A perfectly sun-ripened, homegrown tomato is a treasure to behold.
Seriously! Before I became a gardener and started growing my own tomatoes, I wasn’t much of a raw tomato fan. I didn’t eat them in my tacos, burgers, or salads, and I never would have eaten a plain tomato, sliced & salted. Once I discovered the refreshing flavor and richness of homegrown tomatoes, however, I was hooked! Now, I revel in the tasty tomatoes of August, slicing them and eating them with just a sprinkle of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.
But not all tomatoes are created equally. In fact, I’ve heard that there are like 3,000 varieties in cultivation! So nowadays, you can literally find tomatoes of every size, shape, and color. This is incredible and somewhat overwhelming—but mostly incredible because think of all the varieties to try!
Above all, finding GOOD tomato varieties, with such a wide array available, requires lots of trial & error.
Now that I have grown tomatoes in two radically different climates, with radically different soil conditions, I can also attest to how personal finding GOOD tomato varieties is. Some tomatoes grow well in a given set of conditions, but poorly in other conditions. And also, different strokes for different folks means that some people like certain tomato flavors and textures, while other people do not.
So, today, I am going to share with you my All Time Favorite Tomato Varieties—the varieties of tomatoes that I Must Grow each year—varieties that I consider to be the BEST. But ultimately, to each their own. Use this as a starting point, or maybe to help you whittle down that list of 47 varieties you want to try, now that you’ve gone through all the seed catalogs. (Yep, I know it’s that long. Been there, done that! And have a lot of leftover seeds for varieties that that didn’t quite live up to their catalog descriptions or my expectations.)
Anyway, here’s my list of favorite tomatoes. Please leave me a comment with your favorite tomato varieties. Do you love a any of these same varieties? Am I missing out on a really great cultivar? Let me know below!
Must grow tomatoes for your garden
Sun Gold
If I could only grow one tomato in my garden, it would be a Sun Gold. I’m truly, madly, deeply in love with this variety.
It is a highly productive cherry tomato variety, with the best tasting fruit, hands down. The plant produces a multitude of sweet little orbs of sunshine! The fruits are thin-skinned and seriously candy-sweet. If you can’t get your hands on Sun Gold, try Sun Sugar, which is a very similar variety.
Marianna’s Peace
Marianna, in all her glory!
This is an heirloom variety with taste almost as outstanding as it’s namesake. And that’s saying something because the story behind these luscious, thin-skinned, almost brandywine-flavored tomatoes is really incredible. Marianna was a farm girl from Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, who was taken as a teenager, from her school, by Russians during World War II. She and the other students were to be transported to a labor camp in Siberia, but with great courage, she and a few of the students tried to escape by jumping from the moving truck. Marianna made her way on foot back toward Bohemia, and was shot in the leg when crossing the Czech border. Thankfully, with the help of friends, she persisted and continued on to Bavaria. For over a decade she searched for her family, and finally, with the help of the Red Cross, she found them. It is presumed that these seeds were passed down to Marianna by her father. The plants are heavily-laden with thin-skinned, pinkish-red fruit, full of rich, classic, well-balanced tomato flavor. I have found they are quite prone to cracking due to having such thin skins, but regardless, they will be grown in my garden for many years to come due to their outstanding yields and delicious flavor.
Kellogg’s Breakfast
These sweet, sunshiney slicers are low acid and delightfully sweet! They are pure gold, both literally and metaphorically. I have tried a few different Yellow and Orange beefsteak varieties throughout the years and none have matched Kellogg’s Breakfast, so far. I find the gold varieties ripen a bit slower, and I’ve honestly had a difficult time getting some of the other notable varieties to ripen before our first frost. If you are the type of person who is into a really high acid tomato, then Kellogg’s probably isn’t for you. I love a pleasantly sweet & mild tomato, though, and these go down oh-so-smooth!
Cuostralee
This French heirloom variety continuously produces an abundance of flawless fruits for me, all summer long. The fruit quality is really high, with most fruits being at least 12 oz and many being over 1 lb of meaty, rich, old-fashioned, flavorful beefsteak tomato goodness. I also find the plants to be very healthy, with little foliar die-off and lots of vigor. All around, Cuostralee is a queen in my garden, complete with green calyx crown. She has all the performance that a hybrid offers, with all the goodness and flavor of an heirloom.
Brandywine
Pink Brandywine (& Yellow Brandywine) are both as delicious as the hype. The plants aren’t very productive, but brandywines yield quality over quantity. I find they have a creamy-sweetness to them, and all around excellent flavor. They don’t store all that well, so eat them within a day or two of picking. And definitely, save your Brandywines to be savored as perfect dinner or breakfast slices—don’t waste their ambrosial flavor on salsa or sauce. Sadly, if you live somewhere plagued with fungal and bacterial tomato diseases, Brandywine might not be the girl for you.
Rosella Purple
Rosella Purple is an extra special tomato, because she is actually a Dwarf Tomato. If you have grown Cherokee Purple—love the flavor, but hate the poor yields—give Rosella a try! Dwarf Tomatoes are stout, sturdy plants that grow normal-sized tomatoes. They grow only about 3-4 feet tall and can be perfectly contained by a store-bought tomato cage—and that’s really saying something, because my regular tomatoes are usually 8+ feet tall! Rosella Purples have rich, complex, savory, with just a hint of sweet, true tomato flavor. And I am surprised how such a small plant can produce such an abundance of these beauties. I have purchased and grown all of my dwarf tomatoes with seeds from Victory Seeds.