Homegrown Tomatoes

Seedling & Plant Sale
Has ended for the Summer season, check back for Farm Stand sales & Fall/Winter seedlings.

Baby Tomatoes

Slice ’em thick for a sandwich, pluck ’em fresh for a salad, roast ’em up on the grill. Just enjoy ’em!

There is nothing better than a homegrown, fresh from your own garden, tomato. Once you’ve eaten your own tomato you will forever be spoiled for grocery store picks.

There are two (generally) grow categories of tomatoes – Indeterminate and Determinate. Indeterminates will grow tall, large and until the frost kills them off. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will continue to fruit all that time but the vines will keep going. Determinates have a ‘determined’ growth. They will get to their specified height or put on the selected amount of fruit and then go dormant.

In our local growing area (Sutter, Yuba, Butte & Colusa Counties) determinates are a good choice if you don’t want to risk losing tomatoes to the heat. Grow them early and fast for a lot of tomatoes at one time. However, if you want tomatoes all season long go for an indeterminate that will continue to put on fruit all summer and into fall. They may stall in the hottest of weather (except noted heat tolerant varieties below) but will bounce back as it cools down.

On our mini-farm, we will be growing both. Determinates to give us all our hearts desire in early, tasty goodness. Indeterminates for continued pleasure all season long. Then as the heat comes down we will replant more determinates to fill our freezer. (Yes we’ll have more seedlings when that time comes.)

Bite Size Tomatoes

Brad’s Atomic Grape

Indeterminate -Elongated, large cherries in clusters. The color (and flavor!) is a full-blown assault on the senses—lavender and purple stripes, turning to technicolor olive-green, red & brown/blue stripes when fully ripe. Really wild! Olive green interior is blushed with red when dead-ripe. Crack-resistant fruit is extraordinarily sweet! Wispy foliage looks delicate but belies these plants’ rugged constitution and high productivity.

Yellow Pear

Extremely old variety makes a vigorous plant that bears enormous numbers of bright yellow, bite-sized fruit, pear-shaped fruit have a mild flavor, and are great for fresh eating or for making tomato preserves. Perfect for summer party hors d’oeuvres. low,

Tiny Tim

Determinate – Tiny Tim Tomato seeds produce adorably small plants that produce incredible yields for such a tiny plant. Tiny, sweet, and fun to eat! A great choice for gardeners with small growing spaces!

Bi-Color Cherry

Indeterminate – Sweet, juicy, and very flavorful. Perfect for salads. Excellent choice for home gardens. Cheerful yellow tomatoes with fuchsia-blushed blossom ends add a fancy touch to salads. Bicolor cherry’s delicately sweet flavor complements, but doesn’t overshadow the flavors of other fresh vegetables and greens in garden salads. Loose clusters of 1-1.5″ fruit are produced abundantly on sturdy plants.

Black Cherry

Indeterminate -Beautiful black cherries look like large, dusky purple-brown grapes; they have that rich flavor that makes black tomatoes famous. They have a robust flavor that can only come from Heirloom tomato seeds. The Black Cherry tomatoes like to climb, so give them something to climb on. You will have more tomatoes than you know what to do with!

Large Red Cherry

Indeterminate – Tomato packs flavor into a small and perfect cherry tomato size. Produces far earlier than beefsteaks so you’ll be enjoying these delicious morsels while waiting for the big boys to ripen. Extremely productive plants yield large 1½-2″ cherry tomatoes. Great full flavor. A favorite for salads and fresh eating.

Sunrise Bumblebee

Indeterminate – Johnann’s absolute favorite tasting cherry tomato! The cheerful, marbled, red and yellow cherry-type fruits, weighing just under an ounce, add a burst of color as they gleam on vigorous plants. Excellent sweet and tangy flavor. Adds a nice pop of color to any mix, but also stands alone as a premium-quality cherry for snacking and salads.

Thai Pink Pear

Determinate – High yields of pink pear shaped tomatoes. They are mildly sweet and flavorful. Perfect for salads, garnishes, or culinary creations. Suitable for containers, patios, or small gardens where space is very limited! Excellent choice for home gardens. A heirloom variety from Thailand.

Slicer Tomatoes

Pink Oxheart

Indeterminate – This prolific producer has been around for years. Large (1 to 2+ pounds) heart-shaped fruit. This tomato variety is quite firm, has a meaty texture, and is great for slicing. Outstanding taste for such a big producer.

Orange Kentucky Beefsteak

Indeterminate- Virtually as early as “Early Girl,” but bigger, with improved disease resistance and even better flavor. Bright red, 5 to 7-oz. fruits with tart, “real tomato” flavor. Holds well on the vine and is widely adapted to almost any growing condition.

Celebrity (F1)

Determinate – Celebrity is a superior all-around tomato with such fantastic disease resistance you can put away the sprays and soaps for good! These determinate plants are exceptionally strong, bearing masses of smooth, round, bright red tomatoes. Weighing about 8 ounces, they’re very uniform (no green shoulders here) and resistant to cracking.

Estiva

Indeterminate – Heat Tolerant! High production with premium flavor in a mid-size fruit. Balanced plant from the Mediterranean region, Estiva is known for its uncanny ability to set fruit in excessive heat, and it produces fully-loaded trusses of deep red fruit over a long season.

Green Zebra

Indeterminate -Beautiful chartreuse with deep lime-green stripes, very attractive. Flesh is bright green and very rich tasting, sweet with a sharp bite to it (just too good to describe!). A favorite tomato of many high-class chefs, specialty markets, and home gardeners. Yield is excellent. Around 3 ounces.

Red Snapper

Determinate – Heat Tolerant. Red Snapper produces large to extra-large, round fruits. Fruits are deep red with a delicious flavor. Red Snapper Tomato is an extremely productive variety with a bush growing habit. Great slicers and beautiful roasted.

Super Sioux

Semi-Determinate – HEAT LOVER! Yields an impressive red slicing tomato with an exquisite blend of sweet, acid and earthy flavors. An excellent variety for areas with hot summer temperatures, since it sets fruit well in spite of the heat and dry conditions. Thick-walled, crack-free, red globes have an acidic flavor.

Ponderosa Beefsteak

Indeterminate – Delicious as it gets in a beefsteak tomato. More flesh and less gel make this giant a perfect addition to your garden. Productive with large fruits, weighing up to two pounds, have small seed cavities, and are borne in clusters of three to five fruits. They are purplish-pink in color, mild flavored, and excellent for slicing and canning.

Kellogg’s Breakfast

Indeterminate – Produces massive fruits that can easily average 1-2 lbs. The fruits are bright yellow to orange with a slightly-flattened shape that is characteristic of beefsteak, heirloom tomato varieties. The yellow to orange color makes this tomato less acidic than red varieties. It has a nice balance of sweetness with just a hint of acidity.

Mortgage Lifter

Indeterminate – Large, smooth, 1-lb pink fruit has a delicious, rich, sweet taste. Plants are very productive and disease-resistant, and continue to bear until frost. These large, slightly flattened, pink-red tomatoes are meaty and flavorful with few seeds.

New Girl

Indeterminate – Virtually as early as “Early Girl,” but bigger, with improved disease resistance and even better flavor. Bright red, 5 to 7-oz. fruits with tart, “real tomato” flavor. Holds well on the vine and is widely adapted to almost any growing condition.

Paul Robeson

Indeterminate – Johnann’s favorite tasting slicer, however only produces until mid 90’s hit, treat as a determinate. Russian variety with a dedicated following among tomato connoisseurs. Named in honor of Paul Robeson (1898-1976), famous African-American actor, singer, and civil rights advocate. Dusky brick red fruits with dark green shoulders and red flesh; 6-12 ounces. Known for its distinctive flavor—smoky and earthy with a perfect acid/sweet balance.

Paste/Roma Tomatoes

Roma Paste

Determinate – Full abundant production in one beautiful batch enables you to harvest and process these delicious fruits all at once. Prized for its use in tomato paste and sauces, Roma produces a large harvest of thick-walled, meaty, bright red, egg-shaped tomatoes about 3 inches long and with few seeds. This tomato is not juicy. This is not a slicing tomato. Instead, the flesh is thick and drier so that it will cook down into a thick sauce. Cooking intensifies flavor, too. If you can tomatoes, make your own spaghetti sauce, or like to chop a tomato into an omelet, this is a great choice. It’s not too juicy in the pan compared to slicing tomatoes.

San Marzano

Determinate – Italian heirloom, famous for its use in Neapolitan pizza and other Italian dishes. Long Roma-type tomatoes, 3-4 oz fruits with pointed ends. Thick, dry, low acid flesh contains few seeds. Very productive 6 ft. tall plants have good disease resistance. Excellent canning variety.

Inca Jewel

Determinate – Container Friendly. Extra-heavy yields on space-saving 3 ft. plants. Ideal for large pots or in smaller garden spaces. Plump fruits bursting with juicy flavor, delicious right from the garden or as rich, thick, homemade sauce. Minimum pot size should be 18 to 20 inches in diameter and 18 inches high.

Pompeii

Indeterminate – Imported from Italy where tomato breeding is a passion, the tall productive vines of Pompeii load up early with heavy clusters of big elongated plum tomatoes with rich flavored meaty flesh. Plant produces heavy yields of red roma tomatoes. They are very flavorful. Perfect for making tomato sauce, puree, paste, and canning. Excellent choice for home gardens.