Learn About Unique Varieties of Tomatoes - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Expert Series: Organic Living Learn About Unique Varieties of Tomatoes There are over 3,500 varieties of tomatoes. Those are the ones that have been cataloged. I'm sure there are a lot more, from cross-pollinations and freaks of nature. For example, this is a Paul Robesen, which is a dark tomato. It comes in dark red, almost black, and it's incredibly flavorful. It's a medium sized tomato. Right now they're green but they're going to turn once the weather starts getting hot for a longer period of time. This is another unique variety. This is called Amazon Chocolate, and it's a potato leaf, like the brandywine. So we could expect this tomato to be sort of medium to large sized. They like to branch out and I'll allow more than one sucker on this plant. The leaves are large; usually there are five on each petiole. This is a really tasty variety that goes really dark. That's why it's called Amazon Chocolate: Amazon meaning large, chocolate is that dark bread color. The plum tomatoes don't get very tall. They usually will send out large clusters off of the main stem. They also sucker a lot. That means they put out a lot of wasted energy into their extra branches, so I like to trim these down a lot. But they are a wonderful tasting, dark tomato. A lot of the dark tomatoes have a lot of flavor; they have different types of flavor compounds than the red ones, and that's why it's good to mix them. This is a Clint Eastwood Rowdy Red. They are beautiful little round, perfectly red tomatoes that I understand taste fabulous. I haven't tried this one but I want to. People give these tomatoes interesting names so that you'll buy them, which happened in this case, because "Clint Eastwood Rowdy Red" just sounds like too much fun. This is called a Goose Creek tomato. It's a very rare variety, and it's an heirloom, so I will be saving the seed from this. This tomato supposedly outperforms and out-tastes other varieties, and that's why I'm trying to grow it. This is a Japanese Black Trifellae, and the reason I planted this one is all of them are supposed to taste wonderful, but this one has an interesting shape as well. When the tomato comes in it's a dark, almost black tomato, and it has a teardrop shape. So it will be an interesting shape and an interesting flavor. That's why I choose these unusual varieties, for their unusual taste. This is a Peacevine Cherry. Cherry tomatoes set out clusters, always starting at the bottom, and they'll ripen at the bottom as well, and put out usually really bodacious clusters the higher it grows up. There's a couple green ones under there. Then we'll have larger clusters and larger size fruits as this plant matures and gets more and more sun up here, more and more heat.