All Tomatoes
Great and Small
Tomato Collection Contents
Base
$75
- 6 Tomatoes (lots of varieties to choose from!)
- 3 Sweet Italian Basil plants
- Scallions
- 3 pollinator-friendly flowering plants
Add-Ons
Individually Priced
Some great flowers, herbs and specialty vegetables such as eggplants, husk cherries, Holy basil, and zinnias.
Other Collections
Build Your Own Summer
Design your own collection for your perfect home vegetable garden!
Includes a BASE collection of greens and flowers and a long list of ADD-ONS so you can design your own ideal collection.
Salsa
If you love to make fresh salsa, home-made pizza, or tomato based sauces, this is the collection for you!
Choose from a variety of tomatoes, and hot and sweet peppers, or choose a tomatillo for salsa verde. You will also get lots of great plants for seasoning: a mess of scallions, chives, 2 clumps of cilantro plants, and 3 sweet basil plants.
2023 Tomato Varieties
CHERRY
Sweet and yummy for salads, pizzas, sundried tomatoes, or snacking. Cherry tomatoes tend to be very productive and more tolerant of a bit less sun than larger tomatoes. They will start producing earlier and go later in the fall than most other large tomatoes. All varieties we offer are indeterminate and will need cages or trellising. Cherry tomatoes grow well in the ground or in 5-7 gallon containers.
SUNGOLD: sweet orange cherry; easy to grow; large, productive, healthy plants; produce early and all the way until a hard frost
MATT’S WILD CHERRY: Wildly vigorous plants that produce loads of tiny red cherry tomatoes; very strong, rich flavor.
BLACK CHERRY: Round purple cherry tomatoes with fantastic sweet smokey flavor; large, healthy plants; look great mixed in with other cherries.
WASHINGTON CHERRY: First-early determinate plants, classic red cherry tomato, thick walls hold well on the plant and on the counter
JULIET: Red grape tomato
RED CENTIFLOR: Semi-determinate (smaller than Matt’s Wild Cherry); highly productive with loads of small red tomatoes
YELLOW PEAR: Super cute bright yellow, pear-shaped cherry tomatoes make an exciting and sweet addition to any salad. Plants are vigorous, indeterminate and highly productive
BOULDER KNOLL PINK:
PINK VERNISSAGE:
Paste / Sauce
These tomatoes are meatier than slicers with small or no cores and very little juice and seeds. They tend to be higher acidity and appropriate for making sauces, salsa and other can-able products.
AMISH PASTE: large heirloom plum tomatoes great for sauces, cooking or salads.
SAN MARZANO: The classic paste, well-known for being one of the best tasting sauce tomatoes.
ITALIAN HEIRLOOM: 2021 was our first year trying these out and we were thrilled with how early and productive the plants were. It is an heirloom with huge round meaty fruits for sauces or slicing. (picture on left)
Slicers
Slicing tomatoes are large, juicy and sweet. You can use these for sandwiches, salads, or just sliced with some salt and pepper. These also make a delicious addition to sauces, but if you’re canning them make sure you test your pH because these tend to be on the sweeter side. Click on the name for a link to see pictures of each variety.
Pol-Big: a delicious, early, round red slicing tomato, determinate (doesn’t need much support), very reliable
Valencia: a sweet orange slicing tomato, very satisfying flavor, indeterminate
Green Zebra: a beautiful yellow-green medium-small tomato with a rich flavor, indeterminate
Pineapple: heirloom, large fruits, yellow with red streaks, indeterminate
Pruden’s Purple: heirloom; delicious, large fruits; rich dark crimson color; similar to brandywine but earlier and more resistance to disease; indeterminate
Brandywine: heirloom, red, large plant, some say the most delicious, indeterminate
Beefsteak: heirloom, BIG fruits, red, meaty, delicious! indeterminate
Paul Robeson: heirloom, dark red-purple large slicer with a dark green top, slightly smoky and very sweet, semi-determinate (smaller plants).
Striped German:
Cherokee Green:
German Johnson:
Garden Peach:
Planting Guide
Space tomatoes 24”-30” apart along a sturdy trellis or with large cages for support. We’ll have some trellis ideas coming soon.
- Tomato plants will grow roots from their stems, so to have a well anchored plant, you’ll want to plant it deep. If there are branches on the bottom 2/3 of the plant, snip them off with sharp, clean scissors and bury the plant leaving the top 1/3 above ground. If your bed isn’t deep enough, you can actually plant your tomato sideways/diagonal with the top leaves out of the ground. After a few days the top leaves will begin to straighten out and grow upright.
Put a hefty handful of compost and a scattering of nitrogen amendment like alfalfa meal or pellets (if you have it) in with each tomato plant.
Tomatoes love to be in a very sunny spot and appreciate regular deep watering every few days.
Indeterminate varieties will need very sturdy support of a trellis or large cages. Check out this video for a few great trellis ideas for rows of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squashes. The little cages from hardware stores are too flimsy for indeterminate tomatoes. Here’s another video with ideas on how to make your own from fencing material.
Pruning & Maintenance
Large, indeterminate tomatoes can get huge and unwieldy really fast! Tomatoes are susceptible to lots of pests and diseases and heavy, full plants can be more prone to getting fungal infections such as “Early Blight” and “Late Blight.” These plants benefit from being pruned as they grow because it allows for more airflow around and through the leaves. Pruning involves removing lower leaves that are sprayed with dirt when it rains and also removing the suckers that grow from the “arm pits” of each new branch. Each sucker will grow into a whole new branch. One or two growing branches make for a healthy productive plant. Watch this video for an excellent tutorial about pruning.
Watering
Tomatoes should be watered deeply every day while they’re becoming established as seedlings. After they begin pushing out new growth, water deeply every 2-3 days (more if it’s VERY dry weather or windy). Tomatoes do not like to have their leaves wet, so sprinkler watering is not recommended. It’s better to water by hand right at the root or with a drip irrigation system (for about 2-3 hrs). When watering by hand, put your spray nozzle on shower or soaker and water for 10-20 seconds. If the water begins to run off, water for 5 seconds in 3-4 rounds.
Harvest
Tomatoes grow from little yellow flowers that grow in small clusters.
Most tomatoes start out green and gradually get color starting at the blossom-end (the bottom). Many of our tomatoes are not the normal red color so make sure you get a good reference for your specific varieties! For best flavor, harvest your tomatoes when they are as close to ripe as possible.
However, there are some considerations that can change the timing of harvest. Most varieties of tomato need consistent watering to ripen evenly and resist splitting. If your tomato is coming along nicely and is almost ripe: check the weather forecast! If you will be having dry weather and watering by hand consistently, let that fruit ripen “on the vine.” If you are about to receive lots of rain, however, you would be better off harvesting your almost-ripe fruits and letting them ripen upside-down on your kitchen counter.
As the season gets cooler in the Fall, your fruits may ripen slower. About 2 or 3 weeks before the first frost date, we “top” our plants. By clipping the top growing tip off of the plants we are telling them to ripen what they have rather than continuing to grow and flower.
If there is a chance of hard frost and you still have loads of unripe fruit on your plants, pick them to ripen on your countertop. Any that don’t ripen can be used to make chutney or fried green tomatoes.
Tomato Issues
Heirloom varieties can tend to form “fused” flowers that will grow into large weird-shaped fruits that are called “cat-face.” You can pinch off the huge flowers if they have 3 or more fused together to prevent these huge buggers.
Blossom-end rot is caused by cool soils, uneven watering and/or Calcium deficiency. If the fruit is ripe on the vine with this yucky rot on one side, you can in fact cut off the rotten side and eat the other side–it doesn’t tend to spread quickly into the fruit. Check out this article or this one for more info about this problem.
Here is a PDF from the University of California with a list of common tomato issues and solutions.