What kind of tomatoes do I grow?

My main crop is Better Boy. Why? The Ortho book "All About Vegetables" says this about it: "Main crop, 12 to 16-ounce uniform fruit. Heavy cropper, Rugged." It sounded good to me 8 years ago and Better Boy have performed very well for me.

In a cherry tomato, I used to grow Super Sweet 100 but the plants would grow wild. Lots and lots of stems, and also lots of tomatoes! It's hard to keep it pruned to one main stem (or two) like you're supposed to do with tomato plants. The darn thing would just grow every which way!

My friend Andy from work has a daughter, and she is quite the horticulturalist. She's even written articles on the subject! A couple of years ago she sent me a Sweet Baby Girl cherry tomato plant, and that was great! The taste of Super Sweet 100, if not better, and a more manageable plant. The fruits are a little larger too, which never hurts. The Sweet Baby Girl has become my cherry tomato of choice.

I also grow Marglobe, a medium-size tomato with a sort of pinkish/purplish color like Brandywine but a little less fussy than Brandywine. Both of them are delicious, probably the best tasting tomatoes I've grown, but they are somewhat problematical to grow. Sometimes they get rot, sometimes the fruits are misshapen, sometimes they crack early. I put maybe 4 Marglobe out in the garden but I don't rely on good luck with them. I rely on the Better Boys and if the Marglobes do well then it's a bonus.

4th of July is an early tomato, about twice the size of a cherry tomato. A better name might be 20th of July, because they are never ready for me on the 4th! But they are tasty, early, and a decent cropper.

Next, I'll post about the Pixie tomato.