GardenMaid| Which Tomato Should You Grow?

Which Tomato Should You Grow?

Tomatoes are easy to grow from seed if you have a place to start the seed about six weeks before you want to plant them outside. If you aren't growing an heirloom tomato or you don't need a lot of plants, it may be simpler to just purchase your tomato plants.

After you have determined the type of tomato you wish to grow, whether growing from non-heirloom seed or buying plants there are a few additional things you need to consider for best results.

If you are buying plants, try to pick out healthy looking plants with no yellowing or speckling on the leaves (fusarium or leaf spot). Look for stocky, un-wilted plants. Seed packets and plant tags usually have a series of letters on the label. These letters indicate the plants resistance to disease:
A - Alternaria leaf spot
F - Fusarium wilt
FF - Race 1 & Race 2 Fusarium
L - Septoria leaf spot
N - Nematodes
T - Tobacco mosaic virus
V - Verticilium wilt

So a tomato with a VFNT code is resistant to verticilium wilt, fusarium wilt, Nematodes and tobacco mosaic virus. The resistance tobacco mosaic virus does not mean that it is safe to use tobacco products around your plants. Always wash your hands after using tobacco products BEFORE you work near your tomatoes. Never use the organic pest control, tobacco tea, anywhere near your tomatoes.

Which one to pick? This is going to depend a lot which part of the country you're from. Celebrity, Big Boy and its prodigy Better Boy are well known just about everywhere. My personal favorite hybrid is Parks Whopper. It retains much of the flavor some of the heirlooms while having great disease resistant qualities. For the early season, it is hard to beat an early girl. To get the best plants for your area you are going to have to do your research locally. Buy some tomatoes at the local farmers market and ask what you are buying. Most of the farmers enjoy the conversation and are happy to talk with you.

The F1 hybrid tomatoes that are suited to your area tend to be good choice for the home garden. F1 hybrid tomatoes are the result of breeding programs, F1 being a designation of first generation crosses between two good tomatoes to get a better one. Most of the modern tomatoes fall into this category. If the full truth was known, probably a lot of the heirlooms do also. A well know example would be the giants like Beefsteak from which Big Beef (Big Boy x Beefsteak) and Beef Master were bred.

More Articles in this Section

●Planting Your Tomato
●Tomato Types