Heirloom Tomato Varieties Worth Growing

If you grow only a few heirloom tomatoes, start with Cherokee Purple for rich, smoky flavor, Brandywine for the classic big pink slicer, Black Krim or Green Zebra for something different, Amish Paste for sauce, and Black Cherry for snacking. In short-season northern gardens, swap in Stupice or Glacier for early fruit; in hot, humid southern gardens, Arkansas Traveler and Costoluto Genovese keep setting fruit when others stall. Heirlooms trade some disease resistance and uniformity for flavor, so the way you grow them matters: steady water, good air flow, mulch and early staking prevent most of the cracking and leaf diseases that give them a reputation as finicky. Below are the heirloom tomato varieties worth growing, sorted by type and climate, followed by growing tips.

Part of our Vegetable Gardening & Raised Beds guide →

In this guide

1. What Makes a Tomato an Heirloom?
2. Heirloom Tomato Varieties at a Glance
3. Best Heirloom Slicers and Beefsteaks
4. Best Heirloom Paste Tomatoes
5. Best Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes
6. Heirlooms by Climate
7. Starting Heirlooms From Seed vs Buying Plants
8. How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes Successfully
9. Saving Seed From Heirlooms
10. Frequently Asked Questions

What Makes a Tomato an Heirloom?

An heirloom tomato is an open-pollinated variety that has been grown and saved for decades, often 50 years or more, by families, communities or seed companies. Because it is open-pollinated rather than a first-generation hybrid, seeds you save produce plants just like the parent. Hybrids are bred for disease resistance, uniform fruit and shipping; heirlooms were usually selected for flavor and local adaptation. Our comparison of heirloom vs hybrid tomatoes explains the trade-offs in detail.

Heirloom Tomato Varieties at a Glance

Variety	Type	Days to maturity	Fruit	Best for
Cherokee Purple	Beefsteak	About 80	Dusky purple-red, 10–12 oz	Flavor; most climates
Brandywine (Sudduth’s)	Beefsteak	85–100	Pink, 1–1.5 lb	Classic flavor; long seasons
Mortgage Lifter	Beefsteak	About 85	Pink-red, 1–2 lb	Big yields; Southeast
Black Krim	Beefsteak	70–80	Dark red-brown, 8–12 oz	Rich, salty flavor
Green Zebra	Salad	About 75	Green with yellow stripes, 3–4 oz	Tangy flavor, color
Pineapple	Beefsteak	85–95	Yellow-red marbled, 1–2 lb	Sweet, low-acid
Amish Paste	Paste	About 80	Red, 8–12 oz	Sauce and canning
San Marzano	Paste	About 80	Red, elongated, 3–4 oz	Sauce; few seeds
Black Cherry	Cherry	About 65	Mahogany, 1 inch	Snacking; productive
Matt’s Wild Cherry	Currant/cherry	About 60	Red, tiny	Very disease tolerant
Stupice	Early salad	55–65	Red, 2 oz	Short, cool seasons
Arkansas Traveler	Slicer	About 80	Pink, 6–8 oz	Heat and humidity
Costoluto Genovese	Ribbed slicer	About 80	Red, ribbed, 8 oz	Hot climates; sauce

Days to maturity are counted from transplanting a 6- to 8-week-old seedling, and they vary by weather and region. Seed catalogs list slightly different figures for the same variety.

Best Heirloom Slicers and Beefsteaks

Cherokee Purple

If you grow one heirloom, make it this one. Cherokee Purple produces medium-large, dusky purple-pink fruit with green shoulders and a deep, sweet, slightly smoky flavor that regularly tops taste tests. It is more productive and more adaptable than Brandywine, ripens about two weeks earlier, and handles a range of climates from the Northeast to the South.

Brandywine

The best-known heirloom has huge pink fruit with a balanced sweet-tart flavor and potato-leaf foliage. It is also one of the slowest and least productive, and its yields fall off in very hot weather when nights stay above 75°F. Choose a named strain such as Sudduth’s for consistency, and give it the longest, sunniest spot you have.

Mortgage Lifter

Developed in West Virginia in the 1930s, Mortgage Lifter produces very large, meaty pink fruit with few seeds and good crack resistance for its size. It is a heavy producer, adapts well to the humid Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, and is a good choice if you want big slicing tomatoes without Brandywine’s sulkiness.

Black Krim and Pineapple

Black Krim, from the Crimean peninsula, has dark, juicy fruit with a rich, slightly salty flavor and ripens earlier than most beefsteaks. Pineapple is a huge bicolor tomato marbled yellow and red inside, very sweet and low in acidity, but it needs a long, warm season and is prone to cracking.

Best Heirloom Paste Tomatoes

For sauce, salsa and canning, paste heirlooms have thick walls, less juice and fewer seeds. Amish Paste produces large, oxheart-shaped fruit that are good fresh as well as cooked. San Marzano is the classic Italian sauce tomato, with long fruit and dense flesh. Both are indeterminate, so harvest comes over several weeks; plant six to ten plants if you want enough for a canning session.

Best Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry heirlooms are the easiest heirlooms to grow, because their small fruit ripens quickly and cracks less. Black Cherry has a complex, sweet flavor similar to the big black tomatoes in snack size. Matt’s Wild Cherry produces hundreds of tiny, intensely flavored fruit and shows good tolerance to early blight and late blight. Yellow Pear is a mild, prolific, pear-shaped cherry that has been grown since the 1800s. If you are torn between sizes, our guide to cherry vs grape tomatoes may help.

Heirlooms by Climate

Short-season and cool climates

In zones 3 to 5, the Pacific Northwest and high-elevation gardens, choose varieties that set fruit in cool nights and ripen in under 70 days: Stupice, Glacier, Siberian, Black Krim and most cherry heirlooms. Start seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, warm the soil with black plastic before planting, and add one or two early varieties so you get tomatoes even in a cool summer.

Hot and humid climates

Most tomatoes drop blossoms when days exceed 90°F and nights stay above about 75°F. In the South and Southeast, choose heat-tolerant heirlooms such as Arkansas Traveler, Costoluto Genovese, Cherokee Purple and Mortgage Lifter, and plant early so the main fruit set happens before midsummer. Afternoon shade cloth (30 to 40 percent) helps in July and August. A second planting in midsummer often produces a strong fall crop.

Starting Heirlooms From Seed vs Buying Plants

Garden centers usually stock only a handful of heirlooms, typically Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and a cherry or two. To grow anything else, you will need to start from seed, which is easy and gives you far more choice. Sow seeds a quarter inch deep in seed-starting mix 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date, keep them at 70 to 80°F until they sprout in five to ten days, then move them under bright light for 14 to 16 hours a day. Pot them up into 3- or 4-inch pots once they have their first true leaves, and harden them off outdoors over a week before transplanting when nights stay above 50°F.

If you buy transplants, choose stocky plants 6 to 10 inches tall with dark green leaves and no flowers or fruit yet. Avoid tall, pale, leggy seedlings and any with spotted lower leaves, which can carry disease into your garden. A good plan for a first heirloom garden is six to eight plants: two large beefsteaks, one early variety, one or two paste plants and two cherries. That spread gives you something ripe from midsummer to frost even if one variety struggles in your conditions.

How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes Successfully

• Sun: at least 8 hours of direct sun for beefsteaks; 6 is the bare minimum for cherries.
• Spacing: 24 to 36 inches between plants and 4 feet between rows. Crowded heirlooms are much more prone to leaf disease.
• Planting: bury transplants deep, up to the first true leaves, so roots form along the buried stem.
• Support: indeterminate heirlooms need 6-foot stakes, strong cages or a trellis set at planting time. Our guide on how to stake tomatoes compares methods.
• Soil and feeding: mix 2 to 3 inches of compost into the bed. Use a balanced fertilizer at planting, then a low-nitrogen, higher-phosphorus feed once flowers appear.
• Mulch: 2 to 3 inches of straw or shredded leaves keeps soil moisture even and stops soil splashing onto leaves.

Preventing cracking

Large heirlooms crack when a dry spell is followed by heavy rain or watering; the fruit swells faster than the skin can stretch. Water deeply once or twice a week, giving about 1 to 1.5 inches total including rain, and keep mulch in place. Pick fruit at the first blush of color before a forecast downpour and let it finish ripening indoors. See why tomatoes split for more detail.

Preventing disease

Early blight, Septoria leaf spot and late blight are the main threats to heirlooms. Remove the lowest leaves up to about 12 inches above the soil once plants are established, water at the base rather than overhead, rotate where you plant tomatoes on a three-year cycle, and clear all plant debris in fall. If late blight is common in your area, grow at least a few plants of tolerant varieties such as Matt’s Wild Cherry.

Saving Seed From Heirlooms

One of the joys of heirlooms is that you can save seed from your best plants and grow them again next year. Choose fully ripe fruit from healthy plants, scoop the seeds into a jar with a little water, and let them ferment for two to four days to remove the gel coating. Rinse, dry on a plate and store in a cool, dry place. Tomatoes rarely cross-pollinate, but separating varieties by 10 feet or more helps keep them pure. For the full method see how to save tomato seeds, and for planning the rest of your beds, start with our vegetable gardening guide.