Tomato 'Park's Whopper Cr Improved'

This was my first tomato grown even though I have been gardening for a few years. This was also my girlfriend's favorite variety this yea...Read Morer. Grew over 8-foot in a 4 gallon container. Had to water daily as we had a decently hot summer. Very high yielder until it became infected with Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, fruit quality that remained was poor. Made cuttings and started over. A few Tomato Hornworms here and there and am currently trying to beat aphids. Biggest to date weighed 12 ozs, pretty decent taste that has a nice acid balance. I am going to heirloom only next year but promised my girlfriend I will keep a spot in the garden for her Park's Whopper. I would recomend this tomato.

We only got a few fruits (like maybe three or four) when we grew this in 2014 (I imagine the daytime heat and/or the nighttime cold halte...Read Mored production). However, the few we had tasted good, especially the first one. The fruits were medium to medium large (not what I would call beefsteak size). They had thin, pleasant skin and good texture. Our tomatoes that year came from Home Depot (bonnieplants.com), purchased as plants (rather than seeds).

For comparison, I'll tell you about the others we grew that year:

Early Girl, Roma, Husky Cherry Red and Lemon Boy produced fine, although Lemon Boy was the least productive of these four. Bush Goliath didn't get ripe tomatoes until about the time the frost came in the fall, and not a lot (but they all ripened at once, it seemed). Early Girl had the best acidic flavor (if picked while orange-red). Early Girl and Husky Cherry Red produced from late June to October sometime, or so. Husky Cherry Red had lots and lots of seeds, and split easily. Roma and especially Lemon Boy had catfacing (no other tomatoes did).

The conditions were dry, arid and hot (daytime highs were perhaps usually in the 90's, but ranged between about 89-110° F.). The soil was rather compact, clay-loam soil, and had never had tomatoes in it before. We used no mulch. We didn't fertilize or amend the soil at all. Nighttime lows in temperature were probably usually at least 30 degrees F. less than daytime highs.

I have grown this variety for many years, both in the ground (1970's with an earlier version of the hybrid) and, in the past 15 years, in...Read More containers. It is reliable, has a good balance of juice to pulp, is a good slicing tomato and seems resistant to the dreaded blossom end rot. Best of all is that it tastes good. It can take the heat of a New Mexico summer, but likes partial shade and regular watering.

I grow my tomatos in recycled 15 gallon nursery buckets with a combination of manufactured soil, compost and a supplement of gypsum & epsom salts as well as fertilizer. Water is provied through a times drip system. I don't even try to grow vegatables in our local, native soil, which is decomposed granite with alkaline caliche.

Back to the subject, this is a first-rate tomato. Heirloom tomatoes may taste good, but they are so prone to diseases it's hardly worth it. I also like that Whoppers are easy to start from seed; the germination rate is good, even with seeds a few years old. Sometimes I can buy the plants locally as seedlings-good if I need to fill in a gap in the garden after the initial set-out.

Have planted Whopper for years and it has always grown well, produced heavily, and always, always tastes great.