What are the tastiest tomatoes?

Finding the tastiest tomatoes is going to be a bit like hunting for a needle in a haystack. There are so many different varieties available and it’s worse than needles, because everyone will have a different opinion. A needle is a needle at the end of the day, but the tastiest tomatoes is very much a question of – well taste.

Understanding what makes the tastiest tomatoes might help a little. The answer relates to the watering program to a significant extent i.e. if you over water then there is a risk you will make your tomatoes watery and a little bland. There are some circles that advocate dry cultivation with no irrigation. But this is a little bit of a specialist activity and you need to know what you are doing, it requires a soil mix of clay and loam with a minimum rainfall of 20″ to be effective. Not an area I am completely familiar with so if you want to know more about this then you could visit Home & Garden Publications who have an article on that exact subject.

For us lesser mortals what it comes down to is getting the level of watering right so that you get a concentrated flavor as a result. Over water and you end up with those watery, bland tomatoes mentioned earlier. Maintain your watering program so that the soil is moist, not dried out or waterlogged and there is a good chance that you will get the tasty tomatoes you are looking for. As the fruit reaches the ripening stage you can consider backing off on the watering program a little so that you err on the side of a drier soil, but again not completely dry.

Sorry I can’t help more than that it is very subjective and actually down to trial and error to an extent.

Of course the other thing that can help you with taste is selecting the right varieties and many home grown tomatoes come from the Heirloom varieties that have been kept going, not by the market gardeners, but rather the tomato growing enthusiasts that care less about transport toughness and shelf life than they do about getting the tastiest tomatoes. So go for Heirloom and there is a good chance that combined with the right watering program you will get very tasty tomatoes.

There is another source of information, and this was fed through to me by my brother in law who advised me that the UK consumer magazine he subscribes to, called ‘Which’, has stated that the tastiest tomato this year, identified through consumer trials, is the Sioux tomato; which is of American descent and of course is one of the Heirloom varieties.

The second tastiest tomatoes are listed as being the Orkado tomatoes and while we are at it the worst and most bland tasting tomato was identified as, can you bear it, the Alicante. A firm favorite amongst many of you, I would hazard a guess. Sorry to disillusion you.

Now knowing what the tastiest tomatoes are and finding them for sale anywhere is a different matter. But I can advise you that if you would like to buy them in the UK you can get your tastiest tomatoes here, and I don’t even make any money out of it.

For anyone living in the USA you can get them here Sioux Tastiest Tomatoes and now I do make some money from this link. So if you go and buy some, thanks very much.

Orkado are much easier to find so I will leave you to hunt for them yourselves, and of course the Alicante which you can get pretty much anywhere, that is if you want the blandest tasting tomatoes on the market as reported by Which magazine and my brother in law.