So far, the sweetest tomato I have grown is Virginia Sweets though it was also one of the last to fully mature for me in 2020.

Kindly share with me your favourite sweet tomato. Nothing like eating them in the garden like candy. Please don't limit yourself to cherry - I am hoping for full-size goodness too.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Anna Russian comes to mind, as a specially sweet non-cherry fruit. (I thought they tasted like watermelon!).

This topic really interests me! We love sweet tomatoes. I've read numerous threads on TV, but it seems like there's a lot of variability among varieties from season to season and from one person's garden to the next. A few seem more consistent than others.

I haven't grown many varieties yet. I grew Ananas Noire last year, and we thought it was sweet (and delicious); I've grown it years ago, with similar results.

Sunrise Bumblebee was very sweet to us (after the first couple of fruits, which were tasteless and mealy). Production wasn't great, but I started it late and put it in a container that was too small for it. It also seemed more susceptible to foliage diseases.

Bobby

It's hard to pick one favorite, among super sweet tomatoes, when I've only grown most of the ones I have a single time, so far. But, maybe I'd say Carbon (I grew two plants one year for that one).

These are some more favorites for flavor (excluding some excellent unstable tomatoes like SunChocola F2):
* Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach
* Black Cherry
* Garnet (not consistently very sweet, but often is, and it's very fruity then)
* Yellow Plum
* Green Tiger
* Eva
* Juliet F1 (I haven't grown it, but I have tasted it)

Honorable mention goes to Rosella, Esterina F1, Sprite, Ron's Carbon Copy, Monroe, Porter, Medovaya Kaplya, Cherokee Green Pear, Jackie, and Maglia Rosa. A lot of people love Rosella; I think it's great (just not one of my absolute favorites, from a single grow, at least). Porter is better some years than others; I've grown it several times; at its best, it's fantastic. Jackie tastes fantastic sometimes (like sweet grapefruit), but the fruits are very small, and it's probably not the best producer in my climate/soil/garden.

Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach was probably the sweetest tomato I've grown, and one of the most unique in flavor. The slightly fuzzy light peach-colored fruits looked a lot like fat apricots, and were probably as sweet as particularly sweet homegrown peaches, with a similar texture. Not early, but production is decent. It vines.

You might check out these tomatoes, too (but I haven't grown them, yet): Ambrosia Gold, Ambrosia Red, SunGold F1, SunSugar F1, SunChocola F1, SunOrange F1, SunLemon F1, SunPeach F1, SunCitron F1, SunGarnet F1, other similar tomatoes, and maybe Jujube.

I thought the esterina were sweet they were my husband favorite cherry tomato last year and is a must this year.

Here is a list I have archived from years ago.
Bulgarian #7
Bulgarian Triumph
Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Eva Purple Ball
Hugh's
Large Pink Bulgarian
Nicky Crain
Omar's Lebanese
Pink Sweet
Sandul Moldovan


The problem with this list is that the tomatoes are actually not that sweet. They can brix 8 or thereabouts at the highest. Sungold which is a hybrid cherry hits 12 and HIbor which is a small orange pear shaped tomato can range between 10 and 13.

Bajaja

Dr. Carolyn
Green Tiger
Isis Candy Cherry
Maglia Rosa
Sungold F1

I also like sweet tomatoes, I once had a bull’s heart variety that I received from a member on T’ville, that was sweet and delicious. It was only labeled bulls heart, and there are many of those types. He is Russian, so he was always seeking out Russian varieties. Well, I accidentally gave away the rest of the seed I had, thinking I had more, which I didn’t. So forever lost.

My favorite sweet Cherry is Sunsugar F1

I love a sweet fruity tomato, too! The large ones are too messy for me to eat in the garden but Sungolds are always available by the time they ripen anyway. The only other cherry tomato I've ever been tempted to eat in the garden is the dark cherry, Rosella. My favorite large sweet tomatoes are Blackberry, Hawaiian Pineapple & Elgin Pink.

The J&L Ambrosia series are bred to have a high BRIX level similar to Sungold. I've grown several and found some instability in a few, but they've generally been very good. My favorite so far has been Ambrosia Gold. I also like Fruit Punch and a red cherry that I pulled out of SSE's seedbank that goes by PI129129. I almost forgot, I also liked M's Sun Sugar which came from Mandy's greenhouse.

"Crookneck SunGold" - Off of a SunGold plant, about 30% of the fruit were these. The sepals were basically fused to each other, and as the tomato started to grow, it finally broke through coming out the side opposite the fused and cupped sepals. The fruit were a bit over 1" long and about 1/2" wide. They tasted about twice as sweet as normal SunGolds, which was about 70% of the fruit from the plant.

A tomato likely never to be seen again.

Wow, some great responses and suggestions! I saw a number of varieties for which I am now the proud owner of seeds, thanks to [mention]Tormato[/mention]'s MMMM swap.

I started the majority of this year's seeds yesterday. I included Maglia Rosa and Eva Purple Ball in the mix.

[mention]OhioGardener[/mention] - strongly considering starting a Fruit Punch (from MMMM, possibly from you?), and I put Ambrosia Gold on my wish list for next year.

[mention]Shule[/mention] - Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach has really intrigued me! I've never heard of this tomato, and couldn't find any info online that matches this name. I'm a sucker for the (truly) rare and unusual. You also noted Carbon. I have Carbon Copy slated for next year. I have a good feeling about that one.

Bobby

[mention]bobrarian[/mention]
I got my Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach seeds from [mention]JohnnyRock[/mention] through an offer I saw on Tomatoville when I was still there. They were marked 2019. JohnnyRock bred it, I believe.

Shule wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 1:56 am @bobrarian
I got my Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach seeds from @JohnnyRock through an offer I saw on Tomatoville when I was still there. They were marked 2019. JohnnyRock bred it, I believe.

I'm glad to see this! You very kindly sent me a bunch of seeds, including this variety, last year, without any background info. I was even uncertain if they were OP stable or not. I grew out all you sent, and liked them all, except one of the Cherokee Yellow variants never germinated; I don't right now recall which one. Anyway, I've got way too many varieties to grow now, as usual!

bobrarian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:24 pm @OhioGardener - strongly considering starting a Fruit Punch (from MMMM, possibly from you?), and I put Ambrosia Gold on my wish list for next year.

@Shule - Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach has really intrigued me! I've never heard of this tomato, and couldn't find any info online that matches this name. I'm a sucker for the (truly) rare and unusual. You also noted Carbon. I have Carbon Copy slated for next year. I have a good feeling about that one.

Bobby

The Fruit Punch seeds in the Mmmm's swap weren't from me. My seeds came from Tomatofest though if that helps. Of the 100+ varieties I grew last year, this one was *consistently* targeted by both birds and a marauding racoon which apparently also found it to be their favorite! Interestingly the seed pack that I bought produced pink cherry fruit which I believe is the correct type and also 1 plant with cocktail size black fruit which had a wonderful, sweet flavor but were obviously off-type. When I grow, I typically start 4 plants, 2 planted per hole, to form a composite bush, to hopefully be able to catch any instability/off types because I think it happens more often than realized. I did save seeds from both, including the black cocktail, in case I ever decide to tinker around and try to stabilize it.

I also saved Ambrosia Gold which I did supply for the swap. This one also had some variation in color from uniform light gold to reddish-gold, even on different branches of the same bush, though size and wonderful, sweet flavor were uniform in the plants that I grew.

These I have grown and are on my list of sweets. Most are larger tomatoes
AMANA PINK
AMAZON CHOCOLATE
AMBROSIA RED
ANNA RUSSIAN
BABUSHKINO BYCHIE SERDSE
BIG RAINBOW
BRADLEY
CARBON
CLEAR LAKE HEIRLOOM
EAGLE’S BEAK
FISH LAKE OXHEART
HEATHERINGTON PINK
HESHPOLE
INDIAN DARK VIOLET
ITALIAN SWEET
JOE’S PINK OXHEART
KELLOGG’S BREAKFAST/KBX
LENNIE AND GRACIES KENTUCKY HEIRLOOM YELLOW
MARGE’S POLISH PRIDE
NICKY CRAIN
PURPLE DOG CREEK
RED BUTTER HEART
REINHARDS PURPLE HEART
STUMP OF THE WORLD
TIDWELL GERMAN

Most heart shaped tomato varieties are in the sweet range for my taste buds. Lots of cherry tomatoes are sweet but I grow very few if any cherries.

FarmerShawn wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 8:41 am

Shule wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 1:56 am @bobrarian
I got my Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach seeds from @JohnnyRock through an offer I saw on Tomatoville when I was still there. They were marked 2019. JohnnyRock bred it, I believe.

I'm glad to see this! You very kindly sent me a bunch of seeds, including this variety, last year, without any background info. I was even uncertain if they were OP stable or not.

I grew out all you sent, and liked them all, except one of the Cherokee Yellow variants never germinated; I don't right now recall which one. Anyway, I've got way too many varieties to grow now, as usual!

Cool. They probably weren't from me specifically, though. I'm thinking maybe you meant JohnnyRock.

I also grew JohnnyRock's Cherokee Yellow Red Pear, which was pretty sweet, with excellent taste. Plum/paste type shape. Red. Not early.

I'm not sure how stable they are.

Interesting to see Heshpole mentioned here. HEart SHaped POtato LEaf originated in my garden back in 2002 when I had a variant Large Pink Bulgarian plant out of seed purchased from Chuck Wyatt. The seed produced a range of fruit sizes and shapes and both potato leaf and regular leaf plants. I selected a large heart shaped potato leaf in 2003 and sent seed out to several interested growers. Eyolf selected Heshpole from the descendants and I selected a variety that I named Tastiheart. Interestingly, both lines are more tolerant of cold spring weather than most tomatoes.

Brad's atomic grape has been really rather sweet, am surprised at the many bad reviews it gets. It has mega thick skin and it cracks, but it was definitely the sweetest I grew while still having a strong flavor. Sungold is also very sweet if you pick it ripe, probably more sweet but a different aroma.

Russian Mini Yellow is by far the sweetest one I've grown - like candy. Rancho Solito is a very sweet red cherry. Pink Honey is a large, sweet heart-shaped tomato. And Opalka is a surprisingly sweet one that looks like a paste tomato, but is wonderfully sweet and juicy.
Shawn