Tomato Varieties and
Types of Tomatoes

There are hundreds of tomato varieties. From marble-sized grape or cherry tomatoes, to juicy salad tomatoes, meaty paste tomatoes, and huge, sweet, beefsteak tomatoes. Their colors range from deep crimson to orange, yellow, green, purple, and chocolate.

Tomato Varieties—‘Sweet Cluster’ © Steve Masley…Click IMAGE to Enlarge

Determinate Tomatoes are bush types that grow 2-3 feet (60-90cm) tall, then the buds at the ends of all the branches form flowers instead of leaves. They flower all at once, set and ripen fruit, then die.

Indeterminate Tomatoes are vining types that need caging or staking for support, but will continue to grow and set fruit until frost kills them. They’re generally later than determinate tomatoes, and produce larger crops over a longer period.

Indeterminate tomatoes set flowers on lateral shoots off the main stems. If trained to a single or double leader and given support, many indeterminate tomato varieties can reach 8-10’ (1.5-3m) tall.

For the home gardener, mixing types of tomatoes spreads the fresh tomato harvest over the longest possible season. Plant determinate or early indeterminate tomato varieties for early summer tomatoes, and salad or beefsteak tomatoes for mid- and- late-summer harvest. If you like thick, rich tomato sauces, be sure to include some paste tomatoes in the mix.

---

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Beefsteak
Hybrid vs Heirloom Tomatoes  |   Growing Tomatoes

---

Tomato Varieties by Type of Tomato

Cherry and Grape Tomatoes

Cherry Tomato Varieties— ‘Sweet 100’ © Steve Masley …Click IMAGE to Enlarge

If you’re growing tomatoes for the first time, or growing tomatoes in pots, Cherry Tomatoes are a good place to start. Cherry and grape tomatoes are small, usually less than 1” (2.5cm), and grow in large clusters.

Cherry tomatoes are generally the best choices for cool, alpine, or short-summer gardens, and small fruit size means they’re more suitable if you’re growing tomatoes in containers. They tend to have better disease resistance than larger tomato varieties, and they're more forgiving of drought stress and poor soil.

They’re also a hit with toddlers and kids, so if you’re trying to instill an appreciation for fresh foods in your kids, growing cherry tomatoes is a good start.

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Beefsteak  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Hybrid vs Heirloom
Growing Tomatoes

Salad Tomatoes

Heirloom Tomato Varieties—‘Pantano Romanesco’ © Steve Masley Click IMAGE to Enlarge

Salad Tomatoes form 2-3” (5-7.5cm) diameter fruit, perfect for slicing on sandwiches or chopping into salads. They’re usually a little tarter and juicier than cherry tomatoes or beefsteak tomatoes, with some acid to balance their sweetness. Some have undertones of tropical fruits.

Salad tomatoes make a great, quick tomato sauce, but if they're really juicy you'll have to cook them down to the right consistency.

Salad tomatoes have more cultivars than any other type of tomato. Here are a few favorites:

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Beefsteak  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Hybrid vs Heirloom
Growing Tomatoes

Beefsteak Tomatoes

Tomato Varieties—‘Caspian Pink’ © Steve Masley…Click IMAGE to Enlarge

Beefsteak Tomatoes produce large, heavy fruit. These are the big, thick, meaty tomatoes that are so prized for sandwiches—and one of the main reasons for growing tomatoes. Some varieties reach 6” (15cm) in diameter, and can weigh in from 1-3 lbs (0.45-1.4 kg).

Beefsteak tomatoes need a longer growing season and more heat than smaller varieties, so they may not be suitable for short-summer or cool-summer gardens.

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Beefsteak  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Hybrid vs Heirloom
Growing Tomatoes

Roma (Paste) Tomatoes

Roma (Paste) Tomatoes are dense Italian plum tomatoes like San Marzano, with sweet, firm flesh, high pectin content, not much juice, and few seeds…the perfect sauce tomato, since it thickens naturally and needs less cooking time to evaporate off excess moisture.

Their low moisture content gives them extended fresh storage time, and they’re great for drying or topping pizzas.

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Beefsteak  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Hybrid vs Heirloom
Growing Tomatoes

Hybrid vs. Heirloom Tomato Varieties

Hybrid Tomato— ‘Sweet Cluster’ © Steve Masley …Click IMAGE to Enlarge Buy 'Sweet Cluster' Seeds

Hybrid Tomato Varieties are bred for higher yields, disease resistance, ease of harvesting, or—in the worst case—extended shelf life.

Hybrid tomato varieties are crosses between different cultivars, and there’s little chance they’ll produce true to form from saved seeds—they usually revert to one of the parents, or some random combination of traits instead of the ones selected to increase yield and performance.

For decades, plant breeders and seed companies focused on producing tomatoes that work with large-scale, mechanized production. That meant determinate tomatoes, which are easier and more predictable to harvest, but they went a step further and selected for tomatoes with thick skins and less moisture.

The most egregious example is the “12-mile-an-hour” tomato. These “tomatoes” were bred to withstand the impact of the mechanical tomato harvester (12 miles per hour). They’re harvested just as they’re turning pink, and gassed with ethylene gas to give them a reddish color. Unlike any real tomato, these will last for months after harvest.

Heirloom Tomato Varieties—‘Brandywine Pink’ © Steve Masley…Click IMAGE to Enlarge

Such “tomatoes” are easier to harvest and get to market, so they gradually displaced better tomatoes in supermarkets, and consumers came to accept these mealy imposters because they had no other choice.

Fortunately, home gardeners have always had a choice. If a hybrid tasted great or produced prodigiously, they’d plant it, but if it was mealy and bland, they could ask Mrs. Potreli down the street for some seeds for those rambling, tasty tomatoes from her garden.

Heirloom tomato varieties, prized for superior flavor or excellent performance under local conditions, have been passed down through families or from neighbor to neighbor and saved for generations. Heirloom tomato varieties are “open-pollinated”, meaning they’ll reproduce true to form from saved seeds.

These juicy, thin-skinned beauties can’t be shipped long distances, so large-scale tomato farmers—and companies that supply them seed—ignored them. Fortunately, home gardeners and local farmers preserved many from extinction, and thanks to organizations like the Seed Savers Exchange, they’re now more widely available.

When I started growing tomatoes organically, farmers and seed companies were asleep at the switch, and we were losing tomato cultivars at an alarming rate. Planting hybrid tomatoes was considered immoral, a capitulation to agribusiness seed companies.

Now, with the rise of the chef-driven local foods movement and the revitalization of farmers markets and small-scale vegetable farming and gardening, heirloom tomato varieties are avidly pursued, not just preserved.

Some organic gardeners remain heirloom tomato purists, and turn their noses up at the thought of growing hybrid tomato varieties, or hybrid varieties of any vegetable.

I am not among them. I’ve always grown tomatoes in challenging, cool-summer climates, where a limited number of tomatoes will work. If an heirloom variety produces well in my climate, I’m happy to grow it, but I’m just as happy growing a hybrid tomato variety that produces bumper crops of delicious tomatoes.

Recommended Heirloom
Tomato Varieties

These are the heirloom tomato varieties I’ve grown, and can recommend (by type of tomato):

Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes: ‘Black Cherry’

Heirloom Salad Tomatoes: 'Pantano Romanesco', ‘Valencia’, ‘Stupice’, 'Black Zebra', and ‘Green Zebra’.

Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes: 'Cherokee Purple', ‘Brandywine Pink’, ‘Caspian Pink’, ‘Costoluto Genovese’, ‘Black Krim’, and ‘Hillbilly’.

Heirloom Paste Tomatoes: 'San Marzano'.

Descriptions of these varieties are found under each type of tomato, above.

Top of Tomato Varieties Page

Cherry  |   Salad  |   Beefsteak  |   Roma (Paste)  |   Hybrid vs Heirloom
Growing Tomatoes

---

Tomato Varieties  |   Starting Tomatoes from Seed
Growing Tomatoes  |   Tomato Hornworms  |   Other Tomato Pests
Tomato Diseases  |   Growing Heirloom Tomatoes
Growing Tomatoes in Cool-Summer Gardens

---