Zachary, I am growing Husky Cherry Red outdoors. The first few were tomato-y and a bit tangy, now they are sweet and tomato-y.

Husky tomatoes are dwarfs and will stop growing at around 4 feet.

There's a nice discussion on tomato varieties over on the Veggie Tales threads in the Vegetable section. Check out 14 Tomatoes; he's got some great experience with all kinds of varieties.

Thanks C!

Does anyone have any experience with getting interdeterm types of tomatoes to survive for a year or more?

We've grown Husky Cherry Red F1 (in 2014, outdoors), and I've grown out some F2 through F5 seeds, too.

The taste for me was good and well-balanced, but fairly normal. It was a lot like the taste of our Roma tomatoes that we grew the same year (but softer fruits). The fruits split easily (when picked). They were early (exactly as early as Early Girl F1, which was early as advertised for us).

It's a dwarf indeterminate, which is a rare plant habit (almost all dwarfs are determinate). Dwarf indeterminate basically means it's small, but it keeps growing and fruiting all season (it can get pretty big, but it takes a while doing it; ours did not stop growing at around 4 feet; the older it got, the faster and more it grew, and the more it produced). It's not a tree-type dwarf (it crawls if you don't stake it). It has rugose foliage. The fruits are a good size for a cherry (definitely not a currant tomato). They are practically white (or a light green) when unripe. It's prolific, heat-tolerant, drought-tolerant, and cold-tolerant. Two of my relatives seemed to like the taste. They made good squirt guns (if I squeezed the fruit, they would squirt seeds very far in the intended direction).

Our plant was transplanted a few weeks early (probably around April 25th), I think, with green tomato Wall O' Waters. Our last frost is usually about May 10th, and I think that year it was around then. Early Girl F1 (x 2), Roma (x 2), Lemon Boy F1, Bush Goliath F1, and Park's Whopper F1 had the same treatment. They were in compact soil. Bush Goliath F1 and Park's Whopper F1 didn't do so well (even if Park's Whopper was a joy to eat, texture/skin-wise). Lemon Boy F1 did okay. The others were all prolific.

I started some Husky Cherry Red F2 plants for 2015 and kept them indoors too long before the transplant. They didn't fruit indoors like some tomatoes (e.g. Solanum cheesmaniae) did. If the F1 is anything like that, I would think other kinds of tomatoes would be a better fit for indoor production. Anyway, the F2s I started indoors didn't turn out very well after the transplant, but some of those that volunteered did very well and had excellent very sweet and somewhat acidic taste (they tasted kind of like sweet tarts candies), while being excellent, firm storage tomatoes (without any splitting). The F3s, F4s, and F5s all tasted good (some sweeter than others) and weren't prone to splitting until the F5 where it turned yellow (probably crossed with Sweet Orange Cherry from the year before, due to similar double-fruits in both plants), but the F2s and one miniature F4 had the best taste, IMO. I preferred most of them flavor-wise to the F1 (but others might think the reverse, except for the F2). Well, I preferred the red ones to the yellow F5s. Most of the plants were prolific, except for the F3s and the F2s that I started indoors.

The volunteer F2s were early (one I started indoors was super late, though), but subsequent generations were not early (but kind of midseason-ish).

I'm guessing the F1 can taste like the F2 did for me in certain other growing conditions, based on what I know about it. The F2 tasted a lot like a good Sugar Lump (AKA Gardener's Delight) tomato.

Zachary, I've taken an indeterminate plant inside for the winter (it's not something I've done a lot). I gave it to someone else the next spring, and it grew decently for them that year. I know other people have gotten tomato plants to survive longer than a season. Mine wasn't particularly old when I overwintered it, though.

Zachary said:

" 3. I am also looking for a good red tomato that has a strong strong
"tomato" taste to it that's both acidic and sweet. Does anyone have any
recommendations? "

For a tomato with an acidic and sweet taste, I'd suggest any beefsteak tomato. They're indeterminate, they're also usually big plants. For a tomato that's both sweet and acidic, I'd suggest Brandywine. Sudduth strain is considered the best beefsteak, and so I'd say it's also the best tasting tomato. It's the one I think of as sweet.

I've found that Mortgage Lifter comes ripe for me first here in zone 6a. I'm now growing it as my early tomato. But I'd say that any beefsteak you buy that identifies the variety will be an excellent tasting tomato.

I'd only recommend growing them in the ground, they're big plants. For the best taste you have to watch how much water they get. Too little and the plant suffers, too much and the taste suffers. In the ground don't water them everyday. If it rains don't water. I'm in zone 6a in SW Pa, so my watering doesn't take into account growing in very dry and hot areas as I have no experience there.

One of my favorite tomatoes of 2018 was Dester from Seed Savers Exchange. An indeterminate heirloom beefsteak. I grew this one for the first time in 2018. I had two plants, both were the biggest and the most productive plants amongst my 22 plants. They grew well in two different garden plots. My notes brag about the flavor and also state "best looking tomato I've grown in years". They call it a pink, to me it's possibly a pinkish red.

Hmm. I've grown many beefsteaks* and very few have been acidic. Cherries, small, and medium tomatoes tend to have more of an acidic taste, while beefsteaks tend to be more mild, in my experience. Same for sweet, but to a lesser degree.

I think the most acidic beefsteak I've tried was John's stabilized Brandy Boy, and the sweetest was probably Malinovoe Chudo. Missouri Pink Love Apple was kind of acidic. Smaller beefsteaks are more likely to be acidic—I guess beefsteak is primarily a shape, rather than a size. I've grown the variety called Beefsteak, and I could agree that it had a good balance of acidity and sweetness, but it wasn't big or beefsteak-shaped.

*I was thinking 1lb+ tomatoes.