13 Tastiest and Best Tomatoes for Containers and Pots
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The best container tomatoes to grow in pots! For most homesteaders, fresh garden tomatoes will come at the top of their list of yummy garden crops to sow and grow. And if I could only grow one thing in my garden, it would be tomatoes!
Tomatoes are so flavorsome and versatile, and a backyard garden tomato will always taste infinitely better than a store-bought one.
Another great advantage to tomatoes is that they grow well in containers and pots. My friends live in a fourth-floor flat. And they grow tomatoes in hanging baskets outside their windows. Growing tomatoes is also a great way to get kids involved with growing food at home.
So we want to explore the best tomatoes for containers in pots. They’re perfect if you don’t have a massive backyard garden. Or if you want to make the most of your front porch, windowsill, or patio.
13 Tastiest Tomatoes for Containers and Pots
We have a ton of experience growing tomatoes in containers and pots! So – we penned the following list of the best cultivars for container growing.
Each tomato cultivar has pros and cons. However, overall, the following are our favorites.
1. Better Boy Tomatoes
Better Boy tomatoes hold a Guinness World Record for the abundance of fruit it produces! The round red tomatoes are medium-sized and perfect for both salads and cooking.
Better Boy tomatoes are a good all-rounder that will grow well in a medium-sized container or pot but will need a tomato cage or stake to support it.
2. Brandywine Tomatoes
These large beefsteak tomatoes will grow well in a medium-large container with adequate support and will produce large, juicy tomatoes with the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity.
To add a bit of variety, try growing yellow and black Brandywine tomatoes alongside the traditional pink version for a super-colorful summer salad.
3. Sungold Tomatoes
For a dramatic display of bright-orange tomatoes that stretches towards the sky, you can’t go wrong with Sungold tomatoes! These tomatoes are blessed with a great flavor and intense sweetness and are now more popular than the once-favorite Gardener’s Delight.
You’ll need tall stakes for these tomato plants, as they are vigorous growers.
Read More!
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- How Long Does It Take for Tomatoes to Grow? Tomato Growing and Harvesting Guide
4. Tigarella Tomatoes
A beautiful red and yellow striped tomato that will add a splash of vibrant color to your patio! The fruits are small but abundant. So the Tigerella tomato plant will need some form of stake or support.
5. Mountain Vineyard Tomatoes
This red grape tomato does appreciate the support of a trellis. But it will not grow to the height of our other favorite patio tomatoes. Their short stature makes them perfect for growing on a small balcony. And they provide a prolific amount of deep red fruits over a long cropping season.
6. Tiny Tim Tumbling Tomatoes
If space is at a premium, this tomato breed is ideal for growing in containers! The compact size doesn’t seem to affect the number of tomatoes it can produce, and within just 60 days, you can pick your first fruits.
Tiny Tim tumbling tomatoes can get sown in small containers or hanging baskets – or even planted underneath taller climbing tomatoes to create a multi-layered display.
7. Black Cherry Tomatoes
Black Cherry tomatoes are super-sweet with an intense tomatoey flavor. They grow best in full sun, so plant them in containers against a sunny wall. You’ll get rewarded with a steady supply of deep purple fruits right through the summer.
8. SunSugar Tomatoes
Along with Sungold, the SunSugar tomato is one of the sweetest you can grow. Both tomato varieties boast a deep orange color, with more intense tomatoey flavors than their yellow-fruiting counterparts.
9. Sweet 100 Tomatoes
Sweet 100 tomatoes can be grown in pots, but these bushy plants like to sprawl outwards! So you will only be able to put one plant in each growing pot. Stand each pot approximately a meter apart to ensure plenty of growing space.
10. Early Girl Tomatoes
Early Girl tomatoes are resistant to disease and have a long cropping period, making them a favorite among many homesteaders. The fruits are best eaten fresh rather than cooked.
11. Stupice Tomatoes
Stupice tomatoes thrive in drought and high temperatures, making them an excellent choice for your patio sun trap! The plants are compact and can be placed in pots 18 inches apart. This variety will provide you with a regular supply of small red tomatoes for many months in the right conditions.
12. Container Choice Red F1 Tomatoes
This determinate tomato variety got developed to enable container gardeners to grow a decent crop of salad tomatoes. It prefers full sun, and if you meet that demand, it will yield a good volume of sweet, juicy medium-sized red tomatoes.
13. Golden Roma Tomatoes
Golden Roma tomatoes are beautiful golden yellow fruits. They’re perfect for sun-drying or roasting.
These 25-gallon grow bags from VivoSun are perfect for growing tomatoes in containers. 25-gallon bags are enough to cultivate various tomato varieties, herbs, or flowers. Garden crops grow better in a full-sized garden, of course. However, these spacious grow bags accommodate various tomato cultivars surprisingly well. The bag material is a BPA-free breathable fabric. They also have easy grip handles - but are nonetheless difficult to move once you fill them with soil.
Tastiest and Best Tomatoes for Containers – FAQs
Do you spend lots of time growing tomatoes in containers? Then we bet you’ll encounter a few questions. We answered some of the most popular inquiries you’re likely to have. We hope they help you!
Are Tomato Leaves Edible or Toxic?
As a part of the Nightshade family, tomatoes are related to notoriously toxic plants like hemlock, foxglove, and oleander. So, are tomato leaves edible? Oddly enough, they are, at least for humans (dogs aren’t quite so resilient).
Tomato leaves do contain tomatine which is a “mild toxin” but “you’d have to eat pounds and pounds of them before you’d get appreciable amounts of toxins to make you ill”. They do mention, however, that “it is likely to cause you some gastrointestinal distress.” This one is to be approached with caution.
With a strong herbal aroma, tomato leaves can be blended into a pesto, chutney, or even a spicy tomato sauce. Not only will you get the pungent flavor, but you may also get some great health benefits.
Recent studies have found that the glycoalkaloid, tomatine, can “effectively kill or suppress the growth of human breast, colon, liver, and stomach cancer cells”.
You can grow nearly any type of tomato in pots, as long as you can provide the perfect growing conditions! Tall and heavy-cropping tomatoes will thrive in pots. But you must offer a structure to support the plant! Smaller tomato pots are more suited to tumbling tomatoes that don’t need support.
Cherry tomatoes are great for containers, but you should pick the variety carefully! Some cherry tomatoes grow tall and need substantial support, while others grow low and will happily tumble over the side of a container.
When it comes to the best tomato to grow, any homesteader will give you a different answer to this question! But when it comes to all-around versatility and flavor, the best container tomatoes are the following. We love Better Boy tomatoes, Brandywine tomatoes, Sungold tomatoes, and tiny Tim tumbling tomatoes. There are many more – but those are some of our favorites.
Some cherry tomatoes sacrifice flavor and sweetness in favor of abundant crops, but when it comes down to it, it is quality and not quantity that matters! Some of our favorites are black cherry, Chadwick cherry, cherry bomb, cherry Romas, and green zebra cherry.
Overall, we think Super Sweet 100 is probably the sweetest cherry tomato. SunSugar cherry tomatoes and Sungold are also high on the list! Also – did you know that the sweetness of fruit and vegetables can be scientifically measured?! You can measure the tomato sweetness using the Brix scale, which assesses the sugar levels in the fruit.
Some tomatoes are much fussier about their growing conditions than others! They are prone to blight, blossom end rot, and myriad other problems. Luckily we’ve got a couple of great tomato varieties for trouble-free growing! Tigerella tomatoes and SunSugar tomatoes both have reputations for hassle-free growth. We’ll also include Early Girl tomatoes! Early girl tomatoes are famous for maturing quickly.
If you’re growing tomatoes on your patio, you’ll want something that looks good and produces an abundance of fruit. Tiny Tim tomatoes are our favorite for small spaces, patios, and smallish pots. Red F1 tomatoes are also famous for handling cramped spaces and can grow on patios, decks, and porches without fuss.
Remember how sweet and full-flavored tomatoes used to taste before they were mass-produced in huge hothouses? The best way to recreate this flavor is to grow your tomatoes – and hopefully, choose a cultivar from our list of favorites. (We love Brandywine tomatoes, Better Boy tomatoes, and Early Girl tomatoes the best!)
Determinate tomatoes have a bushy growth habit and do not need pruning. They can look tremendously impressive in a container garden. However, determinate tomatoes do not have a long cropping season compared to indeterminate tomatoes. A combination of indeterminate and determinate tomatoes can give an impressive visual display. And a steady crop of home-grown tomatoes!
Roma tomato plants produce a massive yield on large plants and should be grown in a big enough container to enable them to establish a robust root system. Opt for a container with a capacity of 5 gallons or more. But we prefer larger pots of 20 gallons or more.
Conclusion
We hope we’ve tickled your tastebuds with our review of the best container tomatoes! The fun of growing your tomatoes is trying new varieties unavailable in the shops. And with some imagination, you can have a whole array of different tomato plants on your patio or balcony.
We’d love to hear if you’ve got a favorite tomato for growing in containers!
