Sager’s Test Garden: Champion and San Diego Tomatoes
Posted on | August 4, 2009 | No Comments
Early last April my daughter brought home four young tomato plants from our local produce market – two plants marked “Champion” and two marked “San Diego.”
To-may-toe, To-mah-toe, who cares? They're good either way.
I wasn’t familiar with the varieties, but after a little research I found that they’re both cultivars sold mainly by commercial growers because seed production of both hybrids is unreliable. (Which explains why I hadn’t heard of them – I always grow tomatoes from seed.)
Both are indeterminate red fruit bearers, with the Champion producing slightly larger fruit, up to 1 lb (450 grams), while the San Diego tomatoes weigh up to 12 oz (340 grams).
In mid-April I planted them in “tomato row” along with a couple of other tomato varieties I’ve cultivated for years.
The plants seemed to languish through the cool, cloudy days we call “May Gray” here in San Diego, before kicking into overdrive in early June when the plants quickly went from about 8 inches to well over 3 feet and in full production in just under 3 weeks.
By mid-July I was harvesting and I haven’t been without tomatoes since. To date I’ve easily harvested 90-100 pounds of fruit from the four plants, with more ripening every day.
The plants have stopped flowering for the hottest part of the summer, but the way they’re all continuing to grow, I fully expect a second bloom in September and harvest in October.
Here are my impressions of the two varieties:
Champion
True to its name, this tomato is a real champion. Generally I grow a number of heirlooms and accept the old “the bigger the fruit, the smaller the harvest” axiom – particularly when it comes to cluster type tomatoes.
Champion Tomatoes
Not only does the Champion produce an abundance of 4 – 6 fruit clusters, but each tomato grows to easily weigh 10 ounces or more.
In many cases, there were at least four fruits of over 14 ounces hanging on a majority of the clusters. At one point one plant had so much weight from tomatoes on it that it snapped a 6 foot tall, 1 inch x 2 inch (2.5cm x 5cm) stake in half!
The Champion is firm and a medium to deep red in appearance. The fruit are a little wider than tall, with a meaty interior and very few seeds. Taste is generally sweet with just a little acidity making it great for fresh slices as well as cooking and canning.
The one problem I do have with this variety is the sheer amount of fruit it produces and the resulting upkeep. These plants absolutely must be well staked and supported. Without it the plant sags and the weight of the clusters ends up resting against the plant’s stem or the tomato at the bottom of the cluster. This can result in a lot bruised and/or crushed fruit.
That having been said, one Champion produces so many tasty tomatoes, the loss of even a major fraction of them is hardly a big deal.
On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the Champion a 4.5.
San Diego
A friend of mine who works at a local nursery referred to this tomato as “the tomato that saved San Diego.” She couldn’t give me any details on why that was, and I couldn’t find any references to it on the Internet, so who knows if it really did save San Diego or not. (Maybe it stamped out a brushfire or something.)
San Diego Tomato
The tomatoes are ball-shaped with a firm texture and meaty interior that has a very small seed cavity. Taste is slightly more acidic than the Champion, but still quite flavorful.
The fruits are smaller than the Champions, averaging around 6 to 8 ounces, with number tipping into the 10 to 12 ounce range, but the quantity is still quite amazing. I estimate that each plant has produced upwards of 20 lbs of tomatoes to date – not bad for a $1.50 tomato plant – and will probably pump out another 15 lbs before the season is done.
Like the Champion, the San Diego is a great all purpose tomato, excellent for fresh eating, canning or cooking. It also benefits from good support, but it’s nowhere near the stake-shattering monster the Champion is.
A couple of problems I did have with the San Diego was an early bout with blossom end rot (perhaps from the cool soil), and later, a tendency for the fruit on the outside of the cluster to get sun scald. Again, not major issues because the plant produced more than enough fruit to make up for the few that are lost.
On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the San Diego a 3.75.
Would I grow either again?
Both of these varieties are really prolific and very easy to grow, but the taste, as is true with many of these cultivars is definitely falls more on the lighter “supermarket” side than the more flavorful heirloom side.
24lbs of tomatoes in 5 minutes
I’ll probably grow the Champion again just for the sheer size and number of the fruits, but I’ll also be growing some Brandywine and Mortgage Lifters, to get my big tomato flavor fix, as well as some paste tomato varieties for drying and cooking. Oh, and more of the aforementioned “yellow pear” for kebabs, salads and snacking.
Face it, you just can’t have too many tomatoes.
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