Results from ABG Tomato Poll

by Marla Koss

Thank you to the thirty-one Alamedans who answered our February Tomato Poll in the ABG Newsletter!

This is not the first time we’ve put out a tomato poll. Back in 2016 we printed out a slip of paper that was placed on each seat in our meeting room at Rhythmix Cultural Works, asking attendees at that night’s ABG monthly meeting to tell us their best-performing tomatoes (and rate them if they had more than one). Though the questions asked were different in 2016 and 2025, it looks like some things never change on this island.

2016 POLL RESULTS

(The question was ‘What are the best tomatoes for growing in Alameda?‘)

• Multiple mentions, first choice: Early Girl, Black Cherry Types
• Multiple mentions, second choice: none listed
• Multiple mentions, third choice: Cherokee Purple
• One mention, first choice: Black Icicle, Brandywine Red, Dirty Girl, Stupice, Sungold, Striped Roma, Dr. Carolyn
• One mention, second choice: [Any cherries], Cherokee Purple, [Hybrid Japanese Tomato*], Golden Delight, Big Beef
• One mention, third choice: Malakhitovaya Shkatulka, Green Zebra, Golden Pear, [Italian Plum], Ace

*Most likely the Japanese Hybrid mentioned above is Momotaro.

You can see that cherry types prevail in the 2016 poll results. Having to deal with growing heat-loving summer crops in mild summer weather year after year, Alamedans know that cherries don’t usually disappoint. And they’re a great way to get maximum tomato sweetness in each bite, perfect for snacking. [But just a bit less handy for BLT’s. My sisters and I used to attempt cherry tomato sandwiches to see how many whole tomatoes would stay inside the bread; there was always much squealing from us and squirting of the tomatoes. Extra mayo and a tight grip on the bread were fundamental to success here.]

Also popular in the 2016 poll, open-pollinated/heirloom types (Cherokee Purple especially). Just so that we’re all on the same page about what “open-pollinated”, heirloom” and “F1 hybrid” are,

• Open-pollinated varieties are defined as those from which you can save the seeds, and which will produce the same fruit as before, unlike F1 hybrids, which produce seeds that do not come true when planted. The seeds of F1 hybrids usually produce toms that eventually revert to big red cherry tomatoes. But they also have the advantage of “hybrid vigor”.
• Heirlooms are merely open-pollinated varieties that have stood the test of time, usually 50 years.

2025 POLL RESULTS

Though we’ve learned to gauge what attendees to our annual Spring Plant Sale want in terms of tomato varieties by looking at prior sales, some years we get something wrong. Not having enough cherry toms. Or offering a variety or two that nobody’s heard of, or wants to try (looking at you, Matina, circa 2017 and Grightmire’s Pride, circa 2019). But Purple Cherokee was a popular request as soon as we began selling tomato starts, so we’ve been careful to offer it every year.

These recent poll results are a big help, since we waited until the poll closed on February 10th to complete our tomato seed buying. We wanted to make sure we have the tomato starts you’d like to buy during our Spring Plant Sale on April 19th at ARPD’s Spring Shindig.

Preferred Tomato Type:

• 73.3% prefer open-pollinated/heirloom varieties.
• 26.7 prefer F1 hybrids.

Preferred Tomato Size:

• 38.7% of respondents prefer to grow cherry or small pear tomatoes.
• 35.5% like growing small-to-medium slicer varieties.
• 22.6% prefer big slicers.
• 3.2% believe they will be patient enough to wait for the big beefsteak/oxheart type tomatoes that take their sweet time growing (although in the next question, no one wanted to wait 85 to 90 days, which is what these toms require).

Preferred Harvest Time:

• 48.3% preferred to grow early-season tomatoes.
• 51.7% were fine with mid-season ripeners.
• 0% voted for late-season.

Preferred Plant Size:

• 72.4% or respondents said they like to grow vining-type, indeterminate tomato plants. These provide flushes of fruit throughout the growing season. Many cherry tomato varieties are vining-type.
• 17.2% prefer bush-type, which are usually determinate, ripening the crop more than likely all at once, perfect for gathering and canning or processing. Paste tomatoes are the best example.
• 10.3% liked the idea of patio-type, mini tomato plants good for containers.

CONCLUSION

Cherries and small-to-medium tomatoes win the day in Alameda. Thank heavens many of them are vining, indeterminate types, since that’s also what we prefer to see in our gardens. And though a certain number of cherry tomatoes are F1 hybrids – including perennial favorites Sungold and Sweet 100 – there are plenty of open-pollinated cherry varieties as well (hey, longtime favorite Black Cherry!)

While mention of open-pollinated/heirloom tomato varieties were evenly split with F1 hybrids in the 2016 poll, nearly three-quarters of respondents in the 2025 poll said they preferred open-pollinated/heirloom tomato varieties. While there’s certainly a cachet to “heirloom” anything these days (as opposed to the hybrid-crazy mid-20th Century), we wonder if sometimes that cachet is really deserved.

Unless you have particular favorites or plan on seed-saving from your tomatoes (remember to follow instructions to ferment the seeds before drying and saving), when it comes to growing tomatoes in your backyard, there’s little extra benefit to choosing open-pollinated/heirloom tomatoes over F1 hybrids. Though some open-pollinated/heirloom tomatoes can survive one or more of the various local soil-borne or insect-carried pathogens (bacterial, viral and/or fungal diseases), F1 hybrids are bred to resist many of these all in the same plant, and still delight the tomato lover’s palate. Root knot nematodes can be a big pest in sandy soils (Hello, More Than Half of Alameda!), and few open-pollinated/heirloom varieties exist to survive in nematode-infested soil.

But whatever tomatoes you grow in your garden this year, enjoy!