Tomatoes I Have Grown From Seeds

Starting tomatoes from seed is one of my favorite early spring projects. It’s inexpensive, easy, and a reminder during April snowstorms that summer really is coming. Part of the fun of starting tomatoes from seed is trying new varieties. It's also fun to give away "extra" plants to my coworkers or neighbors, so I always start too many.

Here’s a brief run-down of some I've tried. Most have an indeterminate growth habit, which means they need tomato cages or staking.

Italian plum tomatoes are a fixture in the garden because they are great for cooking, sauces, and freezing. I don’t have time to bother with canning, so I freeze my surplus tomatoes whole in zippered plastic bags. When I need some for soup or chili, I defrost them in the microwave, and hit the bag with a rolling pin a few times. Voila! I have crushed tomatoes.

When I first grew Roma 10 years ago, I didn’t know I could find them at the garden center. This is a fleshy, mild-flavored Italian-type plum tomato. They are not juicy. I still grow these, but I now buy the plants at my local nursery. Yields are almost always high, and I have had no disease problems. According to Wikipedia, this is the type of plum tomato usually found in supermarkets. However, home-grown tomatoes are much more flavorful than those from the store.

Two years ago, I tried Health Kick. This is one of the high-lycophene tomatoes, which supporters tout as having cancer-fighting properties. While I’m skeptical of health claims for food, Health Kick had a stronger, richer flavor than Roma. Fruits were typical plum tomatoes, about 3 to 5 inches long and more oval than round. Health Kick was available at some garden centers last year. My yields were good, though perhaps slightly lower than for Roma.

My kids love to eat small cherry or grape tomatoes straight off the vine, and I usually include these. If I have room, I choose a red and a yellow variety.

I first started growing Juliet many years ago and grew it from seed although it’s now possible to buy plants at some garden centers. Juliet was quite productive. Fruits look like small Italian plum tomatoes. They are larger than the grape tomatoes at the grocery store, ranging in size from one inch to three inches long.

Sweet Million, a variation on the popular Sweet 100, produces very small (1 inch or less) round fruits on each plant. Fruits are sweet, with a strong, rich, tomato flavor. It is worth the effort to grow from seed, and my one of my kids’ favorite tomatoes. Another kid-pleasing sweet cherry tomato is Sugary. Fruits are oval, with pointed ends.

Yellow tomatoes are often less sweet and more acidic than the sweet red cherry tomatoes. They also have a milder tomato flavor; some Internet reviewers describe them as "bland." Yellow Pear contrasts nicely with red cherry tomatoes in a salad. Fruits are broader at the blossom end than at the stem end. Ildi, another yellow tomato, produced lots of oval fruits in my garden.

Many people love Brandywine for its strong tomato flavor. However, I found that yields were lower in my garden than for other varieties. One year, I got only two or three tomatoes on a plant. But yes, they did taste fantastic.

This year, I started Sugary, Ildi, Yellow Pear, and a new variety, Peron Sprayless.