Tomato Love & Favs

I will admit it. My FAVORITE thing to grow is tomatoes. I grow about 90 tomato plants each year in my garden. I am dreaming about tomatoes and cannot wait to start my babies again. You may call that obsessive or perhaps addictive and well, you would be right.

I have grown a number of tomatoes over the last 3 summers. Some were a disappointment and some I bring back for an encore each year.

I love growing roma tomatoes. Below are Granadero from Johnny’s. Along with San Marzano from High Mowing these two are my favorites for canning – whole, sauced, soup, pizza sauce and roasted. I will even halve these and freeze them. My garden would not be complete without them.

For little cherry type tomatoes I love Yellow Pear and Sakura. I have learned that I do not need more than 2 of each of these plants. They are prolific and give us more tomatoes for salads than we can eat and share. Yellow Pear do crack but we have not found that to be a deterrent. The Sakura are red and crack resistant and oh so sweet.

Below are Brandywine. I love they way they taste. I never get many from a plant, but I will continue to grow them.

One of my all time favs are my Purple Cherokees. I typically pick them fairly green and let them ripen in the house. If I leave them on the vine until they are purple, the bugs seem to find them. AND the bugs love them as much as me! So I grab first. I share these with my friends and they come back for more.

A couple years ago I started also ordering from Seeds from Italy. I wish I could have located a picture today but I could not. You will have to take my word that some of these tomatoes are 3 + pounds, very meaty with few seeds. They paste and sauce really well. I have ordered Pomodoro Ace and Pomodoro Red Pear. I will continue to plant these in my garden. I will warn you that these plants grow and grow and grow (they are indeterminate). My rows are 4 feet apart and I cannot walk through these after they get going.

I tried the Indigo Rose last year and found them to be so-so. They are really pretty as they are purple and green and about 2 – 3 inches. But I felt they looked better than they tasted. I will add one of these in the garden this year but not more than that. The verdict is still out on whether they will be a returning plant each year.

I also planted, after many recommendations, Green Zebras last year. Yum and yum! BUT I planted way too many; these babies put out a BUNCH of tomatoes. Two plants will get planted this year. These will be a returning plant year after year; pretty and yummy is a combo you have to go with!

I will try a couple new ones this year simply because I cannot resist!

My most favorite tomato however is the one that I can slice