I tasted some meaty tomatos a long time ago. The tomatos were large, and firm. When I opened the tomato with my hands, the texture was like very fine sand. When I cut it, there is not a lot of excess water coming out.

Do I need to go to the Heirloom route?

Whether you want to try going the heirloom route is your decision, but that decision was made for me many years ago since I do think the best of the heirloom varieties are better than the best of the hybrid varieties in terms of fresh eating.

And the OP heirlooms with the most meaty flesh and THE best tastes are the heart varieties IMO>

Carolyn

Last year, I grew yellow Brandyvine. It is more meaty, but the yield was really low.

Even the farmer's market toms are more meaty. Maybe I'll try to save some seeds and try to plant the seeds. Those toms are large and they do not look like hybrid.

Same here. This year I used two types of mulch: landscaping fabric and straw. The place where I have the fabric can be completely, and I mean COMPLETELY - on sides too - protected against rain. The other places where I used straw, are not. The straw mulching allows 100% rainwater penetration, while the fabric, max. 20-30 %. Stronger the rain, lower the percentage...obviously.

I use drip irrigation, and I had the same problem: watery tomatoes. After realizing that in watering tomatoes LESS IS BETTER, I cut considerably the watering, and not only my tomatoes are less watery - meatier - but the taste improved dramatically.

In a few instances, I watered - using the drip irrigation - in the morning, and in the evening OUT OF THE BLUE, a half an hour rain shower. Obviously, it was too much water for my tomatoes in the straw area. The tomatoes in the rain protected area, are LESS watery than those in the straw area.

RedSun wrote: > Do I need to go to the Heirloom route?

Many agree that heirloom tomatoes are meatier and tastier than most of the hybrids. BUT, there are a few things why some avoid the heirloom tomatoes:

One thing is, the Days to Maturity (DTM.) For example some Brandywines can have 90+ days to ripe. Depending on your location, you might, or might not have those many days. And even if you have those days, weather conditions - temperature, rain, humidity - can strongly affect the heirloom tomatoes growing.

Another thing is that - while there are many hybrids resistant to diseases - most of the heirlooms DO NOT RESIST DISEASES, such as: bacterial diseases (Bacterial wilt / canker / speck) or fungal diseases (verticillium / fusarium wilts, and early / late blight.) Grafting heirloom plants could solve somehow this problem.

And another thing that many don’t like at heirlooms is that many heirloom varieties - especially Brandywines - produce very little. Sometimes 1-2 tomatoes: big, meaty, awesome taste… but one or two… or three - if you’re lucky. OK, 4 or 5 say some. LITTLE production anyway.

goodground wrote: > The Heirlooms I am growing this year seem to have alot of water as well… Not sure if it's weather related.

If it rained a lot in your area, FOR SURE it’s weather related.

Carolyn wrote: > And the OP heirlooms with the most meaty flesh and THE best tastes are the heart varieties IMO>

I plan to try some heart varieties next year. Can you recommend me some, please ?

This year the meatier - and tastier - tomatoes in my garden were: Brandywine Pink, Mortgage Lifter, and Rose.

The tomato industry changed the word resistant to tolerant after a groundbreaking law suit where several commercial farmers sued the companies they got hybrids from saying that they weren't resistante to X, Y, Z.

One reason so many commercial farmers do grow hyrids with some disease tolerances is b'c it gives the fruits an extra week or two to reach the Brix level ( soluble sugars) that they want before they harvest. Home growers don 't need what thecommercial farmers need in that regard/

Above I'm talking about soilborne systemic diseases. The foliage diseases are THE most common in the world and there's really no differrence in susceptibility to those between hybrids and OP's. There are a couple of ones released that have low level tolerance to Early Blight but all that means is that a commercial farmer might be able to spray every 7 to 8 days instead of every 4-5 but that's a huge savings for large scale commercial farmers. And this refers to FUNGAL foliage pathogens. Bacterial foliage pathogens is a different story.

As for heart varieties, here's a few I like very much, just off thetop of my head so I know I'll be forgetting some/

Reds

Indiana Red
Linnie's Oxheart
German Red Strawberry
Fish Lake Oxheart, the original is red but the epidermis is flip flopping so one can save seeds for the red and get pink, Taste and all else are the same.
Wes
Russian #117, double flat heats

Pinks

Kosovo, does well for almost everyone
Joe's Pink Oxheart
Lithuanian Crested Pink
Sen Say
Anna Margaret's heart
Nicky Crain
Anna Russian
Tsar Kolokol

Orange/ Gold

Orange Minsk Heart
Zolotoe Serdtse, gold

White? none that I like

So called Black

Brad's Black Heart.

Anyone can check Tania's website to find seed sources, and if none to date for some of the above I have listed several for each category where I could do so.

Carolyn

My new favorite...best BLT's I have ever had.

You won't know what you get back from Gary until you have seeds in hand and then hope that the person who sent in the seeds didn't mess up as often happens. LOL

As the so called mother of Opalka, all that was on that list were heart varieties.

The original poster was looking for meaty varieties primarily for fresh eating and I don't consider any of the so called paste varieties, although meaty with few seeds, to be ones I'd grow as first choices for fresh eating. ( smile)

Carolyn

As Carolyn said, you won't know what you're getting back until seeds are in hand, if you join the swap.

However, If you email me a mailing address you can get back the consistently meatiest tomato I've ever trialed. And as for the swap, because of this and a few other thread posts, the swap will hopefully have a "Meatiest (sandwich slicer)" category.

Gary

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Indiana_Red#tab=General_Info

No current seed sources, Gleckler's is out of business,

Sen Say is new so no seed sources yet, I mean commercial sources,

And here's Nicky Crain

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Nicky_Crain#tab=General_Info

No seed sources for 2014, but Linda, Glenn's wife at Sandhill Preservation didn't get their listings in in time, so I'd check the current website or catalog

And I'd also check the Sandhill 2014 website or catalog for Nicky Crain b'c it has been listed in the past.

If you haven't dealt with Sandhill before see when they do and don't accept orders for tomato seeds and all ordering is done by mail, for the reasons Glenn mentions. With over 400 varieties listed and no tomato seeds over 2 yo and a low rate of crossed seed and high seed count and low seed and shipping prices, I think it's a great place to get not just tomato seeds but lots of other stuff theyl list.

No, I'm not getting paid to say such nice things about Sandhill, LOL,but I've known Glenn and Linda for many many years, just outstanding folks. Glenn has a full time teaching position as well and finally they are very well known for their heirloom poultry and I get a kick reading about those as well.

Hope the above helps, and I did say where I listed the varieties that I was listing some extras in case no commercial seeds were available, but you post at one place where I do and you know how to make your WANTS known,

Carolyn

Also growing a Brandy Boy F10 which is meaty but more moist.