Yesterday it was a whopping 40 degrees here in Maine.
The sun was shining, the snow melted and I couldn’t help but walk around the yard and dream about this year’s garden.
It will be SO NICE to finally get rid of all the asphalt and concrete and weirdo parking spaces around us. We’ll gain a little more grass for Miss Lucy, plus some room for flower and vegetable beds too.
I haven’t decided yet if I’ll do raised beds or a regular garden but I do know one thing, I want to grow a lot of tomatoes this year.
Tomatoes for canning {especially my favorite salsa}, tomatoes for salads and if all goes well, some extra tomatoes to set out on the cart out front.
I’ve grown a lot of different kinds of tomatoes over the years but it’s still always hard when it comes time to decide which ones to order. What is your favorite tomato variety?
So far I’ve narrowed it down to:
Pink Bumble Bee {I love the color and flavor of these}
German Lunchbox
Chocolate Pear
Principe Borghese {salsa and sauce}
Martino’s Roma {salsa and sauce}
I think the only one on the list I haven’t grown before is the German lunchbox variety.
The last few years I’ve grown Black Krim and Purple Cherokee so I thought I’d focus on smaller tomatoes this year. I still might pick up one or two plants at the local nursery when they do their plant sale, we’ll see.
I’m also on the fence about sun gold tomatoes. When I grew them about 5-10 years ago, they were so sweet!! But the last few times I’ve grown sun golds they were duds. Not at all like they used to be.
I’m also on the hunt for 1 beefsteak tomato variety to grow this year. The pineapple tomato is one of my favorites but I want to try something new this year.
That’s the best part about vegetable gardening if you ask me. There are so many different varieties of every plant, it keeps you coming back for more.
Have you decided what tomatoes you’ll grow this year? Are you still working on your list, or have you ordered your seeds yet? Curious minds want to know.
~Mavis
Joely says
I absolutely love mountain magic tomatoes. They are larger than a cherry, full of flavor. They produce well into fall in my zone 6a garden and they are resistant to early and late blight.
Christa H. says
I have tried 100+ types of tomatoes grown from seed. I have a permanent list that I grow every year.
Mortgage lifter, Brandywine, and German Johnson for sandwich slicing.
Blackcherry and Pink bumblebee cherry tomatoes.
I finally found my favorite paste and it’s Juliet- they are small but PROLIFIC. I had more tomatoes than ever from this plant last summer and it was producing clusters in November, didn’t crack, and disease resistant. I grew over a hundred tomato plants last summer in 11 varieties. All were heirloom minus one Juliet and one Sungold.
This year I will plant probably 30 Juliet plants for sauces, canning, and roasting.
Erin says
The sungold plants we bought from at Broadway nursery in South Portland last year were the best I’ve ever had! All our neighbors loved them so much after we left them out for them to grab bowls of, they’d ask if they could come pick them themselves (it was a 6-pack of plants so we were overflowing with them). And for a slicer I always love a tie-dye variety. They’re so pretty & always taste great. Our house had raised beds when we bought it, but they’re old & falling apart. We’re replacing one or two a year now with the metal raised beds. Time will tell how they hold up in our coastal weather, but I’m tired of having to constantly repair the old wood beds.