GardenList
So while you are self-quarantined at home, dreaming and scheming up this year’s garden, I thought I would share my April Garden Calendar with you. Here are some of the garden chores and garden projects that we are tackling up here in Wyoming this April.
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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!
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, 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.
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!
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.
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 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.
If you want to grow something that is sure to boost your gardening confidence, then look no further than cherry tomatoes! They are always exuberant performers in the garden and a couple cherry tomato plants can produce an abundance of juicy, sweet orbs all summer. If you have grown them, then I am sure you heartily agree. Normally I plant only a few cherry tomato plants, but I have deemed this year “The Year of Cherry Tomatoes.” While we had a sudden unexpected snow storm yesterday, I sat inside and dreamed of a truly rainbow bowlful of cherry & grape tomatoes. So this year, I’m going for it! I am throwing restraint out the window and planting several cherry tomato varieties. I’m sure I’ll regret it when co-workers, friends, and neighbors start declaring—”No, I don’t need anymore cherry tomatoes—I still have the gallon bag you brought me yesterday.” But alas, you only live once!
Today, I wanted to share my Cherry Tomato Selection for this Year with you. I have grown some of these varieties before, and some are brand new to me. All are indeterminate varieties, meaning they will continue flowering and fruiting until a killing frost. Moreso than having a colorful bowlful of cherry tomatoes, I am growing big on the cherry tomatoes this year, and scaling back on the slicers because Hunter & I are in a new house, and we are largely starting from scratch with all of the landscaping. In other words, we have a lot of work planned for this year, including establishing a new vegetable plot. You can read more about it here: 2020 New Year, New Garden. Cherry tomatoes are a high impact crop to grow—they provide tons of fruit, ripen quickly, and are low-maintenance. This is just what we need on a year when we have so many other planting projects planned. So, here we go—here is my Cherry Tomato Shortlist for 2020. Please share your favorite cherry tomato varieties with me in the comment section.
First and foremost, above all, I will be planting my beloved Sun Golds. I’ll say it over and over, even shout it from the rooftops, Sun Gold Tomatoes are the best cherry tomatoes EVER! I love them! They are little balls of sugary sunshine. They have thin skin, are sweet as can be, have a delicious fruitiness, and the plants are heavily productive. What’s not to love?! I have planted Sun Gold tomatoes in my garden every single year since discovering them.
(FYI: I have also grown Sun Sugar, to do some side-by-side comparison with Sun Gold. The differences are almost indiscernible. So, if you can't find Sun Gold, but you can find Sun Sugar, then give Sun Sugar a try! These are the sweetest varieties I have come across.)
This variety is being called the sister to Sun Gold. The same breeders who bred Sun Gold, bred Sunpeach. This variety apparently has sweetness that rivals Sun Gold, with just a splash of tang. According to Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Sunpeach has less acid than Sun Gold. The fruits are a pink-to-red color, slightly larger and more elongated than Sun Gold, and born on long trusses. I’m excited to grown Sunpeach, myself, and see how they truly compare to Sun Gold!
One year my in-laws grew Super-Sweet-100s from a nursery transplant, and they were the most amazingly sweet, red, perfectly round cherry tomatoes ever. They were like CANDY! Since then, however, trying these from two different seed sources has not yielded those same incredible fruits. Nectar (from Park Seed) didn’t measure up either…or Sweet Million (Although, my neighbors did love Sweet Million—more, even, than Sun Gold). So this year, in my continued search to find a small red cherry, with all around excellent flavor and sweetness, I am trying Sweetie. Hopefully all of the descriptions I have read about them are true, and not just for marketing purposes. I have consistently read that they are “deliciously sweet”, sweet enough for a “dessert tray”, and that they have “high sugar content”.
I grow Tomatoberries every year, because my in-laws love them. They are my father-in-laws favorite cherry tomato—he is always telling me how he thinks they are much better than Sun Gold because they have a true, delicious tomato flavor, rather that just pure sugary sweetness. These are meaty (especially compared to most cherry tomatoes), 1” strawberry-shaped, red tomatoes, and they do have a perfect hint of sweetness. The key to growing the best tomatoberries, however, is to let them get fully ripe & red—they are not as tasty if you pick them still orange. Tomatoberries never crack and the plants are always beautifully productive.
I tried an indigo variety of tomatoes a few years back and found myself fairly disappointed with the taste, or lack thereof. I have also grown a couple other “black” cherry/saladette varieties that ended up being strongly acidic or mealy-textured. This year, I am hoping for better results with Black Cherry. From the sounds of it, the plant produces hefty loads of rich, sweet, burgundy-colored cherry tomatoes. Some have commented that they have a unami-like or smoky quality to them, akin to that of the infamous Cherokee Purple tomato. We shall see!
Yellow Pear is a polarizing heirloom tomato variety. I have heard either glowing reviews of it’s productivity and mild sweetness, or awful reviews of its boring taste and soft texture. I’ve finally decided to try growing it for myself. Will I hate it or will I love it?
I’ve followed Allison from @FinchandFolly, on Instagram, for years now. Her favorite tomato is Juliet, and I finally started growing Juliet last year. It’s a solid performer. The plant dependably produces a multitude of meaty, bright red grape tomatoes. The flavor is good, not as good as Sun Gold, but really is there a tomato better than Sun Gold?! If your garden is prone to tomato diseases, try growing Juliet. Allison told me that, one year, she lost every tomato in her garden to blight, except Juliet.
Blush is a larger, 2” long grape tomato variety, that is primarily golden with some red striping. This bi-color, blushing beauty has flavor that is described as being exceptionally sweet & fruity. Some also describe the flavor as being somewhat tropical—like a tangerine. Sounds right up my alley! This tomato is in the Artisan series, along with the Bumble Bee tomatoes.
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes are the BEST!
