9 Determinate Tomato Varieties We Love
Determinate tomato varieties bring big yields on manageable vines. From slicers to cherries, they bring that juicy, sweet, summertime flavor in a single flush. Gardening expert Katherine Rowe outlines the top determinate types to grow this season. With compact vines, there’s always room for one more.
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Determinate tomatoes are a go-to for tucking in small spaces, containers, raised beds, and even hanging baskets. With stems that reach a set length (often around four feet), they don’t sprawl, ramble, or become leggy. They don’t require pruning and take well to support from a single stake or a simple tomato cage. These characteristics are as opposed to indeterminate types, whose vines continue to grow to great lengths.
When choosing tomatoes, it helps to know if the variety is determinate or indeterminate to plan for space, support, and harvests. Determinate tomatoes flower in a flush and ripen at the same time, usually spanning a few weeks. You’ll have loads of tomatoes in a given timeframe, making for good fresh eating and for canning or making sauces to preserve the excess bounty. With indeterminate types, their long vines keep flowering and producing all season. Intermittent harvests stagger the yield.
Determinate tomatoes are an easy-to-grow option for achieving a variety of tomato types in versatile situations and across garden scales. From beefsteaks to Roma to cherries, determinate selections have a variety to suit every tomato lover. To keep the harvest going all season, plant successional rounds. Stagger the timing between plantings for continual yields.
‘Patio Choice Yellow’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Patio Choice Yellow’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 15-18″ |
‘Patio Choice Yellow’ is a compact determinate tomato variety that quickly fills a pot or hanging basket. The ‘Patio’ series has compact branching with bountiful cherry tomatoes. ‘Patio Choice Yellow’ bears bright golden globes – up to 100 per plant – with a mild flavor. Sweet and slightly acidic, they’re tasty fresh or sundried, canned, or in sauces.
‘Patio Choice Yellow’ is a durable little specimen with good disease resistance and heat and humidity tolerance. It resists the common fungal problems of mosaic viruses and wilts. It’s an All-America Selections award winner for productive yields, compact habit, and easy care.
‘Patio Choice Yellow’ produces over the course of four to five weeks. The sunny rounds weigh about half an ounce and reach just over an inch across. Feature the self-supporting bush types in containers on their own or with other blooms and herbs for an ornamental and edible display.
‘Supremo’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Supremo’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 36″ |
‘Supremo’ is a bush hybrid made for creating the perfect Caprese salad or for preserving as pastes and sauces. The vines produce early and yield extra-large romas that reach over three inches long and two inches wide. These paste types have thick walls that are helpful for a simultaneous harvest, promoting a long shelf life.
‘Supremo’ produces reliably and uniformly with strong disease resistance and heat tolerance. Not only a juicy saladette, but they set fruit well in hot temperatures and tolerate cool ones, too. With a spread of only 18 inches, the productive vines are ideal for growing in containers or small spaces across summer climates.
‘Cream Sausage’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Cream Sausage’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 3′ |
‘Cream Sausage’ gets its name from its color, shape, and meaty flesh. The pale yellow fruits delight fresh off the vine and are colorful in salsas, simmered sauces, and pastes. They mature at three inches long, when the little ivory yellow “sausages” are at their best with a balanced, smooth, and buttery flavor.
‘Cream Sausage’ is a high-yielding, dwarf, determinate tomato variety with compact vines and plum-sized fruits that ripen over a two-week period. A self-supporting bush variety, it doesn’t need staking or caging.
‘Tiny Tim’
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botanical name Lycopersicon esculentum ‘Tiny Tim’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 10-12″ |
‘Tiny Tim’ is a favorite from 1945 out of New Hampshire’s Agricultural Experiment Station. Flavorful and small in stature, the truly tiny variety brings big production.
‘Tiny Tim’ is an early producer, maturing about a week or two before most tomatoes (ready to harvest in 60 days). It’s a fit for climates with short growing seasons, gardens short on space, and everything in between.
‘Tiny Tim’ bears half-inch red cherry globes with a sweet taste. With vines under a foot tall and a width just over, it needs no support to produce. Ultra-compact, add it to mixed arrangements in large containers.
‘Beefy Purple’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Beefy Purple’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 3′ |
‘Beefy Purple’ has the looks and the flavor to dress up the plate. The weighty fruits are ornamental in dusky mahogany with green stripes. Purple interiors have a rich, sweet, slightly smoky flavor and a balanced acidity.
The meaty slicers weigh 12 to 14 ounces and are firm with a good shelf life. ‘Beefy Purple’ is ready to harvest in 75 days and is worth the wait. With short vines, it’s easy to nestle in borders, beds, and containers.
‘Red Pride’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Red Pride’ |
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sun requirements Ful sun |
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height 3′ |
‘Red Pride’ is a hybrid bush and vigorous slicing tomato variety. With a tidy habit and bushy form, the sturdy, determinate vines produce 10-ounce, vibrant red fruits. They mature later in the season (70 days from sowing), making them a good pairing with earlier varieties like cherries and romas to extend the harvest.
‘Red Pride’ performs and produces reliably with excellent disease resistance to wilts, stem canker, and leaf spot. It does well in various summer climates, from Canada and New England to Texas. The three-inch tomatoes develop on vines that spread only 18 inches wide.
‘Cherry Falls’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Cherry Falls’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 18″ |
Like ‘Patio Choice Yellow,’ ‘Cherry Falls’ is a top performer when it comes to high yields on a compact form. The determinate tomato variety cascades over hanging baskets, planter boxes, and containers with clusters of bright red cherries. The abundant one-inch globes emerge early in the season on vines with short stems.
Allow ‘Cherry Falls’ to drape without staking or additional support. The prolific dwarf is heat-tolerant and easy care. The unique growth habit doesn’t compromise flavor; the little rounds have a zesty, tangy flavor that’s a touch sweet.
A tomato in a hanging basket isn’t only novel and eye-catching, it’s also efficient. Going vertical maximizes growing area without taking up ground space, increases air circulation around leaves and stems, and lifts the fruits off the ground as a means of pest and disease prevention. And it makes for easy picking come harvest time (55-65 days from transplanting).
‘Mountain Merit’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Mountain Merit’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 30-36″ |
‘Mountain Merit’ is an all-around favorite beefsteak with exceptional flavor for slicing and also for preserving. It’s an All-America Selections award winner, not only for its winning taste but also for its compact, well-branched foundation and strong landscape performance.
‘Mountain Merit’ develops firm, bright red rounds on disease-resistant vines. The award winner shows less susceptibility to common diseases like wilts, leaf spot, and viruses. The 8 to 10-ounce fruits reach peak sun-ripened flavor over a four to five-week harvest period. Eat as many as you can, and jar the remainder to enjoy on chilly fall and winter nights.
‘Fantastico’
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botanical name Solanum lycopersicum ‘Fantastico’ |
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sun requirements Full sun |
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height 12-24″ |
‘Fantastico’ is another All-America Selections winner for its prolific one-ounce grapes from robust, bushing vines. The determinate tomato reaches only two feet tall but offers heavy yields of sweet tomatoes. The small red fruits appear in long clusters and resist cracking. Each plant bears up to 12 pounds of grape tomatoes in a single season.
Good blight resistance adds to the charm of ‘Fantastico,’ but don’t discount its excellent varietal flavor. With a Brix rating of 12 (units that measure dissolved sugars), it’s among the sweetest.
“Fantastico’ matures in about 60 days. The productive vines, though short, benefit from caged support to hold stems and weighty clusters.
