Curated picks

Best Tomatoes for Beginners

A first tomato should forgive you. The varieties below are the productive, disease-resistant, hard-to-kill ones: cherries that crop no matter what, compact bushes that fit a pot, and hybrids bred to shrug off the wilts and blights that discourage new growers. Start here, get a real harvest, and the fussier heirlooms will make more sense next year.

1. 1Sungoldcherry · hybrid · 60 days · earlyThe easiest win in the garden: intensely sweet orange cherries that crop early, heavily, and for months, forgiving of beginner mistakes.
2. 2Celebrityslicer · hybrid · 70 days · midAn All-America Selections slicer built for dependability, with broad resistance to the wilts, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus.
3. 3Early Girlslicer · hybrid · 54 days · earlyVery early, prolific, and reliable, a red slicer that produces fast and forgives a cool or short season.
4. 4Romapaste · open-pollinated · 75 days · midA compact determinate paste tomato with firm flesh and VF resistance, low-fuss and good for a first batch of sauce.
5. 5Better Boybeefsteak · hybrid · 75 days · midA heavy-yielding VFN beefsteak hybrid, one of the most popular and reliable home varieties for good reason.
6. 6Mountain Magiccherry · hybrid · 66 days · earlyAbout as forgiving as a tomato gets: a sweet campari with strong late-blight and crack resistance, bred for tough summers.
7. 7Patiodwarf · hybrid · 68 days · earlyBred for a pot, a compact two-foot plant carrying full-sized 3 to 4 oz fruit, no garden bed or tall stake required.
8. 8Sweet Millioncherry · hybrid · 60 days · earlySuper-sweet red cherries in long chains, with strong hybrid disease resistance for a crop that just keeps coming.
9. 9Defiant PhRslicer · hybrid · 65 days · earlyAn early, high-yielding determinate with high late-blight resistance, a low-fuss pick for a wet summer.

These are editorial picks, not a ranked score. For the full filterable catalogue, use the browse page or the chooser.