Some Thoughts on Tomato Varieties

This post is overdue. My spring was full and blogging unfortunately took a backseat to an array of other things. So here we go, better late than never...

Tomatoes are serious business here at Heart's Ease Cottage. We only eat fresh tomatoes in season, since in the off seasons even the organically grown tomatoes at the store are a sad lot. So we really  look forward to the day we can eat our fresh, homegrown, warm off the vine 'maters.

We start our tomatoes from seed in our indoor seed starting system. I have my favorites that I plant every year and usually try a new variety or two in search of new favorites. There are 2 kinds of tomatoes, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate varieties ripen heavy flushes of fruit at once and then after a few flushes will die off. Indeterminate varieties will produce less fruit at once, but with proper pruning and feeding will produce consistently over a long season.

For preserving I stick with the meaty Roma style tomato. San Marzano and Amish Paste tomatoes are my stand-bys. San Marzano is a determinate variety, as all Romas are, so they put on a lot of fruit that ripens in flushes, usually 2 large flushes and one smaller one and then the plants are done. You can eek out a few tomatoes from there on but it is really not worth the bother or the garden space to try and squeeze any more out from the vines. San Marzano is a heavy yielder of uniformly sized fruit, that is great for drying, canning as sauce and stewed tomatoes, and also works very well for salsa and relish. Amish Paste tomato is determinate, with thick, blocky tomatoes that have dense flesh and very few seeds. They make wonderful sauce and paste as well as dried tomatoes. Their one draw back is that they do not produce as many tomatoes per plant as the San Marzano. This is probably because the dense fruit takes longer to ripen. You will get one solid flush and a smaller second flush and then the plant is done. I would have to plant about twice as many Amish Paste Tomatoes to get the same amount of fruit as I get from San Marzano. So I use the Amish Paste tomatoes for specific purposes, paste and dried tomato powder, and grow San Marzano for the bulk of my preserving needs. I do have a way to extend the growing season of a determinate tomato variety, but I will have to write another blog post on that to keep this post from becoming a book. I promise I will share this technique in a future post!

San Marzano is a good Roma Type Tomato for sauce, paste and drying
(Photo from Google search had no Photo credit posted)

Amish Paste Tomato is a blocky, meaty tomato good for paste, sauce and drying
(Photo from Google search had no photo credit)

Indeterminate tomatoes do not make very good candidates for preserving. They have too much water and too many seeds. But they make great tomatoes for slicing and fresh eating. There are some indeterminate, open pollinated slicers, but I usually don't grow them. I grow heirloom and open pollinated varieties for many of the vegetables in our garden so that I can save seed, but since I grow a lot of varieties of tomatoes, I can't save the seed, so I grow a mixed bag of hybrid and open-pollinated tomatoes for fresh eating.

Many of the open pollinated and heirloom tomatoes are large, juicy fruits that can weigh a pound or more a piece and take forever to ripen.  I don't like wet tomatoes for sandwiches because I hate soggy bread, so I prefer to grow a smaller 4-6 ounce hybrid tomato that gets ripe fast, fits neatly on my sandwich without overhang and won't make my bread soggy. I do grow heirloom varieties for eating straight off the vine like and apple or for slicing as a side dish with a sprinkle of basil strips and some freshly cracked pepper.... my mouth is watering as I type... but most of my slicing tomatoes are hybrid. Hybrids are also less prone to Cat Facing, and splitting since they don't suck up so much water.

So what varieties of indeterminate tomatoes do I grow? I am very fond of Celebrity (hybrid) for sandwiches, it is a nice 4-6 oz. tomato with a thin tender skin. I also grow German Pink (Open Pollinated), Black Cherokee (Open Pollinated) and some variety of orange tomato. Of course there is the Sweet 100 (heirloom) cherry tomato that produces quantities of sweet, "pop in your mouth while weeding goodness" (only need one of these babies...), and Yellow Pear (heirloom), and the Rutger (Open Pollinated), an 8 oz determinate slicer  that is has good flavor and not too many seeds. Others that I adore but haven't planted this year are the Currant tomato, which is a slightly larger than a pea sized tomato that is a powerhouse of tomato flavor in a tiny package. Warning this volunteers prolifically and where ever you last planted it is going to have a mass of volunteers the following year, brace yourself and treat them as weeds except for the one or two you want to transplant for this years consumption). Indigo Rose for it's beautiful almost black color and anathocyanins that have proved to help prevent cancer, I also really enjoy the heirloom Pineapple tomato. It is delicious, but often split and beaks on the vine because they take up so much water, so I only grow it on occasion.

Celebrity is a hybrid, 4-6 oz. slicer with good taste and thin skin
(Photo found on Google search not photo credit given)

Rutger is a determinate  open pollinated slicer. It has a good flavor and size but is not a long season variety
(Photo found on Google search no photo credit given)

Indigo Rose_ lovely and delicious 

Tomato varieties I don't bother to grow: Mortgage Lifter, it is so huge I can't get it out of my tomato cage without great effort and it is sloppy wet, mealy and won't keep, I don't grow Beefsteak for the same reason. Big Boy isn't prolific enough to give it garden space. I don't grow Grape tomatoes because they are shaped like a torpedo and are a choking hazard, (personal issue...).

So what do I do with all these tomatoes??  I will tell you in an upcoming post that will include some of my favorite fast and easy recipes.  But for now I am trying to catch up on overdue blog posts so I will end this here and start my next post and what 40 years of growing tomatoes has taught me.