Different types of tomatoes
Heirloom tomatoes are an old favorite with Cherokee Purple and Brandywine being amongst the most popular of these.
They are well known for their flavour and are great for the home gardener. The reason they are not generally available commercially (on supermarket shelves) is because of the need for robustness during transportation and the supermarkets need for a long shelf life. Consequently are maintained primarily due to the enthusiasm of the home gardeners who cultivate them from seed for their own purposes.
There are a few other options available to the home gardener and the list below represents a few of the popular ones: –
Alicante – good quality tomato generally with good disease resistance
Big Boy – very large fruit with an excellent texture, great for sandwiches
Eurocross A – a bit like Moneymaker but more vigorous and produces more fruit
Growers Pride (F1) – Great for the beginner, fruits early and useful for most things
Mandel (F1) – Good for disease resistance, dark red colour and can be used for a variety of things
Odine (F1) – Great for a small greenhouse with many uses
Tigerella – Yellow striped fruit, lots of flavour and is available early in the season
Vibelco – very disease resistant
Yellow Perfection – Lovely yellow fruit with great flavour and high quality fruit
The best tomatoes where you are
Obviously you need to take into account where you are in the world when selecting a tomato plant but you should be able to find something to suit from this list and can be reasonably confident you will have a good crop of tomatoes that you will enjoy.
