Best tomatoes for skins
There are many factors to consider when choosing tomato varieties – indoor/outdoor, disease resistance, fruit characteristics, habit, crop timing etc. What will you do with the fruits? Tomatoes with thicker skins can resist splitting and cracking, and are good for drying and canning, remaining intact through these processes. Typically, plum tomatoes fall into this category. But they might not be great for a salad, their tough skins being harder to chew. However, cherry tomatoes have a tendency to split easily, which can result in mould and pest attacks on the exposed flesh. Apart from general categories, some varieties have been recommended by growers for resistance to splitting. These include the beefsteaks Big Boy, Big Beef and Big Rainbow, plus salad tomatoes Yellow Pear and Arkansas Traveler, even some cherries such as Honeycomb and Primabella. You may also have less splitting with disease-resistant varieties.
The best way to stop the skins splitting is to water evenly. Dehydration and heat can make tomato skins thicker, but then they break after a sudden deluge. It’s hard to control this with outdoor tomatoes, but you’re in charge when growing them under glass.