2025 Tomato Grow List

It's getting towards that time of year again. What are you all planning on growing?

I have some seeds on the way from Russia, if they arrive safely my 8 greenhouse tomatoes will be (varieties with * are new for this year):

Cowboy - black beefsteak bred by Karen Olivier from Canada, named in memory of her father 
Daniel Burson - black beefsteak
Mat-Su Express - red beefsteak, early to ripen, love the flavour, didn't grow it last year and missed it
Pink Honeymoon F1 - pink beefsteak
Red Lithium* - red beefsteak with yellow stripes, a accidental cross of Lithium Sunset and an unknown variety, quite hard to find
Shake The Disease* - dark beefsteak with green, metallic stripes
Strangelove* - bicolour orange/red with anthocyanin shoulders
Suffer Well* -  dark beefsteak with green, metallic stripes

These will all be grafted onto Estamino F1 rootstock, since last year every tomato in the greenhouse soil did badly except the two grafted plants. This year I'm going to try side grafting, and I've ordered extra rootstock seeds to account for losses. 

If you're a fan of Depeche Mode you may have realised that the last three in the list are named after their songs. They were bred by Bill Yoder from Georgia, USA. He also has a family of tomatoes named after Prince songs. 

Not 100% sure what I'll be growing outside this year, except for 9 x Nagina F1 (Crimson Plum). Possibly Cherrola F1, Sakura F1 and Yellow Mimi F1 or Honey Delight F1 for vining cherries, and some blight resistant bushes e.g. Orangeto F1, Terenzo F1, Orangello F1, Romello F1.

I've not given much thought to tomatoes yet except to reduce the number I grow, too much else going on. There'll be a choice sungold, honeycomb, santiam sunrise, ruthje and orangeto plus others to be decided.

So far I've sown these tomatoes:
Oxheart
Galina
Chadwick Cherry
Spanish big globe
Auntie Madge's
Genuwine
Rambling red stripe
Matt's hornet (thank you Veggie!)
Mountain Princess
Ciliegia (and they've come up today!)

There will be more, I'm sure. And you might notice that all of these seeds are from our seed swaps

I'll be sticking with same as last year - probably these depending on what germinates.

2 gardeners delight
7 alicante
4 orange banana
2 galina
2 delicious
2 Omar's Lebanese
2 brandywine
2 Roma vf

I'm going to sow two tried and tested varieties:
Gardener's Delight
Shirley
and two that are new to me:
Lithium Sunset (a yellow and orange beefsteak type)
Paul Robeson (a dusky red beefsteak type).

I'll sow these some time in the next couple of weeks.

I've sown Red Robin but, after that I have no idea. However, I won't be growing any beefsteaks or micro toms. Nor will I grow any yellow or green ones. Black ones are also unlikely. Nor will I be tempted by Reisetomate again - they were a complete failure.
I'm boring and I want tomatoes that look and taste like traditional tomatoes and are red.

I'll be growing.

7 Black cherry, my all time favourite.
1 Gardener's Delight
2 Mini Bell.

Just two varieties here- the flowers have taken over.

Black Icicle and black cherry

I have some seeds on the way from Russia, if they arrive safely my 8 greenhouse tomatoes will be (varieties with * are new for this year):

The seeds arrived safely, hooray! So that means Red Lithium, Strangelove, Shake The Disease and Suffer Well are a go (providing my grafting technique has improved since last year   ). They actually came from Latvia rather than Russia. 

This is the website I ordered from - https://en.tomatoeden.net/shop - lots of interesting varieties on there for reasonable prices.

I've acquired these tomatoes from a Seed Swap, Incredible Seed Library and from Wales Seed Hub.
Graham's Tom Thumb
Lulu's Best Ever
Gardener's Sweetheart
Primabella
Belarussian Heart
Orange banana
Peche Vilmorin
Urbikany
Muchamiel.
Pendulina (SC)
So I'll be trying some of these. There may be more as I'm off to another Seed Swap tomorrow.