2014 Heirloom Tomato Review

If you read my last post and wondered why I hadn't grown any tomatoes this year - well here they are!!  I grow so many tomatoes, most of them heirloom, that I write a separate post dedicated just to them.

It's always a colourful harvest

Heirloom tomatoes vary so much in colour, shape and taste that we often find ourselves spending hours comparing them for flavour, suitability for cooking and storage.  I try new varieties each year and then we have to compare against old favourites.

Let's see what this year's crop brought us and how they stack up against past years.

To start I should mention that once again the garden was hit with early blight.

The tell tale spots on tomato leaves indicates early blight

Black spots appeared on the leaves close to the main plant stalk in late July.  Those leaves began to die back and then the spots spread.  Eventually it will kill the whole plant.  The good news is that early blight can be dealt with.  Plucking the affected leaves and properly disposing of them can help to stop the spread of the disease.  Also dispose of the mulch around plants as that can harbour the fungus.  I didn't bother plucking leaves and I think that has contributed to my ongoing problem with this fungus.  I need to be more diligent in future.  Even so, the fruit still forms on the plants and is edible and by properly fermenting the seeds you can still collect seed for planting.

Thus far, the only tomato that shows any resistance to this fungus is Mexico Midget.  It isn't entirely resistant but it's better than most.  I actually didn't plant Mexico Midget this year but I had plants regardless.  This plant is more shrublike than any tomato I've ever seen and it produces fruit in the hundreds.  Tiny currant sized fruit that drops all over and replants itself year to year.  I found about 3 Mexico Midgets hiding amongst the onions and the beets, and in bed with the cucumbers.  The only downfall is that these self seeded plants start out late and never fully mature enough to provide a good crop of fruit.

A bowl full of 'cherries'

Yellow Pear also weathered the fungus storm slightly better than most of the other plants.  Beautiful little fruits, they are adorable to look at.  Not terribly sweet, meaty as yellows tend to be but they don't 'taste' yellow Jody says (whatever that means!)  I found them sweet in comparison to a regular large tomato but not so sweet that is really noticeable.

We had one more 'cherry' sized tomato and that was Chadwick Cherry.  These small red tomatoes had good disease resistance and were quite prolific.  The fruit is a little larger than normal for a cherry, and not very sweet but instead has a tangy flavour.  We did enjoy them and they produced a decent haul of fruit in a bad year but I'm still looking for a cherry tomato that will blow my socks off.

The tomato with the worst resistance this year was Copia.  Most of the plants were killed outright.  The couple that survived produced beautiful fruit.  Big fat globes striped in orange and yellow. A champagne of tomatoes Jody called them.  A very bright, light citrusy taste that I adored but considering how badly they did in my garden I'm not sure I would grow them again.

Copia produced large yellow and red striped tomatoes

I have had good disease resistance from Black Plum tomatoes in the past but this year the blight proved too much for them.  We collected only a small amount of fruit but regardless this is my favourite tomato and I will continue to grow it.  The small fruit is perfect for dicing onto salads and the strong smoky flavour is fantastic in everything from soups to salsa.

Kellogs was my least favourite this year.  These large yellow tomatoes ripened early and while not bad to eat I much prefer German Gold and Woodle Orange which we have grown in previous years.  In addition to inferior taste they also suffered from blight and blossom end rot.

From the Left - Clear Pink, Kellogs and Bison

On the other end of the spectrum, Paul Robeson was probably my favourite tomato this year.  They took forever to ripen but when they did we loved them.  This is an excessively large purple tomato with that strong smoky taste that the purple tomatoes seem to have.  That strong taste is delicious in soups and chilli.  Jody called them the merlot to Copia's champagne.  Blight knocked them back but didn't utterly destroy them.

From the far left - Paul Robeson, Clear Pink, Chadwick Cherry, Yellow Pear and Mexico Midget
A bowl of Bison and Copia in the background

For those more interested in traditional tomatoes we had a good year with Clear Pink.  These are rosy pink fruit of regular size and shape.  They had reasonable disease resistance and are just a good all round tomato for whatever needs you have.

The final contestant is Bison.  and really, it's not much of a contest.  I've grown Bison in previous years and Jody keeps begging me to plant them every year.  Bison is a traditional red tomato, good for fresh eating, cooking, whatever you need.  It's best trait is that it's a bush type tomato that  produces vast quantities of tomatoes early in the season and all at once.

There's always plenty of Bison to go around

If you're making soup this is what you need.  A large haul of tomatoes to fill the pot.  The plants were a mess from blight but we still did collected a great number of fruit so it's still a win in my books.

Do you grow heritage tomatoes?  Do you have a favourite variety?  I would love to hear your preferences and recommendations.