Tomato Lineup For 2025
- eggsinmineral
- Apr 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Below is our line up of tomato starts we'll be offering for 2025, many of which aren't typically available at big box stores. Some are old familiar friends of our garden, some are new. Some are slicing tomatoes and some are cherry type, pictures and comments/descriptions are below. All of these are indeterminate, meaning, they keep producing until the first frost. Most are heirloom/open pollinated (seeds will produce fruit that look like the parent) unless marked with an “*”asterisk.
By the time the farmer's market rolls around in May, these starts will have had 5 long weeks to grow larger and develop even stronger root systems. If you'd like to reserve any of these varieties, please contact us.
Black Beauty
Sart Roloise
*Groundswell
Jubilee
Purple Cherokee
Green Zebra
Cocktail
*Mystery
Chocolate Cherry
*Orange Grape
Yellow Pear
Purple Bumble Bee
Brad's Atomic
Sun Gold
Black Beauty This is by far my most favored slicing tomato we're offering for 2025. You know when you see plant advertised and it seems kind of gimmicky? That's what I figured this was. I couldn't believe that this tomato is actually black, but TRULY IS! Not blue, not purple, but BLACK! On the inside it's a burgundy color. Oh, and I should also mention that it tastes good too. We grew these in 2024 and I saved some seeds, so we could offer seedlings for 2025.
Sart Roloise Another favorite slicer for 2025. It not only looks beautiful but taste beautiful too (can something taste beautiful? Let me know.) Anyway, I highly recommend this tomato. What a conversation piece in your garden and on your table. We grew these in a grow bag in 2024, so I can say with certainty that they're container friendly (with the right soil and nutrients), although ultimately I think these larger tomatoes, seem to grow better in the ground.
Groundswell This was developed by Burpee and its claim to fame is that it can be planted directly in the ground as a seed, does just as well as transplanted seedlings and produces fruit at the same time as other tomatoes. It's a hybrid that looks like an heirloom. It's new to our garden. I'll experiment with planting it directly in the ground and see how it goes. Meanwhile, yours will be in a pot for you to transplant when conditions are right.
Jubilee It's an old heirloom variety but it's new to me. I'm growing it to experiment with making yellow salsa. Shout out to Master Gardeners of Louisa for hosting a yearly seed share which is where I picked up these seeds.
Purple Cherokee This is a popular slicing heirloom on everybody's wish list. We grow it almost every year.
Green Zebra New to our garden for 2025. I've got a good feeling about this one. Of all the tomato seeds we started, it was one of the first to germinate. Again, shout out to Master Gardeners of Louisa! I picked up these seeds at their Seed Share event this spring. And another shout out to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE) for donating the seeds. SESE describes this tomato as “An unusual and exquisite tomato chosen by Alice Waters for the famous California restaurant Chez Panisse. 3-5 oz fruits ripen to yellow-gold with alternating dark-green zebra-like stripes. Emerald flesh with good flavor. Colorful sliced or in salads. Well branched vines provide good foliage cover and have some resistance to septoria leaf spot.”
Cocktail One of my favorites! The plant produces prolific, golf ball sized fruits with a classic tomato taste. We started growing this tomato by chance. Read about it here.
Mystery Just like the name implies, this tomato is a mystery. It appeared in the garden back in 2017. I didn't plant it as a seed or a seedling. I didn't drop a tomato the previous year for volunteers to come up the following year. Perhaps a wild animal somehow deposited a seed there. I've saved seeds from the fruit from year to year and they mostly turn out to be yellow, although, some years they've been orange, red or pink. It's slightly bigger than a golf ball. Truly a mystery!
Chocolate Cherry We grow this heirloom every year and it never disappoints. It always produces a huge amount of dusky red tomatoes with a chocolatey color on top.
Orange Grape These seedlings were grown from seeds saved from an elongated, orange colored, cherry/grape tomato. I don't know the real name and it's possible that the parent tomato was hybrid as the offspring seemed slightly smaller than the original but they tasted pretty darn good, so I thought I'd give it another go.
Yellow Pear A no-fail heirloom variety that produces lots of sweet, yellow, pear shaped cherry tomatoes. They look so “gourmet”, when sliced in half and tossed over a salad!
Purple Bumble Bee This is a fun, easy to grow, cherry tomato and tasty too. The streaky green stripes really make it stand out in salads. It's part of the "Artisan" series of tomatoes. I believe Johnny's was the first to offer this collection of seeds.
Brad's Atomic Grape Tomato We grew these back in 2017 and as I recall I somewhat neglected the plant. I did manage to save some seeds from a single tomato and thought I might give them a go at some point in the future. Well, the future is here. So, I'm counting this one as new. But here's the description given by Baker Creek Seeds: “Large, elongated cherries in clusters. The color (and flavor!) is a full-blown assault on the senses—lavender and purple stripes that turn to Technicolor olive-green, red, and brown/blue stripes when fully ripe. Really wild! Fruit holds well on the vine or off, making this amazing variety a good candidate for market growers. Crack-resistant fruit is extraordinarily sweet! Wispy foliage looks delicate but belies these plants’ rugged constitution and high productivity. These range some in size from a large grape to plum-sized.”
Sunrise Bumble Bee This is another cherry tomato that's part of the "Artisan" collection. We originally obtained seeds from Johnny's and have grown them several times over the years. Here's what Johnny's says about them, "Gorgeous combination of yellows and reds, inside and out. Excellent sweet and tangy flavor. Adds a nice pop of color to any mix, but also stands alone as a premium-quality cherry for snacking and salads." I have a limited number of these
Sun Gold Ahh...Sun Gold. These are the sweetest cherry tomatoes I've ever tasted. They're delicious for snacking right off the vine. From my internet research, I've found there is a hybrid variety and an open pollinated variety. I must have the open pollinated variety because the seeds I save and plant always look like the parent.
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