Tomatoes: Choosing the right one for you.
There are a million tomatoes to choose from. Every year there seems to be an endless number of old and new varieties, and they come in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. Here, we propose some questions you’ll want to answer before choosing your tomatoes.
Step 1: Who the heck are you!?
In order to know which tomato you want to grow, you must first know yourself. Your personal preferences will affect the rest of your decisions along the way. Are you one to eat tomatoes with absolutely every dish in the summer? This will determine how important the yield is to you. Do you only like tomatoes on a burger? Then you are not going to want a small tomato. Do you want to reconnect with your ancestors? Heirloom tomatoes can draw us back in time. How much time do you have to care for your tomatoes? If you don’t have much time then a variety that can still yield without much trellising may be preferable. Being honest with your wants and needs is important in selecting a tomato that is perfect for you.
Step 2: What do you want to do with your tomatoes?
Tomatoes have been bred to suit all sorts of purposes. The three basic categories are Slicers, Paste, and Cherries; some companies break them down farther into Plums, Beefsteaks, Grapes, Oblongs, Cocktails, and Drying Tomatoes but all of these stem from the three basic categories.
Slicers are your quintessential, picnic sandwich tomato. They have thin walls with moderate to high amounts of seeds. They can range in size from a “small” tennis ball to a larger softball. Colors include classic red, yellow, orange, black, green, and everything in between.
Paste tomatoes are bred to make that thick sauce. They generally have fewer seeds and less juice inside. They can range in shape and size from a small inch-long oblong shape to a round 2-pound beefsteak. Colorwise they trend toward red, however orange and yellow paste tomatoes have been growing in popularity. Most importantly what they all have in common is that they have traditionally been used in the kitchen for cooking down into a great sauce.
Cherries are the candy of the summer. Some can be prolific producers and bear fruit right through the first frost. They are beautiful when used in salads and some have thick walls that are good for drying or roasting. Breeders have developed some wild colors in the last few years, however, we have found that more color does not always equate to more flavor. They range in size from gumdrop to golf ball. If you don’t have a garden, cherries are the perfect option if you’re looking for a potted tomato plant.
Step 3: How much room do you have?
Do you have a big garden or a small porch? Tomatoes are very hardy and can grow in many different spaces. If you have a big garden, tomatoes can be left to bush out in a cage (not our favorite method because it takes up a lot of space horizontally). Our preference is to prune and train our tomatoes to a trellis; this way makes great use of vertical space in the garden. If you are growing on a small porch in pots, certain varieties produce better than others. Cherry tomatoes can produce prolific yields when in the garden but they can also produce quite well in a pot. Keep in mind that, when growing in pots, plants do not have the ability to access nutrients in soil, so consider how you are going to keep them fed (either with compost or amendments).
Step 4: Do you want to save seeds?
Do you want to save your seed for next year? When ordering your tomato seed make sure to check the seed type.
F1: These hybrid tomatoes are created by breeding two “parent” plants together in order to produce certain traits in the offspring. If you try to save seed from F1 fruit, you will not get exactly the same traits ( i.e. color, size, yield) in your plants the following year. This is not to say you can’t have some fun and see what happens when you save the seed, but consider how much time and space you have to devote to this project. There’s no telling whether the following year’s fruits will even be palatable!
Open-Pollinated: Varieties that are marked as open-pollinated mean that seeds saved from these plants will produce offspring that are identical (or very nearly identical) to the parents.
Heirloom: Just like open-pollinated plants, when saving seed from heirlooms, the offspring traits will be close to their parentage. What makes a plant heirloom is the ability to trace the lineage of the plant back in time. These varieties have been grown for years, giving the seed a strong connection to the past.
Step 5: Have fun!
At the end of the day, it’s your garden. You know what makes you happy when you’re in it. If you’re just starting out with tomatoes, give yourself time to learn and make BIG mistakes. We always say, when in doubt, go with a sungold.