Five Tomatoes to Grow

Five varieties of tomatoes were planted in my garden this year. Clockwise from the biggest one, they are: Pink Brandywine (indeterminate), Mountain Fresh (determinate), Amish paste (indeterminate), Tommy Toe (indeterminate), and Bellstar (determinate).

Without compare, the Amish paste tomatoes were my favorite. They are incredibly bountiful and had almost no disease or pest problems, aside from a few cases of blossom-end rot. Being a meaty tomato, they made great tomato sauce, but they are heavenly in bruschetta and salsa, sliced up on sandwiches, or salted and eaten by themselves.

Tommy Toes were an easy second: large and flavorful cherry tomatoes. I only had two of these planted and they were plentiful. I'm sure there would have been even more, had I gotten them in the ground earlier and staked them higher.

Pink Brandywines were tasty, but they seemed to be the vine of choice for the hornworms and other pests. They all looked great when green (and made great fried green tomatoes) but most had some kind of decay or bug problem by the time they were ripe. I only harvested about a dozen of these tomatoes in total. The vines haven't been killed off by frost or anything yet, but I don't expect much in the later season.

Mountain Fresh and Bellstar both grew fine and had lots of fruit, but I think I got them planted in the ground too late. I was able to use some of the Bellstars in sauce and salads. The Mountain Fresh ones are nice, firm, round tomatoes, exactly what you expect a typical tomato to be, and they were tasty. But determinate tomatoes is that all their fruit ripens within the span of a couple weeks. Indeterminate varieties keep bearing fruit as long as they keep growing - even now some of the Pink Brandywine plants are blossoming. They require a bit more attention since they grow much taller and, ideally, should be pruned as they go, but the benefit of having fresh tomatoes for a prolonged period of time makes them the better choice for me.