I really don't think that any tomato that tastes good is even close to pretty....a patio tomato comes close but doesn't bear much and the fruit is small.
I would go for sweet 100....a variety of cherry tomato that sprawls all over, but might be trained on a trellis sort of thing, but with the bunches of red tomatoes ( or green!) like grapes, it can be quite attractive.
Linda C

Hi Christine, try a variety called Silvery Fir Tree. I will try to get a picture later today for you. They have very unusual foliage, do very well in pots, don't need staking and grow good tasting tennis ball sized red tomatoes. Not a sweet tomato, more of a real 'tomatoey' flavor..and they are very early. Truthfully there aren't a lot of really pretty tomato plants, at least not until they have ripe fruit on them! For a cherry tomato Sungold is good...too sweet for me, but many people love them. Black Cherry is great too. There are also many dwarf varities that would do well in pots/containers. If you lived near me you could pick up some of my extra plants! Just finished with putting in my 88 for this year.

Duane

Duane, you beat me this year, I only put in 72 and 4 of those are Sweet 100s, four more are Lemon Boy, leaving only 64 which are a mix of Rutgers, Bonny Best and something Dad wanted called Celebrity. Whatever....

I do agree on Silvery Fir Tree, they are an unusual tomato. Other than that, tomatoes look pretty much the same. Determinates tend to be shorter and bushier, but produce a lot of their fruit at once. Indeterminates can get 6 feet tall or bigger, and bear intermittantly. Your Brandywine will definitely get big and need support.

Another of Duane's suggestions, the SunGold, is my favorite cherry tomato. Darned if I could find any here though, darn it.

As for the tomato forum, they'll ridicule you no matter what you ask. I've been growing tomatoes for 40+ years without too much trouble but finally had the tomato forum convince me that I was simply too stupid to grow tomatoes. I quit going there, afraid that my tomatoes would find out that I was incompetent and stop growing completely!

Annie

Hi Annie, I'm sorry you had that experience over at the tomato forum. Jeesh. I know what you mean though. There were a couple of bad apples over there that made many of us leave in droves and had a couple of other members start other forums of their own to exclude those idiots.

I grow Sungold for other people...but for some reason they didn't grow well this year. But the ones I have left are really small and I could ship a couple of them to you if you want. Let me know.

I have heard good things about Celebrity. And besides, ya gotta make your dad happy, right?

Enjoy your harvest!

Duane

Your question make perfect sense to me. I don't have room for a real garden so I usually tuck a couple of plants in my flowerbed. This year I have one Russian Rose Heirloom and a friend is saving me a Red Currant Tomato plant that he started. I go for novelties that have unique fruit. The currant tomatoes are very tiny and I thought it would be fun to be able to toss then into salads whole.

I buy all my canning tomatoes. Annie, call me if you have some to sell when the time comes :))

Nancy

LOL, Annie.
Thanks, everybody, for your ideas. Keep them coming.
Duane, I'd love to see pictures of your tomatoes, especially Silvery Fir Tree. I'd never heard of it; is it really only two feet tall, as some web thing I found says?
I'd also love to see anyone's pictures of a decorative tomato.

Oh, boy am I staying away from that forum! All I planted was 6 Romas, an Early Girl and any volunteers that come up.

Personally, I think tomato plants are pretty but they do make me itch when I harvest.

Annie, 72 plants! Yikes, no wonder your basement is full.

For the record, I have one Big Boy. It's in a pot in the middle of one of my garden beds. I just grow it for the heck of it.

Silvery Fir Tree is the first one which came to mind for me also. It has finely cut, lacy foliage, different from any other tomato and quite ornamental.

At the other extreme are tomatoes with rugose foliage, which I consider very attractive. Rugose foliage has a thick, lush foliage with heavy texture. New Big Dwarf is one example.

It's probably too late to start these from seed and you are unlikely to find them as plants at your local nursery. There are a few mail order suppliers who may have them. I suggest calling Darrel Jones as Selectedplants. He sells these varieties and and many others and will give you good advice.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Selectedplants

The Early Girl from last year was a really pretty plant until late Fall, AND, had the best tasting tomatoes I've grown for a long time. (I've not had good luck with tomatoes here in CA..... until last year.)

Christine:
I can't grow anything where I live now. The deer would love Tomatoes.
The home I moved from, was the Homestead of a farm, that went back to th 1700's.
It had black soil about 1 1/2 feet deep. Plus we buried all the Fish scraps in the Fall.
The next Spring we planted. I grew Beefsteak tomatoes the size of a dinner plate.
Zuccine were over 3 feet long. This isn't a Fish story.
I don't know about growing them in pots.

As for the Groundhogs, grow one plant for them and tell them not to eat the other plants.

The deer don't listen !!! They eat everything.
LOU

How about an eggplant instead? Big, velvety tropical foliage with large lavender flowers.

Peppi, remember my garden supplies my family, Amanda's family, Dad and Stepmom and a couple of elderly aunts who want fresh tomatoes, LOL.

Nancy, do a rain dance, will ya? The tomatoes are thirsty, and 16 of them got hit with frost night before last. I'm replanting this weekend, some rain would help get extra for you. (grin)

Annie

Jim, you read my mind but did a much better job actually putting thoughts into words. Too late for seed starting for most areas and plants such as Silvery Fir Tree would be hard to find. Darrell came to mind as well, but he may be out at this point in the year. Worth asking though.

I'll try to get a picture today. My digital camera battery is kaput and I'm not very good at operating DW fancy-schmancy camera.

Duane

I grew an Early Girl on my front porch last year instead of flowers. Pot was about the size of a 2 1/2 gallon pail and I harvested a good four quarts of tomatoes from it. It made a nice green bush about 4 foot tall and people commented that it looked nice. Mostly I think they were drooling over the nice ripe fruit that comes on early and keeps on coming all summer long. Form and function!

What ever you plant put a heavy rock in the bottom of the pot to help keep it upright when the heavy tomatoes come on. I also stuck a wire tomato cage in the pot to give the plant something to climb on.

: )
lyra

Okay, I have a digital pic of a Silvery Fir Tree..and now photobucket won't cooperate. Arrrgh. Well, here is a pic of what my yard looks like in July.

Duane

Here is a link that might be useful:

I sure wish I lived near you!

I second the Sweet 100s...pretty, they taste great and the skins didn't get tough until it started getting cold. Last year we had so many I halved them, sprinkled with S&P or Roasted Schezuan Pepper Salt from Penzey's and dried them. Yum.

Annie, I tried Celebrities last year and they were pretty good. Meaty and decent flavor. And I found an old favorite yellow cherry called Gold Nugget that has really good flavor. Nancy, I have Red Currants going, too...another favorite from our big garden days. They're really fun and I had good luck saving the seeds.

I only have 48 plants started...mostly experiments, looking for a standard tomato that will grow well here and actually taste good. Like Westelle, we've found Early Girls to be the best tasting, but the last couple of years they just haven't had the flavor they should. Then a friend brought us a tray of heirlooms he's trying, so it should be an interesting year.

Christine:
Plant any kind you like and hang silk flowers on them.
Lou

Last summer, our first in this house, I didn't have alot of tomato success. By the time they were ripening it was nearing the end of the season. So this year I've placed a prepotted Sweet 100 alongside the south wall of the house in the flower bed and planted a Better Boy alongside the fence. I think I'm going to get a couple more and plant them in another flower bed just to see what happens and what might be the best location.

Hey CC!

You mean after all the shopping this week you still have room for more plants LOLOLOL! I'm not sure how far this place is from you, but I have gotten great plants from them in the past.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cross Country Nurseries

Call me crazy, but I think tomato plants are very pretty - if in the right place and bearing fruit! Then too - this is the first year I'm trying tomatoes in many years. I tried about 10 years ago and they didn't do well - my fault, I probably didn't water them enough. This year I put some up on our retaining wall area, and so far, so good. As I've said before, if I get 4 lovely and edible tomatoes from this plant, it will have paid for itself (plant only, the water was going to that area with or without the tomato plant there).

Mine are Big Boy, and I only am trying enough to feed myself and anyone else who comes by my house that likes tomatoes (like my dad). If they do well this year, maybe next year I'll do enough to be able to can some!

DonnaR/CA

I called several places near here that have heirloom tomato plants, and nobody had heard of Silvery Fir Tree, darn it.
I ended up buying an Amish Paste and an Oxheart. On sale for $1.46. The place I went to was out of Brandywine. And they were out of every kind of cherry tomato! It's irritating that when you go to buy plants at the right time to plant them, they are gone! We've been having nights in the 40's, so tomatoes would have been really unhappy outside. The official "Now you can plant tomatoes and tropicals" date around here is May 15, but experience has taught a lot of us to wait until the end of May.
Next week I'll pick up one or two more plants. And ask around more about Silvery Fir Tree. It sounds very nice.

Christine, if you want any cherry tomatoes I have Golden Nugget, Black Cherry and Sungold still available. They are still quite small, so I could ship them easily. Let me know!

Duane

Oh, what a lovely offer! I would be delighted to try them!
I have a lot of ornamental plants. Maybe there is something I could send you?

Hi Christine, thank you so much for the reciprical offer, but believe me...you will be doing me a favor taking these left overs off my hands! Just email me your address and I'll get them shipped to you early next week.

Duane

Dukerdawg@aol.com

Obviously I don't care about looks as I just planted 4 tomato plants right in front of my house in my now perennial bed. Last year we removed 2 yew bushes from there and planted perennials from a friends garden. When we were planting them a neighbor gave us 3 tomato seedlings he was not going to use. Well we planted them and they were wildly successful. So I am doing it again this year. I am going to let most of them sprawl so the flowers are still visible behind them, although most of the flowers are done now. As I was planting them yesterday with my 3 year old a neighbor said to their child, oh look they are making their garden even prettier. I said no, we are making it uglier. LOL!

I am growing 4 Cosmonaut Volkovs, 4 prudence purples, 1 sungold, 1 grape, and 3 sweet 100's. For those wondering I do not have the space or sun for all of these. I sent my husband to the farmer's market to get plants saying I wanted 3 cosmonauts and maybe a prudence purple. He came back with a four pack of each. We already had a sungold and a grape, and then someone offered sweet 100 seedlings on Freecycle.

The sungold I planted hanging form the deck in an upside down planter my neighbor gave me as a gift. My goal is to get as long as possibel without buying commercial jarred toms this year. This could be very daunting.

Annie, I can get any tomato seeds I want here, give a shout if you want any next year. The home of Gardener's Supply is very snobby about heirloom veggies.

-Robin

They sell Celebrity almost exclusively at our farmer's market. They are pretty good if you can't get something better. We have German Queens planted, which is my favorite. As for pretty, I've never seen a pretty tomato plant that had a really great tasting tomato.

I agree with Duanne and Jim. Silver Fir Tree is a really sweet plant and so is Red Robin. Celebrity is a fairly cantained plant and the tomatoes are many and pretty. You can count on them. The are not at all fussy or desease prone,The taste is good: not great but very good. I have a Tumbler(that's a tomato) in a basket in the middle of a flower garden. So far it looks okay:not wonderful but okay. I think you will enjoy whatever Duane sends you. Good luck and I will like to hear how it goes.

If you can find them, the Dona Tomato has the absolutely best flavor of any tomato I've ever had. I grew them a couple of years but can't always find the plants, and I don't do that well with seeds. I also have no intention of visiting the tomato forum - who do they think they are??

To make the plants prettier, I would cut off the dead leaves. They still need a trellis of some sort for support, and those are rarely attractive. I plant basil next to mine, and that helps the appearance somewhat.

Lars