I plant 5 tomatoes every season, and have been tracking which ones I like and do well for me. I now have a pretty good wish list, and I buy started plants rather than mess around with seeds. Which can make it difficult to find what I am looking for. I have a rather marginal short-season window for tomatoes so usually try to find ones that will mature quicker, not crack, and have good flavor. I use these all for fresh eating, usually hand to mouth.

Here are this season's choices, only two of which are repeats:

Sweet Million - I usually plant this every year. Have tried other red cherries, but this is my go-to and is readily available. Other red cherries I've liked are Sweet Baby Girl (great name) and Sweet Mojo. Couldn't find either one, so went with Million.

Sun Sugar - I find this one about the same flavor-wise as Sun Gold, but find Sun Sugar is way less prone to cracking. Harder to find.

Pineapple - new for me this year.

Trucker's Favorite - new for me this year. I was looking for Bloody Butcher, but couldn't find it anywhere. The name sold me on this one, and I need a red salad type.

Black Krim - new for me this year. I have so far not been sold on the brown/purple tomatoes, but am trying yet again based on folks who seem to swoon over them. I was actually searching (and searching) for either Lemon Drop or Lemon Cherry but couldn't find either one and the tomato plants are getting kind of picked over so I just rolled with Black Krim.

So, my little tomato patch is now all planted out with marigolds at their feet, as well as a couple tomatillos.

Bonehead said:I plant 5 tomatoes every season, and have been tracking which ones I like and do well for me. I now have a pretty good wish list, and I buy started plants rather than mess around with seeds. Which can make it difficult to find what I am looking for. I have a rather marginal short-season window for tomatoes so usually try to find ones that will mature quicker, not crack, and have good flavor. I use these all for fresh eating, usually hand to mouth.

Here are this season's choices, only two of which are repeats:

Sweet Million - I usually plant this every year. Have tried other red cherries, but this is my go-to and is readily available. Other red cherries I've liked are Sweet Baby Girl (great name) and Sweet Mojo. Couldn't find either one, so went with Million.

Sun Sugar - I find this one about the same flavor-wise as Sun Gold, but find Sun Sugar is way less prone to cracking. Harder to find.

Pineapple - new for me this year.

Trucker's Favorite - new for me this year. I was looking for Bloody Butcher, but couldn't find it anywhere. The name sold me on this one, and I need a red salad type.

Black Krim - new for me this year. I have so far not been sold on the brown/purple tomatoes, but am trying yet again based on folks who seem to swoon over them. I was actually searching (and searching) for either Lemon Drop or Lemon Cherry but couldn't find either one and the tomato plants are getting kind of picked over so I just rolled with Black Krim.

So, my little tomato patch is now all planted out with marigolds at their feet, as well as a couple tomatillos.

I agree that Sweet Million is a good one. Tastes wonderful and the tomatoes never stop.

And Sun Sugar also cracks less for me than Sungold. Both taste pretty much the same though. This year I have planted both Sun Sugar and Sungold.

Black Krim is a difficult tomato to grow well. For me it always cracks WAY before it is anywhere near ripe and then proceeds to rot.

Rita, it will be interesting to compare SunSugar and SunGold side by side - let us know your results. I too find them about the same tastewise but have better yield and less cracking with Sugar.

I know going into it that Black Krim will be a challenge. I just keep trying those purply tomatoes to see if any grab my fancy. So far not, but maybe this will be the one.

Deb, if you ever do find Bloody Butcher I recommend it -- it's always been the first to ripen in my garden, the tomatoes are a little larger than a golf ball, and the skin is thin (unlike some others that I've grown that are similar), also with good flavor, at least IMO.

I grew Bloody Butcher last year and really liked it. But, I forget where I got it, and have tried all my local nurseries to no avail. This year, I am making a note of WHERE I get my tomato plants. Usually I find heirlooms to be weird shapes, weird colors, prone to cracking, and/or poor producers -- but this one was a real winner for me. Here's a snapshot from last year. Good flavor, good production, nice color, and just a bit of cracking. Plus, what a great name!

I thought I'd do a bit of research to figure out how Bloody Butcher got its name, and now I'm now 100% that is even what I grew last year. My fruit were definitely larger than a golf ball, more of a small salad size. They also had some lobing at the top, and most of the photos I'm seeing seem to be pretty smooth. My only other choice for that year that would fit a red tomato would be Moskvich and my notes just said I didn't get very many of those. Maybe I got my labels mixed up. Or the plant was mislabeled to begin with. What do you tomato people think?

Sorry, now I am totally confused. I've looked at images for both Bloody Butcher and Moskvich and my photo could be either one of them. I guess I'll go with my initial label (BB) unless someone can convince me otherwise (I keep good notes of what is planted where and use different colored supports for each tomato, so kind of hard to get that mixed up).

On another note, I've read many times that comfrey is a great mulch for tomatoes. I've just dug and watered all my tomatoes in, along with marigolds at their feet AND my comfrey just did its first flop of the season. I lopped off most of the leaves and tossed to the chickens, but am planning to run the remainder through the lawnmower to shred, then will use that as a mulch for the tomato bed. Has anyone ever done this?

Mystery tomatoes!!

A long time tomato growing friend, now passed away, introduced me to BB a dozen years ago. It was her pride and joy early producer of salad sized tomatoes. Flavor was OK for and early.

I try to grow some new to me varieties of tomatoes each season. Some years there are many new ones and other years not so much.

This year I cut back on the number of tomato plants growing so didn't try out too many new ones. But I have Vinson Watts, Rose De Bern and Ron's Carbon Copy.

Those first two are slicers but Ron's Carbon Copy is one of those larger cherry types. And it is one of the black or dark tomatoes. Supposed to taste just like the larger Carbon but since I have never had Carbon I guess I will not be able to judge.

Deb -- if your remember what the leaves of your tomato plant were like, Bloody Butcher is a "potato-leaf" type while Moskvich has "regular" leaves (according to the database, anyway; I've never grown Moskvich).

No clue on the leaves. I plant my tomatoes real close together and they just kind of grow into each other. These two had two others between them though and I know I picked the tomato in the photo from Bloody Butcher (it was right next to a water faucet) - just now wondering the plant may have been mismarked. In which case I'll have no clue what it was. This tomato was a salad size and I don't recall that it grew in a cluster, although it could have been a small cluster (like 3). It's all kind of fuzzy.

Planted a nice Kellogg's Breakfast tomato this morning. It was going to be the last tomato for this year but II think there is room for 3 more. I love experimenting with different varieties and love to have plenty to give away and my Daughters family loves fresh salsa which her Husband makes. Sounds like I'm trying to justify my OCD......

Paul2032 said:Planted a nice Kellogg's Breakfast tomato this morning. It was going to be the last tomato for this year but II think there is room for 3 more. I love experimenting with different varieties and love to have plenty to give away and my Daughters family loves fresh salsa which her Husband makes. Sounds like I'm trying to justify my OCD......

No justifying needed for planting extra tomato plants. Nothing bets going out and picking nice fresh from the garden tomatoes to eat.

Have you grown Kellogs Breakfast before? That is one I have yet to try.

Rita....I haven't grown the Kellogg's Breakfast before so I'll be looking forward to trying it and reporting. I gave into my tomato weakness and went to another good local nursery this afternoon and came home with 4 more. The had a nice selection of healthy plants at fair prices.......One is a nice plant of Sun Sugar which I have grown before and recommend very highly. The other 3 are Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, and one called Anna's Orange(?). Looking at the comments about them on the web they seem to be mostly positive or neutral. I so enjoy watching the plants grow, set fruit, ripen, and having a taste. Something to look forward to this summer Next week I need to make some tomato cages.

I've been "surfing the net" and reading tomato reviews and wonder if my Anna's Orange may be Amana Orange. The penmanship on the hand written tag isn't clear. I may go Monday and look at the other tags.

I think it is Amana Orange. And you should really like Sun Sugar.

I saw something today extolling the virtues of "Grafted Tomatoes," Has any one had any experiences. Would you recommend them?

I've seen them advertised, but have no experience with them myself. Someone here on the site was experimenting (or planning to) with grafting tomatoes; I'll see if I can find that thread.

I haven't found what I was originally thinking of, but this thread might be of interest:
The thread "Grafted Tomatoes" in Vegetables and Fruit forum

as well as this article: article: https://garden.org/learn/artic...