripe (not quite as prominent on the fully ripe fruit as I had hoped, but still a fun feature), these are a good size at about 3-4 cm across and have a tangy, strongly tomato taste. They're a joy to come across in your salad. They've got quite an acidic edge, but I enjoyed that. The plants grew well both in the greenhouse and outside, producing some of my earliest ripe fruit and not having any problems with its fruit or leaves, other than the greenhouse one getting scorched leaves on the hottest day of the year. By early August, both sets of plants had produced ripe tomatoes already and the outdoors one looked set to produce me a decent amount of tomatoes. However this early promise didn't last. By the end of the summer, it turned out to be one of my poorer croppers, both in the greenhouse and outdoors 6/10 outdoors. My outdoor crop may have suffered from being grown in a shadier than ideal area of the garden, so it might be worth me growing them again outdoors. 4/10 in the greenhouse, isn't producing enough tomatoes under my growing conditions in a large pot to be worth it. Might work better in a greenhouse in a cooler climate or straight in the ground in the greenhouse.
Golden sunrise
These were originally my second favourite type of the ones I grew this year, but moved up to become my favourite of this year's crop. Like the Tigerella, they had already produced ripe tomatoes both in the greenhouse and outdoors in early August. Like the Tigerella, they're also tangy with a good strong tomato flavour and a joy to come across in a salad. They make a nice visual change from your standard red tomato. Like the Tigerella, I haven't had that many from the greenhouse, although more than from the Tigerella. Overall, they produced me a small crop in the greenhouse and a larger crop outdoors, but not as good a crop as Moneymaker produced for me in previous years. Also, the later part of the crop was larger than the earlier part, reaching about 5 cm across in September. The level of the crop may have partly been due to being planted in an area of the garden that didn't get enough sun. 7/10 outdoors, will grow again - especially in a sunnier position. 5/10 in the greenhouse. Did not produce many tomatoes in my greenhouse growing conditions.
Marmande
Garden pearl
These are heavy-cropping cherry tomatoes that are only happy to grow outdoors. They achieve quite a nice pinkish-red colour and have produced an awful lot of fruit without any sign of blight, despite their insistence on growing low to the ground and despite me not allowing adequate room between plants. The packet alleges that they are sweet. I rarely eat refined sugar, so am highly attuned to natural sweetness. I didn't notice any. All I got was bland, bland, bland. Perhaps "sweet" was code for "neither acidic nor tangy". There was certainly no strong tomato flavour to them. The ones I've grown so far are a waste of space in salad. The only thing I can say in their defence is that I gave them the worst location of all the tomato plants with the least hours of sunlight, so maybe more sunlight would have produced a better flavour. 3/10 will very probably not grow again, except maybe to check my sunlight hypothesis.
San Marzano 2
Moneymaker
I've been growing Moneymaker tomatoes since I started this garden, but decided to try something new this year. Moneymaker produces nice, standard, red, mid-sized tomatoes that grow easily in the UK whether indoors or out. In fact, they grow so easily in the UK mine had a tendency to self-seed all over the garden. It was also a prolific cropper and I got a huge harvest. The flavour is good and strong. It's been a while since I ate one, so I can't remember precise details, but what I do remember was that I was very happy eating them in salads and they made an excellent chutney. Their only downside is that they lack the excitement of a fancy appearance. 9/10 will almost certainly grow again.
Gardener's delight
These are cherry tomatoes. What I liked about these was that every year I grew them they consistently ripened several days before Moneymaker, so I got an early start on my tomato season. I got a large crop from these and the plants were not trouble. I'm not a fan of cherry tomatoes in general, but as cherry toms go, these are good ones with a strong flavour, reliable ripening and easy to grow, whether in a greenhouse or outdoors. Putting aside the fact I'm not really a fan of cherry tomatoes - although they can be handy for lunch boxes and picnics - 9/10 (and if you're specifically looking for a red-coloured cherry tomato 10/10, I only docked them a point for not having any fancy features like unusual colouring or ribs). I'm not sure if I'll grow them again, but that's entirely due to me not particularly liking cherry tomatoes. If I find myself wanting mini tomatoes again, these will be top of my list.
And finally, here are a few bonus pictures of the garden to show how it's getting on. No powdery mildew on my cucurbits yet, despite the rain. They seem to like being up on sticks.
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