I prefer to break tomato varieties into various categories according to their uses.
The most popular of all types are the huge sweet slicing tomatoes, commonly grown in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley and in Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. Old-fashioned field tomatoes, like ‘Beefsteak’ and ‘Stokesdale’, were in a class by themselves with fabulous aroma and flavour.
They can still be found but today there are newer varieties with far more disease tolerance, earlier ripening times, huge easy-to-slice oval shapes and still great flavour.
One of the largest is ‘Beefmaster F1’, weighing in anywhere from 340-560g and maturing in 70 to 81 days.
It’s also very tolerant of cracking and peeling. A slightly lighter weight beauty, ‘Big Beef F1’ checks in at only 284-340g but it has almost twice the yield. It’s also very disease resistant. ‘Beefsteak’ is still available but it is now classified as an heirloom variety. The Burpee Seed Company has come up with very flavourful big guys, called ‘Steakhouse’ (0.7-1.8 kg) and ‘Porterhouse’ (0.9-1.8 kg). They are the biggest of the big.
Believe it or not, the best selling large round tomato is ‘Better Boy F1’. Weighing about 227g, it is flavourful and very disease resistant. The old, well-known Burpee ‘Big Boy F1’ is still a good variety with handsome fruits sizing up to 227-255g.
There’s a new series of modern mid to large tomatoes today that are shorter, more compact and ready in about two months. An All-American Selection winner, ‘Celebrity’ (72 days-D) produces large very smooth round 227g tomatoes with great flavour on very compact plants. ‘
Bush Champion’ (65 days-D) is another compact variety growing only 60cm but producing plenty of 250-340g wonderfully round tasty fruit. An oldie but still a goodie, ‘Super Fantastic’ and now ‘Mega Fantastic’ (70 days-I) are powerhouses of production with lots of 284g fruits right through until frost. These mid-season and mid to larger sized tomatoes are the mainstay for so many folks with smaller space gardens. Offering superb production, their flavour is excellent and the quality of their fruit is high.
The standard of early tomatoes for years has been ‘Early Girl F1’ (60 days-I). It’s the earliest slicing 113-170g tomato and I know for many folks, it’s the only tomato they grow.
Today, tomatoes are the number one garden vegetable in North America and with so many types and flavours available, I think they’ll stay on top for some time to come. I know lots of tomatoes have already been planted but there’s still plenty of time if you want to try a few more.
