All About Growing Tomatoes

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Illustration by Keith Ward
Try growing some of these beautiful tomato varieties in your vegetable garden (from left to right): ‘Green Zebra,’ ‘San Marzano,’ ‘Brandywine,’ ‘Cherokee Purple,’ ‘Mr. Stripey,’ ‘Juliet,’ ‘Yellow Pear’ and ‘Black Cherry.’ 

(For details on growing many other vegetables and fruits, visit our Crop at a Glance collection page.)

The exquisite flavor and irresistible juiciness of homegrown tomatoes put them at or near the top of most gardeners’ planting lists. Fruit size, color and flavor differ with each variety, but all tomatoes grow best under warm conditions. For the best flavor, provide fertile, organically enriched soil with a pH between 6.0 and 6.5, and plant your tomatoes in a site that gets plenty of sun.

Many organic gardeners include varieties of the following three types of tomatoes in their gardens each year. To ensure that you have some early ripening, disease-resistant tomatoes, and some with exceptional flavor, include hybrid (F1) and open-pollinated (OP) tomato varieties in your garden. Check out Growing Tomatoes to learn more.

Cherry Tomato Varieties & Salad Tomato Varieties

Cherry tomatoes and salad tomatoes produce small fruits in a rainbow of colors and an array of shapes, including round, pear-shaped and teardrop-shaped. Small fruit size gives these varieties an edge over diseases and weather-related problems. Most varieties mature early and have a long harvest period. Flavor differs by variety, but sweet, fruity taste is common in cherry tomatoes. Preserve by cutting in halves or quarters and drying.

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