Favorite tomato varieties of Willamette Valley & SW Washington Gardeners
Highlights from my review of 170+ gardeners' reports
It’s *almost* tomato planting time, and this year I’m planting those varieties that are tried and true favorites to me, and hoping to find some new-to-me paste varieties for stocking up for the rest of the year.
My personal tried and true:
-Sungold for sweet, fruity, prolific and early-ripening cherry
-Azoychka - an OP slicer for reliability in cool, wet weather and impressive flavor
-Cosmonaut Volkov - a heavy yielding large slicer with good flavor and earliness - also an OP
In my garden, tomatoes actually aren’t a huge priority. I do like some, and end up giving away quite a few. My neighbors adore me for this.
But, I’d really like to get better at growing paste/sauce varieties. Besides the Sungold, my preferred way of eating tomatoes is caramelized and cooked in sauces, soups (minestrone in particular), Huevos ala Mexicana, Indian dishes like Chole… and so much more.
The two paste/sauce I usually grow are:
-Sunrise Sauce: which yields **prolifically* but the flavor is pretty bland. The plants also prone to slug predation if you set out during cold/rainy spell. I’ve never had a tomato plant attacked so many times like this one has been. There’s really no need to rush to get this one in the ground anyway - it is a determinate that will ripen up fairly quickly. I’m actually not going to plant this one this year, as I’m trialing several other varieties to see if I can get a better yielding more flavorful variety, but if you want yield and have a short season area, definitely check this one out.
-Paisano: a San Marzano type, one that I selected because it is much earlier than San Marzano. The flavor is good - better than the other paste I’ve had success with - but the yield is low.
I started one of my citizen science projects to find out what’s going well for other gardeners in our region, and figured I might as well cover all types (slicers, cherry, paste) but I was really on the hunt for paste tomato feedback - in particular looking for something that comes close to the famed San Marzano variety. I’ve picked plenty of these from a very sunny u-pick farm about 45 minutes from me and I really do prefer their flavor.
Word is, however, that this variety likes a lot of heat, which I don’t get in my minimum sun exposure yard. The hunt is on. Which variety could come close? And do I have any chance of ripening them in my yard? Survey says they aren’t a good choice, explained below.
I polled roughly 15 groups up and down the Willamette Valley and SW Washington, and gathered roughly 20 pages of notes!! That’s way too much to list here, so I made a separate document that you can access here. The highlights of what I learned are listed below:
Problems that are most common to our area:
Blossom End Rot (BER) is the most common problem encountered growing tomatoes in our area. Once I got a taste of how common this issue is for other gardeners - especially on paste tomatoes - I decided to do a bit of a deep-dive on that topic in particular. I’ve only seen it once in my garden, on a tomato I wasn’t thrilled with otherwise. Since I’m wanting to grow more paste/sauce types, I wanted to know all I could about it. You can read the post here that goes in depth on the topic. In short: there are a whole host of cultural, weather, and soil factors that favor development of this disease. It is most common on paste tomatoes in particular, but impacts some slicers too. This issue will become even more dramatic with climate change. If planting paste tomatoes, pay close attention to variety selection and cultural conditions to avoid this sometimes devastating problem (some fruits usable if you cut out the bad part, often they aren’t usable at all). There are a handful of varieties that are bred to be resistant to BER, a few of which folks have had good luck with, but we gardeners need to experiment more and keep each other informed. Pomodoro Squisito, Pozzano, and several from Adaptive Seeds are noted to be BER resistant.
Leafroll: is the second most common issue - luckily is usually only a physiologic disorder that has no impact of the fruit.
-Some varieties are more likely to have leafroll. Varieties that have high yields are usually impacted more.
-It is more common in hot/dry conditions.
-Some viruses cause leafroll.
-Avoiding over-fertilizing and pruning during hot spells will help.
Sunscald - Use this Google image link if you are unfamiliar with this phenomenon. Usually this problem occurs when plants are pruned excessively, where fruits aren’t used to high light levels. I’ve experienced the problem once as a new gardener, and had an extension office tell me I had blight on my tomatoes. Then I ran into an article somewhere that discussed sunscald - indeed I had cut off about half of the foliage of the plant because it was becoming a jungle. The lesson is to keep up on your pruning gradually versus all at once. And consider it carefully when the weather turns hot.
Cracking is more common on some varieties, especially Sungold tomatoes. One work-around is to pick fruits early, when they start to blush. Do this *especially* if heavy rains are predicted.
Blight: has actually rarely been discussed in the last few years in the Facebook forums. I only saw one photo that to me like blight on a plant that had been watered excessively. Likely the hot, long summers have made it less likely to pop up as an issue.
Blight caused by 2 different strains: early and late.
-Early blight: 75 degrees and higher + wet weather favors development. Not common in our area.
-Late blight: cool, wet weather favors development - some years are definitely worse than others. Common in our area. Does not survive garden conditions unless living tissue is present (such as on potato tubers), but nightshade weeds can be hosts. The pathogen blows in on the wind from nearby infections.
-Do not wet tomato or potato foliage.
-Provide good air circulation.
-Choose resistant varieties. Many nurseries list resistance to LB.
Varieties
Only those varieties that have had substantial reviews are listed here. There’s a bazillion other varieties that gardeners have tried in our region. If you want to know if someone has grown it and done well, check the notes by clicking here and do CTRL+F to pull up the find window, type in the variety, and see if you can find notes.
NOTE: the highest rated are listed toward the beginning of this list. Those that are less so toward the bottom.
Sungold (cherry) is the crown jewel of the tomato varieties in our area. 18 positive reports. Only one person reports that they are just too sweet for them. Sungold is extremely prolific, ripens early (mine usually start July in my less-than-optimal sun) and have great fruity, sweet almost citrusy flavor. They are prone to cracking though. One work around is to pick them a little early when they start to blush, ripen indoors. Do this especially if there are rains expected.
Last year, I found that I didn’t even really want slicers in my garden, and instead grew only 2 Sungold plants because I like them so much. I had tons.
Perhaps I had so many be cause I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t prune the plants, as is commonly advised. They grew just fine BTW.
They grew so well in fact, that I had to figure out what to do with them all… as I’m one of the only fresh tomato eaters of the family.
This is one of the many SunGold harvests from 2023. Way too many to eat at once. I cut these in half and froze on a sheet-pan to keep them from sticking together. Once they were sufficiently frozen, I put them in jars. I froze about a gallon.
Later - as an experiment - I poured about a half cup out into a bowl and popped them in the microwave for a minute just to see what they’d be like. The result didn’t look pretty - in fact it was a watery mess - but the flavor was really good and super intensified.
I’ve used frozen/thawed SunGold all winter atop things like chili or tacos, in dishes where their lost flavor/texture and wateriness weren’t noticed. I didn’t end up using them any other way, and from now on will freeze some every year for this purpose.
Some quotes I pulled on this variety from other gardeners for you to review:
”…the only variety that's ripened regularly for me is Sungold…”
“We're big fans of sungold for cherry tomato…”
”I love sungolds as well. Generally have great luck with them.”
”Sungold are delicious, and grow like crazy here…”
”Sungold were our winners this year.”
”Sungold is the earliest, first fruits ripened in late June and the plants are now ten feet tall and still loaded, though now that the higher ones are ripe I'm facing logistical difficulties.”
”Sungold was way to sweet for me.”
”Sun Golds grew like craaaazy and are so so good! I’ll get two of those next year.”
SunSugar is very similar to Sungold, except it is noted to crack less often (because it has thicker skin). A small handful of gardeners report this is their favorite variety. One person said they tried this variety compared to SunGold and will never grow SunSugar again. If the cracking really bothers you on SunGold, go for SunSugar.
Early Girl (slicer): is the next most commonly reported success story. I have not grown this one, so I can’t tell you what it is like. Here are some quotes from other gardeners:
”Mid-sized red with good taste. Indeterminate. Starts producing early even in cool weather and continues into fall. Can tolerate some shade.”
”Early Girl has been my go-to tomato for past couple years. I grew 1 roma paste type and 1 early girl last year. Early Girl excelled over the roma in production. My EarlyGirl can be oven roasted then frozen. I have 2 one gallon packages left from last summer. I make sauces, chili, soups, spaghetti from my early girls. The taste is great for my family.”
“I like Early Girl. Medium sized fruit. Prolific producer. Sweet.”
“I always do early girl too plus each year trialing others. Nothing is as tasty and healthy as the Early Girl.”
”Ultra Girl - my worst mistake of this season, supposed to be an "improved" Early Girl but every single fruit got blossom-end rot despite my best efforts and it was the ONLY one that did! Back to good old Early Girl next time!”
”I do not like early girls myself.”
”Early Girl - didn’t start this one from seed, but it was one of my top producers and earliest producers. Always seemed to be perfectly round and blemish-free like supermarket tomatoes but tastier.”
San Marzano (paste): 6 gardeners reported this as a favorite, 12 others reported failure. Most commonly, the failure was Blossom End Rot. In my query to about BER on paste tomatoes specifically, this variety was noted as the most problematic, next to Roma.
Some quotes I pulled:
”I tried San Marzano several times and they consistently had the worst blossom end rot out of any variety I’ve grown even with plenty of calcium uptake mitigation”
”I did San Marzano last year, and I did get ripened tomatoes, but I almost always pick when they have a blush to encourage more yield. If I don’t pick early, my yields are much smaller.”
”Tried to grow San Marzanos and the majority of them got blossom end rot.”
”San Marzano - the earlier season tomatoes were noticeably smaller and fewer in quantity than the late season tomatoes. Early in the season I had a lot of trouble with blossom end rot until I cut back on watering”
”I have settled on San Marzano as my Roma of choice, easier to peel and such when canning because they’re larger and I prefer the Roma types when making fresh salsa. And I dry them so they’re very versatile.”
”…have had good luck with San Marzano, but last year there was a lot of blossom end rot in it.”
” San Marzanos are thick for sauce which we roast on cookie sheets in the oven with garlic cloves and fresh basil all around them.” “
Cherokee Purple (slicer): Almost all gardeners rave about this one. Quotes:
”Cherokee Purple, great flavor, mellow, not too acid.”
”Our favorite tasting slicer is Cherokee purple. Reminds me of how tomatoes used to (and should) taste.”
”Cherokee purple - these almost all cracked, which didn’t happen to the other tomatoes I planted so it was something about this type.”
“We love Cherokee Purples…”
”We really love Cherokee purples for a big juicy heirloom…”
”I've had good luck with purple cherokee…”
”I also had a good harvest of my old standby, Cherokee purple!”
”We had good luck with old standby, Cherokee Purple…”
Juliet (plum): is a *copious* producer of small plum-type tomatoes. I could see this one being particularly good as sliced in half or quarters in salads. It won’t overwhelm the salad with a lot of juice. Several other gardeners report good results with this one. Some quotes:
”…Juliette’s for drying and roasting…”
”Juliet: Insanely productive and rudely healthy grape tomato, still the best grape/saladette type among all I have tried. The plants are tomato machines and the meaty fruits are borne in heavy clusters, very resistant to splitting. Can also be split in half and sundried, which I was going to do when I had a ton of them ready at once, but the wildfire smoke prevented it.”
”Juliet, good flavor, heavy bearing, long season, great dried with olive oil and salt.”
”high yield, small tomato that requires a lot of chopping. If you’re a tomato/saalad person, you’d love this one.”
Amish Paste (plum) this is generally a favorite of gardeners in our region. Evidently, the late, great Alan Kapular selected a strain of Amish Paste that performs even better than the original, and you can find this one labelled “Amish Paste-Kapular”. Most gardeners report good luck with the straight variety, a few note Blossom End Rot. Some quotes I pulled:
”these tomatoes were the size of softballs. They were great for making sauce.”
”Amish paste. I was very impressed at the amount of tomato flesh produced, and they were very productive even though I grew them in a pot...with another tomato plant in the same pot hahaha.”
”Amish paste is prolific & has huge, meaty fruit but not overly flavorful. Slight blossom end rot at the end of season.”
”I have been trying to find a good red sauce tomato, they all are more susceptible to end rot, Amish Paste seemed especially so.”
”For paste tomatoes I love Amish paste, very good for paste and fresh tomatoes.”
Sweet Million (cherry): 5 positive reviews. Some quotes I pulled:
”-Sweet Million is an excellent all around cherry. Grows like a Sungold with larger fruits, and tastes sweeter.”
”Sweet Million is excellent for flavor and production.”
Pineapple (slicer) seems to be a favorite for some, others not so much. Some quotes I pulled: "
”I stopped growing Pineapple, it's just too late and low production. Hoping to find a new favorite Bi-Color.”
”…pineapple tomato because I’ve grown them previously and liked the size, flavor and productivity.”
”Pineapple is my favorite slicing tomato…”
“Pineapple: I don't think I got any tomatoes off this guy”
”Pineapple tomatoes are gorgeous, productive and huge. The flavor is pretty mild for me but it has its place.”
Principe Borghese (small plum): highly regarding for sun-drying (which may not work out here during rainy weather).
”Principe de Borghese for drying…”
”I love the Principe Borghese!”
“I really like Principe Borghese. It is a rather small plum tomato. What I do with tomatoes is roast them to freeze or can. This variety works great for that. It grows like a weed, doesn’t need that much water, and produces bountifully”
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (Slicer): 5 gardeners reported this as a favorite for them. Some quotes:
”For slicers our favorites are Pink Berkeley Tie Dye from Wild Boar farms…”
”Berkeley Tye Dye- a large, deep red tomato with dark green striping- gorgeous and great for slicing or cooking with.”
”…fantastic varieties like Berkeley Tie-Dye…”
Stupice: gardeners seem to think this one is pretty good. I personally have grown it, and thought it was just… fine. I liked Cosmonaut Volkov better. Some quotes I pulled:
”For canning I’ve had good luck with Stupice”
”Stupice produces very well, has held up in the cool weather and little splitting. Seems flavor may have been affected by this season because not quite as flavorful and more watery than last year. Still a good choice.”
”For midsize/salad tomatoes, Bloody Butcher and Stupice are great”
”Backup slicer I plant every year just in case: Stupice. Mid-sized red with OK flavor. Produces in cool summers when the other tomatoes struggle.”
Brandywine (slicer) this is a classic heirloom that folks rave about throughout the country - but the reviews are a little more mixed here. I think I’ve grown it before, but it has been so many years I don’t recall what happened - they probably just didn’t ripen. Here’s some quotes I pulled:
”Brandywine tastes best, just a little salt and pepper, but they’re so doggone late. They’re my fave for flavor so I continue to grow them anyway.”"
”There are dozens of slicer varieties that I’ll grow and each has some pros and cons but I can say that the Brandywine varieties grow some of the biggest and prettiest looking fruit out of any that I have grown thus far.”
”Brandywine: For a long season tomato it's done very well in the cooler weather and I just picked four big fruits today. I will always grow this for the flavor alone but it's a good performer too.”
”I keep trying to grow brandywine because it’s so meaty, but I have the same problem you do” (not ripening)
”Varieties I was super disappointed by: Brandywine”
Japanese Black Triefle (slicer): I have no experience with this one… Quotes from other gardeners:
“We LOVE Japanese Black Trifele, early and very productive”
”-Japanese Trifles grow astoundingly well, plus taste great for sauce. My new go to.”
”Japanese trifele black from territorial seeds was pretty great. Productive, medium sized, egg shaped fruit. Great flavor and texture.”
Black Krim (Slicer): a dark, pretty slicer. I’ve grown it once, and from what I recall it was good and ripened early. I liked Azoychka better.
”For a larger variety, black krim are my pick...such an amazing flavor and not as prone to splitting as many other larger sized tomatoes.”
”Black Krim - didn’t start this one from seed either but it also produced early and very heavily. Tomatoes were quite large compared to some of the others. I had quite a few around 12oz each”
”Only the black krims split.”
”Favorites of mine include: Black Krim”
”Black Krim is my favorite black tomato, produces huge quantities of fruit of medium to large fruit until frost. Taste is one of the best.”
Lemon Boy (slicer): another variety I don’t have experience with. Here’s quotes from other gardeners:
”Lemon Boy, the old workhorse, best flavor of the medium to large yellow types, very reliable. Produced especially heavily this year. Creamy texture and mild sweet flavor.”
“I love Lemon Boy. Unfortunately it’s a hybrid so can’t save seeds—but it’s the one hybrid I make an exception for. It’s one of my top two for reliability, flavor, and lots of fruit. Delicious and great producer.”
”Lemon boys (so sweet)”
Cuore Di Bue (paste): is a big paste tomato, one that ripened for me, but ripened late. By the time it ripened the slugs were all over it. One solution could be to pick them a little early, and ripen indoors. When I have a glut of paste tomatoes, I like to freeze them whole. This large of a tomato would be a little more difficult to thaw and work with, but the reviews for flavor are good and no mention of Blossom End Rot from the gardeners who’ve given it a shot.
Bloody Butcher: 3 gardeners mentioned in passing that they like this slicer.
Pink Bumblebee: grown by two gardeners who have had good results.
”Pink Bumblebee from Johnny's Seeds which we really fell in love with. Super prolific and a little bigger than a sungold.”
”In cherries I grew sungold and pink bumblebee, both divine repeat grows that I will continue to grow every year.”
Tidy Treats: 2 positive reports of this small plant appropriate for a pot.
”Tidy Treats in a plantar and they were fantastic. Deep green leaves, and tons of small tomatoes and easy to pick. Great for the deck. ”
Paul Robeson: a slicer that ripens super late and supposed to have a “wow” factor in the flavor. I found them to ripen late and the flavor was fine, but not a “wow” IMO. Possibly because my garden is quite shady and I don’t get the late-day heat other growers do. Here’s quotes from other gardeners:
”…Paul Robeson both great tasters, but PR started early and keeps on producing…”
”My favorite eating tomatoes are Paul Robeson…”
Green Zebra (slicer): this tomato is supposed to be a very flavorful slicer. Did not ripen in my garden. Other gardeners give mixed reviews.
”Don’t give up on green zebra just yet. One of the reasons why I love them is that they produce great end of season tomatoes”
”Green zebra - also great in tomato salad, and made for good color variation.”
”-Green Zebras look gorgeous, high production, & make a good slicer.”
”I loved the green zebras. Didn’t get too many ripe and struggled with blossom end rot in that bed”
”I think I’ll never grow Green Zebra again. Every single one has end rot, every single plant around it is happy and has had zero issues.”
Oregon Spring (slicer): Ruh-roh. People aren’t loving this one. Mixed reviews. I personally have grown it and found it boring. It was a smallish slicer. Produced early though. Some quotes I pulled:
”For a determinate type that grow exceptionally well in pots I like Oregon Spring.”
”I was disappointed in the Oregon Spring I started from seed this year.”
”I actually said, 'Never again!' to my Oregon Springs this year.”
”I tried Oregon Spring this year and had a big harvest mid July, Early august, and now with few in between.”
”Bad: Oregon Spring. Small red with green shoulders, ripening to red all over. Very late start compared with the Early Girl- almost a month later, then finally started producing heavily in the fall. Bland, almost bitter taste.”
Hope you have a fantastic tomato year my friends. Keep me posted!
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