Don't know if I qualify as a tomatoaholic, but here are a couple suggestions. I know I don't generally run with "the crowd." For slicing, my favorite is an heirloom I received from an older gent in Southern IL, back in 1983. He called it Prudence Purple. Some have told me that it's probably the same as Prudens Purple, though I haven't confirmed it. Anyway, it's similar to a Brandywine, but sets and matures fruit very well here in Oklahoma. It's also fairly early for such a large tomato. Color is brick red. Technically, it's a pink, but it's darker than most pinks.

I also grow another IL heirloom called Baker Family Heirloom. This is a normal looking beefsteak. Flavor is good, though it doesn't have quite the punch as Prudence Purple. But this one has a really large bushy plant and produces all season. Tomatoes are medium/large. I've made it my main crop since it is quite flavorful and yet produces an abundance of solid fruit which do not easily spoil. By the end of the year the vines are well over 10' long.

Last year and this year I tried Sioux. I'm impressed. It's not going to come in first in an heirlooms' taste test, but it has good strong tomato flavor. Sioux is a HIGH PRODUCER for me, giving many medium round red (normal tomato color, which to me is orange) fruit. Sioux is heat tolerant. It also ranks high for processing as it has a very small core and peels easily.

After more than 24 years without it I planted some Roma for my wife. Wow! They are great! Easy to process, plentiful, heat tolerant. I just can't make myself eat them fresh and sliced. They have no flavor for that. But for processing, well, I'm going to grow them every year until/unless I can find a better one for this purpose. I know you already grow this one, but I wanted to give you my take on it, as it will help you get a bearing on where I stand on tomatoes.

Sunray VF has been a family favorite for over 24 years. Sunray is an orange/yellow, solid, baseball sized (to me medium/large) fruited tomato. Flavor for a yellow is pretty good, though apparently it can be affected by conditions, since some have told me that it didn't have good flavor for them. This year I handed out some seedlings to some new gardening friends. Every one of them gave Sunray rave reviews. Sunray's fruit will keep for weeks on the counter, even when ripe. It is solid and good for cooking, as long as you don't mind "orange." This year I gave Sunray a more favored spot in the garden and it has produced like crazy.

Here's one more personal favorite: Rutgers. I know that many tomato connoisseurs look down on Rutgers. But it truly is a great tomato: good for both fresh slicing and cooking. Plus it tolerates a wide range of conditions. Rutgers is a strong determinant or weak indeterminate. Its vines are not even half the size of a Baker Family Heirloom's.

I'm sure you'll get other suggestions from the others. I seem to march to a different drumbeat when it comes to tomatoes.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Kathy,

After growing several hundred different varieties, I just about have my "favorites" list narrowed down to 25 or 35 or 45 of "the best". LOL

Keep in mind, though, that every one of us has different taste buds and what tastes good to me might not taste good to you and vice versa. Also, we all grow our tomatoes in different soil and under different growing conditions and those factors affect tomato flavor also. Finally, tomato flavor can be highly variable and I think the climate/weather is responsible for a lot of that variability. A tomato variety can taste great one year and only so-so the next, or even perhaps taste only so-so early in the season, but taste much better later in the season. Having said that, here's a few of my favorites:

GENERAL LIST OF FAVORITES:

TOP TEN:

1. Brandywine Sudduth's
2. Black Krim
3. Cherokee Purple
4. Nebraska Wedding
5. Big Rainbow
6. Brandy Boy
7. Indian Stripe
8. Black Cherry (cherry)
9. Sun Gold (cherry)
10. Cuostralee

If I could grow only 10, those listed above are the ones I'd grow. All are great fresh, cooked or canned, except of course I don't cook or can the two cherry types.

If I could grow ten more varieties, I'd grow these:

11. Snow White (cherry)
12. Porterhouse
13. Neve's Azorean Red
14. Earl's Faux
15. Little Brandywine
16. Cherokee Chocolate
17. Cherokee Green
18. Dr. Wyche's Yellow
19. Pineapple
20. San Marzano Redorta (paste)

All of the second ten, except the cherry, are great fresh, in sauce or salsa, canned or frozen. San Marzano Redorta is, hands down, the best paste tomato I've ever grown if you are looking for great flavor and high productivity.

For sauces, I love to mix together a wide variety of tomatoes and any sauce I make that has a variety of heirlooms always has superior flavor to a sauce made up only of hybrid paste tomatoes.

CHERRY, GRAPE & CURRANT-SIZED TOMATOES:

I grow a LOT of cherry, grape and currant sized tomatoes and dehydrate them to preserve them. (We also eat them in salads and I eat tons of them by the handful every day while working in the garden.) In the winter, I throw handfuls of the dried tomatoes into soups or salads and it tastes like summer all over again. The cherry, grape and currant types I grow for fresh eating and for drying are: Orange Santa (a very heavy producer, but I like them better dried than fresh) (orange), Snow White (pale yellow), SunGold (golden orange), Black Cherry (maroonish red), Dr. Carolyn (ivory to pale yellow), Coyote (pale yellow), Sweet Million (red), Rosalita (pink), Ildi (bright yellow), and Tess' Land Race Currant (red). Tess' Land Race Currant is new this year in our garden and is a gigantic moster....approximately 9' tall and 6' wide when the drought caused it to stop growing. One plant produces thousands of tiny red tasty tomatoes. Also new this year and primarily grown in containers (set out in early to mid-March) for earliest tomatoes are Grape and Husky Cherry. Both produced hundreds of fruit per plant in large containers until the temperatures in the 100s killed them in July. (Their huge containers are set on the barn patio in full sun and the plants do well there until the summer heat burns them up.....I can't move them because the containers are too large and heavy.)

PASTE TOMATOES:

I am not a huge fan of paste tomatoes grown for sauce or salsa unless I can mix in some heirlooms to give them more flavor. Still, there are some paste tomatoes that are better than the rest. Among them: San Marzano, Viva Italia, Martino's Roma, Amish Paste, Opalka and Polish Linguisa.

FOR SUN-DRIED TOMATOES:

For full-sized (small Roma type) classic sun-dried tomatoes, Principe' Borghese is the best. I don't like their flavor at all fresh, but love them dried. I have tried pulling up the entire plant and hanging it upside down to dry in the tornado cellar or garage like the Italians do, but we have too much humidity most years and they don't dry very well, so I dry mine in dehydrator or in the oven.

HYBRIDS WITH BETTER-THAN-AVERAGE FLAVOR:

If you wanted to grow only hybrids, these are the ones I think have the best flavor:

Ramapo F-1
Supersonic
Primetime
Better Bush
Better Boy
Big Beef
Beefmaster
Big Boy
Brandy Boy
Buck's County
Celebrity
Fourth of July
Lemon Boy
Momotaro (huge pink tomato from Japan)
Porterhouse
Roma VF
Viva Italia
Sweet Million
Sun Gold or Sun Sugar FT

SMALLER-FRUITED TOMATOES THAT PRODUCE LATER INTO THE SUMMER:

Often, the excessive heat we experience here in Oklahoma shuts down production and fruitset pretty early, except for the cherry, currant and grape tomatoes. In general, the larger the fruit that the plant produces, the earlier the heat shuts it down. So, there are some plants that produce smaller tomatoes....mostly in the 6 to 8 oz. range, and these plants will tend to set fruit long after larger-fruited types shut down. These include: Sioux, Super Sioux, Arkansas Traveler, Traveler 76, Burgundy Traveler, Bradley Pink, Mule Team, Boxcar Willie and Porter or Improved Porter, Bloody Butcher and Fourth of July.

FALL TOMATOES:

I tend to choose different tomatoes for fall production because I want some that are long-keepers that I can pick green and ripen slowly in the tornado shelter in order to have "fresh" tomatoes into December and January. These include: Burpee's Longkeeper, Red October, Longseason Peach, and some of the Livingston tomatoes from the mid-1800s to early 1900s like Paragon, Gold Ball, Gold Queen, Favorite and Perfection.

GREEN-WHEN-RIPE:

If you like the Green-When-Ripe type, you can't go wrong with Aunt Ruby's German Green, Green Giant or Cherokee Green.

EARLIER TYPES:

I don't care for the flavor of most early types (producing ripe fruit in the 50-65 day range from transplantation), so I tend to avoid the common ones like Early Girl, Stupice, Matina, Kimberly etc. and instead grow Better Bush and New Big Dwarf for the tastiest, relatively early tomatoes (I usually have ripe ones by late April if I plant them in pots in late February and carry them inside on cold nights and days).

"NEW" DISCOVERIES:

Because I am always experimenting with "new" (to me) tomatoes looking for the best flavor and productivity, I've grown several new ones this year that have made "the cut" and will return next year. Based on only a year or two of growing them here in Oklahoma, the following are now on the "favorites" list: True Black Brandywine, Ramapo F-1, Supersonic, Valena Pink, Estler's Mortgage Lifter and Old Virginia.

I tried all the Husky series this year, with mixed results. Husky Red Cherry was an early, tasty and prolific producer in containers, but didn't do as well in the ground. (I got those plants into the ground late, though, so maybe it was me and not them.) Husky Gold Cherry was less prolific and had thicker skin than the Red, but was tasty enough to get another chance next spring. Husky Pink, Husky Red and Husky Gold in the ground (regular-sized tomatoes, not cherries) weren't that impressive, but I ran out of space and crammed them into a small space late in the planting season. I'll give them a try again next spring to see if they do better.

When I try a tomato that is "new" to us, I usually grow it for 3 years before I give up on it. Cherokee Purple, for example, didn't do well at all the first two years I tried it and then was exceedingly excellent the third year, and I've grown it for about a decade now. This year, though, it had an off year and was low in productivity and flavor, although it improved as the year went on.

Well, that's a few of my favorite tomatoes. I could write about tomatoes forever (and pretty much have!). I hope you get lots of answers from lots of people because there are tons and tons of tomatoes that grow well and taste great here.

Dawn

WoW!!! So much information! Thank you both so much!!!!! I realized this year that I was kinda stuck in my Dad's rut of just growing the same things year after year and have heard so much about different kinds. I know that I really prefer heirlooms, usually a better flavor and worth any extra work and diligence. I was thinking too about the different flavors combining in my homemade sauces. Would be nice to have some tomatoes that are really nice and saucy and add in something a bit more tart for a contrast in flavor. I've dried tomatoes and canned them with olive oil to use in cooking as well. I keep thinking that I cook so many different things that I really need to check into other varieties. I will definitely be considering your wonderful advice while making my plans for next year. I'm printing these out to add to my garden binder.

As far as sliced tomatoes, my in laws like them and the kids will sometimes eat them, but DH can't eat raw tomatoes, they give him the most horrible cold sores from the acids and I have trouble with the raw ones as well, because I have an ulcer that doesn't seem to like raw tomatoes and jalape. We can both enjoy canned/preserved and fried green tomatoes as well as tomatoes cooked in some way (stirfry, etc) So, I'm looking for new sauce/canning tomatoes, new tomatoes to dry, and new tomatoes to use for fried green tomatoes- something with a tangy bite when fried green. The Aunt Ruby's German Green I have been eying for a bit since I think they would be lovely to make tomato relish or chow-chow with.

Keep the opinions coming! I enjoy seeing what others have been enjoying and getting their personal impressions. Much better than all the lovely hype you see on the seed sites and catalogs.

Kathy