Showdown at Suze's

[feldon30]

Although I've seen pictures of Suze's garden (tomato farm?), somehow they do not give an impression of just what is going on in Elgin, TX. So I went to see for myself. Pictures do not do these plants justice! One peek out the window proved that to me.

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And Suze wanted me to come up not only to taste varieties since I was remiss in doing this at the SETTFest, but also to haul away at least some of the mountain of tomatoes on every flat surface of her dining room!


So with this in mind, I headed up to her place, took lots of pictures and then we settled down to a tasting like no other. It's not every day that you eat a few bites out of 49 different tomato varieties in one sitting! By the end, we were probably both looking a little peaked. Tortillas with olive oil, salt, and pepper were our palate cleanser.




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Photos of the Tasting and Suze's Gardens

And before anyone says "Wow, Suze is really tooting her own horn here." That is not even remotely the case. I simply wanted to see how she grows all those tomatoes and maybe learn something in the process. I took all but 2-3 of the photos. I also took video which I hope to post soon. Video shows the scope of her tomato farm in a way that pictures don't.
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Let the Tasting Begin!


Purple/Black

JD's Special C-Tex and Indian Stripe did not fail to blow us away. They were easily our favorite tomatoes of the day. Turk's Mut is a strangely shaped, rather small tomato, but it is very productive and adds a good bit of spiciness to the typical black tomato flavor. It was a winner for both of us. not BTD Heart also won us over with its multi-dimensional flavor.

Paul Robeson really let us down. It tasted almost musky and "off". It tasted nothing like the Paul Robeson I grew this year which was easily in the same class as a top 10 flavor king like Cherokee Purple, JD's Special C-Tex, etc. Suze says last year it was a top variety for flavor for her as well, so chalk it up to seasonal differences. She is sure she has the right variety as it is a red black (vs pink blacks like Cherokee Purple).

Black Cherry was not tasted but we both give it top marks, probably an 8.5.

Red

This year was my first time really trying out heart shaped tomatoes. I grew 4 oxhearts and they were disappointing on production on flavor. Then I discovered from talking to Suze that they really ought to be allowed to get much riper than other tomatoes. They should be discernably SOFT. At this stage, varieties I found to be dry and bland like Wes and Anna Russian became juicy and interesting.

Wes surprised me, having what I am now learning is a typical oxheart flavor (a strange sweetness that is impossible to describe) but the size and productivity for Suze were both amazing. Most of the Wes fruits she had were over a pound and she had a lot of them. Prue is one of Carolyn's and Suze's favorites and now I know why. If you've never tasted a Prue or Prue-like tomato, it can be surprising, almost jarring. But it is an intense good flavor. Perito Italian was another winner, with a Prue-like flavor. In a head-to-head tasting, Matt D'Imperio was trounced by the far tastier Sarnowski Polish Plum.

The real winner in this category for me was Tony's Italian. After the series of oxhearts which to me all taste very similar, Tony's Italian was a complete surprise. It had a sweetness and some characteristics identifiable with purple tomatoes that really bowled me over. Even if it's not productive, I've GOT to grow this variety next year.

Suze's Red Penna didn't come close to the earth shattering flavor that I got out of my sole example tomato I got out of my garden. Perhaps it's because the plant only had to focus on ripening 1 tomato, but it was a blockbuster. The one that she had (it was not productive for her either) was a good overall tomato but certainly not the barnstormer I experienced this spring.

Pink

What can I say about Earl's Faux that hasn't already been said? We cut it open and angels wept. So when compared with its brother (sister?) Brandywine (Sudduth's), with my past experience, I thought they'd be in the same ballpark. But despite the impeccable seed source (Johnny's), it seemed like a cruel joke had been played! It did not have that velvety smooth sweetness of the Brandywine I first experienced out of FlipTX's garden. To me, it was an average pink tomato. You know there's something wrong when Brandy Boy tasted better to me than Brandywine (Sudduth's).

I know that FlipTX grew Brandywine from a transplant at a market and for me, it lived up to the hype. And it put out a dozen tomatoes!! I'm glad I saved seeds of it, and that will be my seed source for 2008.

Dora was excellent, as was Vjerino Paradijaz Sjeme. Kalman's Hungarian Pink was Prue-like (I'm sure Carolyn is going to get tired of hearing that ) as well. Kosovo was another nice heart-shaped. Amish PL was almost a spitter to me.

Another winner in this category was Monomakh's Hat. I think this is going to be the "must grow" in 2008 the way Earl's Faux and Neves Azorean Red have been in years past.

Orange/Yellow/Green

We come at last to the greens, yellows, and oranges. Perhaps we should have tasted these first to give them a fair shake, but it just confirmed for me that I must lack the taste buds or genetic trait necessary to appreciate green tomatoes.

Grub's Mystery Green did taste a LITTLE better to me than Aunt Ruby's German Green, but in both cases, I found them to be watery with a very faint tomato flavor. They did not have any of the depth of flavor that I look for. Certainly no sweetness or spiciness. ARGG and GMG were both winners for Suze, netting scores of 8.5 and 9. The rest of the choices were pretty feeble, with Jaune Flamme pulling off a 7.5. The JF was not ripe, as the pictures show, but she advised me to taste just the center red part inside the fruit and that part had a fantastic flavor reminiscent of Sungold but less fruity and more spicy. Apparently the whole tomato tastes like that when allowed to get fully ripe. If so, I'm game!

Sungold was not included in the tasting but repeatedly gets high honors from Suze and I count it as a favorite as well. If we were scoring it, it would easily get a 9.

Don't even start with the yellows. Blech! Tom's Yellow Wonder was not ripe yet so could not be tasted. The only bicolor available to taste was Burracker's Favorite, and we'd both experienced quite enough of that already (bland). I brought home an example of Lucky Cross which I look forward to trying out.


After a punishing 49 tomato taste-a-thon, here are the final results:





Varieties tasted:
Black & Brown Boar, Black from Tula, Black Krim, Black Sea Man, Carbon, Haley's Purple Comet, Indian Stripe, JD's Special C-Tex, Large Barred Boar, Noir de Crimee, not BTD Heart, Paul Robeson, Pierce's Pride, Purple Calabash, Turk's Mut.

Church, Heinz #1370, Matt D'Imperio, Perito Italian, Prue, Rasp Large Red, Red Penna, Russian Bogatyr, Sarnowski Polish Plum, Shuntukski Velikan, Tony's Italian, Wes.

Amish PL, Anna Russian, Brandy Boy, Brandywine (Sudduth's), Dora, Earl's Faux, Julia Child, Kalman's Hungarian Pink, Kosovo, Kroska Pink Bulgarian, Monomakh's Hat, Pink Potato Top, Portuguese Neighbor, Vjerino Paradajiz Sjeme.

Anna Banana Russian, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Big Sungold, Citron Compact, Grub's Mystery Green, Jaune Flamme, Tangella.

[mdvpc]

Beautiful tomatoes Suze and Feldon wonderful presentation in the thread. Very professional post. 8)

[feldon30]

It's really worth checking out the gallery since there are lots more pictures.


Turk's Mut


Purples/Blacks


Prue

[JohnnyRock]

WOW!! Suze's garden is simply awesome!!

[dokutaaguriin]

Suze, you really must start posting pictures of your garden because it is so impressive!!!!!
Jeff

[duajones]

Those plants sure look healthy for this late in the season. Certainly proves that Suze knows how to grow em, thats for sure. Abosolutely awesome garden and very nice presentation Morgan. VERY NICE!!

[ewtx]

Wow, we should have the next SETT FEST at Suze's place, it would save her the trouble of having to haul all of her tomatoes to the festival. Impressive, I'm unabashedly envious.

[snappybob]

Wow Suze, those things have grown huge since the last pics I saw. Not only are they huge but more importantly they are lush. And those pics were only taken a few days ago. I don't see any brown or yellow just green lush plants.

Feldon, nice job of documenting Suze' garden. Very nice post. I agree with EWTX. You need to have us all over in about 6 months to build you a pavilion.

[Husbear]

Incredible! Having had to remove all the tomato plants here in Houston I can say I am green with envy!
Great presentation Feldon!

[duajones]

Suze,Feldon. I was wondering how each of you think cherokee purple stacks up against the heavy hitters on your list.

[orflo]

Amazing garden, and the way the tomatoes are grown, simply unimaginable over here because of the late blight, this year's first 'attack' end of May(!), even in a greenhouse this cannot be realized over here, and wonderful pictures too, great,
Frank

[feraltomatoes]

Very nice!
If you just moved there then I would call it an instant pop-up tomato forest.

Brad....

[Rena]

Very very NICE!!!

[feldon30]

Cherokee Purple, Indian Stripe, and JD's Special C-Tex are all 9.5 for me. We just didn't have a CP to taste. Mine this year were fantastic. I did get to taste a Cherokee Chocolate today and it was also excellent.

[tessa]

i am just blown away by these pics and this presentation.
thanks for taking the time to post all this.
this has been one of the most inspiring posts this fledgling tomato grower has seen. suze...you are amazing. your garden is simply stunning.
i am completely gobsmacked.