The

TOMATO ARCHIVES

Descriptions of all of the tomatoes we have ever grown – for personal enjoyment and for sale through the nursery – since 1991. Updated: June 2, 2022.

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42 Days. O.P. Early. Compact, slightly viny plants produce a season-opening crop of bright red, round to slightly pointed cherry tomatoes. Good quality fruit for an extra-early, sweet and juicy. This variety came from a German gardener a few years ago, but its exact history is unknown. Name refers to its speedy maturity – “Only 42 days!” – and though it might not be quite so quick as promised, it is one of the first. Dwarf determinate. Good in containers.

AAA SWEET SOLANO. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. From Brad Gates, Wild Boar Farms, California. Saladette-sized, dense-textured, globe-shaped fruits start out yellow with green stripes, ripening to dark gold on gold. Very sweet, with a nice fruity flavour. Productive. Maintains quality well on vine and after harvest, holds shape well when sliced. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

ABC POTATO LEAF. O.P. Early. Dwarf, rambling potato-leaf type; good for containers. Bright red, elongated and pointed on bottom, cherry-sized fruit. While we found that it was definitely early and productive, the flavour was a bit ho-hum – nicely sweet but rather bland. There are other early varieties we like better, so this one is now off the must-grow list.  Dwarf determinate.

ABE LINCOLN. O.P. Mid-season. Introduced in 1923 by the W. H. Buckbee seed company of Illinois, and named in honour of the famous president who was born in the state. Clusters of large, dark red beefsteak fruit. Pinch out all but 2 or 3 per cluster if you want them really big, otherwise they’re mid-sized. Excellent classic beefsteak flavour. Healthy and quite productive for a large non-hybrid. Best in greenhouse; heat lover. Indeterminate; needs support.

ACE 55. O.P. Mid-season. Introduced in 1950 by the UCLA plant breeding program as a commercial variety, but soon adopted by home gardeners for its good taste, superior productivity, and vigorous good health. Very productive, good tasting, healthy and beautiful. Ripens mid-August onward. Absolutely loaded with large, bright red, glossy, smooth and firm, dense, meaty low-acid fruit. Excellent slicer. A wonderful variety year after year in our Cariboo garden – both outside and in the hoop house. Recommended. Well-behaved indeterminate; stake or cage.

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL. O.P. Early to mid-season. Dwarf Tomato Project. Very compact, thick-stemmed plants produce full-size tomatoes. Small beefsteak-type fruit, pink-purple with dark green striping. Excellent flavour, rich as one would expect from a beefsteak, with a good balance of sweetness and acidity Really happy with this one in 2016 and 2017, good yields of delicious fruit. And so pretty! Dwarf indeterminate; support with a short stake or cage as fruit gets heavy. Good for large containers.

ADVENTURE. O.P. Mid-season. Our original source classified this slightly mysterious variety as “heirloom” but was unable to provide background info. As it does occasionally appear on various seed saver lists we’re hoping one day to find out more history. In the meantime, we are happy just to grow and enjoy it. Mid-sized to large round red; ripens evenly (no green shoulders), blemish-free and healthy; high production and excellent sweet and mellow flavour. Skin is thick but not tough; this tomato is an excellent slicer as it holds its shape beautifully. A really nice variety. Productive, tasty, healthy and beautiful. Probably best in the greenhouse in our area, as it is not super early. A good candidate for large (5 gallon +) container growing. Short indeterminate, needs support.

AIAPÄRL. O.P. Very early. Very compact plants, well branching and good for containers and hanging baskets. Extra-early production of small, oval, pearly pink-red cherry tomatoes. Nice flavour, sweet and good. Originally from Russia, where it is named ‘Садовая Жемчужина’, which has been translated to ‘Garden Pearl’, ‘Gartenperle’, and, in Estonia where this strain was sourced, ‘Aiapärl’.  Dwarf, branching determinate. Good in containers.

AILSA CRAIG. O.P. Mid-season. Bred by Alan Balch from a cross of ‘Fillbasket’ and ‘Sunrise’. Released in 1912 by Alexander and Brown, Perth, Scotland. Originally developed for greenhouse production in cool, short season areas, which recommendation led us to try it for the Cariboo-Chilcotin region. A good call, as this has proven to be one of our best varieties for yield and great flavour. Generous clusters of round, smooth, small to mid-sized, bright red, sweet and juicy, good flavoured fruit. Starts ripening in early August.  Short indeterminate; stake.

ALASKA. O.P. Early. Thought to be of Russian origin. As the name reflects, recommended as a good cultivar for far northern and short season gardens. High yields of jumbo cherry size, bright red, good-flavoured, very juicy fruit. Compact plants are good for containers. A generous producer for us in the challenging wildfire-and-smoke summers of 2017 and 2018. Determinate. Stake for support.

ALPHA PINK. O.P. Mid-season. Globular mid-sized pink-red beefsteaks are smooth-skinned, meaty and good textured, with excellent sweet flavour. A heritage commercial variety, introduced by the Isbell Seed Company in 1914, and promoted as being “Better than Earliana!”, ‘Earliana’ being the standard commercial early beefsteak of the time. Plant habit is medium tall, to 4 feet or so, branching from the base. A nicely generous producer in the warm garden or greenhouse. Indeterminate. Multi-stake or cage for support.

AMANA ORANGE. O.P. Mid-season to late. Golden-orange, mid-sized beefsteak. Very sweet and mild with meaty texture; a great slicer. Big and beautiful, up to 2 lbs each. Best in the greenhouse in our area; too late to ripen for the open garden. Not particularly productive quantity-wise, but nice to grow if you have the space and would like to expand your choice of beefsteak varieties. Indeterminate; stake.

AMAZON CHOCOLATE. O.P. Mid-season. Mid-sized to large, irregularly-shaped beefsteak is rich dark red blushed with olive green/dark purple stripes. Excellent deep, rich flavour and nice smooth texture. Fantastic slicer! Indeterminate. Stake for support.

AMBROSIA RED. O.P. Early. Very productive, very sweet cherry tomato. Large trusses of good-flavoured, bright red fruit are produced from mid-summer right until frost time.  Indeterminate. Stake for support.

AMBER. O.P. Early. Poland. Saladette sized, round fruit are lovely dark orange with a blush of green on shoulders. Excellent sweet flavour, dense, juicy fruit.  Determinate. Stake or cage for extra support

AMETHYST CREAM CHERRY. O.P. Early to mid-season. U.S.A, Wild Boar Farms, California, 2014. Small, ivory-white cherry tomatoes are blushed with purple splashes on the stem end. Very productive. Mild, sweet flavour, and rather firm texture. Holds well on the vine and after harvest. We are impressed by the attractiveness of these tiny tomatoes, though they were quite slow to ripen. Flavour is better than some of the other “blue” tomatoes we’ve trialed. Rampant vines! Indeterminate; stake or cage.

ANDRINA. O.P. Very early. Russian. A mini tomato for those with limited space – can even be grown on a sunny windowsill. 6 to 12 inch tall plants yield a generous amount of small, bright red cherry tomatoes. These are not super-sugary, but have a certain amount of zip, and lots of flavour. Our verdict – these are definitely okay, lots of fruit. Could be a bit sweeter, though. ‘Maskotka’, ‘Rejina Red’ and ‘Red Robin’ are all nicer, in our opinions. So we may not offer ‘Andrina’ any more. For containers. Will grow well in 1/2 gallon (or larger) pots.

ANDY’S BUCKFLATS WONDER. O.P. Early. Canadian. Back in 1981, Andy Pollock of Houston, B.C. started a tomato breeding experiment, inspired by a self-sown seedling of the 1908 Canadian variety ‘Bonny Best’. He selected for early sprouting, frost tolerance, and superior yields, and so the variety ‘Pollock’ was born. ‘Andy’s Buckflats Wonder’ is a further refinement of Pollock. Fruits are variable in size (they can get very large), bright red, very good tasting. Yields are high. The vigorous plants exhibit excellent cold tolerance. Indeterminate; tall plants; need support.

ANMORE DEWDROP. O.P. Very early. Canadian, 2008. Compact plants to a foot or so tall, with cascading branches. A very early and very productive stabilized open-pollinated selection of the popular hybrid ‘Tumbler’. Bright red, round, cherry-sized fruit has excellent sweet flavour. Grows and ripens well under artificial lighting; recommended for indoor winter growing, as well as the first-producing container plants in late spring-early summer. Fruit sets tend to ripen all at once, but plants will repeat flowering once each set of fruit is picked, and continue production well into fall. Cascading habit; excellent in containers and large (3 gallon+) hanging baskets.

ANMORE TREASURES. O.P. Very early. Canadian, 2009. Another de-hybridized and stabilized selection of  the ubiquitous ‘Tumbler’. Vigorous, well-branched plants with abundant side shoots produce prolific early sets of cherry-sized, bright pinky-red, slightly oval, sweet, good-flavoured fruit. Cascading habit; excellent in containers and large (3 gallon+) hanging baskets.

ANNA AASA. O.P. Early. Swedish. An older variety from Sweden, rather similar to the British ‘Gardener’s Delight’. Clusters of deep red cherry tomatoes with excellent flavour, sweet with a dash of tang. High producing. Vines can reach 6 feet or more, but are easily pruned back to a manageable height. Vigorous indeterminate; needs support.

ANNA RUSSIAN. O.P. Early to mid-season. Russian heirloom. Large, crimson-red, variably heart-shaped fruit. Mild, sweet and juicy. Very good yields and quite early ripening; most years we’ve grown it we have had very good luck with this one, though we have found some variability in this variety. Indeterminate; long slender vines; stake.

APRICOSA. O.P. Early. Large round cherry/saladette tomatoes are rich apricot-orange in colour, with excellent sweet flavour. A beautiful salad tomato – firm enough to hold its shape when halved or quartered, but tender-skinned and with good substance, too. Indeterminate; needs support.

APRICOT. O.P. Early to mid-season. One of the fuzzy-skinned tomatoes, similar to ‘Garden Peach’. Very high yields of saladette-sized, pale yellow fruit which blush soft red as they ripen. Very sweet and mild. The “fuzz” is very delicate, more of a silken texture rather than actual “peach fuzz”. Indeterminate; needs support.

ARDWYNA. O.P. Mid-season. I can’t find any background information on this one, except a vague description of it as an “heirloom”. One seed source states that it was brought from Italy to Sooke on Vancouver Island by a certain Mr. Arduino. We were first given this variety by our friend and neighbour Peter Mayer, who always grows “too many” and generously shares his extra seedlings.  It is one of his main season producers for canning. The very large fruits are red and rather heart-shaped; sometimes deeply pleated; plants are healthy and productive. Good tasting enough for fresh eating, but a superior variety for preserving as it is meaty and low in juice so the sauce boils down quickly. Thin-skinned; easy to peel. A great variety for Cariboo-Chilcotin conditions, for the open garden in low elevation areas, or in the greenhouse for short-season people. Semi-determinate; needs strong support due to heavy fruiting.

ARKANSAS TRAVELLER. O.P. Mid-season. Southern USA heirloom. Generous yields of mid-sized, round, deep pinky-red fruit; sweet and flavourful. Does well in hot conditions; definitely a greenhouse tomato. Indeterminate; long & rambling vines; prune as needed; stake well.

AUNT GINNY’S. O.P. Mid-season. German heirloom, a.k.a. ‘Aunt Ginny’s Purple.’ I guess with imagination you could call this one purple-ish, as it is a deep pink-toned red. Large, very juicy, very sweet beefsteak-type fruit. A bit later than some but good yields. Heat lover; best in greenhouse. Indeterminate; stake.

AURIGA. O.P. Early. A.k.a. AUREGA. Developed in France. Deep apricot-orange with a rosy red interior; intense flavour. Sweet with more than a hint of zing. Supposedly has 10 times more carotene of red varieties. Generous clusters of small fruit; golf to tennis-ball size; good yields. Quite similar to another high-carotene variety, ‘Caro Rich’. Short indeterminate; needs staking.

AUSTIN’S RED PEAR. O.P. Mid-season. Introduced via the 1998 Seed Saver’s Exchange by Dale Austin of Washington. High yioelds of large, rich red, pear-shaped cherry tomatoes. Excellent flavour and sweetness.  Indeterminate; needs staking.

AZOYCHKA. O.P. Early to mid-season. From Russia. A smaller, very lovely, lemon coloured beefsteak tomato which has a stronger, “zippier” flavour than most yellows, intense and sweet with perhaps a hint of citrus. Early maturing, with lots of mid-sized beefsteaks. An excellent variety. Compact indeterminate; needs support.

BABYWINE. O.P. Early. I love this variety, it is absolutely delicious! Miniature version of the famous ‘Brandywine’. Plum-shaped and sized, deep pink fruit. Juicy, thick-walled, sweet, with very good flavour. Very productive, and very tolerant of our recent hot-and-cold weird weather summers. Small and delectable mini-slicer. Indeterminate; needs support.

BAJAJA. O.P. Early. This variety was new to us in 2013, and we were looking forward to seeing if it was as good as its rave reviews. It was described as a very compact, sprawling, container  or hanging basket type of plant, which produces hundreds of bright red, sweet and juicy, small cherry tomatoes over a long season. In reality, it was something of a disappointment. It did produce lots of tiny fruit, which were very beautiful, shiny and dark ruby red. These ripened quite early, but texture even when dead ripe was way too hard, and flavour was definitely ho-hum, though it was reasonably sweet. It’s crossed off the “to grow” list after that single trial year. Determinate. Best in containers.

BALCONY CHARM.O.P. Early. From Germany. A.k.a. ‘Balkonzauber’. Early, early, early. And good tasting. Very reliable –  consistently produces some of the earliest salad tomatoes every year. Sturdy, bush-type plants give decent yields of early-maturing, saladette-sized, good-tasting, firm, round, scarlet-red fruits. Does well in large containers. Nice little workhorse. Determinate.

BANANA CREAM. O.P. Early to mid-season. U.S.A., 1998. One of its parents was the heirloom ‘Yellow Banana’. Originally released by the Dutch seedhouse Sahin as ‘Cream Sausage’, which describes the appearance perfectly. Changing nomenclature aside, this is an attractive and good-tasting jumbo cherry-size tomato. Early sets of small, elongated fruit turny creamy yellow when ripe. Very meaty, from its paste tomato heritage, but nicely juicy too. Productive. Rather sprawling, with wispy foliage. Compact semi-determinate, best in a cage.

BAROSSA FEST. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar.  Small to mid-size, smooth-skinned, globular, pale yellow fruit with a faint pink blush. Juicy and sweet, with a tangy flavour component as well. A bit taller than most Dwarf Tomato Project cultivars, to 4 feet or more. Very sturdy plants. Compact indeterminate; needs support.

BARRY’S CRAZY CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Huge clusters of small, droplet-shaped, creamy yellow cherry tomatoes. Flavour is very mild and sweet. From the Wild Boar Farm tomato breeding program, which is creating all sort of fantastic  “heirloom of the future” cultivars. Indeterminate – needs support.

BARRY’S CRAZY CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Huge clusters of small, droplet-shaped, creamy yellow cherry tomatoes. Flavour is very mild and sweet. From the Wild Boar Farm tomato breeding program, which is creating all sort of fantastic  “heirloom of the future” cultivars. Indeterminate – needs support.

BASELBIETER RÖETELI. O.P. Mid-season. Great older cultivar from the Basel region of Switzerland. Generous yields of clusters of small, plum-shaped, bright red fruit. Multi-purpose, juicy with excellent flavour for fresh eating, and nicely meaty so suitable for canning, too. Semi-indeterminate – needs support.

BEAUTE BLANCHE DU CANADA. O.P. Mid-season. Old Quebec heirloom. Large, delicious,  creamy-white fruit. Very good flavour; mild and low-acid. White tomatoes are not well known nowadays, but have been around for well over 100 years and are fast regaining popularity as heirloom tomatoes are being rediscovered by gardeners and “foodies”. Indeterminate; needs staking.

BETTER BOY. Hybrid. Mid-season. This popular older hybrid has been a reliable producer for us; very similar to ‘Big Beef.’ Large, bright red, beefsteak-type fruit is firm, meaty and good flavoured. Decent yields. Excellent disease resistance. Best in the greenhouse in our area; heat lover. Indeterminate; needs support.

BEAUTY. O.P.  Mid-season. Large, bright red beefsteak type. Productive. Excellent flavour and texture; very juicy with rich, sweet flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

BEAVER LODGE SLICER. O.P.  Early. An older commercial variety from Northern Alberta’s Beaverlodge Research Farm. Small, round, bright red fruit is early to ripen. Flavour is quite zippy, not super sweet. Performs well in cool climate regions, and is worth a try for those first ripe tomatoes before the main summer season. This variety is determinate, so after it pushes out its main set of fruit it quits. Determinate; cage or short stake.

BHN 589. Hybrid. Mid-season. Mid-size beefsteaks, bright red, sweet flavour, good for slicing. High yielding, disease resistant and adapted to a wide range of growing conditions.  Determinate, short stake or cage.

BIG BEEF. Hybrid. Mid-season. This 1994 A.A.S. Winner is one of our favourite beefsteaks for all round dependability, good yields and great flavour. Very large, meaty and good-textured, sweet and delicious, bright red fruit. Ripens early and keeps on producing until frost. Great variety for our area. I would recommend it for the greenhouse, but early enough for the open garden as well, unless summer is particularly cool. Reliable. Large bush – needs staking.

BIG BOY. Hybrid. Mid-season. Introduced in 1949, Burpee’s ‘Big Boy’ was one of the first F1 tomato hybrids, and it has remained very popular. Large, bright red, sweet and flavourful beefsteak fruits on highly productive plants. Indeterminate; needs support.

BKX. Open pollinated. Mid-season. Potato-leaf sport of the excellent Black Krim. Great big purple-red beefsteaks, smooth-skinned, lobed, round fruit. Meaty and smooth, with the same richly complex, very sweet flavour as its parent. Very productive. Heat lover, appreciates a greenhouse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin region. Indeterminate; needs support.

BLABY SPECIAL. O.P. Early to mid-season. English heirloom, grown at Shoult’s Farm in Blaby, Leicestershire until 1948, when the farm ceased production and the variety became extinct in cultivation. Thanks to a seed sample preserved in a Dutch seed bank, the variety was revived in 2008. Small to mid-size, bright red slicer tomato, well-balanced, very good flavour. Very uniform in size, absolutely blemish-free. Indeterminate, needs support.

BLACK CHERRY. O.P. Early. Bred by Vince Sapp, Florida. Impressively high yields of dusky pink-purple, rich and sweet, cherry-sized fruit. Very nice. Indeterminate; stake.

BLACK FROM TULA. O.P. Mid-season. Russia. Mid-sized burgundy-black beefsteak. Fruit often blushed with green, flattened, sometimes lobed, maybe not the prettiest but one of the most delicious. Rich flavour, sweet and smooth. Indeterminate, stake or cage.

BLACK GIANT. O.P. Early to mid-season. Russia. Round, smooth, mid-sized to large, purple-black-red fruit with green shoulders. Excellent flavour, very rich and sweet. Fantastic slicer. Compact indeterminate, stake or cage.

BLACK KRIM. O.P. Early to  mid-season. Very good Russian variety, Aka CZERNO KRIMSKI, from the Black Sea’s Isle of Krim in Ukraine’s Crimean region. Mid-sized to large, mahogany-red, very sweet and juicy fruit in abundance all summer. As good as our old favourite ‘Black Prince’, which sets a high standard. Excellent rich flavour. Fruit is frequently misshapen, but oh! – so good. Indeterminate; stake.

BLACK MASTER. O.P. Mid-season to late. European heirloom. Medium to large sized, ribbed beefsteaks, dark red-black-purple with green shoulders.  As with all of the black cultivars, excellent rich, sweet, complex flavour. Productive for its type. This one prefers to be in a greenhouse in our region. Compact indeterminate; stake.

BLACK MOOR. O.P. Early. A.k.a. BLACK MAVR. Clusters of small, pear-shaped, purple-red fruit. Larger than a cherry, to 2″ long or so. Very pretty. We found this variety sweet and mild and high yielding, though it wasn’t quite as juicy as we like – it is dense and meaty and  a tiny bit starchy. Not sure if we’ll be growing it again, though it was pleasant enough. Indeterminate; stake.

BLACK PEARL. O.P. Early. Shiny, beautiful, purple-blushed cherry tomatoes. Sweet and mild. Perhaps a little too mild – we decided it was overly bland compared to the other “dark cherries” we’ve tried – ‘Brown Berry’ and ‘Black Cherry’ – and the yields were not as good as those, so we likely won’t grow it again. Indeterminate; stake.

BLACK PLUM. O.P. Mid-season. Small fruited, plum to pear-shaped. Old variety from Russia. Mahogany red blushed blackish-burgundy. Good flavour, quite sweet, and very meaty and dense in texture. Okay for fresh eating and would be good for canning. Indeterminate; stake.

BLACK PRINCE. O.P. Early. This excellent cultivar has been popular in the former U.S.S.R. since at least the 1980s. Introduced to North America in 1994 by Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany, Oregon, which was our source for our first seeds of ‘Black Prince’ in  that very year. Irkutsk, Siberia is the specific place-of-origin named in conjunction with this variety, but where it actually originated is unknown, as “black” tomatoes are fairly common in northern Russia, being prized for their excellent flavour, their cold hardiness, and their earliness. Once upon a time we were the only people we knew who grew this variety, but it has since become mainstream, and for very good reason. It is very nice – beautiful and delicious. Year after year, a personal favourite. Fruit is on the small size, egg/rounded heart shaped, with flawless skin. Colour is brown-purple-burgundy fruit. Very sweet, rich, smooth flavour. Semi-determinate; short stake or cage.

BLACK SEA MAN. O.P. Early to mid-season. Ukraine heirloom. Mid-sized, deep browny-red fruit with delicious rich flavour. An excellent and very tasty variety. Plants are quite small. Similar to the wonderful ‘Black Prince’ in quality. Determinate; short stake or cage.

BLACK YUM YUM. O.P. Early to mid-season. Another beautiful black tomato, similar to ‘Black Prince’. Mid-size, round to slightly oval, mahogany red fruit with a dark burgundy-brown flush, green shoulders and green seed gel. Richly complex flavour, savoury-sweet and smooth. Early setting and high yielding. Indeterminate; short stake or cage.

BLACK ZEBRA. O.P. Early to mid-season. Firm, small to mid-sized fruit are blackish purple with green shoulders and stripes. Very unusual appearance – very attractive. Interesting taste, a complex, rich, sweet-yet-tangy flavour. High yields. We’re not completely enamoured of this one, though it is very pretty. Perhaps the tiniest bit “tough”? We’ll grow it out again before deciding if it gets to stay on the recommended list for good. Determinate. Short stake or cage.

BLANCHE DE PRUSSE. O.P. Mid-season. Small, round, mini-beefsteak type fruit on sturdy “tree tomato” plants. Ivory-yellow in colour, good and juicy with a nicely complex sweet flavour. Name translates to ‘Prussian White’ (or ‘White of Prussia’) so one can assume a European heritage, though origin details are unknown. Determinate. Short stake or cage.

BLOODY BUTCHER. O.P. Early. I thought with a name like this it would be an older “heirloom” variety, but it is actually relatively recent, being introduced into commerce by Kees Sahin, of Sahin Seeds in Holland, in 1998. Loose clusters of deep ruby red, jumbo cherry-sized “saladette” fruit. Excellent flavour, very sweet and rich, thin skins, very juicy. A lovely variety, with good yields. Very early – one of the first to ripen for us. Indeterminate; needs support.

BLUE. O.P. Early to mid-season. Well, not truly “blue”, but if you use some imagination… Mid-sized, smooth round fruit are deep crimson, flushed with deep purple-blue on the shoulders – blue colour is darkest where fruit is exposed to the sun. Sweet and mild. Contains the same antioxidants in the dark pigment as blueberries famously do. Texture a bit hard – almost crunchy. Something of a curiousity versus a variety to depend on. We found yields to be on the low side. Indeterminate. Stake or cage.

BLUSH. O.P. Mid-season. Elongated, 2-inch cherry tomatoes are soft yellow with red blushing and stripes running from blossom to stem end. Very sweet, with a complex fruity taste. Very pretty tomato; high quality all around. From Fred Hempel in California, released 2011.  Indeterminate; needs support.

BOBCAT. Hybrid. Mid-season. We grew this hybrid variety some years ago to good reviews, so when a commercial market garden customer requested it from us this spring we decided to grow a few extra and offer it again. Large, good-flavoured, firm but nicely juicy, bright red beefsteaks. Perhaps not as supremely delectable as most of the open-pollinated beefsteaks, but definitely sturdy and productive. Large bush; stake.

BONNY BEST. O.P. Mid-season. This one is a reliable old favourite. Mid-sized red; good flavour and texture; good yields. Large bush; stake.

BOX CAR WILLIE. O.P. Early to mid-season. American heirloom. Clusters of several orange-red, round, medium to large sized, very juicy fruit with rich, sweet, complex flavour. Indeterminate, needs support.

BRANDYSWEET PLUM. O.P. Mid-season. Super-productive and super tasty – very sweet. A new favourite. Gorgeous little baby plums, rich pink, almost teardrop shaped. 2-bite size. Excellent. Watch these carefully – they will burst their skins easily when very ripe. Indeterminate; needs support.

BRANDYWINE. O.P. Mid-season. This heirloom strain has been widely publicized as “best tasting!” in numerous tomato taste tests. Taste being a very subjective thing, dependent on infinite variables, I am hesitant to claim the same, but I will happily agree that this is an extremely delicious variety. Large, dusky red, beefsteak-type fruit. Very smooth and sweet flavoured. Heat lover; grow in greenhouse. Yields can be rather low, though individual fruit are big enough to make up for it. We’re not growing this one for sale any more,  just because it’s so easy to find commercially now; other vendors will have it and we’d like to offer something different. Indeterminate. Needs support.

BRIN DE MUGUET. O.P. Mid-season. French heirloom. Clusters of elongated, dark red cherry tomatoes with pointed tips. Nice sweet flavour. Name translates to ‘Lily-of-the-Valley’. High yielding. We greatly enjoy this very pretty and great tasting heirloom. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

BROOKPACT. O.P. Early. A.k.a. BROOKPAC, BROOKPACK. Canadian variety developed at Alberta’s Crop Diversification Centre in Brooks and released in the 1970s. Plants are compact and sturdy, well-behaved in the garden and good in large containers. Fruit is perfectly round, mid-sized, and bright orange-red. Flavour is good, a good balance of sweetness and acid. High yielding, healthy, cool weather tolerant – all-in-all a good contender for the Cariboo-Chilcotin garden, though it will of course – as “cold tolerant” is relative with any variety of tomato –  be happier in a greenhouse or against a wall in the colder areas of our region. Determinate; stake or cage.

BROWN BERRY. O.P. Early. A recent cultivar hailing from the Netherlands, where it was developed by Sahin Seeds. High yielding, early, sweet and flavourful cherry. Purple-brown-burgundy fruit and lots of them. Great taste. One of our stand-by varieties for snacks for the lunch box. Indeterminate, needs support.

BROWN SUGAR. O.P. Early. A nice, older, commercial Russian cultivar. Medium sized, smooth-skinned, round, purple-brown fruit have a rich, sweet, well-balanced flavour. Compact indeterminate. Cage or short stake.

BRUTUS. O.P. Mid-season. Czech Republic. Great big red beefsteak, meaty and juicy and very well flavoured. Good fruit set, very good yields for its type. Excellent slicer. Fruits vary from round to multi-lobed. Happiest in the greenhouse in the Cariboo region. Indeterminate. Needs support.

BULGARIAN TRIUMPH. O.P. Early. An older variety, and yes, originally from Bulgaria. Compact, healthy plants yield clusters of early ripening, small, round, bright red fruit. Firm but tender, with lots of flavour-containing gel around the seeds, and excellent, sweet, rich flavour. Compared by some to the “Campari” tomatoes found in the grocery store, only exponentially better. Excellent fruit set in 2016, but they seemed to take forever to show colour, so this one now has a question mark against it. Could have been the season. In any event it’s off the list for 2017, but we will be growing it again. Short indeterminate. Cage or stake.

BUNDABERG RUMBALL. O.P. Mid-season. Say that out loud – “Bund-a-berg Rum-ball”! Isn’t that fun? Another charmer from the Dwarf Tomato Project, this one from the Australian faction, as one might guess from that name, which references a popular Southern Hemisphere confection. We grew this for the first time in 2019, and found it to have good yields of small, round, chocolate-coloured (in tomato language this generally means purple-red or brown-red) sweet, well flavoured fruit. Tree type plants, short and sturdy, good in large containers. Dwarf indeterminate. Cage or stake.

BURPEE’S JUBILEE. O.P. Mid-season. A.k.a. GOLDEN JUBILEE. Introduced in 1942 by the venerable American seed grower W. Atlee Burpee. This variety won the coveted A.A.S. award in 1943 and has been popular ever since. Large, tangerine-orange, smooth fruit which is meaty, sweet and mild. Indeterminate; needs support.

BURWOOD PRIZE. O.P. Mid-season. Australia, early 1900s. Bright red saladette tomato. Fruits are very juicy, with loads of old-fashioned flavour – sweet but not sugary. Very productive. Potato leaf variety. Indeterminate. Cage or stake.

BUSH BEEFSTEAK. O.P. Mid-season. Developed in Manitoba in the 1950s. Dependable, widely grown, standard early beefsteak variety. Good yields of mid-sized to large, bright red, meaty slicing tomatoes. Good flavour. Early for a beefsteak. Determinate. Cage or stake.

BUSHWHOPPER. O.P. Mid-season. Very high yields of uniform, medium to large-sized, excellent tasting, dark red fruit. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

BUTTERMILK FALLS. O.P. Mid-season. Big yellow beefsteak, loaded with sweet flavour. Rather like old favourite Lemon Boy, but later to ripen, with darker colour and richer flavour. Smooth and beautiful. One for the greenhouse in our region. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

CAMP JOY. O.P. Mid-season. Developed by Alan Chadwick, the English biodynamic garden guru who descended upon California in the late 1960s and was a key personage in the organic gardening movement of the 1970s. Camp Joy was the name of one of the farms following Chadwick’s principles, and this tomato was reputedly grown there. Large cherry variety, up to golf ball sized fruit, though most are a bit smaller. Vigorous vines yield clusters of bright red, very good flavoured and sweet tomatoes mid-summer till frost. Excellent variety for fresh eating and salads. Some surmise that ‘Camp Joy’ is the possibly same cultivar as ‘Chadwick’s Cherry’, but others contend that ‘Camp Joy’ tends to be noticeably larger in fruit size. We’ve grown both, and that has also been our experience. Indeterminate; tall stake needed.

CANABEC SUPER. O.P. Mid-season. A pleasant Canadian variety developed in Quebec in the 1970s. Attractive fruit is medium to large sized, round to slightly squat shaped, pink-toned red. Sometimes shows a bit of blossom-end scarring on larger fruit, nothing excessive. Flavour is well developed with a good degree of sweetness. Excellent fruit set in cool conditions, and early for a full-size variety. Determinate; short stake or cage.

CANDY SWEET ICICLE. O.P. Mid-season. From Bad Gates at Wild Boar Farm in California. Jumbo cherry with very elongated, pointed fruit. Pinky-red with lots of golden striping. Excellent fruity flavour, resists splitting and holds well on the vine and after harvest. Productive. Lax vines with wispy foliage – demands support. Indeterminate.

CARTER’S SUNRISE. O.P. Early. Introduced in the 1890s by Carters Seeds of England, it gained immediate popularity for its high yields of clusters of small, round, good flavoured, bright red fruit. Similar to the “cluster tomatoes” so popular in grocery stores nowadays, but the texture and flavour trump those lovely but hard and almost tasteless creatures hands down. We find it to be healthy and productive, with juicy fruit packed with robust “old-fashioned” tomato flavour. An excellent O.P. variety. Mid-sized indeterminate; needs strong support for heavy fruit clusters.

CELEBRITY. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. 1984 A.A.S. Winner. High yields of large, firm, good-textured, bright red fruit. Very good flavour. Healthy, disease resistant plants. Determinate; stake or cage.

CENTENNIAL ROCKET. O.P. Early. Older variety bred in Lacombe, Alberta. Early and hardy. Bright red, good-flavoured, mid-sized fruit on productive, sparsely–leaved vines. Indeterminate; stake.

CHADWICK’S CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Selectively bred over many years by the late biointensive garden-master, Alan Chadwick. Large cherry variety, up to golf ball sized fruit, though most are a bit smaller. Vigorous vines yield prolific clusters of bright red, sweet and very good flavoured fruit. A bit later than the really early cherry toms, but absolutely loaded with fruit ripening from early August through September/October until hard frost. Indeterminate; tall stake needed.

CHALK’S EARLY JEWEL. O.P. Early to mid-season. Heirloom “cluster tomato” variety, developed by James Chalk of Norristown, Pennsylvania, and released by him in 1899. Stokes Seed Company took it on and sold it commercially starting in 1904. Fruit is bright red, saladette (small slicer) sized, and produced in clusters of 3 to 5 per bunch. Good old-fashioned flavour, sweet with a fair amount of tang. Very productive. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN. O.P. Mid-season. Mid-sized, deep red, pleated and ruffled, sweet and mild fruit. Very unusual and attractive. Reasonably good yields. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHARLIE’S RED STAKER. O.P. Early to mid-season. Mid-sized to large, smooth, good-flavoured, bright red fruit on this popular old prairie variety from Morden Research Station in Manitoba. High yields mid-summer on. Indeterminate; stake.

CHATEAU ROSE. O.P. Mid-season. Very fine, sweet and flavourful, pinky-red French slicer-beefsteak variety. Very productive of perfect, blemish-free fruit. Beautiful and delicious. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHEROKEE PURPLE. O.P. Early to mid-season. American heritage variety; said to be over 100 years old; grown by the Cherokee people. Large, sweet, juicy, rich-flavoured, dusky rose-purple fruit on productive, viny plants. Frequent taste test winner. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHERRY FALLS. O.P. Early to mid-season. This cascading variety comes highly recommended. A viny but well-mannered tomato, with large tresses of bright red, cherry-sized tomatoes with excellent flavour early summer until frost. Stems reach 3 feet or more. Cascading habit for hanging basket, window box, or elevated planter.

CHIBIKKO. O.P. Early. Japan. We are always on the search for ultra-compact, early ripening, good-flavoured container tomatoes, and this variety seems promising. Very dwarf, to 12 inches tall, with good yields of round, bright red, well-flavoured cherry tomatoes. Similar to old favourite ‘Red Robin’, maybe a bit sweeter. Very compact; good in 1 gallon+ pots.

CHINESE VELVET. O.P. Mid-season. Despite the name, this one’s from Ukraine. Sweet, juicy, red-orange jumbo cherry. Attractive wooly foliage; fruits are covered in soft, barely noticeable, delicate fuzz. One of the delicious “furry” tomatoes, prized for their good flavour and excellent holding quality on the plant and after harvest. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHOCOLATE CHAMPION. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Very stocky plants. Mid-sized, chocolate-red beefsteak, good full flavour. Good in large containers. Dwarf indeterminate. Cage or stake.

CHOCOLATE CHERRY. O.P. Early. Abundant clusters of dark burgundy-flushed dark brown, sweet, mild and delicious cherry tomatoes. Prolific and dependable. Loads of very good tasting, extremely attractive fruit. Similar in production, fruit quality and good flavour to ‘Black Cherry’ and ‘Brown Berry’. Bred by Aaron Whaley. Indeterminate, rather spindly vines; needs support.

CHOCOLATE STRIPES. O.P. Mid-season. A productive small to mid-sized beefsteak type, with flattened, sometimes multi-lobed fruit in a striking shade of crimson “black” enhanced with green tiger striping. Dark mahogany-red flesh, very smooth texture, excellent complex smoky-sweet beefsteak flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHRISTMAS GRAPE. O.P. Early to mid-season. On older “heirloom” variety. Many clusters of round-to-grape-shaped, rich red cherry tomatoes on vigorous, healthy plants. Sweet and mild; dense and crack resistant fruit. Keeps quality well after harvest. A tiny bit firm in texture, but it holds extremely well after picking. I suspect the reference to Christmas might be for this reason – it would certainly last into December from its final harvest of green fruit, stored to ripen in the cold months. Indeterminate; needs support.

CHYORNYI PRINCE. O.P. Early. Another one of the famous “black” Russian varieties. Reddish-purple-blushed-burgundy fruit, with sweet; rich, smooth flavour. Almost identical to our old favourite ‘Black Prince’, though we thought it wasn’t quite as interestingly coloured – ‘Black Prince’ is much more intensely purple-brown. ‘Chyornyi Prince’ is just a little more “normal”. And very tasty! Verdict is still out as to whether these are the same cultivar/two different strains. Either is well worth growing.  Semi-determinate; short stake or cage.

CINNAMON PEAR. O.P. Mid-season. Very attractive pear-shaped cherry tomato. Purple-bronze red, darker interiors. Rather solid in texture, but nicely juicy. Sweet with loads of complex ‘”black tomato” flavour all bundled up in a small intense package. Determinate; stake or cage; good in a large container.

CLEAR PINK EARLY. O.P. Early. An old Russian variety which has lost its name, so is now referred to by this descriptive tag. Good yields of small, oval-to round, pinky-red, sweet and mild fruit. Very early. Determinate; stake or cage; good in a large container.

COASTAL PRIDE ORANGE. O.P. Mid-season. Bred by the late Dan McMurray, of Wynndel in the B.C. Kootenays. Beautiful sturdy plants to 3 feet tall. Perfectly round, smooth, rich orange, mid-size fruit. Don’t pick too soon; wait until colour darkens to dark orange and fruit is just slightly yielding. Very meaty and flavourful. We thought it a very nice tomato, very pretty and tasty, though not quite as heavy yielding as some.  Bush-type; stake or cage; good in a large container.

COEUR DE SURPRIZ. O.P. Mid-season. Small, heart-shaped slicer, bred by Jacqueline Morel in France. Rich brick red with vivid green striping. Interior flesh is mottled pink and green. Sweet, rich flavour. Indeterminate, needs support.

COLD SET. O.P. Early. Canada. Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, 1961. Recommended to us by Alberta gardening friends, who report consistently good results in cool, short season areas. Sturdy plants set and ripen fruit early. Mid-sized, plum-shaped, dark red, good-flavoured, multi-use tomatoes, for early fresh eating, salads and canning.  Determinate, stake or cage. Good for large containers.

COLE. O.P. Very early. Canada. This heirloom variety has been grown and selected for over four decades by a Mennonite family in Saskatchewan. One of the earliest tomatoes to ripen. Fruit are saladette size and larger, grow in generous clusters, and are rich red and good tasting. Sturdy, compact plants. Determinate; short stake or cage.

CONTAINER CHOICE RED. Hybrid. Early. The name’s perhaps not very romantic, but we found this to be early, reliable and good tasting. Compact plants. Abundant yields of saladette-size, bright red, juicy fruit with very good flavour. Excellent container variety. Bush-type.

COPPER RIVER. O.P. Mid-season. New variety developed by Lynn Brown, Napa Valley, California. Generous yields of big beefsteaks are reddish-coppery coloured, striped green and red inside when sliced. Tender skin, meaty flesh, with excellent sweet flavour. Appreciates a greenhouse in our region. Bush-type.

COSMIC ECLIPSE. O.P. Mid-season. Brand new variety (released in 2016) from Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farm. Saladette sized fruit start out dark green with purple-black striping, ripen to tricoloured red-green-purple. Lots of stripes and splashes. Quite a firm texture (as seems to be typical of the “blue” anthocyanin-laden varieties) but reasonably juicy. Flavour is good, a mix of sweet and tangy. A very eyecatching variety – definitely colourful and “different”. Indeterminate, needs support.

COSMONAUT VOLKOV.O.P. Early. Early red beefsteak; high yields of large, dark red fruit with excellent flavour. This is an old Ukraine variety selected for earliness, good flavour and overall excellence by retired Russian space engineer (and dedicated gardener) Mikhailovic Maslov. He re-named it for his old comrade, Russian astronaut Vladislav Volkov, who tragically perished during the return from the first visit to the first Russian space station in 1971. Indeterminate; needs support.

CREME BRULEE. O.P. Early. A handsome tomato from Russia. Mid-sized, globe-shaped, rich red-brown fruit. Flavour is sweet, smooth and intense. We have mixed reviews on this guy – perhaps just a bit too dry – and some fruits were slightly hollow. It is very productive. Semi-indeterminate; support.

CRIMSON CUSHION. O.P. Mid-season to late. 1894 American heirloom. Aka SCARLET PONDEROSA, BEEFSTEAK. Beautiful, huge, deep red fruit; round and flattened and ribbed. Excellent flavour, sweet, meaty and juicy. Said to be the first “beefsteak” type developed. Loves heat; fairly late to ripen; grow in greenhouse. Indeterminate; needs support.

CZECH’S BUSH. O.P. Mid-season. From Milan Sodomko in Czechoslovakia, sent to the U.S.A. in 1976. Sturdy, dwarf plants set clusters of small to mid-size, round, dark red fruit. Good old-fashioned flavour, excellent slicer or canner. High yielding.  Determinate, stake or cage. Good for containers.

DAD’S SUNSET. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. heirloom from Ohio. Good yields of mid-sized slicers, round, smooth, bright orange-yellow. Great quality, nice complex rich flavour, with some kick along with the sweetness.  Indeterminate, to 5 feet tall, needs support.

DAIQUIRI. Hybrid.  Mid-season. Commercial paste tomato. Very firm and uniform, red, chunky roma-style fruit. Of interest to those who need a good set of fruit ripening all at once for canning. Productive, with good flavour for its type. Bush-type.

DARK ORANGE MUSCAT. O.P.  Early. A newish American variety, with heirloom ancestry. Large, juicy, rich-flavoured cherry tomatoes are an interesting green-blushed orange colour, with green-seeded interiors. Attractive addition to the cherry tomato range. Another winner in the challenging wildfire-smoke-filled gardening year of 2017! Great flavour. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

DE BERAO BRAUN. O.P.  Early to mid-season. A.k.a. DE BERAO BLACK. A plum tomato which doubles as a canner plus a great tasting slicer. Chubby roma-type fruits are dark maroon-red with green-blushed shoulders. Dense and meaty, very good flavour, high yielding.  Indeterminate; needs support.

DEMIDOV. O.P.  Mid-season. From Siberia, introduced by the Western Siberian Potato-Vegetable Experimental Lab some years ago. Compact, bushy plants with abundant yields of mid-sized, plum-shaped, deep pink fruit. Meaty texture, sweet and mild flavour. Good container variety. We really liked this one and will grow it again. Bush-type.

DIKOVINKA. O.P.  Mid-season. Unique and delectable dusky pink “black” cherry tomato. Extra-sweet with a good, rich, fruity flavour. Very pretty, too. From Russia; name translates to ‘Rara Avis’. Vigorous and productive. Indeterminate; stake.

DITMARSHER. O.P. Very early. This one is a continual favourite. Very dwarf, 12 inch plants with a sprawling habit – good in pots and hanging baskets. High yields of very tasty, sweet and mild, small, oval/grape/egg-shaped, pink-red cherry tomatoes. Nice. Determinate; cascades.

DRAGON’S TEARS. O.P. Mid-season. Long, jumbo cherry size fruit is teardrop shaped with a nipple tip, bright orange, very sweet. High yielding. Deeply cut, whispy foliage. Indeterminate, need support.

DUFRESNE. O.P. Mid-season. Canadian heirloom tomato from Quebec. A.k.a. SAVIGNAC. Medium to large sized, dark pink, round, smooth-skinned fruit. Excellent flavour; sweet and juicy. Very productive and healthy; high yielding. Grown by Raymond Dufresne in the early 1900s, and given by Dufresne “on his deathbed” (or so the story goes) to Father Armand Savignac in 1948 (or thereabouts), entrusting Fr. Savignac with the future of the variety. Savignac was so impressed by the quality of the tomato that he grew it for the next four decades, until his own death in 1994, by which time it was being grown by a number of others in the local region. Indeterminate; needs support.

DWARF ARCTIC ROSE. O.P. Early to mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Sturdy 3-foot tall plants. Good sets of mid-size, beefsteak-shape, meaty and juicy, dark pink tomatoes. Delicious flavour, rich and well-balanced. Produces well in 3-gallon+ containers.  Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF BEAUTY KING. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar, a cross between ‘Dwarf Wild Fred’ and Wild Boar Farm’s ‘Beauty King’.  Sturdy 2 to 3 foot tall plants. Mid-sized, smooth-skinned, beefsteak-type fruit is red with golden striping. Good flavour, rich and sweet. Good container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF BENDIGO MOON. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Sturdy 2 to 3 foot tall plants. Good yields of ivory yellow cherry tomatoes, very nice sweet flavour. Great container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF CAITYDID. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Compact, tree-type plants produce a generous continuous crop of small to mid-size, round, yellow-and-red-swirled bicoloured fruit. Interiors are red. Very good flavour, a nice balance of sweet and tangy.  Bush-type indeterminate, support recommended.

DWARF CHAMPION IMPROVED. O.P. Mid-season. Very compact, sturdy plants. Good production of small to mid-sized, beefsteak-type, pink-red fruit, very meaty and good-flavoured. Bush type, support recommended.

DWARF FIREBIRD SWEET. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Medium sized, beefsteak-shaped, smooth-skinned pink-red fruit with generous gold striping. Very pretty. Excellent sweet flavour. Dwarf indeterminate. Good for large containers. Stake for support.

DWARF GOLDEN GYPSY. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Wendy Montanez. Seed supplier says: “The vigorous potato leaf dwarf plants produce heavy yields of smooth oblate medium yellow fruit with pale yellow flesh, ranging from 8-18 ounces. The flavor is among the very best among the new dwarfs – intense, sprightly (with a distinct refreshing tang), and simply delicious.” As advertised, we found this one had good yields of very tasty fruit, most on the smaller side, with some variance in fruit shape. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF ORANGE CREAM. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Craig LeHoullier. Pale orange, oval, sweet and flavourful saladette-sized fruit.  We have noticed that this one is sometimes prone to fruit scarring, though this does not affect its edibility at all. Good yields. Excellent container variety. Potato leaf type. Bush-type, needs support.

DWARF PINK PASSION. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Vigorous “tree-type” dwarf plants. High yields of medium sized, dark pink, very meaty, heart-shaped fruit. Good flavour, sweet and well balanced. Dwarf indeterminate. Good for large containers. Stake for support.

DWARF RUSSIAN SWIRL. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Craig LeHoullier. Seed supplier says: “The vigorous regular leaf dwarf plants produce excellent yields of smooth oblate yellow tomatoes with red swirls and streaks that range between 6-12 ounces. The flavor is well balanced and tasty, reminiscent of the best indeterminate bicolor types.” As described. Variable fruit size and shape, very good flavour, good yields. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF SAUCY MARY. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar.  Lovely dark-green-striped golden-green tomato. Elongated plum-type fruits, good for salads or saucing. Very juicy, lots of flavour, sweet and tasty. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF SCARLET HEART. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar.  Full-size, oxheart-type fruit, elongated with a pointed end. Some pleating on occasional fruits – very pretty. Bright scarlet in colour, very good flavour, good yields. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

DWARF WILD SPUDLEAF. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Craig LeHoullier. Seed supplier says: “The vigorous potato leaf dwarf plant produces very good yields of smooth oblate purple (clear skinned black) fruit that range between 6-12 ounces, possessing a rich, well balanced delicious flavor.” As described. A very likeable variety, very good tasting. Yields perhaps not quite as high as some of the others? But it could have been us – this one was one of the last planted out and it spent a bit too long in its small starter pot so that may well have set it back. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

EARLIEST & BEST. O.P. Early. How can you argue with that name?! Introduced by venerable Canadian seed house Dominion in the 1940s. Mid-sized, round, flawless, bright red fruit with excellent old-fashioned flavour – nice mix of sweet and tart. Very high yields, and yes, very early. Excellent old-fashioned variety, especially for short season areas. I’ve eaten a lot of these growing up, as this was one of my mother’s tried and true varieties which she grew in the 1970s and ’80s in her super-productive little home greenhouse north of Williams Lake, in the cold zone, elevation 3000 feet. It was eventually dropped by Dominion as newer hybrids took over, but luckily the variety lives on thanks to dedicated seed savers. Semi-indeterminate; short stake or cage.

EARL OF EDGECOMBE. O.P. Mid-season. Striking variety has round, mid-sized, bright orange fruit with excellent flavour. Very eye-catching and it tastes as good as it looks. Apparently when the 6th Earl of Edgecombe died in the 1960s, the next heir to the title was busy sheep farming in New Zealand. The new Earl returned to England, bringing seeds of this tomato with him. Variable size – some get really big, while others on the same plants grow in clusters of mid-sized fruit. Excellent slicer – meaty, smooth texture, sweet and flavourful. Indeterminate; needs support.

EARLY CASCADE. Hybrid. Early. F1 hybrid developed for cooler growing conditions. Sets and ripens fruit early in our area. Saladette-sized tomatoes are bright red, firm, juicy and good tasting. A good variety, which we might not be offering very often, just because it is widely available elsewhere. Indeterminate; needs support.

EARLY LETHBRIDGE. O.P. Early. From the Agricultural Research Station in Lethbridge, Alberta, released in 1953. Very good yields of clusters of mid-size, round, bright red fruit with good old-fashioned tomato flavou. For fresh eating and canning. Determinate; needs support.

EARLY WILLAMETTE. O.P. Early. Bred by Dr. Alan Kapuler, a cross of Oregon State University’s famouus ‘Willamette’ and Russian heirloom ‘Skorospelka’. Perfect for short season areas. Excellent yields of mid-size, round and blemish-free, bright red fruit. Great slicer, good for canning, too. Meaty, mild and sweet. Fruit sets in clusters. Determinate; needs support.

EARLY WONDER. O.P. Early. Burgess Seed & Plant Co., U.S.A., 1950. Excellent older cultivar still highly prized for early season productivity and great flavour. Compact plants to 4 feet tall bloom and set fruit early. Saladette-sized fruit are dark pinky-red, with nicely balanced flavour. Good in containers. Determinate; needs support.

EROS. O.P. Early. Large yields of small, perfectly round, very pretty, bright red fruit. Nice and early. Heirloom variety introduced to North America in the early 1900s by German immigrants. Named after the Greek god of love, apparently in reference to the delectable nature of the fruit. When we tried this one we found it to be a fairly average cherry variety, nice enough but not particularly outstanding compared to varieties like the stellar heirloom ‘Gardener’s Delight’, or even the commercial greenhouse standards ‘Sweet Hundred’ and ‘Sweet Million’.  Indeterminate – needs support.

ESTERINA. Hybrid. Mid-season. A lovely golden yellow jumbo cherry, as sweet and delicious as the well regarded Sun Gold Cherry, but with higher yields and better holding quality. Indeterminate – needs support.

EVIL OLIVE. O.P. Mid-season. Gorgeous multi-shaded cherry tomato is as tasty as it is delicious. (And who can resist that name?!) High yields of glossy, round cherry tomatoes, cinnamon-red blushed with green, with dark red insides. Complex flavour, spicy-sweet. Indeterminate – needs support.

FAHRENHEIT SWEET RED. O.P. Mid-season. Super sweet dark red cherry tomato. Firm fruit but with nicely tender skin. Stabilized from the hybrid ‘Fahrenheit Blues’ by Jeff Casey of Airdrie, Alberta. Indeterminate; needs support.

FANTOME DU LAOS. O.P. Early to mid-season. “Ghost from Laos”. Very early for a “big tomato” variety, with huge, delicious, beautiful fruit – and lots of them. Ivory white, ribbed and lobed fruit is blushed yellow and pink. Very sweet and mild. Great slicer. Low-acid type. Some blossom end scarring, as is typical with any beefsteak type. An unusual and quite wonderful variety which continually surpasses our expectations. Short indeterminate; needs support.

FARTHEST NORTH. O.P. Very early. U.S.A. Introduced by the North Dakota State University in 1934. A compact and prolific red cherry tomato. Good flavour. Sets fruit well in cool temperatures. Good for containers, and northern gardens. Determinate; short stake or cage.

FATHER FROST. O.P. Early. Russia. A.k.a. ‘Moroz Batyushka’. Could almost qualify as a “micro-dwarf”- plants are extra compact – 1 to 2 feet tall – and perfectly suited to container growing. Saladette sized fruits are bright red, flattened globes. Good meaty texture and sweet flavour. Cold tolerant, sets fruit early. Dwarf determinate, short stake. Good in containers.

FIREBALL. O.P. Early. U.S.A. Introduced by the Joseph Harris Seed Company, Rochester, New York, in 1952. It was developed from a round plum tomato and the 1937 market variety ‘Valiant’. Small, round, bright orangey-red fruit with good flavour. Nice and early, ripens in July. Tasty enough for fresh eating, high yielding and meaty enough for canning, and hold up well after picking. Semi-determinate; stake or cage.

FIRST LADY. Hybrid. Early. Early large variety. Have grown this one for many years; very good in the Cariboo. Deep red; high yielding; good flavour and texture. Excellent disease resistance. This one seems to have disappeared from the seed listings recently (2021), replaced perhaps by “improved” hybrids, such as the up-and-coming ‘New Girl’, often billed as an even better ‘First Lady’ or ‘Early Girl’. Semi-indeterminate; needs support.

FLAMING BURST. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. Bred by Tom Wagner, Washington, from a crossing of ‘Jaune Flammée’ and ‘Verde Claro’.  Excellent yields of small, bright orange, teardop-shaped cherry tomatoes bursting with rich, sweet-yet-tangy flavour, definitely carrying on its ‘Jaune Flamée’ heritage.  Short indeterminate, needs support.

FLORAGOLD BASKET. O.P. Very early. U.S.A. Bred by the University of Florida agricultural department, 1988. A sturdy dwarf, good for containers. Bright yellow cherry tomatoes, turning orange at peak ripeness. Reasonably flavourful for a yellow cultivar, but very much on the mild end of the spectrum. We found it to be impressively high yielding, with a gently cascading habit later in the season. Suitable for indoor winter growing and windowsill pots.   Determinate. Gallon pots are fine for this one.

FOX CHERRY. O.P. Early to mid-season. Jumbo red cherry tomatoes on rambling, productive vines. Good flavour; high yields; very good tolerance of drought, disease, and difficult growing conditions. Indeterminate; needs support.

FURRY BUMBLEBEE. O.P. Mid-season. A woolly tomato from Croatia! Foliage is densely covered with soft grey-blue hairs. Jumbo cherry fruit is elongated with a nipple tip, soft red, with a soft silver “bloom”. Very sweet. High producing. Semi-indeterminate, stake or cage.

FUZZY. O.P. Mid-season. “Peach” type heirloom tomatoes have been grown in Russia and the Ukraine for generations. Highly productive plants. Small, slightly oblong, light pink fruits are mild and sweet. Skin has a “downy” texture – very soft & delicate – no need to peel! Interesting variation. The “fuzzy” gene is associated with valuable hardiness, flavour and yield traits, and these varieties are important genetic resources, as well as having “cute” and tasty qualities! Indeterminate.

GALINAS. O.P. Early. Fantastic Siberian cultivar. Large, vigorous plants produce generous clusters of bright yellow, slightly elongated cherry tomatoes. Very sweet and rich flavoured. Nice and early, excellent for our region. Indeterminate, needs support.

GARDENER’S DELIGHT. O.P. Early to mid-season. Super-prolific, super-delicious, bright red cherry tomato. Loads of sweet fruit in large clusters on vigorous, healthy plants. Name says it all! Heritage English variety; Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit winner. We’ve grown this one for years and years, and will continue to do so. Sweet and delicious and high yielding – a perfect cherry tom. Indeterminate. Needs support.

GARDENER’S SWEETHEART. O.P. Early to mid-season. A recent introduction from the Maine garden of Will Bonsall, a cross between the excellent heritage British variety ‘Gardener’s Delight’ and a plum tomato. Long clusters of large, shiny-red, heart-shaped cherry tomatoes are smooth textured and very rich flavoured. Not as juicy as most cherry toms, which makes them nicely crack resistant, good for market gardeners.Vigorous, healthy plants. A stand-out variety for us in 2017. Indeterminate. Needs support.

GARDEN PEACH. O.P. Mid-season. This one is a bit different, in the very best way. Introduced to North American gardens in 1862, and thought to be a selection of a wild South American species, this unique variety is beautiful and delicious. High yields of small, pale yellow fruit with a delicate texture and sweet flavour.  The pretty little globular fruits have a dull sheen versus the glossy brightness of other varieyies, and closer examination reveals that the fruit is covered with a velvety micro-fuzz. Unlike a true peach, this one needs no peeling. Very juicy, too. Indeterminate. Needs support.

GARY’O SENA. O.P. Mid-season. A recent cross by Keith Mueller of two excellent-tasting heirlooms, ‘Cherokee Purple’ and ‘Brandywine’. Large, irregularly-shaped, flattened, beefsteak-type fruit are early for their size. Very good flavoured, sweet, rich and meaty. The apostrophe placement in the name is unusual but correct, as the variety is named after Ken’s grandmother, who had a unique name. Not as productive as we’d hoped it to be in 2017; we’ll grow it out once more just to be fair. Indeterminate. Needs support.

GERMAN EXTREME DWARF BUSH. O.P. Very early. Thought to be an old German commericial variety, this cultivar was listed in the Gleckler’s catalogue in 1958 – “It is really a mystery how such a small plant can produce such an abundance of good size tomatoes…” Very compact plants,  under 2 feet high and wide, produce good-flavoured, saladette-sized, bright red fruit very early. Great container plant. Leaves are sometimes twisted and curling; this is merely a varietal trait related to the dwarfing gene. Determinate.

GIANT BELGIUM. O.P. Late. Huge, dark pink, sweet, juicy and meaty beefsteak fruit. This variety has topped 5 pounds; more common is 1 to 2. Needs heat; best in greenhouse. Indeterminate. Needs support. We’ve grown this one a few times, and found it to be nice enough but not nearly as early or as productive as the heirlooms ‘Stump of the World’ and ‘Mortgage Lifter’. One more suited to a longer season area, we’re thinking.

GOBSTOPPER. O.P. Early. From Madeline McKeever in Ireland. Bred out from the hybrid ‘Sun Gold Cherry’. Nice big cherry tomatoes are chatreuse yellow, with green interiors. Beautiful fruit, gorgeous in salads when sliced in half. Excellent flavour, sweet with some zing. Indeterminate; needs support.

GOLDEN BEAUTY. O.P. Mid-season. Tall, vigorous plants. High yields of pale ivory-yellow jumbo cherries with sweet, fruity flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

GOLDEN DAWN. O.P. Early.  Old English cultivar. Smooth-skinned, perfectly round, jumbo cherry/saladette sized fruit are produced from early in the season, ripening to a glowing golden-yellow. Very juicy, mild flavoured with a nice sweet-tangy kick. Indeterminate; needs support.

GOLDEN GRAPE. O.P. Mid-season. Vigorously vining plant yields large cluster of translucent, golden-yellow grape-shaped cherry tomatoes. Super sweet and very juicy. Indeterminate; needs support.

GOLIATH. O.P. Mid-season to late.  Large, ribbed beefsteak type, dark pink, sweet and meaty tomatoes. Can get very large; well over a pound each. Vigorous vines; prune as needed to control growth. Limiting fruit set equals larger tomatoes. Indeterminate. Needs support. 2008: Not as productive as some of the others of its type. It was very tasty, but we only got a few ripe fruit; most rotted before they ripened, as the fruit was so heavy that the branches bent down and the fruit laid on the ground, despite our attempts to stake and tie them up adequately.

GOOSE CREEK. O.P. Mid-season. An American heirloom from the early 1800s, brought to America – so the story goes – by a young Caribbean slave, who smuggled some seeds with her aboard a ship that docked at Charleston near Goose Creek, South Carolina. But, as with so many anecdotal tales, no one really knows for sure… What we do know is that this variety has quite a buzz going on in heirloom tomato circles. Winner of the Best Tomato in the Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest 2011. Back story aside, ‘Goose Creek’ is a smallish, saladette-sized, round pink fruit with excellent flavor. High yielding – loaded with small red fruit. Delicious! A star performer which is now on our “must grow” list after several years of trialling.  Indeterminate; needs support.

GREEN DOCTORS FROSTED. O.P. Mid-season. Interesting natural mutation of famous cherry tomato ‘Green Doctors’. Cherry-sized fruit start out grass green, developing an amber yellow blush when ripe. The skin is transparent, and the fruit are attractive. Sweet flavour, nice and mild. Very productive, though not one of the earliest. Indeterminate, needs support.

GREEN GRAPE. O.P. Mid-season. Interesting heirloom. I started growing these by customer request after fellow Soda Creek nurserywoman Ellen Lauridsen retired and left her customers without a source. Clusters of green-blushed-yellow, elongated cherry fruit. Excellent soft texture and sweet flavour; can tell ripeness by “feel” of the fruit. Beautiful in salads; lovely contrasting colour to the reds, yellows and oranges. Indeterminate; needs support.

GREEN TIGER. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. Recent introduction by Fred Hempel of Baia Nicchia Farm, Sunol, California. Small, grape-shaped plum-type tomatoes, with firm texture, and good, sweet flavour. Light green with darker stripes; interior turns red-blushed upon ripening, when a slight outer pink tint will become apparent. Indeterminate; needs support.

GREEN ZEBRA. O.P. Early to mid-season. A “modern heirloom”. This was a 1983 introduction bred from several older heirloom varieties. Clusters of smallish, prolifically produced fruit are deep green with lighter stripes; these blush pale yellow-green when ripe. Sweet, mild and slightly tangy flavour. Highly praised by garden and seed catalogue writers, but we found it to be a bit on the hard and dry side; flavour was disappointing. Very pretty, though not enough so to make up for the other drawbacks. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

GRÔSSE COTELÉE. O.P. Mid-season to late. An old French heirloom variety; the name translates to “Big Ribbed”.  Vigorous, healthy plants and high yields of large beefsteak-type fruit, with pronounced to gentle ribbing. Excellent flavour, sweet and rich. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

GRUSHOVKA. O.P. Mid-season. Russian heirloom. Compact plants produce a generous crop of chubby, plum-shaped, smooth-skinned pink fruit. Sweet and juicy, with good flavour for eating fresh. Though it looks rather like a paste type, it is a true slicer/salad type. Determinate. Stake or cage to support. Good in containers.

GUERNSEY ISLAND. O.P. Early to mid-season. A New Zealand heirloom variety which originated on one of Ehgland’s Channel Islands. Saladette-sized fruit are slightly oval, bronze-red with pronounced green stripes. Very juicy, and quite zingy in flavour. Excellent in salads. Very prolific. A beautiful and unusual little tomato. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

HAHMS GELBE TOPFTOMATE. O.P. Very early. An older German variety, very similar to ‘Yellow Canary’. Perfect little container tomato. Very dwarf plants, 6 to 12 inches tall, will be happy in a gallon container. Abundant settings of sweet, bright yellow, cherry-sized fruit ripen very early, before the big tomatoes start. Don’t pick too soon, wait until the pale yellow fruits turn golden for sweetest flavour. Dwarf determinate; no support needed.

HALFMOON CHINA. O.P. Early to mid-season. Pale ivory-yellow blushed with pink, flattened, small beefsteak tomatoes. Smooth and beautiful, and very sweet. A very rare variety. Growing alongside the also-excellent ‘Fantome du Laos’ it is hard to decide which one is tastier – though ‘Halfmoon China’ is perhaps prettier, being more uniform in its glossy, perfect, rounded fruit. Determinate; stake or cage.

HAPPY JACK. O.P. Mid-season to late. Not often seen heirloom from Belgium, grown in North America since the 1950s. Large pink heart-shaped slicer, smooth and beautiful, very dense with hardly any seeds. Lovely sweet and mild flavour to match its appearance. One for the greenhouse in our region. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

HARBINGER. O.P. Early. An old English variety, dating back to 1910. Clusters of small, thin-skinned, juicy, bright red fruit. Good flavour for fresh eating and salads. Sets fruit well in cool conditions. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

HARVEST LUCK. O.P. Mid-season. Germany. A.k.a. ‘Ernteglück’. Many long trusses of bright red, perfectly round, absolutely delicious cherry tomatoes. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

HEINZ 2653. O.P. Early to mid-season. This older paste tomato variety was once one of the standard cultivars used by a certain prominent ketchup maker, hence the name. Great for short season areas as it sets fruit quickly and ripens all at once, making things handy for the canner. Very meaty, very productive, on sturdy, healthy plants. Determinate; you can let it sprawl, but best to stake or cage.

HONEY. O.P. Mid-season. Older variety, originally from Latvia. Nice big pink-red beefsteaks, smooth-skinned and crackless. Very meaty texture, very sweet flavour. An excellent slicer. Productive and vigorous. Indeterminate, needs support.

HONEYBEE. Hybrid. Early. Bright yellow, round and perfect, extra sweet and juicy cherry-sized fruit in generous clusters. Semi-determinate; good in containers; likes some support.

HOUSE. O.P. Early. Heirloom Russian variety, brought to Canada in the 1890s. Small plants reach 2 feet tall or so, and are well adapted to indoor container growing in the sunniest window possible, or, with our modern technology, under grow lights. Small, red, saladette type fruit is good flavoured; especially tasty in the off-season! Can be grown in the garden as well, where it often gets taller and produces more abundantly. Our seed source reports that this variety can be grown outside in large containers, then cut back in the fall and brought indoors to resprout and flower and fruit in the winter. Some specimens have lived in this manner for many years.  Our plants stayed very compact, not at all viny. Fruit was excellent – very good tasting for this type of “pot tomato”. Definitely prolific. A keeper! Compact indeterminate; stake or cage.

HUNGARIAN HEART. O.P. Mid-season. European heirloom, said to have originated in a village just outside of Budapest in the early 1900s. Large, meaty, lusciously sweet, dark pink, heart-shaped tomatoes can weigh up to a pound. This variety is high-yielding for a jumbo oxheart type. Good for fresh eating, sauce and canning. Indeterminate. Needs support.

IDA GOLD. O.P. Early. Generously branching plants with excellent yields of saladette-sized, rich orange fruit. Very sweet and tasty, a low acid variety. Beautiful! Semi-indeterminate.  Great for containers. Cage or allow to sprawl.

ILDI. O.P. Mid-season.  A “Wow!” variety – immense yields of sweet yellow grape-shaped cherry tomatoes – tender and juicy and beautiful. Very sweet flavour. Huge clusters – must be grown to be believed. In the fall, clusters or the entire plants can be pulled and hung in a cool area for fruit to ripen over the next weeks or even months. For greenhouse or garden. Good cold resistance, ripening fruit well into fall. Indeterminate. Needs support.

IMUR PRIOR BETA. O.P. Early. Norway. Short season, cool climate cultivar. Slicer-type fruit, deep pink-red, very sweet and juicy. Good in the garden, large containers, or greenhouse. Short indeterminate. Needs support.

INDIAN MOON. O.P. Mid-season. Wisconsin heirloom. Big, bright golden yellow, perfectly round fruits with very nice flavour – sweet, low-acid, meaty. Yields are only fair, not a “main cropper”, but worth the garden space for its beauty and good taste. Semi-determinate. Needs support.

INDIAN RIVER. O.P. Mid-season. Florida, 1958. Selection of a natural cross between ‘Manalucie’ and ‘Manalee’. Excellent production of small to medium sized, bright red, globe-shaped fruit. Very good flavour. Good disease resistance, good adaptability to hot and cool weather. For open garden or greenhouse. Meaty fruit, good for canning as well as fresh eating. Compact indeterminate. Provide support or may be grown as a sprawler over mulch.

INDIGO ROSE. O.P. Mid-season. There’s been something of a buzz about this newly released (in 2012) variety, bred at Oregon State University to be high in anti-oxidant anthocyanins, the compounds related (in one example) to the blue coloration of blueberries. This is a traditionally developed variety, not GMO, and seeds saved from the fruit will stay true to type. So we were quite interested in seeing what this tomato was like. It is truly gorgeous in appearance, being oval shaped, jumbo cherry sized, with a lovely glossy skin. And it is a true dark purple-blue on the shoulders (the anthocyanin production is related to sun exposure). Very pretty. It took forever to fully ripen, though – we kept picking these and finding them crunchy and bland. Eventually some fruit actually ripened – in September – and we were able to judge the flavour. It was acceptable but not wow. Mild, quite sweet, but bland. These kept a long time after harvest, but the taste was nothing special, so we have decided that its good looks and long-keeper-ism don’t really make up for its lack of deliciousness and its lateness of maturity. We won’t be growing this one for sale, in other words. But it was an interesting experiment. Semi-indeterminate. Needs support. Link to the OSU press release in 2012.

ISIS CANDY CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. This German heirloom has loads of sweet, tasty, gold and red marbled cherry tomatoes. Indeterminate; needs support.

JASPER. O.P. Early. Saladette/jumbo cherry from England. A stabilized strain of a hybrid by the same name. Large trusses of oval, shiny red fruit with excellent sweet, rich flavour. Good substance, keeps well after picking. Indeterminate; needs support.

JAUNE FLAMME. O.P. Early. One of the best-tasting orange varieties we’ve grown. Beautiful heirloom tomato from France. Apricot sized and coloured – the bright orange fruit is sweet and fruity, very rich and complex – gourmet flavour! High yields; excellent tolerance to cool nights. Indeterminate; needs support.

JAZZ. O.P. Mid-season to late. Big dark pink beefsteak with yellow striping. From Fred Hempel’s Artisan Seeds. Sweet and fruity flavour, nice for sandwich slices. Heat lover, late to ripen in our area, so one for those with abundant greenhouse space. Indeterminate, needs support.

JERSEY DEVIL. O.P. Mid-season. Great heritage variety from the Eastern U.S.A. Prolific yields of 4 to 6 inch long, tapered, bright red fruits; shaped rather like banana peppers. Very sweet & meaty; almost seedless fruit is perfect for fresh eating, salads & sauces. Large bush; needs staking.

JULIET. Hybrid. Early. High performer. Loads of bright red, elongated, jumbo cherry toms with reasonably good flavour, though rather firm texture. Early and long-producing; very reliable in difficult weather conditions. If I could only grown one cherry tom, this wouldn’t be it, but we get requests for this one every year so it does have its fans. Large bush; needs staking.

JUNE PINK. O.P. Early. Widely adapted, extra-early older variety, prized for its dependable yields of large, round, rosy-red-pink, very well flavoured fruit. Good disease resistance for a non-hybrid, long season of production. Good for fresh eating and canning. Very similar to the 1900 cultivar ‘Earliana’, thought by some to be a renamed version that famous field tomato. Indeterminate, needs support.

KANGAROO PAW BROWN. O.P. Early to mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar, released in 2015. We grew it in 2016 and were very pleased with its compact habit and tasty fruit. Sturdy 2-foot tall plants had a good set of mid-sized, smooh-skinned, brownish-red fruit with green shoulders. Nicely complex flavour, excellent all alone or in a salad. Bush type; good idea to stake as the fruit is large for the plant size. Good in containers.

KANGAROO PAW YELLOW. O.P. Early to mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Seed supplier says: “The vigorous regular leaf dwarf plants produce loads of smooth round yellow fruit that are in the 4 ounce range. The flavor is delightful – well balanced, and very tasty. ” Our test planting supported the description. An excellent container variety. Bush-type, support recommended.

KARMA APRICOT. O.P. Mid-season. Excellent new variety bred by Karen Olivier of True North Tomatoes in Ladysmith, B.C. and horticultural partner Martha Eisenberg, Florida, grown out from a cross of ‘Ambrosia Gold’ and ‘Captain Lucky’. Fruit is ping pong ball size, rather oval, golden yellow with pink blushing. Like its siblings in this line, meaty yet thin-skinned and juicy with sweet and complex flavour. Good yields in cooler climates. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

KARMA APRICOT. O.P. Mid-season. Bred by Karen Olivier of True North Tomatoes in Ladysmith, B.C. and horticultural partner Martha Eisenberg, Florida, from a cross of ‘Ambrosia Gold’ and ‘Captain Lucky’. Fruit is jumbo cherry to saladette sized, bi-coloured apricot-red, meaty yet thin-skinned and juicy with sweet and complex flavour. Good yields in cooler climates. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

KARMA PINK. O.P. Mid-season. One of our flavour stars in 2020. Excellent new variety bred by Karen Olivier of True North Tomatoes in Ladysmith, B.C. and horticultural partner Martha Eisenberg, Florida, from a cross of ‘Ambrosia Gold’ and ‘Captain Lucky’. Fruit is jumbo cherry to saladette sized, dark pink-red, meaty yet thin-skinned and juicy with sweet and complex flavour. Good yields in cooler climates. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

KARMA PURPLE. O.P. Mid-season. Another excellent new variety in the Karma series bred by Karen Olivier of True North Tomatoes in Ladysmith, B.C. and horticultural partner Martha Eisenberg, Florida, from a cross of ‘Ambrosia Gold’ and ‘Captain Lucky’. Super sweet jumbo cherry, dark purple-red with green shoulders. Wonderfully complex flavour – a mini “black tomato”. Good yields in cooler climates. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

KIMBERLEY. O.P. Very early. From Kimberley, B.C., developed in the 1980s by John de Roque. Very early, jumbo cherry size, bright red fruit is high quality and great flavoured. It is superb in containers, producing all season, spring to frost.  Compact indeterminate. Good in containers.

KISS THE SKY. O.P. Mid-season. Stabilized from the hybrid cultivar Purple Haze by Tatiana Kouchnareva of Lindell Beach, B.C. Nice big cherry tomato, purple-red touched with green. Outsize flavour – sweet and rich. Super priductive, too. Indeterminate. Needs support.

KOOKABURRA CACKLE. O.P. Early to mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar seleced and named by Patrina Nuske. Released in 2015. We grew this one in 2016, and liked it. Vigorous dwarf plants produced a respectable number of smooth-skinned, egg-sized-and-shaped, deep brownish-red fruit. Nicely complex flavour, on the zingier side of the tomato taste spectrum. Bush type; good idea to stake as the fruit is large for the size of the plant. Good in containers.

LADY BUG. Hybrid. Early. Cute little cherry tomato; well named! Loads of small, bright red, sweet & very tasty fruit are produced all summer. Apparently this variety won the 2006 USA Top Tomato Taste Test. Indeterminate; needs support.

LARGE RED CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Just what it says on the label – a large red cherry tomato! Very good tasting and very productive. From the garden of master tomato gardener Ben Quisenberry, the man who introduced the world to the ‘Brandywine’ tomato, and also our old favourite ‘Stump of the World’. Ben said it was good, and we won’t argue! Indeterminate; needs support.

LATAH. O.P. Early. One of the very earliest to ripen – “absurdly early” is the quote that caught my eye in an heirloom seed listing. Small, bright red, “saladette size” (small slicer) fruit is produced in profusion on rather lanky and rambling vines. Developed in the 1970s by Dr. Art Boe of the University of Idaho in Latah County, and a very popular variety in short season areas for its good yields, good taste and speed of ripening. Semi-indeterminate; sprawling; best in a sturdy tomato cage.

LA VIE EN ROSE. O.P. Mid-season. Big beautiful beefsteak from Secret Seed Cartel in France. Dark pink, smooth-skinned and crack-free, excellent sweet flavour. One of the progeny of as naturally occurring cross between Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant and an unknown pink beefsteak. Regular-leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

LEMON BOY. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. Great big lemon-yellow beefsteak. Very mild, sweet and meaty; excellent yields. A really great tomato. Has been around many years and is still popular – deservedly so. Indeterminate; stake.

LINNAEUS HEART. O.P. Mid-season. Russia. Large, dark red, purple shouldered, dense and meaty, heart-shaped fruit. Smooth skinned and beautiful. Excellent flavour, great for slicing as well as canning. Named after the 18th Century Swedish botanist responsible for developing the system of plant classification we still use today. Indeterminate; stake.

LITTLE LUCKY. O.P. Mid-season to late. This very tasty tomato is a child of the famous ‘Brandywine’. Good production of marbled red-orange, mid-sized beefsteaks. Flavour is sweet and good. On the later side, so must be grown in a greenhouse in the Cariboo. Large indeterminate, needs support.

LONGHORN. O.P. Mid-season. Flawless purple-red oxheart. Flesh is dense and meaty, few seeds, good flavour. For fresh eating or saucing. Very productive. Tall plants with whispy foliage. From J & L Gardens in New Mexico. Indeterminate, needs support.

LOTOS. O.P. Mid-season. A.k.a. LOTUS. A very nice Russian cultivar. Mid-size, round and smooth, creamy white fruit. Flavour is mild and sweet, with fruity undertones. Excellent slicer, very meaty. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

LOVER’S LUNCH. O.P. Mid-season. A colourful mid-size slicer from Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farm in California. Round fruits are pale yellow, extravagantly striped with dark pink. Interiors are mottled yellow and pink. Classic beefsteak tomato flavour, rich and sweet. Indeterminate, needs support.

LOXTON LAD. O.P. Mid-season. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Patrina Nuske. Released commercially in 2015; first grown by us in 2016. Vigorous, productive, dwarf plants produce dark orange, rather flattened and lobed, smooth-skinned fruit in variable sizes, small to very large. Well balanced, richly delicious flavor. Great slicer and salad tomato. Bush type; good idea to stake as the fruit is large for the size of the plant. Good in containers.

LOXTON LASS. O.P. Mid-season. Yet another Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Patrina Nuske. Released commercially in 2015; first grown by us in 2016. Vigorous dwarf plant with good sets of mid-sized, flattened, occasionally green-shouldered, dark orange beefsteak-type fruit. Excellent sweet and rich flavour. Bush type; good idea to stake as the fruit is large for the size of the plant. Good in containers.

LUCKY LEPRECHAUN. O.P. early to mid-season. Supposedly hailing from Ireland in the early 1900s, but the true tale of its origin is a bit murky. No matter, it’s a pleasant little saladette, with bright red, globular fruit, nicely mild and sweet. Some shoulder cracking; keep an eye on these as they approach peak ripeness and pick and eat right away. Good yields on compact plants; great for 1 to 2 gallon containers. Determinate; a short stake is a good idea.

LUCKY TIGER. O.P. Mid-season. This is a brand spanking new “old-fashioned” green-when-ripe variety, bred by Fred Hempel of Baia Nicchia Farm in Sunol, California, and introduced commercially in 2014. Fruits are small and elongated plum-type. Skin is green striped with purple, and inside is mottled green and pink. Flavour is very sweet and good. We all loved this one in 2016, and it has a great big star beside it on the “grow for 2017” list! Indeterminate; needs support.

LYANA. O.P. Very early. Moldavia. A very early, high quality saladette-sized tomato. Several productive settings of bright crimson-red, very meaty, very good flavoured round fruit. Good in containers. Determinate, stake or cage.

MAGLIA ROSA. O.P. Early. Another new Fred Hempel tomato. Grape sized and shaped, the green-striped pink fruits taste best eaten before peak ripeness, at the light pink stage. It is high in the naturally occuring aromatic compound Geranial (Citral) also found in citrus fruit, and the herbs lemon balm and lemon verbena. This sounds intriguing, and our seed source speaks very highly of the flavour, so we have decided to give it a try. Plant habit is described as spindly and unattractive, and growers are advised NOT to pull it out despite its unpromising appearance! Fred says to try it in containers, and to ignore its cosmetic demerits. This said, we didn’t find it particularly awkward in growth habit, and it was absolutely LOADED with fruit. Sweet and good tasting, no question about that, and the fruit is very pretty. Determinate; best with a sturdy cage; vines reach 3 feet or so.

MAGYAR PIROS BOKER. O.P. Mid-season. Originating in Hungary in the mid 1800s. Leafy plants produce a large crop of mid-sized, blemish-free, bright red fruit. Meaty texture; excellent flavour; great for fresh eating and good for canning as most of the crop ripens together during a short period. In 2016, we found that it set fruit early but ripened quite slowly. It needs another trial year before we feel that we can pronounce on its suitability for our Cariboo conditions. Tall determinate; stake or cage.

MALINIAK. O.P. Early to mid-season. This excellent commercial variety from Poland is a very heavy yielder of mid-sized, round, very sweet and juicy, raspberry-pink fruit. Compact determinate, needs a strong stake to keep it from tipping over with the weight of its fruit.

MANITOBA. O.P. Early. Older Canadian variety developed for short prairie growing season. Large yields of small to mid-sized, round, bright red fruit. Tangy flavour; good in salads; great canning variety. Popular with many and easy to find in other area nurseries, but we find it merely average taste-wise; there are others we like much better so we may not offer this one any more. Determinate.

MANÖ. O.P. Early. Hungary. A  nicely compact dwarf tomato, perfect for containers. Cherry to saladette sized fruit. Bright red fruit is full of flavour, sweet and lively. Excellent in salads, these slice perfectly into bite-size halves. Sturdy, short plants, no support needed.

MANX MARVEL. O.P. Isle of Man. Older variety (circa 1927) once grown commercially. Good yields of saladette sized, round, orange-red fruit. Flavour is “old-style”, with an element of acidity. Good in marinated salads, and for canning and juicing. Indeterminate.

MARALINGA. O.P. Early. Another Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar selected and named by Patrina Nuske, released in 2015. Our first year growing was 2016. Vigorous dwarf plants with a generous yield of large, beefsteak-type, dark red-black tomatoes with deep crimson flesh. Smooth textured, rich flavoured. Bush type; good idea to stake or cage as the fruit is very large for the size of the plant. Good in large containers.

MARIANA. Hybrid. Mid-season. We first grew this variety in 2016 by request of a local market garden customer. We kept a few plants back for ourselves out of curiousity, and were impressed by the good qualities of this commercial hybrid. Large saladette, plum-shaped, dark red, very firm, and quite good-flavoured. A multi-use variety, for fresh eating and canning. Stake or cage.

MARIZOL MAGIC. O.P. Early. Very pretty, golden-marbled-with-red cherry tomato. Super-sweet fruity flavour. Early and productive yields from compact plants. Very rare heirloom variety; listed as “endangered” by the Heritage Seed Program. Determinate.

MARKET MIRACLE. O.P. Early. A contemporary cultivar, said to hail from Siberia. Small to mid-size, perfectly round, blemish-free, bright red fruit. Flavour is a balance of acid-sweet, very juicy and with a lot of zing for an early variety. Determinate; stake or cage.

MASKOTKA. O.P. Very early. Another early cherry-sized favourite of ours. Said to be from Poland, but otherwise we know no history. A dwarf variety ideal for containers or hanging baskets. Heavy yields of very sweet, round to oval, dark red, cherry-sized fruit in generous clusters. (Note: This variety is sometimes listed as a hybrid, but just as often as O.P. Plants grown from saved seeds appear to be true to the original, so possibly it is a stablized hybrid.) Compact plants; cascading.

MATINA. O.P. Early. A.k.a. TAMINA. An older German variety, developed for commercial early cropping in the 1970s, and quickly adopted by home gardeners for its earliness, productivity and good taste. Plants are vigorous, giving high yields of smallish, round, red tomatoes ripening early July onward. Does well in the open garden, though gardeners in the coolest parts of the Cariboo-Chilcotin will see better results from any tomatoes with at least a bit of shelter. An excellent variety – stellar performance in 2016 and 2017. Indeterminate; support.

MATT’S HORNET. O.P. Early to midseason. Delicious little tomato, one of the increasingly popular elongated grape types. Orange-red with contrasting golden striping. Sweet and juicy, lots of flavour, For fresh snacking and of course salads. Very productive. A sport of Tom Wagner’s ‘Matt’s Folly’, from a cross between ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’ and ‘Casady’s Folly’, for those of you who are following the current tomato breeding adventures resulting in some excellent new open-pollinated cultivars. Indeterminate. needs support.

MEDOVAYA KAPLYA. O.P. Mid-season. Lovely cherry tomato from Russia; names translates as ‘Honey Drop’. Very sweet and good-flavoured, golden yellow, pear-shaped fruit. Indeterminate; needs support.

MIDNIGHT SUN. O.P. Mid-season to late. From the True North tomato series from breeder Karen Olivier of Ladysmith, B.C. Large, heart-shaped fruit with pronounced pointed ends. Dark pink with golden-yellow marbling. Very meaty, very few seeds and almost coreles. Smooth texture, rich and tangy flavour. Rambling indeterminate; support.

MINIBEL. O.P. Early. Introduced by Sahin Seeds, Holland, in 1998. Another super-dwarf windowsill or “pot tomato”. Tidy little plants to a foot high or so, loaded with bright red, good-sized, well-flavoured cherry tomatoes. Can be grown under lights indoors in winter. Happy in a gallon-size pot. Determinate; bred for container growing. 

MR. BRUNO. O.P. Early to mid-season.  Tried this one for the first time in 2012, and we were impressed. Nice Australian heirloom. Compact plants; very high yields of large, deep red, good-flavoured, meaty fruit for fresh eating and canning. Great for small gardens – excellent production for the space taken up. Indeterminate; support.

Here’s a little bit more Mr. Bruno history found on the Garden Web forum, shared here for general interest.

During WW11 an Italian prisoner of war was assigned to a farmer in the Geelong district (in Victoria) to provide labor. He proved such a good worker that the farmer made contact with his ’employee’ in Italy and sponsored his return to Australia as a migrant. He arrived in the early ’50’s and settled in the Geelong area. Like many European immigrants he brought with him vegetable seeds including some favorite family tomato seeds. By the late ’50’s he was keeping the seeds of his most productive tomato and continued to grow this variety until 3-4 years ago (written in 2007). For many years he helped the local hospital by selling tomato seedlings at the hospital’s annual Spring Fair. Apparently the word spread among the local gardeners and ‘Mr Bruno’s tomatoes’ were eagerly sought after. Mr Bruno is still alive (as of 2007) and now resides in a Senior Citizen’s home. He can no longer grow his tomatoes. I (the post author) spoke with him recently and he is happy to have the distribution of the seeds widened.

His tomato has done brilliantly for me this season. It is a heavy producer of 7-8 oz slicing tomatoes.It is a ribbed tomato with a balanced flavor leaning perhaps towards sweet rather than acid.I’ve already picked 15 lbs from this one bush and it’s still producing. The bush ia a strong regular-leafed grower but not tall ( say 31/2- 4 feet) the shortest of all my bushes this year. It needs supporting. A feature has been the even size of the fruit.

MOMOTARO. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. This lovely tomato is the best-selling fresh markety variety in Japan. Large, dark pink beefsteaks are flawless, very juicy, sweet and good flavoured. Excellent production and disease tolerance. Indeterminate, needs support.

MONEYMAKER. O.P. Mid-season. English variety grown since the 1950s. The name refers to its reliability and high yields, which combined with its great flavour which made this one of the most popular market and home garden varieties in England for several decades before the new F1 hybrids took over. Small to mid-sized, round, dark red fruit is produced in dense clusters; quite early to set and ripen. Very good flavour, sweet and delicious. Very nice variety. Indeterminate; needs support.

MONKEY ASS. O.P. Mid-season. Here’s what our seed source says: “This tomato has a silly name, but it really is a wonderful tomato! It is a large pink heart, very meaty and sweet. Sometimes the hearts double causing a baboon bottom look to them. I found it productive compared to some other hearts I’ve tried. It also was on the early side of my main crop to ripen both times I’ve grown it.” We grew this one in 2013, and found it to be very good-tasting, with nice big fruit. Decent production, not super-prolific but it had very reasonable yields. Best in the greenhouse in our area. Indeterminate; needs support.

MONTREAL TASTY. O.P. Mid-season. Quebec heirloom variety. Large, bright red fruits are produced in profusion on relatively compact vines. Can be variable in size and shape; sometimes fruits are fused together. Very meaty, smooth-textured fruit with lots of flavour, on the tangy side of the tomato taste spectrum. Indeterminate; needs support.

MOONGLOW. O.P. Mid-season. Mid-size, round, golden-orange fruit. Very meaty and sweet – a really delicious tomato. Holds well after harvest. A superior slicer and salad tomato. As a healthy bonus, ‘Moonglow’ contains very high levels of tetra-cis-lycopene, a natural antioxidant which assists in the body’s resistance to heart disease and certain cancers. Indeterminate; needs support.

MOONSHINER’S BALL. O.P. Mid-season. Nice yellow beefsteak from Secret Seed Cartel in France. Clear yellow, sometimes with pink blushing on blossom end, smooth-skinned and crack-free, excellent sweet flavour. One of the progeny of as naturally occurring cross between Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant and an unknown pink beefsteak. Big fruit, great slicer. On the mild end of the acidity spectrum. Regular-leaf. Indeterminate, needs support.

MORAVSKI DIV. O.P. Early. Reported to be from Czechoslovakia. Possibly a strain of the popular early variety ‘Stupice’, with the alternate name of ‘Stupické Polní Rané’. ‘Moravski Div’ means ‘Wonder of Moravia’. Fruit is bright red, tidy round globe-shaped, and jumbo cherry sized. Very early, with good flavour. Short indeterminate; stake or cage.

MORDEN YELLOW. O.P. Early. Canada, 1932. Sturdy plants with a generous production of small to mid-sized, round, bright yellow fruit. Dense and meaty, very good “old fashioned” flavour, sweet with a hint of zing. Developed by the Morden Research Station in Manitoba from a cross of two red varieties, ‘Bestal’ and ‘Round Smooth’. Short indeterminate; stake or cage.

MORTGAGE LIFTER.O.P. Mid-season to late.  1930s American Heirloom, a.k.a. RADIATOR CHARLIE’S MORTGAGE LIFTER.  M.C. “Charlie” Byles was known as “Radiator Charlie” from the radiator repair business he opened at the foot of a steep hill on which trucks would often overheat. Mr. Byles, who had no formal education or plant breeding experience, created this legendary tomato by cross-breeding four of the largest tomatoes he was able to find & developed a stable variety after seven years of pollination and selection. He then sold his heirloom tomato plants for one dollar each (in the 1940s) and paid off the $6000 mortgage on his house in six years. It is said that each spring, gardeners drove as far as 200 miles to buy Charlie’s seedling tomatoes. Meaty, flavourful beefsteak fruit are large (1-3 lb.), slightly flattened, pink-red, 1 to 3 pound, sweet and delicious. Good story; good tomato! This one is for the greenhouse in our area. For really big fruit, pinch out all except one green fruit per cluster. This one is a personal favourite – we have grown in very happily for a number of years now. Lots of huge, delicious fruit, and decently early too, mid-August through September. Indeterminate; needs support.

MOUNTAIN PRINCESS. O.P. Early.  An heirloom variety from the Monongahela National Forest region of West Virginia. Reliable and very early. Generous yields of red, mid-sized, blemish-free, very good-tasting fruit. Good for short season and northern areas. Determinate.

NAPOLI. O.P. Mid-season.  Dark red, dense, meaty, good-tasting roma tomato produced in abundance on sturdy plants. An older variety, originally from Italy. Indeterminate, need support.

NATIVE SUN. O.P. Early.  From Tim Peters in Oregon comes this super-early yellow tomato. Saladette sized, bright yellow, very sweet and mild. Determinate.

NATIVE SUN ORANGE. O.P. Early.  A natural sport of  the yellow ‘Native Sun’ found in Jeff Casey’s Airdrie, Alberta garden. A super-early orange tomato. Saladette sized, bright orange, very sweet and mild, good fruity flavour. Determinate.

NEW BIG DWARF. O.P. Early to mid-season. One of the sturdy “tree tomatoes” popular in the early 20th century and having a resurgence now for their suitability for small-space gardening. Introduced by the Isbell Seed Co. in 1915, a stabilized cross of ‘Ponderosa’ and ‘Dwarf Champion’. Compact, 2 foot tall, bushy plants with very thick stems produce surprisingly large, rich pinky-red, meaty, beefsteak-type fruit. Very good flavour. Excellent in containers. Determinate.

NEW GIRL. Hybrid. Early. This recent introduction is apparently an improved version of the venerable ‘First Lady’ hybrid, which was one of my mother’s go-to varieties for greenhouse growing in the challenging short summer climate near Wildwood, north of Williams Lake. ‘First Lady’ seems to have disappeared from seed houses, but the buzz is that ‘New Girl’ is in all ways just as early and tasty, with greater vigour and disease resistance, so we’re giving it a try in 2021. Fruit is red, 4 to 6 ounce size (mid-sized slicer), and flavour is touted as “excellent”. A limited number of plants should show up on the sales table this spring; your end-of-summer feedback will be greatly appreciated. Indeterminate, needs support.

NEW YORKER. O.P. Early. 1966 introduction from New York Agricultural Experiment Station, bred for disease resistance and good flavour. Mid-sized, bright red fruit, good texture and flavour. Productive variety; ripens lots of fruit at the same time; good for fresh eating and canning. We found this one to be decent enough but rather average in all its qualities. Nothing memorable. Determinate; short stake or cage.

NIPPLES. O.P. Mid-season. High yielding multiflora-type cherry tomato. Huge clusters of rich red, teardrop-shaped fruit with nipple ends. Sweet, fruity flavour. From Mark Korney, a cross between ‘Riesentraube’ and a wild L. cheesmanii teardrop. Indeterminate; needs support.

NOIRE DE CRIMEE. O.P. Early to mid-season. From Europe. Saladette sized, dark brown-red, round to slightly oval. Very productive and very good flavoured. Indeterminate; needs support.

NORTHERN DELIGHT. O.P. Very early. Small, bright red saladette-size tomatoes are produced in clusters of 5 or 6 fruit which ripen at the same time, similar to the cluster tomatoes we find in grocery stores. Fairly firm textured, these hold well after picking. Pleasantly juicy, good flavoured. A nice early variety to kick off the season. Very productive. Good in large containers. Bush type. Stake or cage.

NORTHERN LIGHTS. O.P. Early to mid-season. An older variety, said to be an heirloom, but I’m not aware of the particular history of this one. Rather ugly mottled red and yellow small to mid-size beefsteak type fruit. Excellent flavour, very sweet. Decently productive, too. Ripens late July onwards. Indeterminate; needs support.

NORTHERN QUEEN. O.P. Early to mid-season. ‘Северная Королева’, a Russian heirloom variety. Compact plants produce good yields of large, red, juicy and very good-flavoured fruit. For fresh eating and canning. An adaptable variety, with good drought tolerance and some disease resistance. Determinate; short stake or cage.

OMAR’S LEBANESE. O.P. Mid-season. Lebanon. Great big beefsteak fruit, dark pink with greeny shoulders. Excellent flavour, sweet and rich. Indeterminate, needs sturdy support.

OPALKA. O.P. Mid-season. An heirloom variety from Poland, brought to the U.S.A. by the Opalka family in the 1900s. Huge paste tomatoes, to 6″ long, and lots of them, in one great big surge ripening in late August – perfect for canning time. Good flavour for fresh eating, too, but as it is a paste tomato it is not very juicy. Tall determinate; rather spindly stems; needs sturdy support.

ORANGE JAZZ. O.P. Mid-season to late. From Fred Hempel of Artisan Seed in California, so you know it’s an interesting one. Big golden-orange beefsteak with subtle yellow striping. Good flavour, sweet and rich. Needs a long season and lots of heat to excel; don’t even think of putting this one outside. Indeterminate; needs support.

ORANGE MINSK. O.P. Mid-season. From Minsk, Belarus, where it was purchased in a local farmers’ market in 2006 by Andrey Baranovski. Seeds were saved and sent to North America via a tomato seed exchange. Great big beefsteaks, globular to heart shaped. Bright orange, very meaty, sweet and rich-flavoured. Early and high yielding for its type. Best grown in a greenhouse in the Cariboo. Indeterminate; needs support.

ORANGE STRAWBERRY. O.P. Mid-season to late.  Big, bright orange, strawberry-shaped fruit with sweet, rich flavour; meaty and juicy. Later ripening than many, the flavour is well worth the wait. Don’t count on this for your main crop, as yields are very low, but a nice heritage variety to tuck into the greenhouse for a late summer taste treat. Indeterminate; needs support.

ORANGE TREE. O.P. Mid-season. Iowa, 1963. Very compact “tree type” tomato. Dark green foliage is heavily wrinkled and cupped. Round, bright orange, very sweet, juicy saladette sized fruit. Good for containers. Determinate.

OREGON SPRING. O.P. Early. One of the standard early varieties for short season areas. Compact plants are very cold-resistant. Medium to large, bright red fruit; mild flavour. Determinate.

OUTDOOR GIRL. O.P. Early. Older English variety, selected for outdoor growing in cooler climates. Slicer/saladette sized fruit is bright red with excellent flavour. Short indeterminate.

PANSY AP. O.P. Mid-season. A pale yellow, golf ball sized saladette. Marked with dark purple anthocyanin blushing  radiating from the stem end. Flavour reported to be mild and sweet. Good productivity, some variability in fruit shape and size. New for us in 2022. A recent Tom Wagner introduction, originating as a cross between ‘OSU P20’ and ‘Green Zebra’. Indeterminate, needs support.

PEACEVINE CHERRY. O.P. Early. Incredibly productive. Clusters of bright red, sweet and zippy flavoured cherry tomatoes. Dr. Alan Kapular’s stabilized version of the venerable hybrid ‘Sweet 100’. Very high in Vitamin C, as well as gamma-amino butyric acid, purported to be a nervous system soother, hence the lovely name of this well-regarded cultivar. Indeterminate, needs support.

PÊCHE VILMORIN ANDRIEUX. O.P. Mid-season. An antique peach-type tomato from France, being first listed in Vilmorin’s 1890 catalogue. Small, round, saladette-sized fruit are dark pinky-red in colour, with a velvety skin, similar to ‘Garden Peach’ and others of that sort. Flavour is sweet and fruity – very nice. Highly productive, on vigorous vines. Indeterminate; needs support.

PEKING PANDA. O.P. Early. Abundant clusters of little yellow pear-shaped cherry tomatoes from July until frost. Sweet and delicious, and very cute. Our seed source called it “heirloom”, but we don’t have any other details on its history. Indeterminate; needs support.

PIGLETWILLIE’S FRENCH BLACK. O.P. Mid-season. France. Saladette/cluster tomato type. Small, round, dark red fruit flushed with purple-brown on the shoulders; typically excellent “black tomato” flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

PILGRIM. Hybrid. Early. This tomato is especially suited to northern climates. Large, smooth, bright red fruit with good flavour. Early and dependable. Good fruit set with most ready at the same time. Determinate; short stake or cage.

PINEAPPLE PIG. O.P. Mid-season to late. Big beefsteak on large, rambling vines. Fruit is flattened, irregular in shape, pale yellow skin with green striping. Blushes pink when reaching over-ripe stage. Very meaty, very sweet and delicious. Quite late to set and ripen, best in the greenhouse in our region. Vigorous indeterminate; give it room and lots of support.

PINK BOAR. O.P. Mid-season. Another interesting “new heirloom” from Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms in California. This one is a nice round saladette, dense yet juicy, dark pink striped with green. Sweet and complex flavour, reminiscent of the “black” tomatoes. Indeterminate, needs support.

PINK PINK PONG. O.P. Early to mid-season. Very healthy and productive plants; lots of pretty, rosy-pink , jumbo cherry tomatoes – ping pong ball sized – hence the name. Very good flavour, sweet and juicy. Great production late into fall, good winter ripener after last plants are harvested, too. Indeterminate.

PINK PONDEROSA. O.P. Late. 1891 American heirloom. Huge, flattened, dark pinky-red beefsteaks. Delicious mild, sweet flavour. Best in greenhouse; heat lover. Doesn’t set a lot of fruit, but individual toms are very large. Indeterminate; needs staking.

PINK THAI EGG. O.P. Early. Large clusters of true pink, egg-shaped, firm and sweet mini tomatoes. Very pretty and great in salads. Indeterminate. Stake or cage.

PINK TIGER. O.P. Mid-season. Very elongated pink plum-type fruits, pointed at ends. Striped with dark gold. Beautiful appearance, matching delicious flavour, very sweet. Indeterminate, stake or cage.

PINK VERNISSAGE. O.P. Mid-season. Stripy jumbo cherry, bred by Ruslan Dukhov of the Ukraine. Dark pinky-red, striped dark green. Vibrant fruity flavour. Indeterminate, stake or cage.

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, or, NOT SOLAR FLARE. O.P. Early. This came from one of my favourite seed vendors, Remy Orlowski, who has a lovely sense of humour, hence the goofy cultivar name. Here, I’ll let her explain:

Ok here’s the deal, I grew this this year because a friend grew it the year before and loved it. She thought it was Solar Flare as she was sent it as such and the person  sending it thought the same, but it is not. Solar Flare has red flesh and red skin with yellow stripes. This is yellow fleshed with a hint of red and yellow skin with red stripes. It grew great, and the flavor is fantastic, strongly sweet in a good way. So being so good, I want to share it with you all. I’ve decided on the name ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ as the tomato is a mistake, like the movie of the same name, but sure to be a tomato cult classic. Indeterminate; needs support.

So we’re calling this one ‘Solar Flare Sport’ (with the ‘Plan 9’ name also on the tag), and we’re thinking it’s on the keeper list, as it did very well for us in 2016. Beautiful beefsteak-type fruit, very pretty with its bicolour striping. Good yields and, most importantly, excellent flavour. Indeterminate. Needs support.

PLUM REGAL. Hybrid. Mid-season. A very productive hybrid paste tomato. Fruit is large, bright red with very good interior colour, well-flavoured, and very meaty – good for canning. Excellent disease resistance. Determinate; short stake or cage.

POLAR BABY. O.P. Very early. An Alaskan early variety. Similar to the Canadian Sub-Arctics, but fruit is quite a bit larger, though fewer are produced. Sets early, ripens early, then quits. Rosy-red fruit; good flavour. Really ugly plants; spindly branches, twisted foliage, pretty sad-looking in general – but the early, tasty fruit is grand! Short bush; short stake or cage.

POLARIS. O.P. Mid-season. Another great tomato from the True North tomato from breeder Karen Olivier of Ladysmith, B.C. Nice big beefsteak type, purple-red with green-blushed shoulders. Wonderfully meaty texture – great for sandwich slices – and excellent flavour: sweet and rich. Good beefsteak for cool regions, productive and healthy. As with all of the larger beefsteak types, an extra warm nook or a greenhouse setting gives highest yields of ripe fruit in the Cariboo region. Indeterminate; support.

POLISH DWARF. O.P. Early. A mini “tree-type” tomato, compact and sturdy. Very tasty, small to mid-size, bright red fruit and lots of it. A short stake is a good idea. Great in containers.

POLLOCK. O.P. Early. Large production of mid-sized red tomatoes with excellent flavour. Bred from the old variety ‘Bonny Best’ by Andy Pollock in northern B.C. Indeterminate; needs staking.

PONY EXPRESS. Hybrid. Mid-season. This newer, very productive hybrid is good for those primarily interested in canning; fruit is produced in a concentrated flush and ripens well during a short time period, so you have a lot ready all at the same time. Smaller paste tomato is dark red, very meaty, and good flavoured. Determinate; needs staking.

PRAIRIE FIRE. O.P. Early to very early. Great short season variety. Small to mid-sized, intensely red, very flavourful and tangy fruit set and ripen early. Good yields. Determinate; cage or short stake.

PRAIRIE PRIDE. O.P. Very early. Dependable early variety from the University of Manitoba’s plant breeding and research facility. High yields of medium sized, low-acid, sweet and tasty, bright red fruit. Sturdy determinate; cage or short stake.

PRECOCIBEC. O.P. Very early. From the same Quebec breeding program as Canabec Rose. Medium sized; pinky-red; very early; high-yielding; cold and disease tolerant; meaty and good flavoured. Determinate; cage or short stake.

PRIMO RED. Hybrid. Early. Commercial field tomato variety bred to produce “vine-ripened” fruit.  Bright red tomatoes are firm and smooth, good tasting. High yielding with good disease resistance. Determinate; cage or short stake.

PRINCIPE BORGHESE. O.P. Mid-season. Italian heirloom, used for sun-dried tomatoes and good for fresh eating & salads as well. Huge clusters of small, deep red, plum-shaped. Meaty-textured, flavourful fruit which ripen all together in late summer. When frost threatens, whole plant may be pulled & hung in a cool place for fruit to continue ripening well into fall and early winter. Heat lover; best in greenhouse or in a warm garden microclimate. Indeterminate; needs support.

PURPLE BUMBLEBEE. O.P. Mid-season.  Super cute, just like its name! Abundant yields of grape-shaped cherry tomatoes. Dark crimson-purple with green striping. Nicely complex flavour, sweet but not sugary. Can harvest while still really green, or wait until it turns mostly red – sweetness deepens with age. Sprawling indeterminate; you’ll want to stake.

PURPLE FAIRY. O.P. Early to mid-season.  China. Lovely mini-plum saladette. Small, elongated fruit are dark purple with dark green stripes. Dense yet juicy, sweet and fruity. Compact determinate, good in containers.

PURPLE CALABASH. O.P. Mid-season to late.  Definitely one of the ugliest tomatoes you’ll ever grow – wrinkled, creased and crinkled – and a weird brownish-rosy-purple colour – but will win your heart with its intensely sweet and aromatic flavour. Smooth texture; very juicy. High yields of large fruit. Heat lover; best in greenhouse. Very old heirloom type; resembles the tomato shown in Gerard’s 1600s era “Herball”. Sprawling vines; prune & stake.

QUINTE. O.P. Early. Another older, hard-to-find Canadian tomato; from Ag Canada’s Smithfield Research Station near Trenton, Ontario. Released in 1975, Quinte’s neat, compact, disease resistant plants bear large quantities of mid-sized, dark red fruit with very good flavour. Tender, thin skins make it excellent for fresh eating and salads; easy to peel for canning. Determinate; short stake or cage.

RED MORNING. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. Very large, round red fruit with good flavour for a commercial hybrid. Very good disease resistance. Determinate; short stake or cage.

RED MOUNTAIN. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. Large, deep red, round fruit on compact plants. Good flavour for a commercial hybrid. High yielding. Very good disease resistance. Determinate; short stake or cage.

RED ROBIN. O.P. Very early. Tiny, very compact plants only 6 to 12 inches tall yield clusters of surprisingly large, bright red cherry tomatoes. Good for a sunny windowsill, or in a small container. Don’t be tempted to pick too soon – allow to ripen fully  when they will be very good flavoured.

RED STAR. O.P. Early. Cute red cherry tomato – mini beefsteaks. Lobed, meaty, sweet and tasty bright red fruit. My seed source mentions that it got its name from the fact that if you cut it lengthwise, the slices would look like stars. By golly, they’re right! Early and productive. We all like this one. Short indeterminate; stake or cage.

REINHARD’S PURPLE SUGAR CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Recent variety from Germany, bred by tomatoman extraordinaire Renhard Kraft. Very tall plants, loaded with trusses of dark purple-red cherry tomatoes. Super sweet, rich flavour. Keep an eye on this one – it might well be the next Sungold Cherry! Indeterminate; needs support.

REISENTRAUBE. O.P. Mid-season. An old German variety, dating back to at least 1855, when it was grown by the North American Amish settlers. Translated the name means “Giant Bunch of Grapes”, referring to the large clusters of flowers and fruit. Amall, cherry-size fruits ripen to bright red, and have a little nipple on the blossom end. Not a very sweet variety, more acidic/full flavoured, like an old-style slicing tomato. Very good in salads, lots of flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

REJINA YELLOW. O.P. Early. Cute little mini-dwarf from Japan, bred for container growing. To 12 or 18 inches tall, with a good production of clusters of small, very good flavoured, bright yellow cherry tomatoes. Compact dwarf, no support needed.

REJINA RED. O.P. Early. Mini-dwarf from Japan, bred for container growing. To 12 or 16 inches tall, with a good production of clusters of small, very good flavoured, bright red cherry tomatoes. Similar to the well-known “Red Robin”, but fruit is larger and perhaps sweeter. Compact dwarf, no support needed.

REMY ROUGE. O.P. Early. Super-sweet, shiny, clustering, little red cherry tomato from France. Vigorous, productive and very delicious. Indeterminate; stake or cage. Might be interesting to let cascade from a hanging basket.

ROPRECO PASTE. O.P. Mid-season. Italian heirloom. Very productive paste variety. Plum-shaped, bright red fruit are very flavourful; great for eating fresh as well as canning. Determinate; short stake or cage.

ROSABEC. O.P. Early to mid-season. Canada. From the tomato breeding program of the 1960s and early 70s headed by Roger Doucet at Station Provinciale de Recherches Agricole in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. The Quebec market asked for “pink” tomatoes; ‘Rosabec’  and sister varieties such as the also-excellent ‘Canabec Rose’ were bred for high yields in outdoor plantings. A pleasant variety with good fruit set in cooler climates. Slightly flattened, mid-size fruit, flawless skin, soft crimson in colour, well-developed tomato flavour on the sweet side of the spectrum. Determinate; short stake or cage.

ROSALITA. O.P. Early. Vigorous plants yield large clusters of beautiful teardrop-shaped cherries. Pink fruits are speckled all over with tiny pearly white dots which give an opalescent glow. Very sweet and mild flavoured; nice and juicy. We love this one, though it’s hard to keep up with its production! Short indeterminate; needs support.

ROSE. O.P. Mid-season. Big, deep rose-pink, smooth and meaty beefsteaks, rivalling the famous ‘Brandywine’ in flavour. Vigorous and very productive. Indeterminate; needs support.

ROSE DE BERNE. O.P. Mid-season. Switzerland. Mid-sized to large globed beefsteak, dark rosy red. Meaty, juicy, sweet and flavourful. Lovely slicer. Reasonably early, reasonably high yielding for its type. Best in the greenhouse in our region. Indeterminate; needs support.

ROSE QUARTZ. O.P. Mid-season. Generous clusters of small, golf ball sized and shaped, deep pink fruit. Vigorous and very productive, with delicious sweet flavour. Indeterminate; needs support.

ROSELLA PURPLE. O.P. Mid-season. Another interesting Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar.  Compact plants to maybe 3 feet tall produce a decent number of mid-sized, very variably-shaped beefsteak-type fruit. Skin and flesh colour is a rich and slightly mottled purple pink. Excellent intense flavour, not too sweet. Though dwarf, fruit gets heavy, so be sure to stake. Good for large containers.

ROSOVYI PINK FLAMINGO. O.P. Mid-season. Plum-type tomato from Russia. Mid-size, meaty, good-tasting, raspberry pink fruit on bushy, compact plants to 4 feet tall. Very productive. Determinate. Needs support.

ROYAL CHICO. O.P. Mid-season. Good, high quality, paste and sauce tomato. Medium sized, dark red, few seeds, very plump and meaty. High yields over a brief but productive season. Determinate, stake or cage.

ROZALINDA. O.P. Early to mid-season. Fairly recent Russian commercial variety. Compact 3 foot plants. Fruit are small to mid-size, round, slightly flattened, and pink-toned red, very good flavoured. Don’t harvest too soon; allow colour to deepen to dark pink for fullest flavour. Excellent yields. Short indeterminate; needs support. Good in large containers.

RUBY TREASURE. O.P. Late. Winter-keeper variety, from master plant breeder Tim Peters. Pick green in fall; wrap in tissue or newspaper; place in cool location & enjoy the ripening fruit well into winter. Good red exterior and interior colour; good flavour. Large determinate; needs support.

RUSSIAN DAGGER. O.P. Mid-season. Interesting and intensely flavourful. Elongated, small-fruited paste type from Russia. Fruit is 3 to 4 inches long, sharply pointed on the end, and dark red with a dusky dark purple blush. Indeterminate; needs support.

RUTGERS. O.P. Mid-season. A venerable American variety first introduced in 1934 as a commercial multi-use variety for canning, juicing and fresh eating. This soon became a popular home garden variety for its superior quality, flavour, productivity and disease resistance. Bright red, very smooth and blemish-free. A good tomato for someone who just wants them red and tasty and reliable – it does pump the fruit out, and they are very good. Semi-indeterminate; needs support.

SAILOR’S LUCK. O.P. Mid-season. Stripes! Purple-red, plum-shaped, mid-sized fruit are striped with bronzy-green. Meaty flesh, nice and juicy, great flavour. Potato leaf. Bred by Jason Haynes from a cross between ‘Vintage Wine’ and ‘Black Ethiopian’. Indeterminate, stake.

SALT SPRING SUNRISE. O.P. Early. Good early red salad tomato, bred by Jack James of Salt Spring Island’s James Seed Company in the 1950s-60s. High yields of saladette sized, bright red, slightly flattened fruit. Sweet with some tang, very tasty. High yielding, grows in trusses on vigorous, mid-sized bushes. Great for fresh eating, nice for canning, too. Determinate, stake.

SANDBURG. O.P. Mid-season. From Millard Murdock, North Carolina. Big, pale yellow beefsteak with pink blushing on the blossom end. Smooth texture, lovely slicer. Sweet and fruity flavour. Potato leaf. Indeterminate, stake.

SAN MARZANO. O.P. Mid-season. This is the famous Italian paste and sauce tomato, traditionally grown since the 1700s in the village of San Marzano, in the rich volcanic soil of nearby Mount Vesuvius. Fruit is produced in one large set, ripening in late summer. Large, plum-shaped fruits are very dense and meaty and cook down to sauce consistency quickly. A delicious piece of culinary history. Indeterminate, stake.

SARA BLACK. O.P. Mid-season. Said to be an heirloom from Germany, a.k.a. ‘Schwarze Sarah’. An excellent tomato. Mid-sized to large beefsteaks are dark-skinned, lovely smooth texture, very good flavour, and no woody core. Fantastic slicer. High yielding. Indeterminate, stake.

SARA GOLDSTAR. O.P. Early. Very nice, very sweet, jumbo cherry tomato. Clusters of light yellow-gold fruit are blushed and lightly striped with crimson. If you look at the fruit upside down, you can definitely see a “star” radiating from the base. Similar to the excellent ‘Isis Candy Cherry’, but larger. Indeterminate, stake.

SASHA’S ALTAI. O.P. Early. Heirloom from Irkutsk, Siberia. One of the best short-season varieties; tolerates cool night temperatures. Very high yields of very good-flavoured, mid-sized, bright red fruit. Determinate.

SCOTIA. O.P. Early. Canada. From the Dominion Experimental Farm, Kentville, Nova Scotia, in 1957. Small-to mid-sized fruit on productive, compact vines. Bright red, juicy fruit is slightly flattened and shows some lobing. Very good flavour, sweet and rich. Good fruit set in cool conditions; a good outdoor variety for the Cariboo. Performs well in large containers. Determinate; stake or cage.

SCOTLAND YELLOW. O.P. Early to mid-season. Scotland, via the Heritage Seed Library in England. Older cultivar, tolerant of cool and cloudy growing conditions. Clusters of golden-yellow, round, saladette-type fruit. Lovely sweet flavour with just a bit of tang. Very productive. Indeterminate, needs support.

SEKAI ICHI. O.P. Mid-season. Japanese heirloom. Mid-sized, smooth-skinned, beefsteak-shaped, nice and meaty, pink-red tomatoes with vibrant old-fashioned flavour, on the acidic side of the tomato taste spectrum though certainly sweet enough for enjoyable fresh eating. Huge vines, very productive. Indeterminate, support is a must!

SELMA. O.P. Mid-season. A very old Spanish heirloom variety. Produces a prolific crop of small, round, pale pink fruit with green shoulder shading. Very good rich flavour. Good as a fall and winter keeper, too. In Spain the whole plant is harvested in the autumn and hung upside down to allow the fruit to ripen naturally , similar to how ‘Principe Borghese’ is used in Italy. Indeterminate; needs support.

SIBERIAN TIGER. O.P. Mid-season.   From Mark McCaslin of Frogsleap Farm. Cross of ‘OSU’ and ‘Beauty King’. Beefsteak type, somewhat variable in shape, with some of the mid-sized fruits round and others ribbed or lobed. Rosy-pink-red with purple-green striping. Excellent sweet and complex flavour.  Indeterminate; needs support.

SILVERY FIR. O.P. Early.  Russia.  Beautiful, finely cut foliage. Small to mid-sized, scarlet red fruit, very nice old-fashioned flavour. A dandy early-season salad tomato. Determinate; stake or cage.

SNOW WHITE. O.P. Mid-season. Palest ivory-yellow cherry tomato, very sweet and flavourful. Beautiful with red, orange, yellow and purple cherries in your salad or on a veggie plate. Healthy and high yielding, too. Indeterminate; needs support.

SPECKLED ROMAN. O.P. Early to mid-season. Handsome Roma type, cross between the two heirlooms ‘Antique Roman’ and ‘Banana Legs’. Large, long, pointed fruit is red streaked with gold; very meaty; good flavour for fresh eating as well as saucing. Very good yields. Indeterminate; needs support.

SPIKE. O.P. Early to mid-season. U.S.A. Bred by Artisan Seeds. Yet another stripey wonder! One of our favourites in 2020 and 2021. ‘Spike’ is a handsome saladette tomato – golf ball sized and shaped – with brick-red skin heavily striped with greeny-bronze. So eyecatching! And very good tasting, sweet with a hint of tang. Super productive, too. Semi-indeterminate; stake or cage.

SPRING KING. O.P. Early. U.S.A. Interesting beefsteak-type bred by Tim Peters of Peters Seed and Research in Oregon. High yields of variably sized and shaped, dark red fruit with very good flavour. Developed for cooler season climates. Determinate; short stake or cage.

SPRITE. O.P. Early. Delicious grape cherry. Huge yields of small, oval, bright red fruit with thin, crisp skins and refreshing flavour. Compact; good in containers. Semi-determinate; short stake or cage.

SPUTNIK. O.P. Mid-season. Russia. Named after the USSR’s famed first artificial Earth satellite, launched in 1957.  Handsome, mid-size, dark chocolate-red beefsteak tomatoes. Excellent flavour, good yields. Indeterminate; needs support.

STARFIRE. O.P. Mid-season. From Dr. Charles Walkof at the Morden Experimental Farm in Manitoba, Canada; released in 1963. Productive variety has medium sized, smooth skinned, bright red fruit with very good flavour. Excellent for fresh eating and can be used for canning, too. A popular Canadian variety for many years. Indeterminate; needs support.

STOKE’S ALASKA. O.P. Early. An older American cultivar. Early and cool weather tolerant. Fruit is saladette-sized, bright red, tangy-sweet in flavour. Similar to ‘Polar Baby’. Good yields for its type. Determinate, stake or cage.

STRIPED SWEETHEART DARK. O.P. Mid-season. Small, heart-shaped fruit, striped dark red and greenish-gold. Deep red flesh. Very meaty, lots of juice, with complex tangy-sweet flavour. High yielding. Indeterminate; needs support.

STUMP OF THE WORLD. O.P. Mid-season. “Out-produces Brandywine 4 to 1!”, according to my original seed source.  We love the flavour of ‘Brandywine’, but it has always been a shy producer in our garden, so we were keen to try this highly praised heirloom to see if it is indeed a better choice for our area. And so it has proven to be. Very early beefsteak and very productive. Pinkish-red, wonderfully sweet and meaty, smooth textured. Definitely a keeper. Short indeterminate; a strong cage works best as fruit is very heavy.

STUPICE. O.P. Very early. Czechoslovakian heritage variety, released by the Research and Plant Breeding Institute of Vegetables at Olomouc, Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Bushy, productive plants. Small red fruit is very good tasting, especially for such an early variety. We’ve grown this one off and on through the years and have found it to be a good choice for short season areas, giving ripe fruit even in the most un-tomato-friendly years. Semi-indeterminate; needs support.

SUB-ARCTIC MAXI. O.P. Very early. Famous Beaverlodge, Alberta variety. Bright red, good-flavoured, 3-inch fruits produced very early on stocky, cold tolerant plants. Determinate. Short stake or cage.

SUB-ARCTIC PLENTY. O.P. Very early. Extra early, small fruited, deep red variety was developed by tough Canadian conditions at Beaverlodge, Alberta. Amazing cold tolerance and excellent fruit set – has produced ripe fruit outdoors in the Yukon. Very good flavour, too! Determinate. Short stake or cage.

SUBMARINE BLUSH. O.P. Mid-season. Lovely pear-shaped cherry tomato. Pale golden yellow with rosy blushing. Very nice flavour, good sweetness. High yields. A cross between ‘Isis Candy Cherry’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’. Indeterminate, needs support.

SUGAR PLUM RASPBERRY. O.P. Early to mid-season. Plum-shaped jumbo cherry. Raspberry pink with golden striping. Meaty, rather firm, with nice sweet flavour. Great salad tomato. Determinate; good for containers.

SUN BABY. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. Royal Horticultural Society Award-winning cherry tomato is bright yellow, very sweet and very good flavoured. Excellent. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

SUN GOLD CHERRY. Hybrid. Early. Our most-requested cherry tomato variety since we started growing it in 2010. Intensely sweet and delicious, rich orange cherry tomatoes on vigorous, healthy plants. Deluxe. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

SUNGOLD SELECT. O.P. Early. A selected, open-pollinated version of the fantastic hybrid, from Reinhard Kraft in Germany. Bright yellow-orange cherries, very sweet, and intensely flavoured. Occasional plants will produce red fruit – but they are equally delicious. High yielding. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

SUNNY BOY. Hybrid. Early to mid-season. Bright yellow, round, mid-sized slicer. Prolific yields of sweet, meaty fruit. Very similar to Lemon Boy – we aew wondering if these are the same variety under a slightly altered name? Determinate; short stake or cage.

SUNRISE BUMBLEBEE. O.P. Mid-season. A 2014 introduction from Fred Hempel of Baia Nicchia Farm in Sunol, California. Grape-sized and shaped, with pointed ends, a warm yellow with dark pink stripes. High quality fruits hold well on vine and after harvest. Good sweet flavour. A sister variety to the excellent Lucky Tiger. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

SUPER ITALIAN PASTE. O.P. Mid-season. This one was in a race with Opalka last year to see which could produce the largest setting of fruit. It was a draw! Loads of large, bright red, very meaty fruit, ripening over a short period in mid August. Excellent flavour. Determinate; needs support.

SUPERNOVA CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. Gorgeous “grape” tomato. Elongated cherry tomatoes are red with lots of yellow striping. Good sweet flavour. Very resistant to splitting and a fantastic salad and snacking variety. Indeterminate; needs support.

SUPREMO. Hybrid. Mid-season. High yielding, bright red, good tasting plum/paste tomato. Fruit is saladette size, good for both fresh eating and canning. Good disease resistance. Determinate; stake or cage.

SURPRIZ. O.P. Mid-season to late. North American selection of Coeur de Surpriz from France. Mid-sized, slightly heart-shaped slicer, dark red with vivid green striping. Very good flavour, sweet and rich. Indeterminate, needs support.

SWEET GOLD CHERRY. O.P. Early. Golden yellow cherry tomatoes in profusion all summer. Very high yields. Sweet, juicy, excellent flavour. Indeterminate; stake or cage.

SWEET MILLION CHERRY. Hybrid. Early.  One of the standard commercial cherry tomato varieties, and well deserves its wide popularity. Vigorous, healthy, and rambling vines definitely need lots of support, but the reward for fussing a bit is huge quantities of small, red, very good tasting cherry tomatoes. If trying to grow this in a container, it would be best to site it against a wall or fence, and use a trellis to keep it supported. Indeterminate; stake or cage.          

SWEET ORANGE II. O.P. Early to mid-season. Large crops of jumbo, golden-orange, very sweet cherry tomatoes. A stabilized version of the über-popular hybrid ‘Sungold’. Indeterminate; needs support. 

SWEET SCARLET DWARF. O.P. Mid-season. Good yields of mid-sized, bright scarlet-red beefsteaks on this potato-leaved Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar. Very good flavour, sweet and rich. Occasionally the odd plant may revert to yellow or orange, but the flavour should be much the same. If seed saving you can either avoid collecting from the off-colours (if they occur) or you can play around with isolating yourself a new strain. Dwarf indeterminate; stake or cage; good in containers .

SWEET TUMBLER. O.P. Early. An open-pollinated selection of the popular hybrid ‘Tumbler’, from Australia. 2-foot long vines cascade out of containers – excellent for hanging baskets and patio containers. Fruit is round, pink-red, sweet and good tasting, though just a tiny bit on the firm side, like the hybrid parent. An excellent early variety, one of the first to ripen. Cascading/multi-branching.

TAIGA. O.P. Mid-season. One of the True North tomato series from breeder Karen Olivier of Ladysmith, B.C. Large, heart-shaped fruit are sweet and meaty – very few seeds and almost coreles. Marbled coloration – dark pink, yellow and green. Indeterminate; support.

TANGELLA. O.P. Early. Vivid tangerine-coloured, jumbo cherry type. Complex flavour; rich and sweet but definitely not “sugary”. This has been one of our most-requested varieties over the years. Does well in large containers. Short indeterminate; support.

TASMANIAN CHOCOLATE. O.P. Early. From the Australian division of the Dwarf Tomato Project. Sturdy short plants produce generous quantities of small beefsteak-type fruit. Purple-blushed brick-red in colour. Smooth texture, sweet and mild flavour. Nice for slicing and salads. Though short in stature, this one demands staking or caging – otherwise the fruit weight will tip it over. Best production is with several main stalks – allow a sturdy side shoot or two to elongate and bloom. Good in big containers. Offspring of a cross between ‘New Big Dwarf’ and ‘Paul Robeson’. Short indeterminate; support.

TAXI. O.P. Early. A fantastic older variety. Sadly we have no details on its history. Bright lemon yellow, mid-sized, round, flawless fruit. Excellent flavour; sweet, mild, low-acid. Very good yields for us. I love the yellow tomatoes for their sweet flavour and beautiful appearance; Taxi is one of the best. Indeterminate. Needs staking.

THAI PINK EGG. O.P. Mid-season. High-yielding cultivar from Thailand. Small, plum (egg) shaped fruit is creamy pink darkening to rose. Flavour is very mild; texture is dense and meaty. Pretty to look at and attractive sliced in salads as it holds its shape well; good for cooking; but perhaps not the first choice for eating out of hand? Indeterminate. Stake or cage.

THESSALONIKI. O.P. Early to mid-season. From Greece, introduced to North America in the 1950s by the venerable Glecklers Seedsmen of Ohio. Bright red, baseball-sized fruit are very juicy with excellent flavour. Fruit is solid and meaty, holds and transports well. Very productive and a popular market variety in its time. Sets fruit nice and early in the Cariboo. Sturdy indeterminate, stake.

TIGERELLA. O.P. Early. A.k.a. MR. STRIPEY. Tennis-ball sized fruit is colourfully striped golden over red. Very good flavour; early and prolific. Short indeterminate. Needs support.

TOMMY TOE. O.P. Early. Love this name! This nice jumbo cherry variety started out as an Ozark Mountain heirloom and eventually found its way to Australia, where it is now a great favourite among gardeners ever since winning a widely publicized taste test against 100 other varieties. Bright red fruit can reach apricot size; usually a bit smaller. Very productive; very tasty. Indeterminate; needs support.

TOTEM. Hybrid. Early. Compact, bushy plants to 24″ tall or so have very high yields of bright red jumbo cherries. Mild & sweet. Excellent container variety. Determinate. Customer feedback for ‘Totem’ has been mixed. While everyone has found it to be compact and productive, there were comments that the fruit was tough and bland. As there are much better varieties out there, we will be removing ‘Totem’ permanently from our rota. Thanks for your comments! Good or not so good, we like to hear what your experiences have been.

TRIBE’S TOBIQUE. O.P Early. From New Brunswick, where local naturalist Fred Tribe discovered a random garden-escaped tomato plant fruiting along the bank of the Tobique River. Early to set and to ripen. Fruit is saladette to small slicer sized, dark red, with good old-fashioned flavour. Cold hardy (for a tomato – it still needs protection from freezing) and adaptable. Determinate, needs support.

TSAR’S ROYAL GIFT. O.P Mid-season. A.k.a. ‘Tsarskiy Podarok’. A Russian heirloom-type commercial variety. Large pink beefsteak with tiny creamy flecks. Tender, meaty, nicely juicy, with excellent sweet flavour. Very productive for its type. Sturdy indeterminate, needs support.

TUMBLER. Hybrid. Early. Clusters of sweet, bright red, jumbo cherry tomatoes. Rather firm texture, but quite good flavour. Very welcome as one of the first to ripen, though the later varieties are much better in flavour and texture, in our opinion. For baskets, planters, or can be trained up a trellis.  Cascading/multi-branching.

ULURU OCHRE. O.P. Mid-season. There are some fantastic new varieties coming out of the Dwarf Tomato Project, and this one is extra special. Sturdy, dwarf plants produce large, flattened, beefsteak-type fruits which are an exceedingly odd colour: brownish-orange with greeny-purple overtones. Slice these open and the insides are amber-gold. Meaty, juicy, and very good tasting, wonderfully sweet and rich. Named after Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) by the Australian breeder, Patrina Nuske. It is a stabilized cross between the varieties ‘Heirloom Orange’ and ‘Roselle Purple’ (which is itself a Dwarf Tomato Project hybrid between our favourite beefsteak ‘Stump of the World’ and an older dwarf variety called ‘Budai Torpe’), so its pedigree is impeccable. Can be grown in a large (5 gallon) container. Determinate; best to stake or cage as fruit is very heavy.

UTYONOK. O.P. Early. Russian. Name translate to “Duckling”. Round, smooth and beautiful, dark yellow, mid-size fruit. Flavour is excellent, rich and sweet, with just a hint of “zing”. Good in large containers. Determinate, stake or cage.

VALLEY GIRL. O.P. Mid-season. Great small tomato. Pinky-red fruits shaped like mini beefsteaks; delicious sweet flavour and nice smooth texture. Very productive mid-summer onwards. Indeterminate.

VARIEGATED. O.P. Mid-season to late. A.k.a. SPLASH OF CREAM. This is rather an oddity: all parts of the plant – foliage, stems, unripe fruit – show various degrees of white variegation. Fruit is saladette sized, quite late to ripen, but when it does it turns dark red and loses the white streaking. Tomatoes are very good flavoured, with firm, smooth texture and high gel content.  Indeterminate; needs support.

VELVET RED CHERRY. O.P. Mid-season. A.k.a. ANGORA SUPER SWEET. One of the “fuzzy” tomatoes. We have been trialling these for years and loving them more and more with each new one we discover. This one has very velvety foliage, appearing silver-grey in colour. Lots of round, one-inch, dark red, soft-skinned cherry tomatoes with excellent sweet flavour. Indeterminate. Needs support.

VENUS. O.P. Early. A very compact (12″ tall) variety for containers or small gardens. Rich orange cherry tomatoes were described by the seed vendor as sweet and juicy, but we found that they had a rather sharp edge to the flavour which was unexpected and unpleasant. We may try this one again, from a different seed batch, because it had a nice growth habit for small pots and was very healthy. Determinate.

VERNISSAGE YELLOW. O.P. Early. Ukraine. Saladette. High yields of juicy, sweet and delicious, perfectly round, bright yellow fruit marked delicately with ghostly white striping. Indeterminate, needs support.

VICTORIAN DWARF. O.P. Early. Compact, tree-type, 2 ft. tall plants with high yields of saladette-sized, bright red tomatoes. Nice flavour and texture. Great for containers. Determinate.

VILMA. O.P. Early. From the Czech Republic. Generous yields of smooth, round, bright red, jumbo cherry-type fruit early summer to frost. Very sweet and juicy; great flavour. Dwarf, very compact plants are good in containers. Determinate.

VIOLET JASPER. O.P. Mid-season. China. A.k.a. ‘Tzi Bi U’. Gorgeously coloured jumbo cherry. Perfectly round, sweet and juicy fruits are rich purple-red, striped with bronzy-green. High yielding. Indeterminate, need support.

VITA GOLD. O.P. Early to mid-season. Handsome, tangerine-orange plum tomato; tangy-sweet flavour& supposedly 20 times more beta carotene than red varieties. Thick flesh; meaty texture; great for fresh eating & salads as well as saucing. High yields. Determinate. Short stake or cage.

VIVA ITALIA PASTE. Hybrid. Mid-season. High yields of deep red, sweet, meaty, plum-shaped paste tomatoes. Very large sets mature all at once. Excellent disease tolerance. Determinate. Stake or cage.

WAPSIPINICON PEACH. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. Circa 1890, grown by Elbert S. Carman, named after the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa. Very high yields of jumbo cherry to apricot sized fruit, pale yellow blushed with pink, sweet and juicy. Skin has a velvety texture, delicately reminiscent of peach fuzz, hence its name. Sprawling indeterminate, needs support.

WARREN’S YELLOW CHERRY. O.P. Early. An older variety, possibly an “heirloom”, but we have no other details on its history. Generous clusters of cherry-sized, round to slightly oval, golden-yellow fruit start to ripen nice and early and go on all season. Very sweet, with a good rich flavour. Very productive. A fairly restrained variety, it will reach 3 feet or thereabouts, so some support is a good idea. Good container variety. Short indeterminate; stake or cage.

WENTZELL. O.P. Mid-season. Nova Scotia heirloom, grown for generations by the Wentzell family in Lunenburg County. Big, pink-red beefsteaks, excellent flavour, good yields. Indeterminate, needs support.

WHIPPERSNAPPER. O.P. Early. Compact and sprawling, so think hanging baskets with this one. Abundant yields of delicious, pinky-red cherry tomatoes. Great variety! Determinate.

WHITE MIKADO. O.P. Mid-season. An old variety from 1886-ish, when it was grown out as a white-coloured sport of a red variety, the potato-leafed beefsteak ‘Turner’s Hybrid’, a.k.a. ‘Mikado, a.k.a. ‘Shah’. It may be interesting to note that some believe this cultivar to be an early strain of the variety now world-famous as ‘Brandywine’. All this to say that you may safely expect ‘White Mikado’ to have superior flavour! Reasonably early for a beefsteak type, with mid-sized ivory white fruit, often with a pale pink star on the blossom end. Sweet and mild, but not bland – there is a lot going on flavour-wise with this one. A nice slicer for salads and sandwiches, and meaty enough for saucing though the sauce colour is a bit strange unless you’re mixing it with traditional reds. Short indeterminate; needs support.

WHITE QUEEN. O.P. Mid-season. U.S.A. Introduced 1882 by the Livingston Seed Co. Big, beautiful beefsteaks. Palest creamy yellow with occasional pink blushing on blossom ends. Very meaty, juicy and sweet. Classic slicer type. Nicely productive for its type. Indeterminate; needs support.

WHITE RABBIT. O.P. Mid-season. Very prolific cherry variety, hence the name. Loads of small, very sweet & mild, cream coloured fruit. Indeterminate; needs support.

WHITE ZEBRA. O.P. Mid-season. Interesting newer cultivar from California. Small round fruit, ripening to a creamy white – or sometimes pale yellow – with pale green to darker yellow striping. Fruit is juicy, sweet with a bit of zing. This one seems to throw occasional sports – might be fun for the seedsavers to play around with. Indeterminate; needs support.

WILLA’S CARIBOO ROSE. O.P. Early to mid-season. A compact potato leaf variety, grows to 2 feet tall. Good yields of flattened, medium to large, crimson-pink beefsteaks. Excellent sweet flavour. A Dwarf Tomato Project cultivar, released in 2018. Determinate, short stake or cage, good in containers.

WONDER LIGHT. O.P. Early. Very pretty tomato from Siberia. Lemon-shaped, lemon-coloured, firm, sweet and mild. Holds quality very well after picking. Good for fresh eating and meaty enough for sauce and canning. Indeterminate; needs support.

YELLOW BRUTE. O.P. Early to mid-season. Beefsteak tomato, large, ribbed, bright yellow, with great flavour, sweet with a bit of zing. Colour mutation of great red Czech variety ‘Brutus’. Productive, fruit varies in size. Indeterminate, needs support. 

YELLOW CANARY. O.P. Very early. Compact, very dwarf, 8 to 12 inch tall plants bear many bright yellow, very sweet and mild cherry tomatoes nestled among deep green foliage. Container variety which will produce early and long; can even be grown on a sunny indoor windowsill. Determinate.

YELLOW PEAR. O.P. Mid-season. This attractive cherry tomato has been popular for over 100 years. Small, very sweet and mild, pear-shaped, bright yellow tomatoes are produced in clusters all summer long. Indeterminate; needs support.

YELLOW PERFECTION. Early to Mid-season. English heirloom, circa 1880. Very good flavoured, extra sweet yellow saladette, very productive. Tender skin and high sugar content make this one a bit prone to cracking so keep an eye on the fruit and pick promptly. Indeterminate, needs support.