It’s tomato planting season! Come pick up your fall plants, ready for immediate planting- 20+ varieties plus 10+ peppers and tomatillos. Fall planting is focused on varieties with STRONG disease and nematode tolerance to guarantee your gardening success during our most humid and high disease pressure season. A mix of beefsteak, slicing, small fruit/cocktail, processing and cherry type tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers (as well as fruiting 1gal size perennial seasoning and hot peppers) and 2 tomatillo varieties.
Some first time variety offerings from our spring and fall ‘24-‘25 trials
TOMATOES:
Yaqui - our workhorse Roma/paste/processing type tomato. We grow 10:1 of these to all other varieties we grow for ourselves. Tiny plants, huge meaty Roma tomatoes on plants resistant to near everything our climate can throw at it.
Healani - university of Hawaii determinate slicer that’s meaty enough for double duty as a processing tomato. One of the few open pollinated determinate tomatoes resistant to root knot nematodes. Wilt resistant but not particularly blight resistant. If you’re interested in saving your own seed for a processing tomato, this is a good choice.
Bella Rosa - commercial highly disease resistant determinate tomatoes have a reputation for good production but bland or poor flavor. BR isn’t that- out of the many we’ve tried this one is an easy grower but also tastes great too, well balanced richness and good acidity. Bred for processing but also great for fresh eating.
Itz A Keeper- name is apt- highly disease and nematode resistant, good balanced flavor and mega productive- if you want an indeterminate that’s hardy enough to go overwinter (with frost protection) and into the spring when your spring crop comes in, this one’s a good call.
Beefmaster - biggest beefsteaks we’ve ever grown, slightly longer season than other fall offerings so may need some frost protection end of season to get across the finish line. Worth the effort if you want huge beefsteaks.
Big beef - easiest big slicer/beefsteak. One of the most popular home grown tomatoes in the entire US. Everything said about itZ a keeper applies to Big Beef but the fruits even larger.
Mini Marzano - micro mini indeterminate plants- hyper productive and a great option for containers or small gardens- cherry size San Marzano shaped fruits from plants that barely reach 2ft tall. can be short staked, caged or allowed to spill over a containers side. Not nematode resistant
Golden hour - a compliment to Marzano above but the fruits are yellow/red streaked with black anthocyanin stripes lending to a particularly rich snacking fruit growing on micro mini indeterminate plants.
Norwood Meiners - while exploring the depths of Wild Boars extensive tomato germplasm we were happy to find this indeterminate red and yellow striped tomato slightly larger than a cherry variety. Surprisingly hardy for an OP and very productive- downside is the skin is thin so fairly crack prone which should be a non issue after storm season subsides end of season.
Medusa - our most popular tomato- Cherokee purple crossed with a highly disease and nematode resistant tomato which creates a sturdy plant with delicious black shouldered dark crimson slicer fruits. One of our faves. Highly blight and nematode resistant but occasionally has wilt issues.
Mountain magic - if your enjoy the Campari tomato found in grocery stores, this is the actual variety- very hardy with ping pong ball sized cherry/cocktail tomatoes that are nice and tangy. A great snack tomato.
Lemon boy - pure yellow slicers. Mild but in a good way, we usually overwinter a plant or two for ourselves for never ending caprese salads. Very disease and nematode resistant.
SunDipper - this was a fun find from our last 2 seasons of trials- carrot orange coke bottle shaped grape tomatoes bred specifically for the packaged crudite market. You’ve probably seen these in Publix packaged with celery sticks and baby carrots. If you have kids that are addicted to dipping veggies but always drop their tomatoes in the dip, these tomatoes come with a handle built in. Kind of mild but sweet with a good snappy/crunch skin this type is for sure a novelty but one worth growing. Was highly productive further into the summer than most other tomatoes so expect a long consistent season.
Momotaro - a Japanese pink slicing tomatoes that eats like a cherry tomato- very tangy and a good flavor profile compliment to richer slicing types. We grow a plant for ourselves every season.
Midnight snack- black shouldered slightly small cherry tomato- extremely rich flavor due to high anthocyanin for a cherry tomato. Fruits higher up on the plant will get darker as anthocyanin expression is determined by light exposure.
Grandmas pick - the fastest growing beefsteak we’ve ever grown- good balanced flavor slightly acidic for a big tomato and will be done with minimal disease issues or nematode pressure before the cold of mid winter sets in.
Black cherry - heirloom dark flesh/skin cherry developed in SWFL by the owner of Tomato Growers Supply. Dark fruits but coloring doesn’t seem as light dependent. If I were to grow a single heirloom cherry tomato for myself this would almost always be my choice.
Buffalo sun - a nice yellow with orange red striped indeterminate beefsteak that fruits much faster and is more blight resistant than similar heirlooms so a good choice for the fall. Not particularly nematode resistant so a good raised bed/large container choice.
Chocolate Sprinkles- the most requested hybrid grape tomato we’ve ever offered. Mega producers of red/brown streaked cherry tomatoes. Very disease and nematode resistant. Also this variety seems to come close to true from seed in at least 2 generations so a long term project of ours is to stabilize an open pollinated version of this eventually.
Costoluto Genovese- Italian heirloom processing tomato- big, meaty ribbed/accordion folded fruit. As much a novelty as a surprisingly reliable producer for an heirloom.
Chocolate Chesnut - my personal favorite Wild Boar tomato- incredibly rich, almost like tomato paste flavor right out of the fruit. Crimson with black shoulders and dark streaks. Cracking prone due to delicate skin and not very nematode resistant but otherwise hardy- well worth the extra effort.
Midnight Roma - nearly black/purple when fully ripe semi determinate Roma tomato, if you want darker fruit you need to prune to expose fruits to full sun. Suprisingly wilt and blight resistant for an open pollinated strain.
Toma Verde tomatillo - classic large green tomatillo great for salsa verde.
Purple tomatillo - on the smaller side fruits, dark purple especially when slightly underripe. I’d call these a novelty if they weren’t so crazy productive.
Dragonfly purple bell - super leaf spot resistant medium size bell peppers- purple skin at the green stage and will ripen to fully dark red. Another novelty that surpasses that label by being super well adapted and very productive.
Alliance Bell - big blocky red bells, if you want a stuffed pepper type this is the one to grow. Very leaf spot resistant and resistant to nearly every virus that can affect peppers- a great trait for the high insect pressure fall season (viruses are commonly pest insect spread).
Ka’ala - a really cool small tapered very sweet bell pepper originally from Hawaii but sourced from the seed growers at Commonwealth in VA- they have similar heat and humidity to us so their seed breeding and saving efforts are advantageous in our climate as well. Seems like there’s high perennial potential with this type, very strong stocky hardy plants.
Banana - classic pickling pepper not much else to say, massive production.
Early Sunsation - an orange hybrid bell that complements the other colors we offer- only dragonfly will fruit faster for a bell than this variety.
Solar flare- a dehybridized version of Escamillo, a very popular hybrid orange cowhorn. Another variety sourced from Commonwealth.
Shishito - hyper productive Japanese snack/bar food pepper. Occasionally hot- these small thin wall peppers are a real treat when blistered in a ripping hot wok then quickly mixed with a little soy sauce or flaky salt, sesame oil and/or seeds. Seeds are all right at the stem so can be eaten in almost one bite.
Jimmy Nardello - my personal favorite sweet pepper- long skinny Italian frying type. The best flavored sweet pepper in the world, amazing depth of flavor cooked or raw. Not massively productive but worth it for the quality.
Anaheim - big ol mild heat variety from California- roast it, stuff it, fry it. Super versatile for a hot pepper.
Poblano Carranza- poblanos are generally tough to get going well in our climate but this one just cranks out poblanos on the smaller side. Rellenos, roasted and chopped into chili, salsas, marinates, letting them get fully red and drying or smoking for ancho chiles. Another great workhorse mild hot.
Serrano - super versatile red or green, massive producer. This is the ‘Flamin’ Jade’ hybrid version that’s nematode resistant. Our goto for fermented hot sauce, fresh slicing, and drying for flake/powder.
1 gallon fruiting/flowering
Aji Jobito - think of these as aji dulces orange/yellow Venezuelan cousin with just the tiniest barely there amount of heat. Highly perennial seasoning pepper when covered during frosts in the winter. These should be way more popular than they are.
Aji Dulce / Ajicito ‘Gigante’ - one of the biggest ajicito types we’ve ever grown- similar in shape to the Cuban cauchucha type seasoning pepper. PR sourced seed.
Ghost- former worlds hottest (has since been surpassed) and one of the most popular superhots out there. Highly perennial and has a considerably better flavor than other superhots I’ve tried.
Fish - gorgeous ornamental utility variety- has strongly variegated leaves and fruits. Mid heat small peppers named so for their complimentary flavor to seafood- a good pepper vinegar pepper that’s traditionally culturally important to African American communities in the Philly to Baltimore Mid Atlantic region.
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