Best flavor tomato varieties to grow in a greenhouse ?

[applestar]

So this subject came up in another thread.
I thought it would be better to discuss this in a thread of its own and here in the Greenhouse forum rather than the tomato growing forum.

Let's establish the criteria for growing in a greenhouse. I'll start by making suggestions but I don't actually have a greenhouse, so hopefully members who do and have experience growing in a greenhouse will contribute.

- great flavor (let's put this down first )
- container (what maximum size container can you afford to put in the greenhouse?)
- disease resistance
- productive
- temperature (I expect this will be different depending on season and purpose of the greenhouse -- summer growing in too cool in summer areas vs. fall-winter-spring growing in heated greenhouse to protect from frost and freeze)
--- heat set/resistant
--- cool set/resistant
- early maturing determinates and indeterminates? Would anyone grow late maturing varieties? That seems like a long wait with the plant taking up space and resources....?
- what the fruits will be used for will make a difference too -- fresh eating is better with moderate production over a long period of time like an indeterminate so you would have tomatoes ripening every few days rather than a whole lot of them all at once. But for processing into sauce and salsa, juice, etc. fully ripe tomatoes all at once works better. BUT you can always core and quarter then freeze the ripe ones and process when you have sufficient amount.
- I guess another consideration is that if they ripen all at once then you can replace the tomatoes and use the space for some other seasonality appropriate crop.

[applestar]

I could picture two or three tall-growing indeterminate cherry charities trained along the greenhouseframe to yield a handful of snackers and salad garnishes every day or every other day.

My favorites right now are Matt's Wild cherry for the super savory tomato flavor, and Coyote for the sweet snacking flavor. They are both extreme ramblers and one of the earliest in the garden (cool weather tolerant) popping out 1/2 sized cherry fruits through the summer (heat tolerant) until frost. BUT I haven't trialed them enough in containers yet. I suspect they need a fairly large root space. One Coyote is declining rapidly in a 3 gal container. Maybe you could situate a big tub in the corner or something? I think key to doing this is to prune and train them like espalier -- maybe use string support and reclosable ring clips (I got a bag of plastic ones to try this year and am loving them, I may get the compostable ones for outdoor use next year though.)

Keep an eye on my Winter Indoor Tomato threads (there are ones from last year and the year before, and I started a new one for this year). I have been looking for varieties that grow well in containers and take up only a small amount of space in the cool and less than ideally lit house during the winter. This one is not about actual growing in winter but some of the varieties I mentioned trialed during the summer in the garden Subject: Winter Indoor Tomato variety candidates


If you are looking for golfball to racketball sized round red tomatoes with good flavor, then there are several I have tried so far. Manö, Kootenai, Extreme Bush, Bloody Butcher, Beaverlodge Slicer, Canabec Super to name a few. All have good tangy tomato flavors that are definitely more than supermarket. And they are all ridiculously productive. They did fall short to the summer large fruited heirlooms for fresh eating flavor though they are outstandingly handy and flavorful for processing. Out of these, I liked the flavor of Manö best for fresh eating. I in trying it again this winter.

I'm also trying find shorter dwarf varieties (Maximum 28-30 inches) and ones that are classed "micro" -- 1-2 gallon containers, up to 12"-24" in height, as well as some varieties that are considered good for growing in hanging baskets. Important difference with these varieties is that they have compact growth patterns with shorter internodes (distance between leaf nodes) which means even in less than ideal lighting, they won't waste space by growing too tall and lanky before producing fruits.

The ones I try growing are almost all heirlooms or open pollinated varieties that I could save seeds from. There ARE some good hybrid varieties receiving high praise, and I would love to hear from people who have been growing them for personal review.

[imafan26]

I would want brandy wine and Sungold. Brandywine mainly because I need to grow it in pots anyway because I don't think it has nematode resistance and I know it does not have fungal resistance. The green house will help by controlling overhead water (rain), the potting soil helps with nematodes. Besides, the birds go after every large tomato I have. Brandywine is also a huge plant.

Sungold is very sweet when it is ripe, but prone to cracking. It is a hybrid and fairly disease resistant compared to Brandywine.

I plant all of my tomatoes in 18 gallon pots so they have ample root space. Self watering containers save water and I have not had BER growing in them and I do not add any additional calcium.

[Gary350]

I had a small green house once in Tennessee for a while. I have always wanted a larger green house. But now that I am older and much slower I can not deal with anything other than a small green house but now I don't want one.

The only reason I wanted a green house is to have home grown ripe tomatoes all winter.

I would NEVER consider growing anything in containers not even in a green house it is too much extra work.

I have a friend that uses her green house as a place to keep potted yard plants during the cold winter months. She has lots of plants in pots that all go to the green house in the cold weather then they come outside in the spring.

My first green house was a 2x4 wood frame covered in plastic. This was a worthless green house when the wind blew the plastic moved back and forth like a bellows this blew out the warm air then sucked in the cold air. The temperature inside was usually within 5 degrees of the outside temperature.

My second green house was built with double thermo-pain sliding glass patio doors. I sealed up every crack and door, according to an article in Mother Earth News it should be 95% efficient. It always warmed up to 90+ in full sun in the coldest winter day and 70 degrees on the darkest cloudy over case winter day.

I kept notes for about 5 years. It was very interesting to learn on a cold winter day where it only warms up to 30 degrees in the middle of the day, with a very gray over cast sky my green house always warmed up to 70 degrees by 9:30 am.
That night temperatures dropped to 10 degrees and the next day it warmed up to 30 again but we had clear skies full sun all day and my green house warmed up to 94 degrees F. The only way to keep tomatoes from freezing when temps dropped below freezing was to have heat.

I tilled a lot of peat moss in my soil and tomatoes grew very well in 2 rows left and right side of the door. I had a thermostat turn on the electric heater at 40 degrees. During the day It got pretty hot in the green house sometimes 98 degrees.

One winter we had some extremely cold weather for Tennessee -17 for 3 weeks. All my tomatoes died the electric heater was too small to make enough heat to keep them from freezing.

At that time I had not yet learned that Beef Steak tomatoes are my favorite. I use to plant Bradley and Early Girl like my grand parents did. That was 1980 to 1985.

The last winter I had the green house I did not plant anything in it. One day we had 6" of snow in the yard, it was so strange to see the green house full of a beautiful crop of nice green grass about knee high. LOL.

[applestar]

This one might be a good candidate:

In Subject: Tomato Tasting -- compare and share

We tasted Maglia Rosa yesterday. It's an unusual looking pink striped, elongated cherry (like sausage) fruit with a point. I have it growing in a 3 gal container on the patio this summer.
This was my first year growing it and I really didn't know what to expect, but the plant is staying compact and the fruits are very sweet with a tangy after taste. Very yummy.

My parents who think tomatoes should be red and round liked it, and DD liked it for the sweetness. I'm glad I started this variety for my Winter Indoor Tomatoes along with my off-type Sweet n Neat Pink. I want to compare them for flavor.

I should have taken a picture when I had a wooden berry basketful of the fruits
...but the plant has some new fruit trusses growing, so we'll have more soon.

I was holding off of this review because I wanted to compare Maglia Rosa against Blush which is a similar looking elongated cherry with a point but yellow striped, but my Blush has been struggling with russet mite infestation and hasn't been able to produce a decent fruit to taste. I understand Blush tends to be a bigger plant though, and not as suited to small container growing. It seems be growing a new uninfested growth, so if I can, I'll post a comparison of the two later on.