So I decided to try growing Santa, and for comparison, Tami-G, which had received a lot of praise for flavor. You can't buy seeds for Santa. You either have to save the seeds from store-bought tomatoes, or trade for them. I had my mother in New York mail me a box, because I couldn't find them locally. I got my Tami-G seeds from Totally Tomatoes.

I grew the tomatoes side-by-side in a container, so they would have exactly the same growing conditions. This isn't normally recommended, and probably had an impact on my results.

Here are the plants in the container. I oriented the plants east-west, so they would get roughly the same amount of sunlight.

The tomatoes were similar in size. Both were small, typical of grape tomatoes.

The most important thing for me was their flavor. In order to really compare 2 tomato varieties, you need to sample multiple tomatoes from multiple plants over multiple years. I had only one of each plant, so I did the best that I could. I located them next to my driveway, and I sampled them almost every day as I left the house or came home. One thing was clear: for snacking, Santa was the winner. It has a sweeter, brighter flavor with plenty of zing. As the season wore on, the gap got narrower, but I always preferred Santa.

On the other hand, I don't think I would care for Santa's flavor as much in pasta dishes, salads, etc., because it's so sweet. In those situations, I think I would prefer Tami-G's flavor, which was more tomatoey.

Another significant difference was skin thickness. Santa has a thick, leathery skin. You really have to bite into a Santa, and it pops in your mouth. Tami-G has a thin skin by comparison. For this reason, I think I would prefer Tami-G in pasta dishes, etc., because of its less obtrusive mouthfeel. After heavy rains, many of my Tami-G's would split, but I never saw a single Santa split. Splitting tomatoes doesn't really bother me, but I offer that up for those who care.

As far as yield goes, both ultimately produced heavy crops, but Tami-G set fruit much better in the heat. I would typically have full trusses of Tami-G, while Santa might have only 3 fruits set per truss.

To summarize, both are great tomatoes. If I were to grow one again, I would probably grow Santa, because I mostly snack on grape tomatoes as I'm walking by the plant. If I started doing more cooking with grape tomatoes, I might opt for the Tami-G.

If cooking with tomatoes as in sauce, etc., I would never use a grape tomato anyway, since they were bred to be a snacking tomato.

I'm sure you read the several posts I've done here over the years when I described that Andrew Chu, the person who first introduced Santa F1, told me that 99% of saved seeds from the hybrid come true, and your picture of the fruits you got look fine to me,so do save some F3 seeds and keep going on that if you like them.

Some are now at the F9 and all is well.

Carolyn,who used to plant out several different kinds of cherry tomatoes for snacking in all different colors and just eat them like candy, if you will.(smile)

Thanks for the post and discussion, it cost me 2.49 today and Santa F1 without the seeds is not tasting so sweet ;-(

I'm wondering if a dozen peroxide bleached white bearded seeds planted immediately might bring some red cheer by December 24, my first frost date (really) the deadline for these Santas to deliver. The rest are being fermented and I'll do a dozen of those without drying, in three days to see which is faster on balance.

PC

BTW, the Santas that I got from the store were bland! After saving seeds from a few of them, I threw the rest out. So I wouldn't be deterred by the store-bought taste.

I wasn't emphasizing it, but the brightly marked clamshell "Santa F1" from the produce aisle last week tasted like pure not-a-tomato-crap, including a few small sized ones I ate seeds and all. The dates, report and information you kindly shared are all great. Now I need the seeds germinated, since the direct, fresh, peroxide treated ones straight from the tomatoes are taking their "sweet" time LOL.

I just directly planted some fermented seeds, rinsed not dried, last night and if I don't see anything popping up I'll do some fermented, dried ones which will be ready in 3 days. It's really down to the wire to catch the season but if it doesn't rain today I can advance my poor person's hoop house which may work well seeing the timing you posted.
PC

Her Santas are on the left, mine are on the right. Mine are on the small side, maybe 3/4" in length for the largest one. Hers look like they're ready to burst, like they got too much water. So I believe her when she says they didn't taste like anything special.

The tomatoes she sent me didn't tolerate 5 days in the mail very well, so I can't really comment on the taste. I would say reducing watering would be a good idea for these tomatoes though, to really concentrate their flavor.

The four varieties of container-grown cherry tomatoes all tasted exceptional, whilst the garden-grown ones were all disappointing.

Next year I really should grow the same variety in a container and the garden, except that I still want to experiment with more new-to-me varieties....

Linda

My Tami G plant kept blooming producing tomatoes, despite max temps of 50-55... Nov 8th in Zone 6b and I have fresh tomatoes. This plant was the champ of my garden and I can't wait to plant again next year. The one plant was enough to keep me overloaded with snacking tomatoes from June till November.

here is a picture.

True that planting seeds from an F1 hybrid might produce something unlike what you got this year.
On the other hand EB does not affect the seeds.

seysonn:
There is a variety named Cherry Roma which is also sold under
the names Baby Roma and Mini Roma.

I grew "Baby Roma" this season, they looked just like your picture
and were my best tasting tomato variety this year.

Seeds are saved.