Our Favorite PNW Tomatoes for 2025
Tomato season is fast approaching at Sky Nursery, and if you’re looking for some fresh ideas for what to plant this year, our staff has pulled together a few recommendations for you.
Read on below to learn more, but if you're just not satisfied with the ten we're sharing here, you can find our complete list of expected varieties here on our tomato page.
The first tomatoes are expected to arrive at the nursery sometime in Mid-April. Click here to sign up for a quick email from us when they arrive.
Sugar Lump
Indeterminate Cherry Tomato
Days to Maturity: 60
An Heirloom variety from Germany, this cherry tomato truly lives up to its name! It has the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity, and such a lovely orangey-red color. Fruits can get up to 1” in diameter and are resistant to cracking. The perfect snacking tomato! The no-nonsense personal favorite of our Veggie Buyer.
Caspian Pink
Indeterminate Beefsteak Tomato
Days to Maturity: 80
One of the most flavorful beefsteak tomatoes you’ll ever have! A lovely pick for cooler climates like ours, this Russian heirloom yields 1lb fruits that are a deep, beautiful pink all the way through. Fun fact: this lovely tomato was discovered shortly after the end of the Cold War.
Japanese Black Trifele
Indeterminate Salad/Slicer Tomato
Days to Maturity: 85
A favorite mentioned by several different Sky Nursery employees, these pear-shaped beauties are unparalleled in flavor and texture. The fruits are a deep shade of red with green and black streaked shoulders and a unique, complex taste. Prolific in PNW climates and extremely crack resistant.
Jaune Flamme
Indeterminate Salad/Slicer Tomato
Days to Maturity: 75
The "big brother of the Sungold," our very own greenhouse manager Jen always finds a spot for these in her garden. Hailing from France, these tomatoes take to our cooler, shorter summers quite beautifully. With their fruity and bright flavor wrapped up in apricot-colored meat, these tomatoes are a delight, through and through!
Anna Russian
Indeterminate Sauce Tomato
Days to Maturity: 75
Be still, my beating heart! These pink oxheart tomatoes were discovered after being passed around for several years: a Russian immigrant gave them to a neighbor, who gave them to his granddaughter, who gave them to Craig LeHoullier, who gave them to the Seed Savers Exchange! These tomatoes are dense and meaty, making them excellent for canning, and their superb flavor and juiciness make them a lovely slicing tomato as well.
Glacier
Semi-Determinate Salad/Slicer Tomato
Days to Maturity: 55
Several staff like this variety for it's ability to produce ultra-early tomatoes in a container! Will grow 2-inch, juicy, super-sweet tomatoes, even in cooler weather. This semi-determinate plant will stay short and bushy, but produce orangey-red fruits all season long!
Amish Paste
Indeterminate Sauce Tomato
Days to Maturity: 80
A delicious Heirloom Roma tomato that rivals even the coveted San Marzano. It’s meaty and larger than many other Roma types, weighing in at 8-12oz per fruit. Perfect flavor for canning and sauce-making, or just slicing and eating raw! Versatile, tasty, and a Slow Food USA Ark of Taste variety.
Fourth of July
Indeterminate Salad/Slicer Tomato
Days to Maturity:
For the Early Girl lovers! Fourth of July is among our earliest slicing tomato varieties carried at Sky; plant it in the beginning of May for delicious, juicy tomatoes by early July. (A turn around that's virtually unheard of in the Northwest!) 4oz fruits are a darling deep red, with a refreshing and bright tomatoey flavor.
Sunrise Bumblebee
Indeterminate Cherry Tomato
Days to Maturity: 70
A bright orange fruit with stunning golden streaks across its entire surface, it was debated and agreed that this was perhaps the most beautiful cherry tomato variety. The base color deepens as it ripens, and its flavor becomes even sweeter, while still retaining a delightful tanginess! For those of us that love an edible ornamental, this one’s for you!
Oregon Cherry
Determinate Cherry Tomato
Days to Maturity: 60
One of Sky's only determinate cherry tomatoes, capping out at about 1.5 feet tall and 2 feet wide. This variety is perfect for folks who want to grow tomatoes on their patio or other small space! (A lot of Sky staffers go for these trusty tiny varieties.) The 1” fruits are a sweet, thin-skinned treat that grows reliably in the PNW.
Excited to get started, but not 100% sure where to start? Or maybe you just need a refresh. Read on below.
To-may-to, To-mah-to: What even IS a tomato?
Tomatoes are fruiting plants in the Nightshade family, with their full botanical name being Solanum lycopersicum. Members of the Nightshade family include flowers like Petunias, Calibrachoa, Physalis, and Brugmansia, but the specific genus Solanum that tomatoes reside in includes other vegetables like peppers, potatoes, and eggplants!
Tomatoes have two main growth habits:
Indeterminate tomatoes will grow very tall (7ft or more if you let them), and produce a continuous supply of tomatoes until the first frost sets in. These big varieties do better in a large raised bed or in the ground.
Determinate tomatoes will be shorter and bushier but will only produce one large crop of tomatoes in a short time frame. These varieties are often better suited to containers.
Tomatoes can also be Semi-Determinate, which means they grow to a set height and remain bushy (like a determinate), but produce a consistent supply of tomatoes throughout the season (like an indeterminate).
When Can I Plant My Tomatoes?
Tomatoes need minimum temps of 50 degrees at night before they can be placed
outside without some kind of protection. If you want to put your tomatoes outside earlier
than that, then there are ways to keep your tomato nice and toasty at night. Hot houses,
thermal blankets, and cloches can be placed over your tomato at around sunset to keep
them insulated through the night.
How to Grow the Best Tomatoes
Our PNW climate may be getting warmer, but we still have a shorter, cooler growing period than other states, with more cloudy days than sunny ones. This makes heat/sun-loving tomatoes slightly more of a challenge to grow than they would be in, say, Texas. But, it IS very easy, with just a few simple preparations and practices.
Take a look at this checklist of the four key things you’ll need to give your tomatoes for the best chance of growing abundant, succulent, and delicious fruit!
1. Sun Exposure - All tomatoes require full sun to grow big and strong, and to set fruit properly! The sweet spot for what we call “full sun” is between 6-8 hours of direct sunlight. Any less than that, and your plants will grow more slowly, and the leaves will have a yellow tinge to them rather than a bold, green color. Any more than that and your plants could become susceptible to something called sun scald. (read more below)!
2. Good Soil - When planting tomatoes, you need to decide if you’re going to be planting them in a container, in a raised bed, or in the ground. For potted tomatoes, we recommend a 50/50 mix of Edna’s Best Potting Soil and G&B Harvest Supreme. For raised beds, swap out Edna’s Best for G&B Raised Bed Mix to fill new raised beds. Finally, for tomatoes in the ground or in an established raised bed, amend with the same G&B Harvest Supreme. This mixture creates a light, well-draining soil rich with organic matter.
For pricing and more info on our bagged soils and amendments, click here.
3. Routine Fertilizing - Be sure to fertilize your tomato plants at the time of planting with an organic granular fertilizer; a handful will do just fine. A small handful of agricultural lime is also recommended. After that, fertilize with another handful of fertilizer every 4-6 weeks throughout the growing season. After years of trial-and-error, many gardeners will tell you that any good all-purpose blend will work, or, you can select a veggie-specific formulation.
4. Watering - Tomatoes need consistent, moist soil to produce perfect juicy fruits that don’t crack. Indeterminate tomatoes in containers will need more water than in the ground or raised beds, as they can create a vast, deep root system that sucks up water like a straw (which is why we recommend determinate tomatoes for pots/containers). Check your soil every day for dryness, potentially twice a day or more when the weather is extra hot and sunny. A good rule of thumb for watering just about any plant is to dig your finger into the soil; if it’s totally dry about 2 inches down, then your plants need more water!