This year I decided to try a tomato sampler challenge to see which tomatoes tasted the best and ripened the fastest here in my Indiana garden.
Waiting for the first tomatoes of the season to ripen - especially if you are growing new varieties - is hard.
I grow a lot of heirloom varieties on the farm and always try to have some black or purple varieties.
I prefer them because they taste sweeter - but not too sweet.
This year I also tried a white/yellow variety called Snowberry.
Snowberry Tomato
The Snowberry Tomato was one of the first to produce.
It is a mild tomato without much of a real tomato taste.
In fact, the ones that were really ripe tasted a bit more like a grape than a tomato.
It was not what I had expected, but they were not bad and the plant produces an abundant supply.
In fact, most of the tomatoes I am picking right now are coming from this plant.
I don't know if I will grow it again next year or not.
I am going to wait and see how it goes over at market.
Chocolate Cherry Tomato
The next small cherry tomato I grew was the heirloom variety Chocolate Cherry.
The tomatoes I picked weren't as dark as I had hoped they would be - and maybe that was my fault for picking them too soon, but they seemed ripe enough.
The tomatoes were juicy and sweet with an earthy taste.
I'm not getting a lot of tomatoes from this plant right now, but hopefully as the season goes on it will produce more.
This is one that I am likely to save seeds from and grow in the future.
Amazon Chocolate Tomato
The winner though - at least out of these three varieties - was the Amazon Chocolate Tomato.
This was my first year growing it and it was pure angony watching it slowly ripen day after day.
It did not turn color near as fast as some of the red tomato varieties I am growing.
In fact, it took a good week after I noticed it starting to change color before it seemed ripe enough to pick.
Given the size of the tomato, I guess the wait was not so bad - after all, it would only take one slice for a sandwich.
Yes, it was that big!
The Amazon Chocolate tomato had a slightly sweet taste and was quite meaty - making it an ideal addition to sauces such as pizza or spaghetti.
I did save seeds from it, but I forgot I still had them fermenting in water to remove the flesh and they germinated.
I will be planting those seeds and - depending on how fast they grow - either transplanting them into the garden or growing them on in pots in the greenhouse.
A New Variety I Am Trialing - The Indigo Rose Tomato
I saw the Indigo Rose Tomato growing in a garden I visited earlier this year that I asked for some seeds.
The man was kind enough to share some with me and I promptly planted them.
Finally I have baby tomatoes starting to form.
I can't wait until they begin to ripen to see just how dark they really are!
I have not tasted them yet, but I did want to share this video of the forming tomatoes.
Growing Tomatoes
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