The first vine ripened tomato of the year is always the best one ever. This year it was sun gold.

Tasting - Goliath

Growing - Sweet 100

The Sweet 100 is a monster! This thing has grown into my other tomatoes and won't stop - last weeks measurement marked it just short of 9 feet tall as well. If I grow this variety next year, it won't be in the raised bed with the others, but off by itself. It also produces like crazy. Very sweet grape size tomatoes, as the name implies - give it a try!

We are finally getting ripe tomatoes around here and except for the sungold, the rest don't taste that great- even with the wait. Goliath are super great to grow. I am surprised anyone would say they taste best. IMHO they are fine but persimmons taste better.

With this cool summer we have had the best tomatoes for earliness have been: sungold, Quick Pick, Principe Borghese (taste terrible fresh- need drying or saucing) and Stupice. Stupice has been the money maker this year. Most of the tomatoes that have ripened and sold were Stupice. They put out like crazy!

Stupice--the "everyone's: tomato????
My best tasting this year has been Mr. Stripey--(maybe because it's the first, CTD) and the best salad tomato so far has been Yellow Pear. I planted some Oxhearts and they are better cooked or sauces, but they make GREAT fried green tomatoes--sweet and crispy with just the right touch of acid--not bad raw either.

In my garden the 2009 winner is Anna Russian tomato.

This is a picture of the fruit:

http://victoryseeds.com/catalo...naRussian_090202.jpg

and the plant itself is the ugliest tomato plant I've encountered. It grows large and spindly, the leaves are sparse and their color is unattractive. Nevertheless those tomatoes taste fantastic.

So far I like the flavor of Bonnies Best. My tomatoes are not doing all that well this year.
My Roma's are finally getting red and they are good. Just not that many flowers or tomatoes on each plant.

My favorite for taste would be Cherokee Purple but it is always first to get disease so I've given up on it. Eva Purple Ball is nearly as good with beautiful fruits red/purple fruits and seems to handle disease better.

I have been anxiously awaiting to chime in on this as I have 7 varieties planted. One of the thing I noticed, is that the FIRST ripe tomatoes taste soooo good, and that is early girl. Later she may not win, but when you have been waiting oh so long, that first one tastes mighty good.

Should harvest my first mule team tonight.mk

I just want to mention that I hate the Principe Borghese. They are weak and viney and the fruit is too small and mealy to throw in with the romas. And when you do dry them it still takes forever! My dehydrator was running for about 36 hours and they were cut in half. What a disappointment. I could have had more romas where they are and sold those!

Principes make the absolute best dried tomatoes. I agree they don't taste great otherwise, I only use them for drying. One year I had no tomatoes and bought dried tomatoes at the store and they didn't taste anywhere near as good as Principes. I dry them in my car and it takes about 24 hours (3 days of 8 hour sun).

I am going to capture this thread and try them all if I can! What a great question.

This year for my regular tomatoes, early girl is the most beautiful but the big beef is the sweetest and tastiest. I would gladly trade 5 early girls for one big beef. (ok, that's not saying much since I have so many!)

My "sweet cherries" (sorry about the generic name...that's what the tag says) is like another poster said elsewhere: candy in the garden. I planted jolly elf grape tomatoes because I thought grapes were supposed to be sweeter, but they're a poor second.

My favorite tasting tomatoes are Paul Robeson and Guker's Sepcial.

The Paul Robenson is a nice 1 lb black tomato with a hint of smokey flavor.

The Guker's Special is a nice 1 lb pink tomato, and good slicer for BLTs.

They are a must grow for me every year.

Dean

I tried a new one this year, persimmon orange, and it was every bit as good as my all-time classic favorite, the german johnson.
Of the 12 varieties I grew this year, I can say for sure I won't grow Carolina Gold again. I had tomato horn worms bad, fruit worms bad, and disease on all the other good ones. But the persimmon orange prevailed as the hands down winner for prolific, best taste, and quite beautiful large tomatoes. Parks whopper produced the most for me and I made a lot of sauce with those. Kellog's breakfast was another good one but had diseases.

Mortage Lifter for me. Finally gave us a good crop and was delicious. I started them last Dec. outside on my front porch using the Wintersown method. This spring I put two in a five gallon pot. Good slicers!

I grew a few 'cherry blend' seeds from a mixed packet. Does anyone know what cherry tomato is large and round and pale yellow, almost white? I had a bunch of ripe ones on the bottom that I had not noticed. I tasted a cracked one and it was kind of mealy but ok. Sungold is still the best cherry, although it is in fact a hybrid (many people think it isn't).