Tomato Tomahto.
A tomato cultivar guide for home gardeners. 173 varieties, scored for flavor, climate, kitchen use, and disease resistance.
Aviculare tomato, watercolor by Bertha Heiges, 1903. USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection.
Three ways to find a tomato.
The picker asks a few questions about your ZIP, kitchen, space, and growing conditions, then narrows 173 cultivars down to a shortlist of five. Cuisine pages map kitchen tradition (Tamil rasam, Italian sauce, Mexican salsa) to the cultivars that fit, with optional zone filtering. Or browse the full database directly with sortable filters for ripening, fruit size, disease resistance, and research confidence.
Pick by what you cook.
Cuisine pages map kitchen tradition to cultivars in the database. Tamil rasam wants acidic juicy slicers, not paste. Italian sauce wants paste varieties with low gel and dense flesh. Mexican salsa wants something between the two. Most picker tools collapse this into a single "use case" axis. Tomato Tomahto separates them so you can browse the kitchen you cook from directly.
Italian and Mediterranean
Tomatoes for sauce, pizza, and panzanella.
Indian and South Asian
Tomatoes for rasam, sambar, and curry bases.
Latin and Mexican
Tomatoes for salsa, pico, and guisos.
American garden
Tomatoes for the BLT and the backyard cherry.
Snacking and salads
Cherry, grape, and currant types for eating fresh.
Preserving and canning
Paste types for sauce, ketchup, and cold-pack canning.
Why pick a variety carefully.
Tomatoes vary more than most crops. A 90-day Mediterranean paste tomato will not ripen in a Vermont garden. A one-pound beefsteak will sprawl beyond most patio pots. A flavor-bred heirloom will catch late blight in a wet August and lose half its fruit before it ripens. Picking from the wrong shelf wastes a season.
Most seed catalogs sell hundreds of varieties without saying which one is for you. This site scores each cultivar across the dimensions that matter at planting time, so you can match a tomato to your kitchen, your climate, and the way you grow.
Four broad shapes.
Most tomatoes fall into one of four kitchen archetypes. Your use case usually decides which shelf to start on.
Slicing
Sandwich tomatoes. Four to twelve ounces, juicy, round. Brandywine, Better Boy, Cherokee Purple.
Snacking
Cherry and grape types, eat by the handful. Sun Gold, Matt's Wild Cherry, Sweet 100.
Paste
Sauce and canning. Dense flesh, low water content. San Marzano, Roma VF, Amish Paste.
Beefsteak
One pound and up. Showpiece slicers for sandwiches and tomato salads. Mortgage Lifter, Black Krim, Pruden's Purple.
Browse all 173 varieties.
Sortable on category, ripening, fruit size, disease resistance, late blight, and research confidence. Searchable. Each entry links to its sources.
Open the databaseWhere the data comes from.
Every cultivar entry is sourced. Recurring references include peer-reviewed flavor research, university extension publications, USDA records, and breeder catalogs.
- Tieman et al. 2017, Science: 398-accession trained-panel flavor study
- Colantonio et al. 2022, PNAS: 153-variety metabolomic flavor selection
- Klee Lab, University of Florida (Garden Gem, Tasti-Lee, flavor breeding)
- Cornell Vegetable MD Online disease resistance database
- Extension publications: UMaine, UMass, UVM, NC State, UF, Cornell
- USDA GRIN germplasm records
- US Plant Patents (Google Patents)
- Breeder catalogs: Johnny's, Fedco, Baker Creek, Seeds of India, High Mowing
Frequently asked.
What's the difference between determinate and indeterminate?
Determinate varieties grow to a fixed size, set fruit in a concentrated window of two to three weeks, then stop. They suit canning, container growing, and short-season climates. Indeterminate varieties keep growing and producing until frost kills them, need staking or caging, and reward season-long care with continuous harvest.
What is late blight, and why does it matter?
Late blight is a fungal disease (Phytophthora infestans) that thrives in cool wet weather and can wipe out a tomato planting in days. It's the same pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine. In wet Northeast and Pacific Northwest summers, choosing a resistant cultivar (Defiant PHR, Iron Lady, Mountain Magic, Plum Regal) can mean the difference between a full harvest and a total loss.
How do I read the confidence ratings?
High confidence: peer-reviewed sensory or chemistry data from named studies (Tieman 2017, Colantonio 2022, Klee lab). Medium-high: a peer-reviewed source with caveats, or a strong extension publication. Medium: extension publications, breeder catalogs, and gardener consensus, internally consistent. Low-medium and low: limited data, often older varieties with unverified provenance. The picker weights confidence into its scoring so high-confidence cultivars are surfaced first when matches are otherwise tied.
Do I need to start tomatoes from seed indoors?
You can, but you don't have to. Most home gardeners buy transplants in May from a local nursery. Starting from seed gives you access to varieties (most heirlooms, regional cultivars, anything with peer-reviewed flavor pedigree) that big-box nurseries won't carry. Indoor seed starting is six to eight weeks before your last frost date.
What's the difference between heirloom and hybrid?
Heirloom varieties are open-pollinated, often more than 50 years old, and breed true from seed. They're typically prized for flavor and visual character but can be susceptible to disease and uneven in fruit set. Hybrids (F1) are crosses between two parent lines, usually bred for disease resistance, yield, or shipping durability. They don't breed true from seed. Modern flavor-recovery hybrids (Garden Gem, Tasti-Lee) try to combine heirloom flavor with hybrid vigor.
Are any of these GMO?
None of the cultivars in this database are genetically modified. There are no GMO tomatoes commercially available to home gardeners in the United States. All "hybrids" listed here are conventional crosses, not transgenic.
How many tomato plants do I need?
One indeterminate plant produces 10 to 20 pounds in a season. Determinates produce 5 to 10 pounds in a concentrated window. A family of four eating fresh wants 2 to 4 indeterminate plants. A family planning to can sauce wants 6 to 12 paste-type plants. Plant more if your patch has good sun (8+ hours) and good airflow.
Can I grow tomatoes in containers?
Yes, but choose determinate or compact varieties. Patio Choice, Tiny Tim, Bush Early Girl, Balcony Miracle, and Maglia Rosa Cherry all do well in 5 to 10 gallon containers. Beefsteaks and full-size indeterminates need 15+ gallons and consistent watering, and even then they underperform compared to in-ground plants.
When do I transplant outside?
After your average last frost date and once soil temperature reaches 60°F (15°C). For Zone 6 (Boston, mid-Atlantic, lower Midwest) that's mid to late May. For Zone 5 (upper Midwest, northern New England), early June. Transplanting too early into cold soil stunts the plant and delays fruiting more than waiting an extra two weeks would.
Does the picker work for my region?
The picker uses USDA hardiness zones (3 through 10) for its first hard filter. Cultivars are tagged with the zones they perform reliably in. If you're outside the United States, look up your equivalent USDA zone and use it as input. The disease-pressure question lets you flag wet-summer climates regardless of zone.
All 173 varieties.
Sortable, searchable, and filterable. Click any row to expand its full sourcing notes and care detail.
Methodology.
This site exists because tomato seed catalogs sell hundreds of varieties without telling you which one is for you. Most extension publications focus on a regional handful. Most peer-reviewed flavor research is locked in journals home gardeners don't read.
Tomato Tomahto pulls these sources together for 173 cultivars and scores each one across the dimensions that matter at planting time: zone fit, kitchen use, space type, flavor profile, disease resistance, and grower-friendliness. The picker matches your inputs against those scores and returns a shortlist with reasons.
How cultivars are chosen for inclusion.
The 173 cultivars in the database were selected to span six categories (slicing, snacking, paste, beefsteak, short-season, late-blight-resistant) plus a small "anti-pick" set of varieties commonly sold to home gardeners that should not be (Florida 47, Flora-Dade, Mountain Spring) along with their reasoning. Anchor cultivars come from peer-reviewed flavor studies (Tieman 2017, Colantonio 2022); the remainder come from university extension recommendations, regional seed catalogs, and well-documented heirloom collections.
How flavor is scored.
Each cultivar carries a five-dimensional flavor vector: sweetness, acidity, umami, aromatic complexity, and classic tomato character. Where peer-reviewed sensory panel data exists (Tieman 2017's 398-accession panel, Colantonio 2022's 153-variety study, Klee lab metabolomic-selection work), those numbers populate the vector directly. Where they don't, the vector is built from extension-publication consensus, regional grower reports, and the cultivar's known chemistry (brix, citric acid, glutamic acid where measured).
Confidence ratings reflect this gradient. High and medium-high cultivars (45 of 173) have peer-reviewed sensory backing. Medium cultivars (87 of 173) have multiple independent extension or grower sources that agree. Low-medium and low cultivars (26 of 173) have limited data, usually older heirlooms with unverified provenance, and the picker weights them down accordingly.
An important honest note about peer review.
Trained sensory panels score 30-second bites. They miss the experiential factors home gardeners actually value: fruit size, slicing texture, color, story, sandwich performance. Cherokee Purple ranked 108th of 153 in Colantonio 2022's panel. Costoluto Genovese ranked 138th. Matt's Wild Cherry ranked 147th. These are all beloved garden cultivars whose reputation does not fully survive trained-panel scoring.
The picker's response: use trained-panel data as one signal among many, surface it as transparent context (the panel-rank badge on result cards), and not let it over-correct what gardeners actually like. Cherry-type cultivars (Maglia Rosa, Garden Gem, Cherry Roma, Tommy Toe) consistently top trained panels because their high sweetness density wins on small bites. The picker's flavor scoring respects this but the diversification rule keeps the result mix balanced.
How disease resistance is recorded.
Each cultivar has a disease record across late blight, verticillium, fusarium (races 1, 2, 3), nematode, tobacco mosaic, alternaria, stemphylium, and tomato spotted wilt virus. Resistance ratings come from breeder records (especially for hybrids with formal disease packages), Cornell's Vegetable MD Online database, and university extension publications. The late-blight hard filter only fires when you explicitly tell the picker that late blight has been a regular problem in your garden.
Sources.
- Tieman, D. et al. (2017). A chemical genetic roadmap to improved tomato flavor. Science 355, 391-394.
- Colantonio, V. et al. (2022). Metabolomic selection for enhanced fruit flavor. PNAS 119, e2115865119.
- Klee, H. J. (2018). Improving the flavor of fresh fruits. Nature Reviews Genetics 19, 117-118.
- Wang, X. et al. (2020). Anthocyanins in Indigo Rose tomatoes. Food Chemistry.
- Cornell Vegetable MD Online disease resistance database.
- USDA Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN).
- Extension publications: UMaine, UMass, UVM, NC State, UF, Cornell, UC ANR.
- Breeder catalogs: Johnny's Selected Seeds, Fedco, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Seeds of India.
What this site does not do.
It does not sell seeds. It does not ship transplants. It does not make affiliate revenue from your clicks. It does not track which cultivars you searched, which questions you answered, or what state you garden in. Each visit is independent of the last.