Whether you start your own or buy starts from us, there's nothing like growing and picking your own tomatoes. It doesn't matter if you have a large garden bed or grow your tomatoes in a container on your patio, there's a tomato variety for you. To get the most from your tomatoes, it’s important to understand the terminology. Tomato plants are classified as either indeterminate or determinate. Indeterminate plants grow all season, continuing to bloom and produce fruit right up until first frost; even longer if you protect them with a frost cloth. Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple and Fourth of July are just a few of the indeterminate varieties available. Determinate variety tomatoes, also called bush tomatoes grow to a certain height and set fruit all at once. Determinate tomatoes include Bush Early Girl, Celebrity and Patio, among others. Determinate tomatoes are great for container gardening, like this Tumbling Tom Red.
Tomatoes are categorized as either heirloom or hybrid. A tomato is considered an heirloom when the seed has been saved and grown for at least fifty years. Heirlooms are grown for their superior flavor, texture and unique appearance. In general, heirloom take longer to produce a tomato crop, but the taste is worth it.
Hybrid tomatoes offer a shorter time to maturity, generally higher yields and improved disease resistance over heirlooms. Hybrid tomatoes look like grocery store tomatoes, but with a superior taste because you grew them yourself. Finally, tomatoes fall into four basic types: cherry and grape, paste, slicer and beefsteak. Cherry tomatoes are shaped like cherries and tend to be sweet. Grape tomatoes are meaty and crunchy and tend to taste like a tomato. Paste tomatoes tend to be meaty fruits with fewer seeds., just right for making tomato sauce. Slicing tomatoes are mid to large sized, just right for sandwiches. Beefsteak tomatoes are the largest variety. As a home gardener, mixing types of tomatoes is a good way to ensure you’ll have a fresh harvest throughout the season. Plant varieties that mature in fifty to sixty days, such as Fourth of July (49 days) and Sun Gold (57 days), followed by main season varieties like Mortgage Lifter (80 days) and Cherokee Purple (80 days). For a complete list of tomato varieties available this season, click here.
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