A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum Want to buy a sweet tomato plant

I would like to know of a common greenhouse bought tomato plant that bears early tomatoes on the sweeter side. I find the normal beefstake etc..too acidic? In Canada our tomatos may be called different names from the ones elsewhere? Has anyone heard of EarlyGirl? Can you tell me if this one is a sweet tomato? Oh, I forgot to mention one that is a compact size.
Thanx.

I'm growing Early Girl for the first time this year, but I've been told it's a big plant. Your tomatoes should be called by the same names there, in most cases.
Some of the yellow varieties have a lower "acid" flavor. You might want to try Lemon Boy or Mr. Stripey, but I haven't tried those. I grow mostly from seed, and I haven't grown many of the ones they often have for sale as plants. Kelloggs Breakfast is one that's not very acid, but I've never seen the plants sold, just the seed. Roma may be a little less acid, and somewhat more compact than Beefsteak...it's not my favorite, but it's much better from the garden than from stores. If you like cherry tomatoes, they're often very sweet. Sungold or Supersweet 100 might be available as plants, Sungold is supposed to be extremely tasty, I'm growing it this year. Many people like Yellow Pear, but it's flavor is too mild for me...I like some acidity in tomatoes. Cherry types are often big plants, though. A type called Patio is the only truly compact plant I can think of that's sold commonly. It's flavor is a little bland, and not many fruits.

Dave thanks for your advice. You are right about one thing, a tomato always tastes better garden grown in comparison to store bought. I bought a carton of cherry tomatos to throw into my salad and they taste simply awful. How can they sell them like this, overpriced I might add? They may look like a cherry tomato but sure don't taste like one.

I see that you mentioned the yellow varities and I do have to admit they taste good, but for me there is something about a yellow tomato on a sandwich that just doesn't compare to a red tomato. Guess it's all mind over matter.

I do have seeds for sweeter tomatos but my yard doesn't get much sun and I find some of my tomato plants sprawling the height of my fence to 10 ft or more. A tomato bush that grows 5 ft or less would be okay by me.
Just how big of a bush does earlygirl grow into?

One year I bought beefsteak hybrid seeds. The first year we had red tomatos. I planted only one plant the following year. That hybrid no longer produced red tomatos but orange ones instead but the tomatos tasted better orange then they did red? Are all of the orange and yellow tomatos hybrids?

Daisy,
No not all orange and yellows are hybrids. There are many op's. The Kellogg's Breakfast is an op. Many more. As to smaller plants. Determinates might work better for you. I'm trying to thing of smaller sweet ones. I usually just remember if I like one or not. As for size Heartland is one hybrid that is found here and has good taste. Another would be Husky Red. New Big Dwarf would be an op but would be hard to find except seeds. As for hybrids I like Goliath here the best. But would be bigger than you desire. Caspian Pink might be another you would like the flavor but harder to find an OP. Some of my favorites last year and many of these would be hard to find. Lucky Cross(sweet unique flavor the best), Florida Pink(sweet), Chapman, Flammee', Texas Star, Brandboy(hybrid, Indian Stripe and Neve's Azorean Red. Another hybrid that you find at all the box stores or anywhere that sells Bonnies plants is Bonnie's Original. Not a big plant but produces well and nice flavor. Not on level with some mentioned above but way better than anything from a store. Hope you find something you really like. JD

WOW, I never realized that there were so many out there. I will have to check my local greenhouse but I don't think I've seen most of these names around; atleast not in the Gardening centres of Department stores such as Walmart etc... Around here, we have the basic Beefsteak, Roma, cherry, golden, earlygirl, Manitoba, etc..but thanks I will look for some of the others you mention. I'm always game to try a new tomato. Thanks for the info.

Yes thankyou very much for the suggestions. I'm always looking for the sweet tomato and I can infact prefer to work with seeds. I love watching them sprout grow. So thankyou very much for the list of tomatoes to try.

I'm using the beafsteak kind in my greenhouse and they produced great fruit last year. I've also done cherry tomatoes and they were nice....just kept on producing till I closed my greenhouse down for the winter.

I tried a special seed this year, specially designed for greenhouse tomatoes. And so far only 3 have sprouted. It was expensive seed and I'm very disappointed. Good thing I did my other ones too.

I'm growing 'Rutgers','Roma V','Brandywine OTV',&'Red Ponderosa'.They are still tiny seedlings.