This is a great lineup of tomatoes. I love seeing growers experiment with that many varieties in a season – from wild currant tomatoes all the way up to giant beefsteaks. It really shows how diverse tomatoes actually are.
A few things that stood out to me in the video:
The currant / wild tomatoes are fascinating. They’re probably the closest thing to what tomatoes originally looked like before centuries of breeding. Tiny, but incredibly resilient and often very productive.
Storage tomatoes like Piennolo are really underrated too. The ability to hang tomatoes for months is something people used to rely on long before refrigeration. That’s actually a great trait from a preparedness or self-reliance perspective.
Succession planting is another really smart tip. Starting tomatoes in waves can stretch your harvest much longer instead of everything ripening at once.
Grafting onto disease-resistant rootstock is also a great technique if someone has soil problems like nematodes or blight. You get the flavor of the heirloom tomato but the strength of the resistant root system.
And honestly… starting 20+ varieties is just fun. Even if some fail, you always end up discovering a few that perform really well in your specific climate.
For anyone growing tomatoes this season, a few simple takeaways from this kind of setup are:
• Try a mix of types (cherry, slicer, sauce)
• Grow at least one reliable early variety
• Include a disease-resistant hybrid if your area struggles with pests
• Save seeds from the varieties that perform best in your garden
Tomatoes are one of those crops where every year you learn something new.
What varieties are you planning to grow this season? 🍅