Spring is the perfect time to plant tomatoes for summer salads, sandwiches and snacking straight off the vine.
Tomato varieties vary in size, colour and flavour. Choose a variety based on your cooking and taste preferences. Discover our top picks to choose from this spring.
When should I plant
in
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
- Harvest in 60-85 days
If you fancy delving into sauces, relishes and soups, choose varieties that have intense flavour and are heavy croppers. For those who enjoy eating tomatoes in salads and sandwiches go for the fleshy ones, which have less juice.
Big classics
Tried and true varieties that pack a punch and deliver in abundance.
- Money Maker - a reliable tall growing variety and heavy producer of smooth, medium sized flavoursome tomatoes. Ideal for pickling and preserving.
- Beefsteak - a very popular and reliable tomato which produces large flavoursome tomatoes. Will need staking.
- Russian Red - reliable in cooler climates, Russian Red is a hardy tomato producing heavy crops of good flavoured round fruit making it perfect for sauces, preserving and pickling.
- Mortgage Lifter - an old and proven variety that produces large sweet flavoured tomatoes.
Salads and sandwiches
Big, fleshy varieties, that are not too juicy.
- Black paste - a dark skinned plum tomato, revered by chefs and foodies for its slicing ability.
- Oxheart - this fleshy big beauty is packed with flavour and has very few seeds.
- Grosse Lisse - a tall growing variety that produces medium to large fruit full of flavour.
- Dynamo - this variety is sweet, full of flavour and ideal for eating fresh in salads.
Small spaces
Crops for smaller spots and pots.
- Patio Prize - perfect for small spaces including pots and containers. A compact plant the produces tasty slicing tomatoes.
- Dynamo - a compact plant that produces plenty of bright red fruit.
- Tumbling Tom – also a hanging basket tomato, this tomato seems to have it all, producing plenty of sugary sweet fruit.
Lower acid
- Roma Acid Free - full of flavour, this is an early-mid season variety that produces dark, red oblong shaped fruit that is acid free.
- Golden Low Acid - a golden coloured low acid tomato option that produces large fruit with mild flavour.
SWEET & SMALL favourites
- Sweet 100 - growing on a vigorous bushy plant, Sweet 100 produces an abundance of sweet and juicy cherry sized tomatoes perfect for salads and summer snacking.
- Gold Nugget - a golden cherry tomato that produces delicious tomatoes both quickly and prolifically. Grows to 100cm.
- Black Cherry - A dark cherry tomato, producing an abundance of sweet rich flavoured fruit on a tall plant.
SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT
Mix up shapes and colours for something different.
- Rapunzel - produces up to 40 individual cherry-sized tomatoes on 60cm long trusses!
- Bloody Butcher - a heirloom variety of tomato produces medium sized, deep-red skinned flavoursome tomatoes that ripen quickly so this variety - ideal for areas with a shorter summer.
- Green Sausage - the fat finger like fruits are lime green with a very sweet flavour.
- Indigo Fireball - one of the most interestingly coloured tomatoes available, the delicious yellow fruit features indigo pigments that are high in antioxidants.
- Golden Pear Drop - a trailing tomato variety ideal for pots and containers, Golden Pear Drop is a high yielding tomato producing sweet pear-shaped, yellow fruit.
- Gourmet Campari - one of the sweetest and most flavoursome tomatoes.
If you're looking for an early harvest Early Girl is your tomato – a prolific cropper that produces early maturing dark red fruit.
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Top Tomato Varieties Comments
Moneymaker, Beefsteak, Tumbling Tom are all good varieties of tomatoes, cost depends on the economics..cost of the plants, soil health, fertiliser added personal preference as to variety of tomato that tastes the best.
Christopher Robb
Where can I get sweet million? I grew them a few years ago but haven't been able to get the seeds since. To me they were the best tomato ever. A bit bigger than sweet 100 but just as sweet.
Joan Manson
I bought my Sweet Million seeds from Egmont Seeds. Excellent seed service
Marie
I have a very small garden and grow my potatoes and most of the tomatoes in large buckets or tubs. I keep the tomato seed from year to year from plants that originally came from my great-grandfather, Joseph Billington of Masterton, the propagator of the Billington plum. The Billington tomato is very like beef steak - very little seed.
Ngaire M. Phillips
Can you please name the low/no acid free tomato that is thin skinned and very fleshy. They're shaped like large bell peppers or capsicums? Can I purchase a plant at a Hamilton NZ outlet?
Jenny Powers
Hi Jenny, these are called Roma tomatoes. You can usually purchase plants fro your local DIY store or garden centre, however it's probably too late in the season now. Seeds will be available to purchase though.
Tui Team
Hi there, my uncle used to grow the most amazing tomatoes. They had a pale skin but inside they were bright red and very fleshy. I did have seeds drying out but unfortunately they were tossed out by mistake. Does anyone have any idea what type they may have been? They were not perfectly round but a little pear shaped?
dianne green
Hi Dianne, it sounds like an interesting tomato. Unfortunately we are unsure of that variety. It sounds like it could be a heirloom variety but perhaps Kings seeds can help?
Tui Team
My husband loves tomatoes me not so much so I let him grow them In the glass house I do some in the open garden against a warm wall
Andrea Wiechern
What Dwarf Tomato plants are available now please?
Pat Leonard
Hi Pat, at the moment there is a great selection of tomato plants in garden centres as there have been some late frosts and the nights are still cool, so it isn’t too late for planting. A couple of well known varieties with medium sized fruit to look out for are Scorbies Dwarf or Russian Red, although I would call Russian Red a semi dwarf, I found it still needed staking. For pots and containers Tumbling Tom is a heavy fruiting (small cherry size fruit) variety and only grows to a height of 40-50cm. It still isn’t too late to sow from seed, look for Tiny Tom in packet seeds, it is perfect for pots and containers and produces juicy bite size fruit and grows to 40cm in height. There may be seedling plants available, check your local garden centre. If you are not wanting tall vigorous growing tomato plants choose seedling grown varieties and not grafted varieties, tomatoes are grafted to increase plant vigour and yield.
Lianne
I love to use Tui products in my garden for tomatoes, veges, as well as for fruits etc. I am getting good yield. Thanks.
Jo
Hi Jo, that is great to hear you are having so much success in your garden.
Lianne
I have just started printing and pasting your garden tips in a book for future reference.
Carol Torrance
Hi Carol, what a great idea! We are glad you are getting ideas and inspiration from our Tui Garden pages.
Lianne
My favourites are Beef Steak and Money Maker.
Megan
You never mentioned Black Krim. Our favourite!
Doreen Mccoard
When planting seedlings out into the garden to help cope with drier periods to come, mix water gel in water and add a little liquid plant food, allow to swell. Mix into some potting mix. Place a handful at the base of the planting hole for each plant with a pinch of Tui dried blood before planting.
Jan
My favourite is Isle of Capri.
Pete