The Best Tomato Varieties for UK Gardens

There is no single best tomato — and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling seed. The right variety depends on three things: where you'll grow it (greenhouse, outdoor bed, or a pot), how much fuss you want, and what you actually like to eat. A sweet cherry for picking off the vine is a very different plant from a meaty beefsteak for slicing into sandwiches.

This guide runs through the tomato varieties that genuinely earn their place in a UK garden, with honest notes on each. Once you've picked a couple, head to the main tomato growing guide for sowing, planting and care from start to finish.

Cordon vs bush — the first decision

Before you look at flavour, decide on the plant's habit, because it changes how you grow it.

Cordon (indeterminate) tomatoes are tall, single-stemmed plants that keep growing upward all season — often to 1.8m or more. You train them up a cane or string, pinch out the side-shoots that appear between the main stem and each leaf, and stop the top once four or five trusses have set. They crop steadily over a long period and suit a greenhouse, a growbag, or a sheltered border. Most of the famous flavour varieties are cordons.

Bush (determinate) tomatoes grow to a set size, then stop. They sprawl rather than climb, need little or no pruning, and crop in a shorter, heavier flush. Compact bush and trailing types are perfect for pots, windowsills and hanging baskets where a tall cordon would be a nuisance.

You'll also see "F1" after many variety names. An F1 hybrid is the first-generation cross of two carefully chosen parent lines — bred for uniformity, vigour, disease resistance or sweetness. They tend to perform reliably, but seed saved from them won't come true the following year, so you buy fresh each season. Open-pollinated and heritage varieties, by contrast, let you save your own seed (more on that below).

Best cherry tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes are the most beginner-friendly because they ripen earlier and crop generously even in a cool, grudging UK summer.

• 'Gardener's Delight' — the classic for good reason. A cordon cherry with masses of small, deep-red fruit and a proper sweet-sharp tomato flavour. Forgiving, widely sold, and happy outdoors in a sheltered spot or under glass. If you grow one tomato this year, make it this.
• 'Sungold' F1 — arguably the sweetest tomato you can grow. Golden-orange cherries that taste almost tropical. It's an F1 cordon, so you'll buy seed each year, and the skins can split if watering is erratic, but the flavour wins everyone over.
• 'Sweet Million' F1 — a cordon that lives up to its name, producing very long trusses of small, crack-resistant red cherries. Reliable and heavy-cropping, with good tolerance of the damp.

Best for pots and hanging baskets

If you're short on ground, bush and trailing varieties are the answer. They need no side-shooting and shrug off a bit of neglect — though they do dry out fast, so consistent watering matters.

• 'Tumbling Tom' (red or yellow) — the go-to trailing tomato for hanging baskets and the edges of large pots. Cascades over the sides and crops heavily with almost no effort. A brilliant first tomato for children.
• 'Balconi' (Balconi Red / Balconi Yellow) — neat, compact bush plants bred specifically for windowsills, balconies and small pots. Tidy growth, sweet little fruit.
• 'Maskotka' — a Polish-bred trailing bush cherry that's become a UK favourite. Sweet, early, and tolerant of cooler conditions, which makes it a safe bet on a north-facing balcony.

For pot sizes, compost and watering, see our dedicated guide to growing tomatoes in pots.

Best beefsteak and slicing tomatoes

Beefsteaks are the big, fleshy tomatoes for slicing — fewer fruit per plant, but each one a meal. They need warmth to ripen well, so in much of the UK they're happiest in a greenhouse or a very sheltered, sunny spot.

• 'Marmande' — a French ribbed slicer with excellent, full flavour and a meaty texture. It's semi-determinate, so it needs only light side-shooting, and it copes better outdoors than most beefsteaks. A good first big tomato.
• 'Country Taste' F1 — large, smooth, classic beefsteak fruit on a vigorous cordon. Reliable under glass and produces handsome, even tomatoes for slicing — worth the extra warmth it asks for.

Best plum and cooking tomatoes

Plum tomatoes are dense, low in seed and water, and the best choice if you want to cook, roast or make sauce and passata. They reward a long, warm season.

• 'San Marzano' — the famous Italian sauce tomato: long, narrow, intensely flavoured fruit on a cordon. It needs greenhouse warmth or an exceptional summer to do its best in the UK, but the flavour in a slow-cooked sauce is unbeatable.
• 'Roma' — a more forgiving, semi-bush plum that crops well and is easier to ripen outdoors than San Marzano. A sensible choice if you want cooking tomatoes without a greenhouse.

Best blight-resistant varieties for outdoors

This is the section that matters most if you grow outdoors, especially in the wetter west and north. Tomato blight is a fungal-type disease (the same organism behind potato blight) that thrives in the warm, humid, wet weather typical of a British July and August. It can turn healthy outdoor plants to brown mush in days. Modern blight-resistant varieties don't make you immune, but they buy you weeks — often enough to get a full crop before the disease takes hold.

• 'Crimson Crush' F1 — a UK-bred cordon with outstanding blight resistance and good-sized, well-flavoured red fruit. The standout choice for an exposed outdoor plot.
• 'Mountain Magic' F1 — a cordon cocktail/salad tomato (between cherry and standard size) with excellent resistance and a lovely sweet flavour. Crops heavily outdoors.
• 'Lizzano' F1 — a trailing, blight-resistant bush cherry that's ideal for pots and baskets in a damp climate — resistance and container-friendliness in one plant.

Heritage vs F1 — and saving your own seed

Heritage (or heirloom) tomatoes are open-pollinated varieties handed down over generations — think 'Black Krim', 'Brandywine' or 'Costoluto Fiorentino'. They're prized for unusual colours and complex, old-fashioned flavour, and crucially, their seed comes true, so you can save it year to year. The trade-off is that they often lack the disease resistance and uniformity bred into modern F1 hybrids, so they're best under glass or in a kind summer.

F1 hybrids give you that reliability, resistance and consistency, but as the seed won't come true, you buy fresh each season. Neither is "better" — many growers keep one or two trusted F1s for a dependable crop and a heritage variety or two for the flavour adventure.

If you want to save seed, choose an open-pollinated variety, scoop the seeds and surrounding jelly from a ripe fruit into a jar with a little water, leave it to ferment for a few days until a scum forms, then rinse, dry on kitchen paper and store somewhere cool and dark. It's one of the most satisfying skills in the garden — and free tomatoes next year.

Whichever you choose, the difference between a good and a disappointing crop usually comes down to care rather than variety — steady, even moisture and the right feed at the right time. Our guide to watering and feeding tomatoes covers exactly that, and you can plan your sowing dates with the planting calendar. For more on growing without a garden, see growing food in containers.