What Tomato Variety Best Suites You?

This is a guest post by Cooperative Extension Intern Preston Ellis.

The tomato is an essential part of any home garden in the South. However, finding the variety that best suits your taste is another task in itself. Each variety offers something different, whether in taste or production, and leaves farmers and home gardeners in the everlasting search to find the best variety of tomato.

Going For Production

“Better Boy” seems to be atop many farmers list when deciding what variety of tomato to plant. The powerful producer is known for its disease resistance and ability to yield an abundant amount of nice, round tomatoes. Better Boy was bred to be resistant to most common tomato disease such as fusarium, verticillium wilt and nematodes, which are microscopic worms that can attack the plant. The plant will produce fruit throughout the season.

Another variety of tomato plant that is in the same mold as Better Boy is “Celebrity”.

Celebrity also offers strong disease resistance and some believe that it has a better taste than Better Boy while still not being known for its taste. It is another reliable producer that can put up with changes in the weather and many pests. Like the Better Boy, Celebrity will produce tomatoes throughout the season.

Going For Taste

“Cherokee Purple” is a variety that is known for its taste. While the tomato won’t win any beauty contest, its brownish green color signifies a deep juicy taste. The tomato is fairly disease resistant but not on the level of Better Boy or Celebrity. It gets fairly large usually weighing around a pound, and produces a good amount of tomatoes. Don’t let the color or shape of this variety fool you, the taste is renowned as one of the best.

“German Johnson” is another tomato known for its taste. This variety produces very large tomatoes and also gives a good pink-red tomato look as well. This variety will not produce a ton of tomatoes however, and the ones that you are able to keep off the plant will really run the amount thin. But, this tomato has a very good and very strong tomato taste that pleases farmers year after year.

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry tomato varieties will produce many, many tomatoes and go excellent on a salad. While most famers are interested in seeing how big of a tomato he or she can produce, cherry tomatoes offer a nice change of pace and plenty of production as well.

“Sweet 100” cherry tomatoes are what most farmers seem to enjoy the most. This variety will produce plenty of tomatoes and offers a sweet taste just as the name suggests.

Finding the right tomato variety comes down to personal taste and preference. Above are just a few of the tomato varieties offered and the only way to find your favorite is to try them all and decide which one suits you.

Pender County Cooperative Extension office and Mother Earth News were used as sources to provide information and support for this article.