Heirloom Tomatoes

We tried a number of different tomato varieties this season. One of the local plant shops was selling heirloom tomato seedlings, so we added a sampling of these to the ones that I’d started from seed. My Dad also tried growing most of the same varieties we did, and we enjoyed comparing notes with him. The conditions in his garden are a little different to ours, but interestingly the same varieties did best in both our gardens.


Several varieties of heirloom tomatoes

These are the varieties we plan to grow again:

Moneymaker and Russian Red: hardy, red, medium-sized tomatoes. These have done well for us here year after year.

Green Zebra: Healthy, hardy plants that fruited very well for us this year. The green stripy fruit are beautiful as well as tasty.

Tigerella: Small orange and red stripy fruit with a good taste. These were the first to set fruit in our garden in the cool spring conditions. They produced a great early crop. . . and they are still producing now!

Black Krim: This variety fruited well for us, and did even better in my Dad’s garden. The fruit are absolutely delicious!

J. Walsh: This tomato was a volunteer that a friend identified for me. The healthy vining plant has produced an abundant crop of small to medium lemon yellow roma-shaped tomatoes. They have a thin skin and a pleasing flavour. I’ll grow this variety again if I can find the seed.

Humboltti: This is a yellow cherry variety that I got from Koanga Gardens. It’s hardy,crops well, and the fruit is wonderfully sweet. The only problem for us is the fruit’s tendency to crack.

These are the varieties we probably won’t grow again:

Brandy Pink and Yellow Delicious: These were lovely to eat, but the yield simply wasn’t good enough to justify the space they took up in the garden.

Amish Paste: This was an absolute fizzer in both gardens, bearing hardly any fruit at all. The few fruit we did get didn’t strike us as anything special!

2 Responses to “Heirloom Tomatoes”

  1. Julianne says:

    Hi Rebecca

    I have enjoyed your blog, and your tomatoes look gorgeous! While I got tomatoes every day here in Christchurch, I did not get enough to do anything big with them like I normally do – and it’s the same story with everyone I believe. I also have those stripey tomatoes, as well as two variety of yellow ones, one is Wonderlight. It is nice to make tomato soup which is yellow!

    Really enjoy your blog.

  2. Rebecca says:

    Hi Julianne,
    Interesting. Overall, our tomatoes didn’t crop as well as usual up here, either. Like you, I’ve been disappointed not to have a whole lot extra for preserving etc. I hope we have better luck next year.
    Yellow tomato soup sounds nice. I haven’t tried that.
    Thanks for your kind remarks about our blog.
    Rebecca