Toni's Tomato Update

I would like to share my experiences and pics of my 9 Polish tomato varieties that I experimented with this summer:
Bawole Serce
Faworyt
Malinowy Henryka
Konsul
Krakus
Malinowy Olbrzym
Malinowy Ozarowski
Pokusa
Soldacki

I also planted 3 others:
Pruden's Purple
Limbaugh's Potato Top
Big Mama

After all the worrying about cold and wet and hot and bugs, my tomatoes did pretty well and I have more than I can eat fresh so I've been making sauce. We had alot of rain here in July (13+ inches) so quite a few of the first tomatoes cracked from too much water and I feel had a "watered down" taste to them. We've dried out some and the next batch has been much better.

Here goes with the pics. First one is the plants themselves; they have reached close to 6'.

There is a thread I started somewhere about a tomato that broke off at the very base at the beginning of the season and then started to grow back tiny leaves again. Well, that tomato grew 2 stems and then my little dog jumped on it while trying to get at a bunny. With one stem left, it continued to grow and produced the FIRST tomato out of all the others that had a super headstart.

Faworyt is the variety; super strong, disease resistant with uniform, round red tomatoes with a great taste. This one is a keeper for me.

I received some seeds from a generous DG member and planted one called Konsul. It is a dwarf plum variety and produced so many tomatoes I was able to make 3 quarts of sauce plus there is still a good batch waiting to ripen. The tomatoes themselves are not too tasty for fresh eating, but they did make a good sauce.

This is the size of the plant, about 18".

These are the tomatoes from Konsul that I used to make the sauce with.

Malinowy Henryka and Malinowy Ozarowski seemed to be almost identical tomatoes sizewise and tastewise. Small, round pink tomatoes with very thin skin.

Henryka is very prolific:

Ozarowski is almost identical to Henryka but I was not impressed with it's taste and will not grow it again.

Malinowy Olbrzym (Pink Giant) is not a pretty tomato with slightly green shoulders and some cracking, but the taste is very good. This one I will try again.

Krakus produced perfectly round, red tomatoes with very good taste. This is another keeper for me.

Bawole Serce (Buffalo Heart) has been one of the latest to ripen. I just picked these today and have not tasted them yet.


Update: Ate one for dinner and it was very meaty and slightly sweet with a very, very thin, almost transparent skin.



This message was edited Aug 23, 2011 4:32 AM

Pokusa is a cherry tomato and tastes just like Sweet 100 or any of the other cherry varieties. Very good and prolific.

Strange looking picture I know, it was taken at night, why? just because :)

Soldacki is the only tomato plant I bought and I have grown it before so I was not surprised to find it extremely tasty. I ate the tomatoes before I could get a pic. ;)

Now for the foreigners.

Big Mama was a champ and put out some large beefy plum tomatoes and is still producing. I only had 3 small tomatoes with some BER in the beginning.

Limbaugh's Potato Top; I had high hopes for this one but was sadly disappointed. Poor production and mis-shapen fruit.

Best and biggest for last. Pruden's Purple gave me the biggest tomato out of all the plants.

This is my dining room table today.

Nice!

Toni-I remember your poor tomato plant that got cut off. Didn't realize your dog stepped on it too! :(. It sure looks like it did well though. Thanks for all your information. This was my first year that I got fruit from Prudens Purple, definitely a keeper. Now I'm just waiting for it to cool down so I can get more tomatoes, this is the first year that it has gotten so hot that nothing is setting fruit.

Edited because the ipad thinks I cant spell. lol

This message was edited Aug 23, 2011 8:39 AM

I sure do feel for you with all that heat in Texas. We had a hot July here (that's mid-high 90's for us) and I couldn't take it. It seemed like everytime the plants set flowers, the heat would dry them up and it's only now that it's cooled off some that everything is starting to ripen at once. I wish the ripening could've been spaced out a bit so that we could enjoy the tomatoes at a slower pace, that is eating them fresh without worrying that they're going to spoil, but you can't control nature so you gotta make sauce! I don't see much more fruit forming up top but then it is getting late in our season so I'm happy with what I got.

This was my first year with Pruden's Purple too and I really liked it. The big one weighed in at 1lb. 9 oz.

Very impressive Toni!

WOW do beautiful.
Well done !

Awesome! That monster looks sooooo good!!!

Thank you all for your kind comments; keeping busy here cutting up the ones that are too ripe and cooking them down....wish I had a food mill. I was using a fine mesh strainer and a wooden spoon to seperate the seeds and skins from the sauce when the spoon snapped and tomato skins and seeds went flying all over the kitchen table including the laptop screen.....what a mess!

Sequee....the monster is for dinner tonight!

I bought a super nice looking stainless food mill at Bed Bath and Beyond last year and brought it back the next day. We've been discussing the food mill thing on Terry's "What's For Dinner" thread http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1211289/#new Maybe work your way backwards from the latest post and see some recommends.

Thanks Maypop, I'll check it out....could use some tips.

Glad to see your report. I was wondering how those Polish varieties were working out for you.
We have had a similar difficult season and my plants are ailing. I grew the Malinowy Henryka for the first time this year and was please with plant vigor, the earliness and production, and the flavor. Will grow again.
I have been using a food mill like the one I am sending a picture of. I find it very easy to use. I bought all the attachments, so I have 4 different screens for the different hole sizes. I also use it for making applesauce. The really fine one is for juice or seedless jams. The larger one for salsa. I bought the shorter spiral for processing grapes. The larger seeds in them clog up the system otherwise. Really cuts down on the time and mess.

Hi Nancy, so glad to hear from you. Yes, I agree, this year was difficult in all sorts of ways. Weatherwise, the cold start didn't help and then all the rain we got in July was ridiculous.

I agree with your assessment of Henryka. Beautiful, vigorous plant growth with lots of saladette-size tomatoes. I grew Henryka and Ozarowski side by side and the fruit was almost identical in appearance, but the Henryka plant was much heartier and it's fruit had the edge taste-wise over Ozarowski in my opinion. I really do believe all the rain we had severely diluted the taste of these tomatoes b/c some of the ones that have just recently ripened are much sweeter than the earlier ones during the monsoon. Also, both Ozarowski and Henryka have a very thin skin and alot of them split from the rain.

The seed for Konsul that you sent me was a surprise in that I've never grown a dwarf before and I have never seen so many tomatoes come off one tomato plant, especially one that is a little over a foot tall! Today I picked the last of the tomatoes from it and in total it produced 3 large bowls of plum tomatoes. I've already put up 3 qrts. sauce from the two large bowls I cooked up the other day and now I'm cooking up the last bowlfull along with the Ozarowski and Henryka's b/c they're getting very soft and juicy and need to be used up.

I'm liking that food mill Nancy, wish you lived next door b/c I would be knocking on it right now and begging to use it!

This is what I have to use tonight to finish the job. Hope I don't end up covered in skin and seeds again!

Hi Toni - great job with the Polish vars. I've only tried Soldacki before and agree that it was quite good.

Flip

Ummm, your sauce looks good enough to eat - right through the screen!

Hey, Flip! Long time. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Hi Sequee - yep, it's been a while since I've posted. My last two seasons of self-inflicted tomato torture gave me very little to talk about. But - it's a new season and I've just seeded about 30 varieties (mostly old favorites) and am waiting for them to pop. Everything in EB's and containers this year as my hole-digging youngest son joined the USMC a month ago. Hope all is well with you also.
Flip

Another tough gardening year here - again! the tomatoes I'm getting are good, but something is going through us like you wouldn't believe. First they wilt, then half the leaves on a stem will turn yellow - then it dries and the setm falls off. next thing you know, the wilties spread and the plant bites the dust. Not alot of fun, but I have a few real tasters, so I guess I'll just have to live with the incredibly UGLY garden this year. Thank good ness I've been diversifying since the late blight debacle. At least I have other veggies to supplement the dinner plates!

I want Toni's Tomates! Her plants look like mine did in the old days. What's up with the last 3 years or so???

Today's harvest; I was stunned to see so many at once. I just finished giving alot away to neighbors and people at DH's work from the last picking. I've cooked up 7 qts. of sauce so far and made 1 qt. of pico de gallo the other day which we ate the same day. I still have tomatoes left that are starting to blow so I guess I have to make more sauce or else just throw them away. I hate to do that so I guess more sauce.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the new batch. The Krakus and especially the Faworyt really put out. They will be regulars in my garden from now on.

These are the Bawole Serce.

You can slice them and store in ziplock bags in the freezer (without blanching).
I just drop them in the sauce directly from the freezer when I am making soups.
I also do the same with my cherry tomatoes.
I have two shelves full of tomatoes in the freezer .. weeehhh ...

Hi drthor, I've done that too in the past years, just cut them up and freeze and it works great. I think I'm going to do that this time also b/c I'm tired of cooking! Tomatoes in the kitchen, tomatoes in the dining room, I'm not complaining but I'm running out of room b/c my house is tiny!

I know you had tons of tomatoes, what did you do with them all?

How was the Bawole Serce for taste. I know there was a lot of interest in it, and that it also had a Russian name. I haven't
had a chance to taste one yet, and wonder if you thought it was a keeper.

toni5735,
I have two shelves in the freezer full of all colored cherry tomatoes ... all the other tons of tomatoes I ate it ... yummy ...
I made tomato gratin at least once a week, stuffed tomatoes, tomato pie .... luv it !!!
Most of the little ones I ate straight in the garden

Nancy, although the Bawole Serce is certainly a very large and meaty heart, to my tastebuds, it's bland and I don't like it. It's barely sweet and not too juicy. I would also say it borders on mealy. Personally, I will not be growing this one again. In my experience, Wes and Bulls Heart had a much finer taste and texture.

drthor, my freezer is full also and I have eaten so many tomatoes, I don't know if I can eat anymore but they sure will be welcome this winter in my soups and pasta sauces. That homegrown flavor makes such a difference in whatever you're cooking.

My tomatoe season was for 3 full months !! I had tomatoes of all kind ... weee
I finally got tired ... but now I am dreaming about my next tomato season.

Three months of tomatoes, oh my goodness! I'm struggling with a couple weeks worth. I get only one chance a year and that's enough for me but I sure do enjoy you're enthusiasm for growing tomatoes! Much luck to you on your next batch. I'm grateful for this years bounty b/c last year was a complete bust. I had early foliar disease on almost all the plants and very little production. There were no tomatoes to share with neighbors or process for the winter.

Yesterday I skinned, seeded and cut up 3 qts. of tomatoes for freezing and also got 1 qt. of juice. Today, I will chop up the Big Mama's for pico de gallo and then I still have 3 cafeteria-size trays full of large beefsteaks to deal with.