By Niki Jabbour
Source: Savvy Gardening
Photo Source: Unsplash
TOMATOES
3) Grape tomatoes
A handful of grape tomatoes straight from the vine is the perfect summer snack. The bite-sized tomatoes have an oblong-shape and the fruits are generally more firm than cherry tomatoes and have a meatier texture. As for the taste, most grape varieties have a rich tomato flavor that balances sweet with acid.
There are many excellent grape tomato varieties available through seed catalogs. Standouts include:
Valentine (55 days) – For an extra-early crop of flavorful grape tomatoes, plant Valentine. The indeterminate plants are disease resistant, extremely productive, and yield heavily until frost.
Starlight Grape (70 days) – This unique tomato is one of my favorites to grow! I love the elongated bright yellow fruits that grow 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, but are just 3/4 of an inch across. Starlight Grape’s high-yielding, indeterminate plants are tall and need to be staked.
Supernova (63 days) – I’ve been growing this fun grape variety for the past few years and love the red and gold marbled fruits. The indeterminate plants of Supernova are very productive with the harvest beginning about 63 days from transplanting.
Juliet (60 days) – This award-winning indeterminate grape variety yields 12 to 18 large, bright red fruits per cluster. Each one is about 2 inches long and 1 1/2 inches across with good crack resistance, disease resistant, and a delicious tomato flavor.
There are many outstanding varieties of cherry tomatoes to grow in a rainbow of colors that includes red, orange, yellow, green, black, pink, and purple. Here are a few of the cherry tomato varieties I grow each year:
Sungold (67 days) – Sungold is one of the most popular cherry tomatoes grown in gardens, beloved for its incredibly sweet golden fruits. The indeterminate plants start to crop early in the season and continue to pump out tomatoes until frost.
Sunrise Bumblebee (70 days) – Beautiful and delicious, the sweet orange fruits of Sunrise Bumblebee are streaked in bright gold. The cherry-sized tomatoes are resistant to cracking and the the indeterminate plants grow 6 to 7 feet tall.
Jasper (60 days) – There are many reasons to plant Jasper. First, the vigorous indeterminate plants are resistant to early and late blight. They also produce a heavy crop of glossy red fruits that begins early in the season and continues until the autumn frosts arrive. Finally, the fruits are very crack resistant.
Bonus cherry tomato varieties (the most popular type of small-fruited tomatoes)
Sweet Million (63 days) – Sweet Million is a classic cherry variety that produces tall indeterminate plants, each yielding hundreds of bright red fruits. Ok, maybe it’s not a million tomatoes, but it’s enough to keep you in sweet cherry tomatoes all summer long.
Yellow Pear (75 days) – Pear tomatoes are a unique tomato type to grow. Their unusual pear-shape adds fun to salads and their bright, sweet flavor is delightful. The indeterminate plants grow up to 7 feet tall and produce long chains of the 1 1/2 inch fruits until frost.
How can you introduce vegetables from your garden into your diet? Why? How could that improve your health? How could that improve the environment?
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