Package of Johnny's Selected Seeds
Package of Johnny's Selected Seeds
How to Choose the Right Tomato

Everything You Need to Choose the Right Tomato

Meticulously selected. The care with which we research, develop, and select our tomato line each year allows you to make choices right for your market. Enjoy old favorites and reliable performers, and explore new varieties that may hold great potential for your unique needs.

3 Ways to Choose the Right Tomato »


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3 Ways to Choose the Right Tomato

Give these three main factors consideration when choosing which tomato varieties you will grow:


Vegetative Growth Habit

The primary consideration when choosing your tomato varieties is the growth habit of the plants you want to grow.


Indeterminate, or vining types, continue to grow new leaves, shoots, and flowers for an indefinite time period (until frost or some other factor causes them to die).

  • Indeterminate growth habit requires more elaborate trellising methods to support the larger plant, and more labor to sucker and prune throughout the growing season.
  • As a direct result of the indeterminates' higher ratio of leaves to fruit cluster (>3:1), they tend to have better flavor than bush (determinate) types (<2:1).
Indeterminate Tomatoes

Determinate, or bush-type tomatoes, grow to a certain size and then divert their major energy stores away from vegetative growth toward fruit-ripening.

  • Determinate types have a better ratio of labor to production potential:
  • They are easier to contain because vegetative growth is less sprawling and concentrated to a shorter time period.
  • Fruits of determinate tomatoes ripen during a limited period of time, allowing for one or two main harvests.
Determinate Tomatoes

Where You Grow Your Tomatoes

The next consideration is where your plants will be grown — outside in the field or within an enclosed environment, such as a greenhouse or hoophouse.

  • If you are growing tomatoes in any type of structure, it is worthwhile to choose from varieties bred specifically for that purpose. The warmth and humidity that promote rapid plant growth in a heated greenhouse can also be favorable to fungi, bacteria, and other plant pathogens.
  • If you are growing in the field, you will want to choose varieties that are resistant to the disease pressures known to affect tomatoes to your area.
  • While browsing Johnny's tomato varieties, check for symbols that designate growth habit and other key information. Be sure to review the information tabs at the base of the product page for disease resistance, germination guides, cultivation and harvesting information, processing notes, and more.
Greenhouse Tomatoes

Tomato Rootstock from Johnny's

 
Helpful Rules of Thumb
Color
Yellow and orange tomatoes tend to be less acidic and milder-tasting than red and pink tomatoes.
Texture
Some people prefer the pulpier texture more closely associated with heirloom tomatoes, while others seek the firm texture commonly associated with greenhouse and determinate types.
Yield
Recognizing that yield is paramount to most growers, Johnny's selects and evaluates the marketable versus unmarketable yields of varieties our tomato line to determine the best overall combination of yield, flavor, and texture.

Fruit Characteristics

The quality everyone desires most in a tomato — flavor — seems to be the one that is most lacking in the standard American, grocery-store tomato. That makes the perfect home-grown or marketstand tomato a highly prized and sought-after commodity. But because preferences in tomato flavor, texture, and color are highly subjective, pleasing every palate and meeting the aesthetic ideals of every customer can seem a daunting, if not impossible goal.

Here at Johnny's, we follow a complex selection process expressly designed to make your tomato choices and growing easier and more succesful — to bring you the very best of the best. Each year we trial hundreds of tomato varieties — always placing a premium on flavor, while scrutinizing a host of additional factors that play into the tomato perfection equation: days to maturity, appearance, size, vigor, disease resistance, yield, cracking, blemishes, shelf life, and so much more.

 

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