Tomato Variety Roundup Review

 This is a post that will get added to over the months and years as I grow various different varieties.  It reflects my personal thoughts and preferences; everyone will have their own, so just because I don't like a variety, doesn't mean you shouldn't try it for yourself!  For instance, I prefer particularly tart/acidic tomatoes, while most prefer sweeter ones.  It is also particularly true given that with fruiting plants in general, and tomatoes especially, 'minor' differences in your particular growing conditions and how you care for your plants (temperature, water composition, even how often you fill up the water, etc.) can have very large differences in the resulting fruit.

AeroGarden Offered Varieties

 

Mighty Minis

Mighty Minis are the smallest, most compact of the tomato varieties offered by AeroGarden.  They only reach a stunningly tiny 5-6 inches or so.  This makes them suitable for growing in any garden AG offers, including Sprouts, without the need for topping or heavy pruning.  (Like any tomato, some amount of pruning will always be needed to keep things neat and tidy and the plant efficient.)

The foliage is a dark, almost purplish green, and heavily rugose - that is, very curly and wrinkly/bumpy.

Their fruits are, unsurprisingly, quite small, about the size of a thumbnail, or a penny.  Their skins are surprisingly thick for their size, and the flavor generally tends more towards the tart.

 

~65 day old Mighty Mini tomatoes in a Bounty

Heirloom Cherries

Heirloom Cherry tomatoes are the 'gold standard' of AeroGarden tomatoes.  They were the first variety offered, and much of the documentation still assumes this is the variety being grown.  Allowed to mature fully without being topped, they reach 12-18 inches tall.  This means that while they can be grown in any AeroGarden model, when planted in shorter units like the Harvest, they require topping and heavy pruning to remain within the available space.  Of course, in taller gardens, they only need the sort of basic pruning to stay tidy and grow - and fruit - efficiently.

The fruit is very much the 'classic cherry tomato'.  Fairly thin skinned, but not so thin that they have trouble staying intact.  The flavor, likewise, is generally very much the classic cherry tomato flavor, well balanced between sweet and acidic, though - in my experience, at least - somewhat more powerful than a grocery store cherry tomato.  Ranges in size from about ½-1 inch, most about the size of a quarter.

Interesting Side Note: 

There seem to be two distinctly different strains of the Heirloom Cherry tomatoes circulating, sometimes even having one of each within the same pod.  One has the 'typical' microdwarf dark purplish-green rugose foliage, and is highly compact; the other has much lighter lime-green flat foliage, and is much more upright and sprawling.  As yet it is unclear if the differences extend beyond the foliage and growth habit, such as to flavor.

Golden Harvest Cherries

In most ways, the Golden Harvest Cherry tomatoes are identical to the Heirloom Cherries (at least the older, more rugose and compact variety of the Heirlooms.)  So much so that I generally consider them a single variety.  There is, of course, one glaring difference: Heirloom Cherries are red, while Golden Harvests are, indeed, golden yellow.  They also tend to be somewhat sweeter than the Heirlooms.

 

Three Mega Cherries and one Golden Harvest Cherry tomato plants in a FarmXL

Mega Cherries

The Mega Cherry tomatoes are the largest variety - both plant and fruit - that AeroGarden offers.  They get up to two feet tall, so they are really only suited to the tallest gardens - Bounties (any version), FarmPlus, and FarmXL.  They may end up needing moderate pruning in a Bounty or FarmPlus (as there is always some amount of height variance in plants), but should only need kept tidy in a FarmXL (with room to spare!)

Like the others, the foliage is dark and rugose, though less so than the other AG varieties, as can be seen above.  Their growth habit is also less compact, though the stems grow quite thick and strong.

The fruit varies from roughly the same as a large Heirloom Cherry, to about 3 inches.  Most of them are roughly the size of a Roma tomato, if you cut the ends off the Roma to make it round instead of oval.  When adding them to salads, I generally cut them into either quarters, sixths, or eighths (I cut normal cherries in half).  The flavor is slightly less intense, more watery, than the smaller ones, but not so much so that I consider worth growing the smaller varieties if the space is available.

 

Mega Cherries (all the red ones) and Golden Harvest tomatoes (with coke can for scale)

(Mighty Mini photo by Becca Price, used with permission)