SMALLER TOMATOES
SWEET 100s: The traditional cherry tomato beloved by so many, Sweet 100s will produce a wealth of little snackers you'll be eating right off the vine!
JULIET: A bit larger than the average grape tomato but small compared to a roma, Juliet is a saladette tomato. The sweet and prolific fruit are indeed perfect for salads, and snacking! Best of all, they hold a consistent size all season and produce well under stress.
PEACH TOMATO: This is a true conversation piece for the garden and the dinner plate. These sweet and meaty small yellow tomatoes have a slightly fuzzy skin, more akin to an apricot than a peach, really. Best for fresh eating and wonderful for summer salads.
RED HYBRIDS – Easy to grow with a good sweet and tangy mix of flavor.
BIG BEEF: This hybrid red variety is one of the most popular grown in America. It is similar to Better Boy, but produces tastier fruit for us and far more uniformly. Its high yield of large, tasty fruit and natural disease resistance make it a solid choice as a low maintenance hybrid.
PARK’S WHOPPER: This amazingly disease resistant red variety is one of the main red tomatoes we grow in our own field. This tomato really has it all: it’s early, it’s productive, it’s juicy and flavorful, and the fruit are uniformly gorgeous. It’s a sturdy top pick, hands down.\
TASMANIAN CHOCOLATE: Every year we get asked what heirlooms grow best in containers, and this year we have an answer! The Tasmanian Chocolate is a cross between two heirlooms, making it more heirloom than hybrid, and a dark maroon red, making it more part of the "purple" class than red. They produce a dense fruit set, giving you more fruit on a smaller plant.
PURPLE HEIRLOOMS – Purples are prized for having the most robust flavor of any tomatoes.
CHEROKEE PURPLE: A top-pick tomato for flavor! This heirloom boasts maroon fruit with hues of purple and red. Unique not only in color, but also in taste, this rich and robust tomato it is a constant winner at tomato tastings. It also grows great in our area, with high yields of large fruit.
CARBON: This has quickly become a rival for all-time favorite flavor with Cherokee Purple. This heirloom boasts even deeper maroon fruit with that superb rich and robust flavor you can expect from a dark tomato. This is a constant winner of tomato tasting awards!
BLACK FROM TULA: This purple tomato is one of the best tasting and largest of the darker tomatoes we've grown. These are larger plants than the Cherokee Purple, so they need more space but will deliver more fruit. They maintain a rich dark brown shoulder when ripe, making them a beautiful slicer.
BERKLEY’S TIE DYE - If you want the beauty and taste of an heirloom, but need the ease and predictability of a hybrid, this is the tomato for you. The large, meaty fruit are actually bi-color, boasting deep maroon streaked with sage green. Vines are large, but not massive, and are prolific and reliable.
PINK HEIRLOOMS – Sweeter than purples but tangier than yellows, with more flavor than reds.
PRUDEN’S PURPLE - This tasty pink (I know…) is our top Brandywine replacement. The vines are far less disease prone and not as sprawling as many heirlooms, yet boast a massive set of crack-resistant fruit with the famously rich and sweet Brandywine flavor everyone loves.
GERMAN JOHNSON - This incredibly popular large-fruited pink heirloom has some of the sweetest fruit you’ll find. It is quite prolific, and vines keep producing late into the season. It’s resistant to cracking even in rainy seasons, which makes it a top pick for our summer storm prone area.
EARL'S FAUX - A pink heirloom with the sweetness of German Johnson but a touch more of the bite of Cherokee Purple. This potato leaf heirloom is more resistant to many of the common problems caused by the combination of dense foliage and high heat and humidity in our area.
BI-COLOR HEIRLOOMS: Bi-colors have a sweet, fruity taste and beautiful striped mix of colors.
MR. STRIPEY - A tried-and-true heirloom with streaks of yellow, orange, and red. Its popularity has endured for decades with its medium sized fruit that have a rich flavor that is sweet and just a little tangy in that fruity way.
HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE - It earned its name not only for its red and yellow streaks, but also for its fruity flavor. It delivers a robust blend of sweet and tangy in truly giant fruit that are always meaty, never mealy.
STRIPED GERMAN - This large red and yellow bi-color offers amazingly sweet and fruity tomatoes that will leave you asking for more. And it always offers more; we cherish this cultivar for its heat tolerance, crack resistance, and ability to produce huge meaty fruit even under summer stress.
YELLOW/ORANGE HEIRLOOMS – These are lower in acid, making them super sweet.
GOLDEN JUBILEE - This sweet, medium-sized cultivar has long been the "gold standard" for low acid heirlooms. It produces more smaller fruit compared to our other yellow heirlooms, which produce larger fruit but somewhat fewer in number.
KELLOGG’S BREAKFAST - This potato-leaf strand was first found by Va. Beach local Martha Hufford. Potato-leaf types do well in our area’s heat and humidity. The sweet golden heirlooms are large and flavorful, with a creamsicle-like taste and less acid, making them easier on the stomach.
PERSIMMON - First introduced here by Thomas Jefferson, this French heirloom boasts beautiful deep yellow/orange fruit that can be over a pound each. It’s super sweet and naturally low in acidity, so it is a great choice if you love tomatoes but your stomach does not.
- Tomatoes I couldn’t live without: Cherokee Purple, German Johnson, Hawaiian Pineapple, Park’s Whopper
- If you have problems growing tomatoes I recommend: Amelia, German Johnson, Juliet
- If you want a standard hybrid beefsteak– large and red with a mild flavor, go for: Big Beef or Amelia
- If you want to eat something right off the vine in the garden or on salads, you’ll like: Juliette, Peach, Black Cherry
- If you have problems digesting tomatoes, try: Persimmon, Kellogg’s Breakfast
- If you want something unique, plant: Peach, Tie Dye, Indigo Cherry Drop
- If you want giant fruit, the biggest are: Mortgage Lifter, Hawaiian Pineapple, Stripped German, and Persimmon