Choosing the right tomato varieties for your climate can make all the difference in your garden. Learn how to select short-season or long-season tomatoes, understand determinate vs. indeterminate growth habits, and discover which tomatoes are best for your growing conditions in 2026.
1. Coastal Gardens- This Climate is cool to mild, foggy and might need a greenhouse to really ripen tomatoes. Choose short season, small fruited varieties. These varieties don't need as much heat to ripen. Think cherry tomatoes and determinate varieties like Principe Borghese, Goldie and Skorospelka. Some early producing indeterminate varieties that will also work include Jaune Flamme and Magic Bullet both of which yield early.
(Determinate varieties produce most of their fruits at once and tends to be smaller compact plants. However, in my experience they also continue to fruit until the weather changes, just not at the same rate as indeterminate varieties. Another benefit of Determinate varieties is that they need little staking)
If you have a greenhouse on the coast then you can branch out more and try some of the larger fruited varieties however some of these put on quite a lot of foliage before fruiting and definitely need trellising. Good ones to try might be Thessaloniki or Brandywine.
2. Hot and Dry Gardens- Think the California central valley or arid desert regions. Choose a mix of short season and long season varieties. The reasoning behind choosing short season varieties in hot climates is to produce fruits before the heat really sets in and can halt fruiting. Over about 95 F pollen can die and that is why tomatoes sometimes stop fruiting in mid summer. (Shade cloth at 40-50% can really help tomato yield and growth in high heat climates)
However, Since many of these places have seasons that continue until almost November or December, its a good idea to also have some long season varieties like Palestinian, Yellow Brandywine and Pineapple. These are a little slower to get going, but once they do will continue to pump out large fruits until the first frost.
(Indeterminate varieties often require staking but make up for that with yield. They are well known to continue growing and producing right up to the first frost and constantly put on new growth and flowers. )
3. Short Season Mountain Gardens- These folks often have warm to hot days, cool nights and only 70-110 days of growing. You folks are really limited to choosing short season varieties or growing in a greenhouse. You climate in many ways is similar to the Coastal restrictions and cherry tomatoes, determinates and other small fruited varieties usually do well! The trick is to start your plants early and get them in the ground as soon as possible. Your mission is to get ripe fruits before the first frosts!
Wherever you are, start your seeds about 6-8 weeks before planting time on a heat mat. Heat mats speed germination a lot. Take the seedlings off the heat mat after germination so they don't grow too quickly and become spindly. It is also imperative to give your seedlings direct light from the sun or growing lights right away or the will get leggy.
This means the stems will grow long and weak and flop. Fortunately, tomatoes are forgiving and can sprout roots on their stems so if yours become leggy simply bury them more deeply when you pot up!
Wait for first true leave before transplanting into larger cells and don't overwater! We regularly plant out tomatoes from 2 inch cells into the gardens. However, you might want to pot them up into 4 inch or gallons depending on where you live and how much of a jump on the season you want to get!
Once you start growing your own tomato seedlings you will probably never go back! Not only is it very economical, it's also really fun!
