Tastiest toms for 2026

[Peanut]

New year, new thread. Here's a link to 2025 for reference Tastiest toms for 2025 - The Grapevine

A place to share the tastiest and most disappointing tomato varieties you have grown this year.

[Penellype]

Last year as usual the tastiest were Sungold and Honeycomb. The crushing disappointment was Carmello. I had been led to believe (by a Youtube video) that this was a reliable, heavy cropping and very tasty variety with large tomatoes and I was hoping it would be a replacement for the much missed Ferline. I grew 2 plants, one in the greenhouse and one in the garden, in the prime position next to the hotbin (reasonable sunshine and extra heat and nutrients from the liquid that comes out of the bottom of the bin). The greenhouse plant produced 3 tomatoes, 2 of which were very small and the bigger one had greenback and blossom end rot despite being grown in a Quadgrow. The outdoor plant produced 4 small tomatoes, 3 of which were so late that they didn't ripen before the plant died from frost in October (before any of the other outdoor plants). The flavour was very ordinary too.

[mothhawk]

This year I am going to try Latah. It's supposed to be very early and more tolerant of cool summers - ideal outdoors in my north facing garden I hope.

[smallblueplanet]

Last year we tried Nagina F1 from seed - smallish 'Roma type' they were good and tasty. Plus Sweet Casaday from the garden centre, another tasty tom. Will do both of those again. (Not my picture btw but very 'to life'.)

[burnie]

Taste is a very persoal thing though, for instance I didn't think much to Sungold, I still like old fashioned ones like Ailsa Craig, a bit more acidic rather than sweet for me. Gardeners Delight still works for me too, despite folk saying it's not as good as they used to be.

[smallblueplanet]

Taste is a very persoal thing though, for instance I didn't think much to Sungold, I still like old fashioned ones like Ailsa Craig, a bit more acidic rather than sweet for me. Gardeners Delight still works for me too, despite folk saying it's not as good as they used to be.

Love Sungold, but also like Gardeners Delight, very reliable. Tried A Craig and thought it tasteless. There's plenty of opportunity to try something new though? Not just taste, but terroir too.

[burnie]

I shot this a couple of years ago, not sure if you have seen it or not, this is from youtube so is hopefully free of gremlins, it's a general chat, but includes some tomato tasting.
https://youtu.be/TB7hZ98Hdyw

[Snoop Puss]

Sounds like you really like Tigerella and Garden Pearl, burnie.

Garden Pearl isn't my kind of tom (all mine are indeterminate and grown outdoors), but I'll take a look at Tigerella. Thanks.

Edited: On the subjects of terroir and toms we don't like, I once grew Shirley. I know some people here have grown them in the past and liked them. Mine were cucumbery, worse even than supermarket toms for flavour. I won't ever grow those again.

[Containergardener]

I shall come back to this as I've forgotten the names of the ones I bought but like Burnie I've I do have success with Tigerella .
Tried roma last year but they didn't seem to produce alot for me.

[Containergardener]

Found my new seeds that was a bit of a panic, thought I'd lost them.

We have Latah , Grushovka, Urbikany ... a Russian theme this year.
Will also do some cherry's and Tigeralla and and and

Going off the back of last year's summer (here I jinx myself) I'm going to put some toms outside as the ones that self grew in my own compost did actually produce.
My gh isn't big enough and I also want to do chilli's

[KJessi]

My tomatoes always got blight and I gave up growing them, out of sheer frustration. No amount of sprays, treatments, worked and it was too much work, and I used the space to grow beans instead.

I was thinking of trying inside this year, in the sun porch or covered patio. Any recommendations? Probably smaller, more productive cherry types.

[Containergardener]

There's lots of compact bushes varieties. I often do sweet aperitif

[smallblueplanet]

My tomatoes always got blight and I gave up growing them, out of sheer frustration. No amount of sprays, treatments, worked and it was too much work, and I used the space to grow beans instead.

I was thinking of trying inside this year, in the sun porch or covered patio. Any recommendations? Probably smaller, more productive cherry types.

What are your outside growing conditions like? Maybe that is important and could be 'adjusted'. What do they grow near? Try growing smaller fruited varieties, as they don't take as long from 'start to finish' so maybe will fruit before blight hit? Gardeners Delight are quite good all round, some of the newer F1s can be a bit 'delicate' others okay, lots of trial and error.

[Bren In Pots]

My tomatoes always got blight and I gave up growing them, out of sheer frustration. No amount of sprays, treatments, worked and it was too much work, and I used the space to grow beans instead.

I was thinking of trying inside this year, in the sun porch or covered patio. Any recommendations? Probably smaller, more productive cherry types.

I've grown 'Minibell' the last 4 years on my unheated GH bench, they're tasty and usually produce toms 3 weeks earlier than Black cherry and Gardeners delight sown at the same time.

[KJessi]

I'm up in the Northwest, outside Liverpool, and it's basically more wet than dry really. Zone 8b/9a. No greenhouse. And I travelled a lot so growing outside, without cover, meant they had a chance of looking after themselves when I was away.

I usually plant salads, brassicas and beans, cucumbers, and cosmos, sunflowers and sweet allysum, marigolds and nasturtiums if they survive being bait, all jumbled together in a polyculture kind of way. They're in 2 beds with arches and that's where I used to plonk the tomatoes.

I'll try the varieties you all mentioned, thank you x