Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Tomatoes

Reader Contribution by Lois Hoffman
Published on May 21, 2015
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Each spring when I ask someone if they are going to put out a garden, the response I usually get is “Oh no, just a couple of tomato plants.” It doesn’t matter what size garden a person has, you never see one that doesn’t include these juicy red spheres. No wonder because tomatoes are America’s favorite vegetable. OK, I know that, technically, those red rounds of delight that we eat are the fruit of the tomato plant, but it is used as a vegetable in eating and cooking which categorizes it as a vegetable.

I always thought a tomato was a tomato, but each variety has its own characteristics, depending on what you intend for its use. With roughly 7,500 varieties, the choices are staggering. Heirlooms are becoming increasingly popular, especially with home gardeners and organic producers since they tend to produce more interesting and flavorful crops at the cost of disease resistance and productivity.

Before you decide on which kinds are better for your needs, this is what the experts are recommending for different purposes:

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