Each season new varieties appear in the seed catalogues and online, promising even better growth and tasting tomatoes, tempting us to give them a try. Here are just a few of the new tomato varieties 2020 season!
Three New Tomato Varieties 2020
Crimson Cocktail F1 – Balanced taste and resistant to early and late blight.
F1 Honeycomb – Similar to Sungold but with less splitting of skins.
Heinz 1370 – Large fruit, semi-bush, crack resistant and can be grown outside.
So what do we need from another tomato variety? – here are a few of the things to look for.
Early to mature
Tomatoes are generally categorized as early, mid-season and late-season varieties.
We often see terms like “90 days to maturity” which means that it’s about three months between planting out, or planting in the greenhouse, and picking ripe tomatoes. From seed to ripe tomatoes takes around four months or more.
Late season varieties won’t have time to mature in an average UK summer. These include tomatoes with long Italian names that are best grown in Italy!
Disease resistance
Given the possibility of a wet spell in the middle of summer, disease resistance is very important in order to avoid blight and other fungal and root diseases.
In American seed catalogues, tomato varieties have been classified with disease resistance using some of the following:
Some varieties in the UK are bred to be resistant to blight. In the case of Crimson Cocktail F1, both early and late blight. Definitely a good one to grow outside in a UK summer!
Tomato Taste
There are generally two types of tomato taste:
- Balanced – a combination of sugar and acid, giving a traditional tomato taste such as Gardener’s Delight.
- Sweet – high in sugar content and low in acid. A good example of this is Sungold.
You may ask … what about the tomatoes that are high in acid and low in sugar content? They get discontinued – that combination tastes horrible!
See also: When to sow tomato seeds
Rhys Jaggar
Another possibility for many Nick is ‘adapt well to growing in pots’.
Most tomatoes after all are not grown in pots prior to seed preparation (unless you do it yourself at home). I have found the past decade that some grow repeatedly well in pots, some become less productive after a couple of seasons and some simply do not do very well to start with.
Six I have found which grow very reliably in pots are:
1. Red Alert and Maskotka.
Both cherry varieties, both hardy outdoors and Red Alert also does well in garden soil.
2. Alicante and Tigerella.
Both salad tomatoes, both yield reliably well, Tigerella a bit earlier than Alicante. Alicante, originating in Spain, does even better during hot periods.
3. Black Russian and Super Marmande.
I have grown both these beefsteak varieties outdoors the past six years and they have cropped reliably every year. I have even harvested Super Marmande fruits in July, using home made seeds.
All six are open pollinated, all make usable seeds and all seem to become more not less productive with each season grown in pots.