2026 Tomato post. All the varieties I planted this spring have produced, so let's have some pics and notes! I'll have to add onto this in a reblog because there were more than 10 varieties, so look for that.
I'm not going to comment on the flavor both because individual preferences vary and because I don't like raw tomatoes (I know) which is what a lot of people want to know wrt flavor.
My ripening and holding setup. I've got lots of wildlife that like tomatoes, so I pick early and let them finish ripening inside. Also, all the paste tomatoes this year (sans one) are destined to become dehydrated tomatoes so I wait until I have enough to make it worth running the dehydrator.
First up is a pleated paste tomato, Rosso Sicilian. Supposed to be a semi-determinate/determinate, but while the fruit set fairly close in time, they are ripening more spread out than I'd like. I may throw them in the freezer until they're all done because this is the one destined for sauce. I have a food mill so the pleats are nbd. This one was grown in the in-ground bed using a Florida weave trellis (I had to add bamboo stakes to my T-posts because they grew 7' tall) and had good production. Two fruits got a little sunscalded during the heat wave.
Umberto's Pear tomato. The one in the upper left is fully ripe, but I love how the near-ripe fruits are a peachy pink color. Size-wise they're like a really large cherry tomato. Grown in an 18"x18" container with a central olla on my front porch, two plants per container. Support provided by a PVC trellis (four posts with connection at the top to make a tower plus holes drilled at 12" intervals for horizontal wires). Good production so far. No blemishes on fruit.
Tommy Toe cherry tomato. Larger cherry tomato. Grown in a large pot in the back with a support combination of tomato cage and extra ties attached to my clothesline post. Decorative sweet potato vine planted at the edges of the pot. Area is shaded in the morning. Good production. No blemishes on fruit.
Blush tomato. A paste-type but small—probably similar in volume to a large cherry tomato. Super pretty. Grown in the raised bed running along the sidewalk and tied to the wire fence trellis. Great productivity. Did suffer a little in the heat. The leaves are pretty fine, so not much help in shading the fruit. Luckily the plants had just finished their first flush of fruiting before the heat wave.
Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry cherry tomato. A larger cherry. This tomato is incredibly yellow—it glows from across the room. Grown in the in-ground bed with Florida weave trellising, but in the part-shade back row. Somewhat poor production, so probably not tolerating the part-shade very well—the plants themselves are fine, just not setting a lot of fruit.
Chocolate Cherry cherry tomato. A medium to small cherry (variable). Grown in a large pot in an identical setup as the Tommy Toe variety, just on the other side of the stairs (gets a little more sun). Very productive. I like the Black Cherry variety (not grown this year) a little better than this one, but not by much.
Martino's Roma paste tomato. Central tomato is fully ripe. Grown in two of the raised beds in the back—in the enclosed bed using overhead strung support and also at the end of a free-standing raised bed tied to a metal grid panel. Plants remain disease-free and weathered the heat wave without issue. Very productive. I think I may have found the Roma variety that works for me, hooray!
Evan's Purple Pear tomato. Roughly the size of a large cherry tomato. Potato-leafed variety. Grown in an identical setup as the Umberto's Pear variety. Good production. No issues.
Black Plum tomato. Wide variety in size of fruits. Grown in the enclosed raised bed in back on overhead string support. All plants got early blight and were pulled. This plus the variable fruit mean that I will not be growing this one again.
Stay tuned for the reblog for the rest of the varieties.
