What is a "good" tomato depends on where you are growing it and personal taste :-)

Here, where we have a very short and cool growing season, any cherry type or early harvest varieties are good choices. Early Girl is very popular. I prefer Sungold to Sunsugar and Sweet 100's to Sweet Millions (but that is getting harder to find). None of the beefsteak types do well here so can't comment on them.

I used to grow Early Girl when I had a very short growing season. A decent early tomato from a fairly disease resistant plant.

I grow the Celebrity variety every year because they stand up to the hot Texas weather better than most I've tried. They produce a nice crop of 2 1/2 - 3 inch tomatoes every year for me.

Thanks for all the info!

I like to grow tomatoes that are good for sauce or slicing in a sandwich. It is hard to describe a taste preference. I guess my main question was how well it grew it and if they have any flavor to them. I grew some varieties that tasted like the bland tomatoes from a store.

Tom, Celebrity is popular here in Louisiana too. I discovered Bella Rosa a few years ago and have grown it ever since. I think it's tastier than Celebrity.

http://www.tomatogrowers.com/BELLA-ROSA-VFFNA-HYBRID/productinfo/3709/

catticusmockingbird - here's a pic of one of my Bella Rosa's from last year.

Along with the Celebrities, I grow either Amelia or Bella Rosa. All three make great tomato sandwiches.

Thanks for the feedback.

So far I settled on this varieties.

1. Brandywine

2. Cherokee purple

3. Mortgage lifter

4. I think Margold (I have to double check when i am home)

I am trying some new tomatoes this year and am excited about them! I am pretty much an amateur.

New Girl

Lemon Boy

Green Zebra

Jelly Bean

Valentine

Box Car Willie

Brandy Boy

Bolseno

Valentine

Up to now, my favorites have been Big Beef, Stupice and Park`s Whopper. I live in the Nevada desert with hot dry heat and the growing season isn`t that long either. I am trying to learn from my mistakes from last year (not enough sun where I put them).

I'm growing 25 tomatoes this year which is about twice as many as I've ever grown before. An asterisk indicates the first time I've grown a variety. I'm also trying Dwarf Tomato Project varieties for the first time.

Black from Tula *

Bolseno *

Brandywine Suddeth's *

Dwarf Beauty King *

Dwarf Black Angus *

Dwarf Brandyfred *

Dwarf Mr. Snow *

Dwarf Rosella Purple *

Dwarf Tasmanian Chocolate *

Dwarf Wild Fred *

German Johnson *

Girl Girl's Weird Thing

Jaune Flemme *

JD's Special C-Tex *

KBX (Kellogg's Breakfast potato leaf) *

Livingston Yellow Oxheart *

Lucky Cross *

Neves Azorean Red *

Pineapple *

Pink Ping Pong *

Pruden's Purple *

Rebel Yell

Sungold

Super Sweet 100

Wes *

Lonejack - Did you start these from seed or bough them from a nursery/store?

Ariel - I grew all of them from seed. Most I've never seen offered at a nursery around here. I also started a few other varieties for my neighbors.

Viva Italia puts out a ton of square-shaped plum tomatoes, and the plant loves to sprawl along the ground.

We've grown Early Girl F1 before (and we're growing it now). It's a good reliable medium-small tomato with some heat/drought/cold tolerance. People in super humid areas don't often seem to praise it, though (but in our Bsk climate with hot summers, I really like it). It can have an acidic taste, depending on how you grow it. The stems can break easily if there's not enough potassium and/or calcium in the soil (it seems to use more of certain nutrients than some plants), but it produces well even when it's prone to breaking. It sets fruit early (if you buy the plant, anyway), and continues to produce all-season. It's said to be a good container variety (especially with Miracle Gro potting soil). Depending on how you grow it, the plant can get anywhere from medium-sized to huge (but it's generally not very big for us). It tastes great on those frozen burritos you can buy at the grocery store. There are several kinds of Early Girl F1 tomatoes. I'm not sure which one we grew that I'm primarily reviewing, but it was from The Home Depot (with bonnieplants.com tags) in 2014. We've grown it before that, and it was a great canning tomato that produced well.

We've grown Park's Whopper F1, and though it tasted great and had delectable skin, and got good-sized fruits, it wasn't very prolific for us. With better care, it might produce a lot better.

We've grown Lemon Boy F1, which is about as hardy as Early Girl F1, it seems, although it had larger fruit and was less productive. A lot of people think it's mild, but it was just as acidic as Early Girl F1 for us. Lemon Boy F1 gets extra long vines.

I've grown Beefsteak from Peaceful Valley and American Seed. They didn't match the stereotype of Beefsteak, but they tasted great fresh and retained that great flavor when cooked on pizza! Some people say Beefsteak produces large, beefsteak-shaped fruit in abundance, and that the plant is heat-tolerant. Ours did not seem to be heat-tolerant. The fruits were not large. The fruits were perfectly round. Production was okay (but it wasn't prolific for us). It was midseason. Frosty F. House produced fruits about the the same round shape and size, and also tasted great although not the same (I'm also not sure what FFH is like cooked), and was a lot earlier.

Husky Cherry Red F1 is one I like quite a bit. It's a dwarf indeterminate. It was as early as Early Girl F1 for us, and was also heat/cold/drought-tolerant. It has rugose foliage, but it continues to grow and fruit all season long. It can get a good size at the end of the season. The taste is decent. They were prone to splitting for us. Some people say it's sweet (but it wasn't for us; it was more like how Roma tastes—although the F2 fruits were very sweet).

Celebrity F1 was a pretty good hybrid vareity. It didn't have much taste (I probably watered it too much), but it got good-sized fruits, which grew to size quickly compared with other large tomatoes. It didn't seem as early as advertised, but it wasn't so far off that I regretted growing it. The plant size was not large.

I've grown a seedling for Jet Star F1 before, but I gave the plant away. It's supposed to be very mild (not a canning tomato).

I have a plant for Big Boy F1 that I still need to transplant, this year. I've heard good things about the variety from someone in Indiana.

I wonder if you might like Garden Leader Monster or Super Marmande. Those had pretty good taste for me (but I didn't overwater them). Prudens Purple tastes great and is heat-tolerant (but it wasn't prolific for me; some people say it's prolific, though). My Brandy Boy cross last year was pretty nice (but it was an F1 hybrid that isn't for sale anywhere; if Brandy Boy is anything like it, though, I might recommend it).

You might also try Pink Cheeks, Chapman (Chapman and Pink Cheeks taste about the same, but Chapman is much firmer and larger; Pink Cheeks is earlier and bushier), Cuostralee, and if you don't mind tomatoes about the size of Early Girl F1 you might try Matina, Mountain Princess, Frosty F. House and such. Cuostralee makes a good sauce, is large and prolific (but not early).

I'm in western Idaho. I'm not sure how your area compares, but I imagine tomatoes will taste different there. I think Dr. Carolyn Male grew tomatoes around there. You might look at her recommendations.

I'd recommend trying Paul Robeson, too. The taste is pretty great. It's supposed to be good for the north. I had some issues with it (taste wasn't one of them), but I don't think you would have the same issues.

Correction from my previous post

So far I settled on this varieties.

1. Brandywine

2. Cherokee purple

3. Mortgage lifter

4. Marglobe *** (corrected name)