Our Tomato Plants

What types of tomatoes will I plant in my garden this year?

From mid May to early July, we offer a wide range of tomato plants for your garden, greenhouse or container. Our heirloom and hybrid varieties are mostly from local seed companies, or from seeds we saved ourselves, so their names may not be familiar to you. Here we offer variety descriptions and planting suggestions which we hope will help you grow exactly the tomatoes you would like to see in your garden, and perhaps even experiment a little.

TOMATO TYPES WE GROW

Slicing Tomatoes
Yellow Tomatoes
Paste Tomatoes
Sandwich Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Large Tomatoes
Small Tomatoes
Early Tomatoes

A word about types

The above tomato types are not mutually exclusive, in that some tomatoes fit in more than one category, such as our golden paste tomatoes or yellow pear cherries.

There are several ways of classifying tomatoes. There are vining [indeterminate] vs. bush [determinate]. There are paste vs. slicing. There are regular vs. cherry. Some tomatoes are hybrids, others heirlooms. And of course, large vs. small.

Lets look first at the way the plant grows. Tomato vines that keep on growing longer and longer until frost kills them are called indeterminate, because it is indetermined how long the plant will grow. These are often grown on a trellis (NOT just a cage!). They will typically get six or eight feet long during a season, and may have many productive suckers which may be pruned off for earlier and larger fruit. Plants which have vines that grow only a few feet before ending in a flower cluster are called determinate. They are smaller plants, but yield just as well since they have productive suckers which grow a few feet before also ending in a flower cluster. And the suckers have suckers, and so on. Determinate varieties are often grown in cages to support them.

Trellising and caging are done to keep the tomato fruits off the ground and hence cleaner and less prone to insect and rodent damage. However, many folks [like us!] grow both kinds on the ground. Mulching the ground with plastic or hay keeps the fruit off the ground and helps retain soil moisture.

Paste tomatoes have less juice, making them easier to use for making sauces and tomato paste, since they cook down more quickly. However, their flavor is good as any, and their less juicy interiors make them ideal for sandwiches and salads. All our paste tomatoes are determinates.

Slicing tomatoes are "regular tomatoes", real chin-wetters when you bite into them.

Cherry tomatoes are a whole separate type of tomato, higher in sugars than non-cherry types. They are sweeter just before becoming fully ripe; more tomatoey flavored when fully ripe. Generally ½ to 1 inch in diameter, cherries tend to grow in clusters like grapes. All our cherries are indeterminate types (large plants) and heavy producers.

We refer to large tomatoes as anything larger than a baseball, some being large enough to more than cover a slice of bread. As a rule, larger tomatoes are later than smaller ones, though there are important exceptions. Small tomatoes (tennis ball to golf ball size) tend to ripen earlier and produce more fruit than larger varieties.

Heirloom tomatoes are varieties that have been handed down for generations of gardeners. Someone years ago discovered a great tomato and started a long line of seed saving that has lasted to this day. Since tomatoes tend to self-pollinate, there is very little cross-fertilization caused by insects, so it is easy to keep varieties distinct. You may save seeds from any variety labeled heirloom and know that next year you will get the same tomato. Almost all heirlooms are indeterminate.

Hybrids are varieties that have been purposely crossed to produce offspring with a desired features. Crossing must be done by hand, making the seed somewhat more expensive. Hybrids are often referred to as F1, meaning first generation. Second generations of hybrids tend to go off-type, so saving a hybrids seeds will give a wide range of tomatoes, few of which will be like the F1 parent.

Potato-leaf versus regular-leaf tomatoes. Some tomatoes, mainly some heirlooms, have what is called "potato leaves", leaves shaped very much like those of a potato plant. These generally are producers of large tomatoes, and are slightly more likely to cross with each other than regular-leaf tomatoes, in case you are saving your seeds. Any such crossing has no affect on the current year's tomato crop.

Needless to say, any one tomato variety will fall into more than one of these categories.

Our Varieties

Paste Tomatoes.

Hogheart. An heirloom paste tomato we have been saving seed from since 1985. Five to seven inches long and pointed, hogheart is the size of a banana, with excellent flavor, fresh or cooked. Determinate. Mid-August.
Snakeroot Golden Arrow. A golden yellow paste tomato that makes a lighter colored sauce or can add color to salads and salsas. We have breeding these ourselves since 2001, selecting for large long tomatoes with a shape similar to the Hogheart tomato. Currently about a quarter of the tomatoes produced are the long heavy ones we are aiming for, the rest being long and thin or plum shaped like a Roma tomato.

Cherry Tomatoes. All our cherry tomatoes grow large plants with grape-like clusters of fruits. Though not especially early, any of them will give you the keys to tomato heaven!

Yellow Pear Cherry. A teardrop shaped indeterminate heirloom, grows up to ten feet high trellised in our greenhouse. A color treat with mild flavor.
Red Pear Cherry. Like Yellow Pear, only red, and fruits tend to be somewhat larger, with more tomato flavor.
Gardeners Delight. An indeterminate heirloom producing one-inch round fruits of outstanding rich sweet flavor. Tendency to crack in rainy weather or if overwatered.

Early Tomatoes. Who can wait for that first tomato picked from the garden? Although not the most prolific producers by the end of the season, early varieties are the first to provide you with that long-awaited treat.

Moskvich. From our own organic seeds. This cold tolerant indeterminate heirloom is a real taste treat. Its tennis ball to baseball sized early juicy tomatoes are usually the first tomato we bring to market. Moskvich starts producing large tomatoes, and keeps up until frost with gradualy diminishing sizes, but still good flavor. Starts early August.
New Girl. From Fedco Seeds, this is an improved Early Girl, begins to ripen in early August and continues into September. Fruit are billiard-ball size, firm, red, and flavorful. An excellent choice for eating out of hand. Heavy yielder.
Heart. Received from an Italian tomato breeding hobbyist, we now produce our own orgnaic seed. These unusual large heart-shaped pink tomatoes rival Pruden's Purple for flavor and texture. Second early and very productive.
Daybreak. Our favorite early tomato in 2000's wet cool season. Surprisingly large for a mid August tomato, its hard to hold two in one hand. Not susceptible to cracking or blossom end defects. Determinate hybrid. Early August.

Midseason and Late Tomatoes. The reason for growing some later varieties is that they produce nicer and larger tomatoes than the early varieties.

Red Sun. A determinate crack-resistant hybrid producing large beautiful tomatoes. Perfect to follow Daybreak. Late August into September.
Prime Time. From organic seeds, this mid-season hybrid from Harris Seeds is similar to Red Sun altho slightly smaller, baseball sized. A heavy producer of beautiful firm beefsteak tomatoes.
Lillian's Yellow. From our own organic seeds. This indeterminate heirloom grows very large rich tasting tomatoes, some irregular, some perfect. Less acid than red varieties. A pretty addition to salads. Early September until frost.
Pruden's Purple. From our own organic seeds. An indeterminate heirloom producing large irregular pink fruit about three weeks earlier than Brandywine, which it resembles. If you like tomato sandwiches, this is the one you want. Prone to cracking in wet seasons. Late August.

Singles & Six-paks

We offer all our varieties in six-paks. We also have a limited number of six-paks of mixed varieties. For those who wish to grow in containers -- or who have room for just one more tomato plant -- we have pots of single tomato plants of many of our varieties. In late June and early July, we offer large plants in eight to ten inch pots.

Get your tomato seedlings from a local organic farmer!

We offer varieties we grow ourselves, so we know they do well in central Maine.

Save your plant labels so you'll know what to ask for next year.

We invite you to our farm to shop or see how we grow our quarter acre field of tomatoes and two hundred tomato plants in our greenhouses. Our annual farm tour is on the second Sunday in July.

Owned and operated by
Tom Roberts & Lois Labbe
27 Organic Farm Road, Pittsfield Maine 04967
ph. 487-5056, email Tom@snakeroot.net or Lois@snakeroot.net
Jack@snakeroot.net or Coco@snakeroot.net
http://www.snakeroot.net
Gardeners to the public since 1995.