The Best Tasting Tomato

by Doug
(in the garden)

One of the big questions you folks had about growing tomatoes (and any vegetable actually) seems to be “What is the best tasting tomato for my region?”.

Now here are the variables we’re working with:

***What you think is good-tasting isn’t necessarily what other people think is good-tasting.

***What you remember as “good-tasting” may change as your memory changes.

***Taste in vegetables is determined by a hundred different variables - and any tomato is going to taste different every year - even coming from the same garden. For example, water availability, micro-nutrients, temperature of days, temperature of night - all of these things are going to have a small influence on the taste of the fruit. Sigh. I wish it weren’t so but that’s the honest truth. The right answer is, “It depends on the growing conditions.”

Bottom Line

There is no “best-tasting” tomato that produces best-tasting tomatoes in your garden year after year. You’ll get variations from year to year.

This is why (one reason anyway) experienced gardeners try to grow several different varieties every year. If that big, honkin’ fruit doesn’t get the right amount of heat-units to fully ripen the sugars, the smaller variety will be fine. If the variety that performs best in cool and fog gets whacked by full sunlight all summer, then the big honkin’ one is there for you.

The Good News

You get to discover what grows best for you.

Hint: It’s probably NOT what the big box store are selling. Those plants are grown in large greenhouse systems and shipped all over the same region. Plants are chosen for their performance in seed-germination uniformity (they’re all done by machine) as well as performance in the pack. They are not chosen for garden performance or taste.

How Do You Find What Grows Best for You?

Discover your local last-frost date in the spring and the first frost-date in the fall. This is a very local bit of gardening lore that small area garden centre owners have engraved on the inside of their eyelids. They live and breathe this information and will share it with you for the asking. Plant and plan on harvesting within those dates.

Ask small local garden shops “WHO GROW THEIR OWN PLANTS - NOT BUY THEM” what they grow in their own gardens. Or buy only from them. You may pay more for these than you will from the box stores but you’re going to get plants that will perform in your area.


If in real doubt, buy the plant that has the shortest days to harvest number on the tag no matter where you shop.

Ask neighbors or friends who have great gardens what they grow. Trust me, they’ll tell you (often for hours!) :-)

Find out the contact name of the local horticultural society person - phone them and ask.

I’m sure you have other ways of discovering the best tasting tomato for your region - what is it?