[joenorwood77]

Hello everyone,

I am a newbie to this forum, and this will be my 4th year growing tomatoes. This year I will be sharing space in a family members garden, and we will plant 8 total tomato plants and 4 cherry tomato plants. The main purposes for tomatoes are for salsa, as well as for putting on sandwiches. We also enjoy eating tomatoes by themselves.

Being fairly new to tomato growing, along with the unlimited varieties of tomato plants out there, what resources are available to help narrow down which plants to try? I eventually want to identify about 4 reliable and tasty plants to grow every year while alternating about 4 new ones every year.

I have done some researching and the best links I found so far were on mother earth news where they listed survey results of the top 30 tomatoes nationwide, as well as links for specific regions. Using their lists, I came up with the following for my 2011 plants. Please comment on these as far as what makes sense and what I might want to do differently.

I have limited experience with trying different tomato varieties, but hopefully these lists are on the right track for where to begin. Any insight is greatly appreciated!

8 main tomatoes
1. Brandywine
2. Super Fantastic (not on mother nature news list but I really like this one)

3. Cherokee Purple
4. Black Krim
5. Beefsteak
6. Early Girl
7. Better Boy
8. Big Boy

4 Cherry Tomatoes
1. Super Sweet 100
2. Sungold
3. Black Cherry
4. Yellow Pear

4 Alternate tomatoes in case any of first 8 are not available
1. Mortgage Lifter
2. Celebrity
3. Beefmaster
4. Sunray (not on mother nature news list but I really like this one)