Tomato – Amateur

A Standard sized, Red tomato on a Determinate, Regular Leafed plant.

Description

The Amateur is a standard sized (slightly small) fruit which grows on a medium height (3ft) Determinate (Bush) plant which makes it suitable for growing outdoors (although it is not resistant to blight) where it is recommended to be grown under a cloche.

We grew this in the greenhouse in 2013 – 5 (which was less than ideal as it took up more space than an indeterminate variety would). It cropped reasonably well but the fruit had a slightly salty taste which, whilst not unpleasant, was unexpected and probably explains why this tomato fell out of favour.

A determinate variety which we would compare with it is Sandpoint. New to us in 2020, we grew several plants because we were unable to give plants to our daughter. We’ll perhaps do a direct comparison in 2021 and see which we prefer.

Historically it was introduced in the UK around 1950 and was a popular commercial variety grown under cloches. The changes in agricultural practice has removed it from commercial production and, being a determinate, it is not particularly popular for amateur growers (despite its name). It was re-introduced (briefly) by Thompson and Morgan as part of their “Heritage” range but disappeared again after a couple of years.

Updated: 13/01/2021