Some questions I’m often asked when meeting with gardeners are, “What are your best Tomato Seeds?” or “What are your top 10 tomato seed favorites?” and I always find these difficult to answer. In my 25 years at Territorial Seed Company, I have tried a whole heck of a lot of tomatoes. When you try as many as I have your top 10 tomato list starts to expand into “Top 10 beefsteak tomatoes”, “Top 10 cherry tomatoes”, “Top 10 hybrid tomatoes”, “Top 10 organic tomatoes”, etc. very quickly! But for this article I will attempt to confine my list to the absolute best, top 10 tomatoes, regardless of their category.
A couple of notes before getting into the list. I do not consider myself a tomato expert, merely an enthusiastic gardener who likes to try a lot of different things. As all gardeners know, individual results may vary, and a specific variety of tomato may taste sweet and tangy in one garden, but savory and salty in another. As an example, for many years we have offered a yellow slicer tomato named Taxi. It produces 4-5 inch yellow tomatoes with a good flavor, but in most of the taste tests, something like Brandywine or Pineapple would win out. However, one year a customer submitted Taxi in our “Great Northwest Tomato Taste-Off” contest and won 2nd place. Something about his specific combination of soil, climate, watering pattern, and overall growing technique really made the flavor of Taxi shine through. All that said, many tomato varieties are known for their excellent flavor, no matter what conditions they are grown in.
Not all these tomato seed varieties are ranked on flavor; other attributes include disease resistance, growing habit, yield, color, and more. Every tomato seed on this list has something that bumps it to the top for me. I am sure that some of selections will be controversial since we all rank our tomatoes a bit differently. I would love to hear your feedback, and your selections of favorites!