HonoluluGirl
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How to make bland tomatoes grow tastier?

I'm growing Golden Mama Hybrid from Burpee, and it's a very prolific and beautiful yellow oblong tomato that grows in bunches like grapes. The problem is it's bland. Is there something I can do to make it produce more flavorful tomatoes? I'm growing it in clay soil that's been amended with compost. There's enough drainage. I keep it watered so that it's evenly moist. I added epson salt and lime to the hole when I planted it. I'm side dressing every coulple of weeks with 20-20-10 fertilizer and more epson salt.

The Porterhouse Hybrid also from Burpee is growing right next to it, and it tastes fabuous!

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applestar
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Most meh tomatoes taste good when roasted. I like putting them on pizza and "melt" type sandwiches -- a slice with cheese-topped something onone side and a slice with tomato topped something on the other -- I use a toaster oven but you could put them under the broiler, then put together. Yum!

Of course when you do this with fabulous tomatoes, the results are superb.

imafan26
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Sometimes it is the variety. Red round 'pretty' tomatoes are bred for their looks, disease resistance, keeping qualities and not necessarily for taste.

You can enhance their flavor by making sure they are not over watered. Water laden fruit will not have a concentrated flavor.

You can roast, stew or make sauce with those tomatoes.

Me, I don't much care if a tomato is bland as long as it is not mealy or seedy. If I have enough ketchup, pickles, cheese and butter lettuce in my burger I can deal with that.

That being said. The Brandywine I grew really had a good old fashioned tomato taste that was sublime. It was however not very disease resistant and required a regular antifungal sprays. It was a large plant and took up a lot of space. The tomatoes can be huge, but not usually that big here, but any big tomato or tasty tomato are targeted by birds, so I had to bag fruit to prevent the fruit flies from stinging them and net the whole trellis to keep the birds from getting to the fruit before I did. Brandy wine is a soft tomato and does not keep well.

In other words, if you are growing a tomato because it looked like a nice red round tomato, it may not do well in taste.

If you want a tomato with good flavor, the ugly ducklings usually win the prize.

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brooksms
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Smother them in cottage cheese and a little good salt. :)

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GardeningCook
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While many tomatoes will taste bland if picked during cool or rainy weather, I don't think that's the case here.

All the literature on "Golden Mama" that I've read states that the flavor is "mild", so I'd guess that the "meh" flavor you're tasting is a variation on that. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to change that except, as others have already mentioned, roast them to help intensify what little flavor there is.

imafan26
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BTW, Burpee sells a lot of popular seeds, but their selections are based much on the looks of things. They do sell heirlooms too. The thing to remember is that seed companies are there to sell seeds and their product description and pictures show you their best qualities.

I once heard of a farmer who set out to grow and sell good tasting heirloom tomatoes. They did not sell well because people in the city are used to the bland market varieties and because they did not look pretty.

Tatiana's tomato base, Morning SunFarms taste tests, are better places to get a more objective description of the qualities of tomatoes.

Also realize like Vidalia onions, location does matter. In Hawaii with our shorter days and the restrictions on what we can grow because of pests, disease and heat, our tomatoes do not get as large as they could be with a longer day and growing a non-disease or non-heat resistant tomato can be a challenge.

Sungold is a very sweet cherry tomato that is a hybrid so does better here. Until recently it was at the top of most taste tests.
Sunsugar is a cherry with a tangy tomato taste
Sugary is a sweet grape tomato
Early girl, is an old tomato variety that did surprisingly well. It is not a large tomato but set early, stopped when it got hot but went back into production again when it got cooler.
Supersweet 100- very sweet and prolific a must with all the bulbuls around
Amana Orange is a nice yellow beefsteak there is an updated version called Chef's choice 2015 AAS winner.
Kentucky beefsteak (I did not try this one, but it was rated well by Tatiana)
Arkansas Traveller heat resistant with good flavor. Medium size
Mountain Magic- sweet large cherry
Big Beef- Hybrid beefsteak (about 10 oz) with heat and disease resistance and good flavor for a hybrid. It is not Brandywine but it will grow and produce more with a lot less work. It will start production on a relatively short plant.

I was told Brandywine would not set fruit here because of the pollen sticking, but it did fine. You need to plant it in the earlier part of the year and it is a huge plant that is prone to fungal disease. It needs to be grown in a pot off the ground because I doubt it is nematode resistant.

I try new varieties all of the time, most of them turn out to be less than they were advertised. I grew a Cherokee Purple and usually it is a tomato with good reviews but although the tomatoes were huge by my standards, they were mushy and bland. I may have over watered them and diluted their flavor. I would try them again to see if they do better, they do deserve a second chance. Sometimes the climate or the year grown can really make a difference in the crop. If there is a lot of cloudy days, tomatoes and citrus are just not as good.

My choices for sweet tomatoes with good disease and heat resistance were sungold and spoon.
Brandywine wins hands down for flavor but it is a high maintenance tomato.
Arkansas traveler is not as flavorful but much more heat and disease resistant.
Lizzano was an AAS winner with good late blight resistance and sweet flavor. Very compact tomato so it was good for basket culture.

None of these tomatoes are resistant to Tomato yellow leaf curl. All the tomatoes I tried that were resistant were prolific but even the birds left them alone, so they really were not worth growing.

HonoluluGirl
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Thanks everybody. Last night I made a pizza with the bland Golden Mama tomato. It was better. I think I might try watering it less to see if that will make the flavor stronger. But I won't grow Golden Mama next year.

I will grow the Porterhouse Hybrid again. The flavor is very rich and tomatoey without being too acidic. Perfect.

Thanks, imafan, for your tomato list. I might try some of them.

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Gary350
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You can't make an apple taste like a orange. You can't make an orange taste like a melon. Bland tomatoes will always be bland. You need to experiment plant about 6 different tomatoes to learn which ones you like.

I like all the Beef Steak type tomatoes, beef steak, big beef, jet star, beef master, etc. Every tomato has its own place, some are good in soup, some are good in a sandwich, some are good in salads, some are good in salsa, some are good on pizza, some are best in a sauce, etc.

pepperhead212
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One thing I do with tomatoes lacking in flavor is dehydrate them. This concentrates the flavor, so it gives them a decent flavor.

PaulF
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Variety, variety, variety. Often the picture perfect variety tastes like the paper the picture was printed on. The past seventeen years I have grown maybe 3 or 4 hybrids. There are a few ho-hum heirloom/OP tomatoes but the hybrid ho-hums percentage was in the 95-100% range. In all those years there may have a hybrid developed for flavor, but I vowed to grow at least a thousand of the ten thousand Heirloom/OP varieties before going back. Not being a tomato drier or dehydrator or roaster there is no comment from me.

I could list my favorites I think have great flavor, but taste is individual and local growing conditions determine a lot. As stated, excess water as a tomato ripens will make the flavor blander. As suggested, grow several different varieties to find where your tastes lie, research similar varieties and you will soon find treasures to offset the spitters. Most of all have fun with it.



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