Selecting this year's tomatoes - which varieties?

This will be my third year of tomatoes so I now have a fair idea of what I'm after. But still next to no knowledge of varieties so I am appealing to the GC brain!

I do not get on with cordon types at all, I am not speedy enough with my pruning and they always overtake me in the end. Also the best spot in my garden (sunny but sheltered, I don't have a greenhouse) is not big enough!

So, I need bush types and hanging basket types (I have two 15" baskets ready and waiting). I'm reading that 'hundreds and thousands' is an excellent choice for the baskets, so I'm happy to go for that; but can anyone suggest a bush type?

With the h&t type being teensy toms I would like my bush types to give me decent sized toms for sarnie-making, which I can find easy enough but I was hoping someone could recommend me a type or two that are strong tasting and quite sweet Yield isn't massively important - small ones I eat as they are but ones destined for sandwiches take me longer so I don't want to be overrun!

Thanks

 

Are you in the UK? If so, roughly which part? You may get better answers if we know where you are?

 

UK yes, in Scunthorpe, North Lincs

 

I grew Maskota which was the first to ripen here and I got plenty of tomatoes from it. I also grew Big League which ripened later and had bigger sized tomatoes. Both grew outside in the sunniest part of my garden in containers and the tomatoes were delicious.

 

If I was to grow only one bush tomato it would be Red Alert, a reliable, early cropping tomato that I grow every year, the plants don't grow excesively large (even if manure levels are a bit high) approx 18"/450mm spread, has a very good tomatoes to leaf growth ratio and a very good chance of getting every single tomato (approx 25 - 30mm, I find large tomatoes take too long to mature outdoors) on the plants to ripen.

I normaly sow a very early small batch of seeds to plant in large pots and keep in a polytunnel before bringing outside in June (when space requied for other stuff) for very early toms, but my main, later sowing will be planted outdoors in open ground 1st week in June.

Although Red Alert seeds sold are F1, plenty of people (including myself) save the seeds and find the resulting plants are virtually the same. Google Red Alert open pollinated.

 

Another vote for Maskota here

Jack McH

 

Agreed, done them two years now (started off by Loli) and they grow well in a basket. You can't go wrong.

 

This year, I will be mostly growing the Manx Marvel