Buy new:
$13.49$13.49
Delivery Friday, May 3. Order within 23 hrs 23 mins
Or fastest delivery Friday, April 26
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $12.14
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Epic Tomatoes: How to Select and Grow the Best Varieties of All Time Paperback – December 30, 2014
Purchase options and add-ons
Savor your best tomato harvest ever! Craig LeHoullier provides everything a tomato enthusiast needs to know about growing more than 200 varieties of tomatoes, from planting to cultivating and collecting seeds at the end of the season. He also offers a comprehensive guide to various pests and tomato diseases, explaining how best to avoid them. With beautiful photographs and intriguing tomato profiles throughout, Epic Tomatoes celebrates one of the most versatile and delicious crops in your garden.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherStorey Publishing, LLC
- Publication dateDecember 30, 2014
- Dimensions8.5 x 0.65 x 10.88 inches
- ISBN-101612122086
- ISBN-13978-1612122083
Frequently bought together

More items to explore
Editorial Reviews
Review
“All the descriptions and growing information, enhanced by the book's snappy cover art, engaging design, and clever interior layout, make it easy to see how anyone could be smitten by this remarkable and quirky fruit.”
— The American Gardener
“A must-read for all serious tomato growers…you’ll want to read this cover to cover as soon as you get it.”
— Sunday News Herald
“The ultimate in-depth and practical ode to heirloom tomatoes. ... Gardeners will find it a mouthwatering read, and the photography will make you yearn for scratch-sniff-and-taste paper.”
— Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
“Revel in the amazing variety of tomato colors, tastes, and textures … LeHoullier's book is a treat for the senses.”
— HGTVGardens.com
"Sure to excite every tomato-growing gardener … after you read it a supermarket tomato will never taste good again."―Library Journal
"Incredibly photographed and beautifully laid out, Epic Tomatoes will inspire and delight."―Niki Jabbour, author of Groundbreaking Food Gardens and The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener
"When Craig recommends a variety, we listen!"―Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
"Craig LeHoullier has been on a marathon journey with this fruit for 35 years, growing and evaluating thousands of tomatoes. His hands-on knowledge ... is now entirely accessible in Epic Tomatoes."―Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder and vice president of Seed Savers Exchange
Review
From the Back Cover
Grow and harvest the best tomatoes ever with this practical and beautiful guide by tomato expert Craig LeHoullier. Along the way, you'll learn about this fruit's fascinating history and meet 33 of LeHoullier's favorite varieties.
About the Author
Craig LeHoullier is the author of Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales and Epic Tomatoes and the tomato adviser for Seed Savers Exchange. In the last 30 years, he has trialed more than 1,200 tomato varieties and has introduced more than 100 varieties to the trade. He lectures widely, from local Master Gardener groups to Monticello, the Philadelphia and Northwest Flower Shows, and Seed Savers Exchange.
Product details
- Publisher : Storey Publishing, LLC (December 30, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1612122086
- ISBN-13 : 978-1612122083
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.5 x 0.65 x 10.88 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #20,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in Gardening & Horticulture Reference (Books)
- #27 in Vegetable Gardening
- #30 in Gardening Encyclopedias
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Craig LeHoullier's first book, Epic Tomatoes, is the culmination of decades of a passion for collecting, researching and growing hundreds of varieties of tomatoes. Residing in Raleigh, NC with his wife Susan and small assortment of dogs and cats, Craig's gardening passion was planted when very young by walks through his grandfather's backyard garden in Pawtucket, Rhode island, and, later on, planting the family gardens with his dad.
Possessing a PhD in chemistry, Craig's professional career involved various positions in a major pharmaceutical company. After retiring in 2008, and following a few years of consulting, he decided to take the plunge into garden writing, a logical progression from Craig's many years of garden lectures, a newsletter (Off The vine), and blogging.
Craig's passion for tomatoes in particular exploded after joining the Seed Savers Exchange in 1986, and all gardens since focus on open pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties, in a wide range of colors, sizes and flavors. He is responsible for naming, developing and introducing many varieties, such as Cherokee Purple and Lucky Cross, and has been co-leading a unique all-volunteer project to create new dwarf-growing varieties. The project is responsible for 25 new tomatoes available through a variety of seed companies, particularly valuable for space-constrained gardeners who wish to grow wonderful tomatoes on decks or patios.
Craig continues to be active in the Seed Savers Exchange and has served as Adviser on Tomatoes to the organization for many years.
His new author website is www.epictomatoes.com, and you can follow his personal blog and local seedling sales www.nctomatoman.com.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
It is fun, fun, fun! Lots of huge, nice, color pictures that inspire and make you smile to look at: tomatoes of so many different varieties pictured on the vine, cut open, and described, so you get a real close look at them and can decide if you would like to grow that variety yourself. Lots of good tips on how to do that. Love the author's style: for example, he says, rather than telling you how to plant he wants to share what has worked from him and still learn from others - he has experience in two different climates. Lots of good tips to get me started in the southeast, for sure. Even the table of contents is presented in a fun style with chapter headings printed on little seed bags and labels - just gives you a good feeling to look at this book. It is huge (8.5 by 11 inches - like a piece of paper) and has good quality material and easy to read print.
The only thing I don't like is that it has a horrible smell to it - maybe my copy did not have the print cured/dried properly - but I am hoping that will dissipate with time and I am happy to deal with that in exchange for the thick, glossy, almost three dimensional color pictures of the tomatoes.
Two more great points about the book are the loving presentations of the "Ten Tastiest" tomatoes, again with super color pictures and descriptions - makes me want to try at least two more that I have not thought about before - the kind of 'gotta have this one in our family' feeling that gets you going - and the lovely presentation of letters from seed savers like you and me, again with pictures of the actual letters - nice to see.
There is also a section on problem solving - a most useful book for any tomato fan and a beautiful book to look at, too - it's like a tomato art gallery on my book shelf, that I can visit any time now. =]
The books' photography and artwork are great, and the writing is really interesting. I have purchased several vegetable garden books that cover all types of veggies, but I wanted a tomato-specific book. When I finished reading it, I realized that I knew nothing about tomatoes even after growing them with success for 20+ years. The author really knows his stuff; you can tell that he has a lifelong passion for tomato gardening and growing, and his expert tips and information will enhance your knowledge and gardening skills.
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2024
Top reviews from other countries
Craig is to Tomato as Eliot Coleman is to Organic.
His passion shines through in his writing and the information within is valuable to both the person sowing their 1st Tomato seed as much as it is to the Tomato NERD like myself. I hadn't known of anyone(that I hadn't shared a harvest with) to have such an appreciation and respect for my favorite variety, Mexico's Midget as Craig and this book has inspired me to become involved in Tomato breeding as well as helped me diagnose my non-organic gardener's Tomato related problems.
Anytime someone from a local Facebook gardening Group asks about Tomatoes, Craig's website & book are the first things I refer them to.
To summarize, the information in this book is invaluable and the passion of the Author for Tomatoes is inspiring. 5/5!
Ein wichtiger Punkt in "Epic Tomatoes" sind die alten, samenechten Sorten, wo der Autor den Leser ermuntert, ihnen ggü. den heutzutage weit verbreiteten F1-Hybriden auch eine Chance zu geben. Zusätzlich zu den immer wieder eingestreuten detaillierteren Sortenvorstellungen als "Meet the varieties" oder "Ten tastiest" gibt es im Anhang eine tabellarische, nach Farben geordnete Liste von 250 Tomatensorten mit Kurzangaben zu Form, Grösse, Wuchs, Erntezeitpunkt early/mid/late und Geschmack, was die Auswahl für den eigenen Anbau erleichtert; abgesehen von den alten heirloom und anderen open-pollinated tomatoes werden auch einige F1-Hybride empfohlen, die sind jedoch in der Minderheit.
Anders als viele andere Bücher zum Gärtnern ist "Epic Tomatoes" kein trockenes Handbuch, sondern berichtet aus der über 30-jährigen Erfahrung LeHoullier's mit dem Tomatenanbau, was auch diverse Überraschungen und Misserfolge nicht ausschliesst - nicht nur interessant zu lesen, der Autor animiert auch zum selbst Ausprobieren und vermittelt die notwendigen Informationen auf leicht verständliche Weise.
Was mir persönlich auch sehr gut gefiel, ist die Aufmachung des Buches, das abgesehen von schönen Fotografien auch alte Tomatenbilder und -anzeigen von Saatgutherstellern +/- 1900 enthält.
Eine Empfehlung an alle Tomatenliebhaber und sowohl für Neueinsteiger in den Anbau wie auch für schon Erfahrenere geeignet.
The best thing I found with this book was the introduction to lots of new varieties of tomatoes. In that respect it makes itself quite a good coffee table book with lots and lots of good pictures.
I was worried that it might not have much relevance in the UK but I managed to pick up most of the heirloom seeds online, by doing an online search, from a Canadian called Tatiana
Some sections aren't in text book depth, I think anyone wanting to cross breed tomatoes wouldn't be able to do it solely from the knowledge gathered from this book, but it does point you in the right direction to search for demonstration videos and the like.
Overall I think this is an excellent book and gets your passion for growing tomatoes going






















