Tomatoe Varieties

There are many varieties of tomatoes available to the home gardener, and this is one area
where it is really fun to experiment every year. The Heirloom varieties that are becoming
more available to us has made limiting what I decide to plant every year a very difficult
decision indeed. I’ve been very fortunate to have a neighbor who is even more of a tomato
nut than I am. Marie plants dozens of tomato plants early every spring, and because she
always has a surplus, I’ve enjoyed varieties of tomatoes I didn’t even know existed! While it
is impossible to give you a full and complete list, here are a few suggestions:

PLUM TOMATOES
Used for both fresh eating and cooking. They usually have thicker skin and less pulp than a typical salad tomato. These are excellent for making sauce and will can very well.

• Amish Paste
• Costoluto Genovese
• Roma

BEEFSTEAK TOMATOES
This is the tomato you turn to for your large tomato slices for sandwiches and hamburgers. Beefsteak tomatoes hold together making them excellent for sandwiches, but they also cook down very well for sauces.

• Aker’s West Virginia heirloom
• Aunt Ginny’s Purple heirloom
• Big Beef F1
• Big Rainbow
• Brandywine
• Caspian Pink heirloom
• Evergreen
• Golianth F1
• Giant Belgium
• Great White
• Grosse Lisse
• Marvel Striped
• Mortgage Lifter
• Pineapple
• Ponderosa Pink
• St. Pierre heirloom
• Yellow Brandywine

SALAD TOMATOES
Best used for summer salads, they don’t cook down very well.

• Arkansas traveler heirloom
• Burpees Longkeeper
• Cherokee Purple-
• Djena Lee's Golden Girl
• Dr.Walter
• Early girl
• Fourth of July
• Gold Dust
• Green Zebra heirloom
• Guernsey Island
• Heatmaster
• India F1 A
• Jimma F1
• Moneymaker
• Mr.Stripey
• Nebraska Wedding
• Potentate
• Stupice
• Taxi
• Tigrella
• Yellow Perfection
• Zorba heirloom

CHERRY TOMATOES
These are tiny tomatoes that range from as small as a pea to a small salad tomato that does not need slicing. These are perfect for snacking.

• Cherry Dots
• Currant red
• Currant yellow
• Gardeners delight
• Green grape heirloom
• Gold Nugget
• Peacevine
• Red Pear
• Santa F1
• Spoon tomato
• Sun Cherry F1
• Sweet 100 F1
• Sweet Million F1
• Tommy Toe
• Tumbler F1 Yellow Pear

PASTE/DRYING TOMATOES
Paste Tomatoes have very few seeds, so will boil down into paste very quickly.

• Bellstar
• Halley 3155 VFF
• Hungarian Italian
• Margherita VF Hybrid
• Napoli
• Opalka Principe
• Borghese heirloom
• Rio Grande VFF
• San Marzano