Solanum lycopersicum. All tomatoes are $6 per plant, and indeterminate unless otherwise noted. Look for the 🌟 next to the variety name for our favourite types!

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Large tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

🌟 Peacevine

Very sweet cherry tomato which produces an abundance of bright red fruits from mid-season until frost. Productive, tasty, a favourite of ours. Indeterminate.

For an interesting note on the origins of this variety, see Wild Garden Seed.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: 1980s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2016

Riesentraube

Large cherry tomatoes with a point on the blossom end. Flavour is similar to a good slicer/beefsteak tomato, more robust and less overtly sweet than many other cherry tomatoes. Bears fruit in large, grape-like bunches. Indeterminate, tends to sprawl.

Variety origin: Germany
Date of origin: 1800s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Galina

Yellow cherry tomato with a complex, well-balanced flavour. Looks great in a salad mixed with other colours of cherry tomato. Very early, but bears fruit throughout the season. Indeterminate.

Variety origin: Russia
Date of origin: Unknown (first brought to the West in 1989)
Seed status: Open pollinated, sourced from Cochrane Farms, untreated
First grown by us: 2023 trial type

Pink Surprise

We received this seed in a mixed lot of unlabelled "surprise" seeds from a French supplier. With attempts to match it to a named variety turning up inconclusive, we are offering its children as "Pink Surprise". A pretty pink cherry tomato, slightly blocky fruit with occasional light ribbing. Sweet and mild. Indeterminate.

Variety origin: Unknown
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Principe Borghese

Determinate. The grape-like fruits of this Italian heirloom are legendary for producing delicious sundried tomatoes. While we may struggle for enough sun to dry them fully outside, a dehydrator can make short work of the job. Also good for sauces.

Variety origin: Italy
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, from Cochrane Family Farms, untreated
First grown by us: 2023

Medium tomatoes

Belle de Lorraine

French heirloom, acclaimed in its day as the "best tomato in France", juicy and balanced. Produces bright red, round fruit about the size of a clementine orange, starting early in the season. Small indeterminate, doesn't tend to sprawl. Not to be confused with "La Belle Lorraine", aka "Lorraine Beauty", which is a different variety.

NB: one of our trial plants from 2022 had issues with early blight. Another, grown in a different garden, didn't exhibit significant problems. We recommend growing in a large (45 litre / 10 gallon) container with new soil to avoid problems.

Variety origin: France
Date of origin: Pre-1913
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Earl of Edgecombe

Brought to England from New Zealand by the 7th Earl of Edgecombe in the 1960s, this is one of the best-tasting orange tomatoes around. Flavourful, with sweet-tart meaty flesh. Makes a great tomato sandwich, and very striking orange tomato "chips" when dehydrated. Indeterminate, our 2022 trial plant was quite compact, but it was also located in a sub-prime spot in the garden.

Variety origin: New Zealand
Date of origin: Pre-1960s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

🌟 Manitoba

Developed at the Morden Experimental Farm in Morden, MB, this Canadian classic produces a mountain of round, blemish-free, tennis ball sized tomatoes early in the season. Our 2022 trial plant was so loaded with fruits that it snapped several of its own branches (tomato cage is a must!). One of our trusted trial growers, an experienced gardener, when asked if she would grow Manitoba instead of Scotia again, said "absolutely!". Determinate.

Variety origin: Manitoba
Date of origin: 1950s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Roma VF

Plum shaped tomatoes are known for their use as paste and sauce tomatoes, but also make good salad tomatoes.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: General type dates back centuries. This specific strain originates in 1963
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2019

San Marzano

The iconic Italian paste tomato. Elongated, blocky red fruits with a dry interior. Good for sauces, canning, and dehydrating.

NB: We are using seed from a different source than 2022.

Variety origin: Italy
Date of origin: General type dates back centuries, however today's San Marzano tomatoes originate in the 1980s
Seed status: Open pollinated, from Cochrane Family Farms, untreated
First grown by us: 2019

Dwarf Yukon Quest

Part of the unique class of dwarf tomatoes, which bear fruit throughout the season but retain a compact growth habit, Yukon Quest is a slicer that is petite in stature but not in fruit quality. Bright red tomatoes are perfectly sized for burgers and sandwiches, with a balanced, sweet flavour. Ideal for large containers on a patio.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: 2011
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Large tomatoes

🌟 Amish Paste

Blocky, elongated paste tomato with thick and juicy flesh. Plants produce heavily from mid-season until frost. Our favourite paste tomato. Good for sauces and preserves, but also tasty enough to eat fresh.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: 1870s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2018

Big Beef

A classic beefsteak tomato, round, smooth, and blemish-free. Plants are vigorous and generally untroubled by disease.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: 1994
Seed status: Allegedly an F1 hybrid, however we have found it produces well from saved seed; saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2018

🌟 Brandywine

A garden star for over a century. Slightly flattened beefsteak with pink fruits and potato leaves. Big tomatoes, and sometimes massive; one of our Brandywine plants in 2022, with no supplemental irrigation, produced a whopper of a tomato that weighed just over 1 kilo (2.2 lb)!

NB: there are several different strains of Brandywine, with different colouration and sometimes leaf shape. This is the classic pink strain, aka the Sudduth Strain. Our original seed source contained plants with both potato leaves and regular leaves. We have aggressively rogued all regular-leaved plants from our seed-saving population, however the odd one may pop up.

Variety origin: USA
Date of origin: Late 1800s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2018

Budenovka Pink

Heart-shaped pink fruits are juicy inside, with a rich taste. Compact for an indeterminate, performing well in cooler weather.

Variety origin: Ukraine
Date of origin: 1950s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Canestrino di Lucca

Basket-shaped heirloom saucer from Tuscany which produces flavour-rich, dry tomatoes that reduce down quickly with minimal wasted time or juices.

Variety origin: Italy
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, Trulove Seeds, untreated
First grown by us: 2023

Chernoe serdtse s nosikom (Черное сердце с носиком)

Big, meaty, oxheart-shaped tomato, sometimes lightly ribbed. A rusty red, sometimes with dark shoulders. Few seeds and complex flavour. Very rare variety, we had to import the seed from France.

Variety origin: Russia
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Cuor di Bue

Large, red heart-shaped tomatoes, with smooth, shiny skins. Dense flesh with few seeds, great for canning, sauces, or fresh eating.

Variety origin: Italy
Date of origin: Unknown (heirloom)
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2021

🌟 Paul Robeson

Chocolate brown beefsteak with dark green shoulders. Singularly delicious, with an intense sweet-smokey tang that makes it a favourite around here for tomato sandwiches. Named after famed African American singer, actor, football player, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.

For more about the origins of this variety, visit Atlas Obscura

Variety origin: Russia
Date of origin: Mid-to-late 20th century
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2018

Red Pear Abruzzese

Classic all-purpose heirloom from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Large, bright red fruits are equally well suited to fresh eating or canning.

Variety origin: Italy
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

🌟 Sgt. Pepper's

Tall, vigorous vines produce an abundance of raspberry-pink, heart-shaped tomatoes with dark shoulders that range from purple to jet black, depending on the sun exposure. This variety was our sleeper hit of the 2022 trials, starting out as spindly seedlings but booming into some of our most productive plants of the whole year. Sweet and meaty, with a hint of earthiness.

Variety origin: USA, bred by Jason Haynes of Seaside Seeds. Cross between OSU Blue and German Red Strawberry.
Date of origin: 2010s
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Surprise Oxheart

Coming from an unlabelled bag of "surprise" seeds sent by a French supplier, this green-shouldered oxheart was a standout, with a vigourous plant producing big, meaty, flavourful tomatoes.

Variety origin: Unknown
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2022

Vater Rhein

This old heirloom from Germany offers scarlet red, beaked fruits with a meaty interior and a good balance between sweet and tart.

Variety origin: Germany
Date of origin: Unknown
Seed status: Open pollinated, saved seed, untreated
First grown by us: 2021