Tomato variety for northern climate

Okay, I know this seems very early to be asking this question but what variety of tomato plants do well in colder climates? Looking for some varieties that you have used and have been a good variety. Looking to buy seed and start my own plants late winter. I'm getting truck loads of seed catalogs already.

I had a friend tell me "Jetsetter" was a great tomato plant, has anyone evah tried that type.

WI55 it is a 55 day medium slicer

developed by the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s just before hybreds

I planted some "Cold Set" tomatoes once. They didn't get real big, maybe tennis ball sized, but they were prolific, matured quickly and survived a number of light frosts. Good flavor for a short maturity tomato.

Burpee Better Boy. Planted 109 Better Boy Tomato Plants one year, and went through one 4 Pound box of Miracle Grow Fertilizer EVERY WEEK. Had plants that were 4 and 5 Feet high. Lots of Tomatoes that year !!

Sweet 100 cherry tomato did well for me this year I was eating steady all I could eat most of July then in August they went crazy and I could have picked a gallon every other day form 3 plants

early girl is another that did ok

having them well started in a hoop house, south facing window or other enclosure then move them out very shortly after last freeze

unfortunately I didn't get a start till mid may and we got a hard frost first week of October and I have about 100 pounds of green and lightly red tomatoes still on the vine

I had picked a lot and been eating but had so many more I should have picked and ripened in the house

From what I have seen 100 miles east of you, with good soil and water about any will grow. I have a mound of 15 year old cow manure that I put in a old water tank. It takes water about every day. But I can get tomatoes to grow. Last year I had Beef Steak and Big Boy. I can't say I have a favorite, they all do good if I water them. I did plant outside until mid May. Or else they just freeze off. This was the year before last. I can not remember what types they were. But that is from 8 plants and it was about every three to four days once they got going. I made a big tomato cage out of one of those light weight cattle panels and I wrap it with shrink wrap when I first put the plants in it. It cuts the wind and acts a green house and heats the soil.

Beefsteak tomatoes do well up here In northern Maine

Manitoba and Mountain Merit

Snowy Been growing tomato's my whole life at 6500 elevation and the best luck I have had is with Siberian which is a heritage. They are a mid size tomato with great flavor and I have never had a problem with bugs or rust. I do start them in a green house but they grow fast once the ground warms up another variety is early girl but dont do quite as well. I never put them in until the second week of June and get buckets of tomato's.

Awesome information! I wrote down all varieties you guys suggested and will see what I can get.

If you are looking for an early variety Jung's Way Ahead is pretty good.
I have planted quite a few varieties over the years and if I could only have one
it would be Celebrity. Good disease resistance, medium size, great flavor,
cans pretty good, not too much you can find wrong with it. I usually grow around 25
plants each year, always trying something new, but at least a half dozen of those will
be Celebrity.

Zim

I am thinking I am going to make a small high hoop green house out of light weight cattle panels next spring. Three will make a 8x12 and all I will need to do is frame the ends and a bottom. When I get ready to start I will give you a shout and you can come help. When we are done we can go make you one if you like it.
I picked the last four tomatoes today. I cut the branches off with tomatoes when it was going to freeze hard and hung them in the basement with baler twine. They hang there and ripen up. I think if you take the entire plant and hang it they ripen a little slower. The year I did that I had tomatoes in December.

Jubilee is my favorite

Early Girl is a favorite in these parts.

But early for us are the few plants you gamble with setting out early to see who can have the first mater. Some years you win some you lose. We have a long season so we have a huge selection of main croppers.

Oh and by early I mean tomatoes in May.

We have had good luck with two.
Jet Star
Super Sonic

Here in Wisconsin you plant the darn things in early May.
Then they freeze off and you plant them again around Memorial Day.
Then you fret, fertilize, water, and pace back and forth and wonder why
the little green sob's will not get ripe. Then around mid August you wonder
why in God's name did you plant so many? 6 weeks or so and they are going to freeze,
can't hardly give them away and if ya eat another BLT you are gonna bust your belt.

Flash ahead to late November, first seed catalogs arrive, begin planning for next year....


Zim

I do not know about growing tomatoes in your climate, but the Pink Girl tomato is hard to beat in flavor

chain link fence top rail makes good hoop houses , you build a bender or buy a bender

In Montana with low humidity, it will get quite cool at night throughout the summer. That really stunts tomato production. I could grow tomatoes in eastern ND easily, whereas rarely could get ripe tomatoes in western montana.

I prefer Jet Star, Supersonic, Celebrity, and Bush Goliath. For Tomatoe paste variety you can't beat Roma

If you can grow tomaters in Wy at 6500 foot elevation and pick them in May your going to have to heat a greenhouse.

I tried one called Siberian , they don't get to big , just a little bit smaller than a tennis ball. They can set fruit at 38 degrees.

Speaking of Better Boy and Early Girl, this is what remains of my crop from this year. I had a "garden fresh" tomato on my burger tonight. Heck, I might get one or two to last till Christmas!

Yes this is the problem most years just don't seem to have enough heat to ripen them.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and I have been collecting the varieties and will test some of these out.

You might try growing in a microclimate like on a south facing wall or that with a heat sink like barrels of water that will absorb and hold sun heat through the night.

I contemplated that for trying citrus a zone north of it's preferred.

Cherokee, pineapple, hillbilly, chocolate, roma, brandywine are some of the ones the wife and i had this year. She starts them in the greenhouse or inside to get a start on the growing season. Biggest tip is to starve them of water(gradually) when we are getting close to frost/harvest time. Have had a lot of green tomatoes seasons past which is a bigger problem it seems then which ones grow well. We also hang p cord from a horizontal board to hold them up instead of cages. The bush together well and wrapping then up the string every week or so isnt hard

That is amazing to be able to keep them that long. Thanks for sharing your variety.

One variety that I have grown successfully and ripens early is Stupice. It is from Czech Republic and has excellent flavor. You will have to shop for seeds to start.

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That one came to mind but I haven't had much success with it. But I haven't been to successful with most of the early cold climate varieties. I suspect it mighy be how fast things heat up down here. We can go from last frost to eighties in a matter of hours some years.

Glad to know I am not the only one who goes through this. In fact I am thinking about making the garden just a little bigger this year haha.

Last spring, I put my tomatoes out and had to cover them with blankets for about 7 of the first 20 days. They were snowed on twice and had lows in the teens a couple of nights. But, it was worth it in the end, I guess.

My dad used to grow lots of tomatoes in western Washington, I remember his favorite were Early Girl.
An important thing to consider when growing tomatoes is night time temperatures. Western Washington has cool to cold night temperatures during the summer with average late July night temps in the mid to low 50's. He always did something to help increase the temperature where he grew his tomatoes such as planting them along the south side of a building, or next to a concrete slab which soaked up heat during the day.
One particular variety that I remember always frustrated him were Beef Steak.

I use a lot of tomatoes for salsa, juice, sauces and stewed tomatoes. I plant mostly celebrity which are very adaptable and determinate which means they don't vine much after setting fruit and most fruit ripens at similar times. Celebrity has a lot of disease resistance. I plant Big Beef, better boy and some early girl which are indeterminate and therefore continue to vine and grow after first fruits and produce over a longer period of time. I spray mine every 7-10 days for about two months and I use the black cloth over the rows about 18 inches wide to help keep fungus spores off the plants. I stake all mine to keep fruit off the ground. The indeterminate ones really need staking and some pruning as well.

Bryce

One I grow might do well in a northern climate. Opalka is a polish paste type, long pointed end dry and meaty with few seeds. In spite of being a paste type it has great tomato flavor. I like them quartered on a chicago style dog.
They aren't my earliest but they one of the first to get ripe, though the first to set always gets blossom end rot no matter what. Other than that they shake it off and will be last or second to last to go, usually killed by frost. The fact they are still going strong in the fall shows they tolerate the brights better and hang through the heat as well.

Grew supersweet 100 cherries this year.Ate them for a few months.Hard to get big tomatoes to grow here without greenhouse.

Vegetable section in wal-mart?

Yup. That's the way of it.