Which tomatoes should I grow?

One of my favourite vegetables to grow is the tomato. I love the smell of the plants, the excitement as the first tomatoes start to ripen in high summer, and most of all the great taste - so much better than supermarket tomatoes. Each year I grow a number of varieties. I like to have a good range of colour and sizes, particularly for salads. I also like to grow some tomatoes that are particularly good for cooking. I thought I'd share my views on the varieties I have grown over the last couple of years. I'm always interested to hear from people what varieties they have had success with, so feel free to add your comments.

tomato harvest

Tomatoes

Tomatoes, like their relatives potatoes and aubergines, were brought to Europe by the conquistadors. Apparently the Spanish originally regarded these small round fruits as more decorative than edible. When the Spanish governed the Kingdom of Naples in the sixteenth century, they took tomatoes with them, and it was the (hungry) Neopolitan peasants who first started eating tomatoes, or so the story goes. Today tomatoes are a huge part of Italian culinary culture, and the habit of eating tomatoes has spread throughout Europe.