Tomato varieties suited to outdoor growing

[Jang]

I received a lot of tomato varieties through the A4A seed circle and a couple of other swaps and couldn't resist starting them all off plus some others which I was tempted by for one reason or another.

The day of reckoning has come, and I now inevitably have far more plants than I have room for in my polytunnel. So I'm wondering about growing some out of doors, which I've not done for years.
I've picked up from another thread that Dancing with Smurfs has done well out of doors. I wondered whether anyone can vouch for any others on my list, has experience of growing any outdoors, or knows which might prosper in a sunny sheltered spot

Bajaja
Black Beauty
Black Icicle
Black Opal
Black Plum
Black Vernissage
Dancing with Smurfs
Dark Galaxy
Dehybridised Sungold 2017
Dehybridised Sungold 2019
Dwarf Sweet Sue
Galina
Gelbe Konigen
Kardia Karpos
Lemon Giant
Maghrebi
Nimbus F1
Pomodora Gigante
Rapunzel Cherry F1
Rosella
Sandpoint
Sekai Ichi (World’s best)
Shirley F1
Skykomish
Solar Flare
Sun Sugar F1
Sungold F1
Super Marmande
Sweet Cream
Viagra
Victory
White Queen

[triffid]

I grew Black Beauty, Sweet Cream, Dwarf Sweet Sue and Sungold outdoors last year. Sungold and Sweet Cream were the earliest and untroubled. Black Beauty shrugged off the bad weather and seemed unaffected by late blight. The whole plant blushes purple in direct sun. Of the larger tomatoes it was the earliest. Dwarf Sweet Sue was quite late and blight susceptible.

[Galina]

Sandpoint, Galina, Black Plum and Black Icicle can be grown outside or at least I have done so successfully. If we are going to have a bad blight year, non of them will remain unscathed, so a good summer and vigilance are always needed. Certainly when blight strikes, Black Plum and Black Icicle can be taken in green and ripened on the window sill and still taste good. Sandpoint should be early enough to avoid blight. Good luck.

[Jang]

Thank you both. That’s very helpful.

I get blight quite readily in the polytunnel. It will be interesting to compare polytunnel and outdoors in that respect.

[Galina]

How big is it? Can you ventilate it on both sides? One of the tricks for tomatoes in polytunnels Steffanie Hafferty mentioned was to plant something else next to the polythene at the sides and move the tomatoes towards the centre, away from getting all the condensation drips which cause the blight. .

[Jang]

That’s an interesting idea. I do set up ground level watering so that no water gets on foliage that way - except when it occasionally springs a leak.

Unfortunately the tunnel has sloping sides. Another time I’d definitely have a straight sided one. As the season progresses, pruning gets somewhat neglected so I end up late on with a bit of a free-for-all. Nevertheless it remains highly productive and many plants seem to weather a bit of blight.

It’s 28’ x 14’ and just has the door at each end. No other ventilation sophistications. Perhaps blight comes later than average but I rarely escape it altogether.

[Jang]

I wanted to add here my 20212 experience of growing tomatoes out of doors. It was generally agreed I think that blight in at least England and Wales was particularly rife this year.

I grew half a dozen varieties out of doors and all except one or two succumbed. One which partly survived was Indigo Kumquat. Although the foliage get quite badly blighted, a lot of fruit hung on and seems blight free.

But the star of the show was Primabella which soldiered on and on and was still producing tomatoes into October. This has been covered on another thread on blight resistance, but I just wanted to add it here for the record.