Whether you start from seeds or buy transplants, it’s time to plan now for what varieties you’d like to try in the 2025 vegetable garden.

Breeders and plant companies have developed a few intriguing newcomers. Here are seven worth checking out for this year’s planting:

The Purple Tomato

This purple-fruited cherry tomato generated much news (and controversy) last year when it debuted as the first bioengineered food crop marketed mainly to home gardeners. The fruits get their purple color (both skin and flesh) from purple snapdragon genes inserted into a standard cherry tomato variety.

The Purple Tomato (that’s the official name) came out a bit late for 2024 seed orders, so this is the first winter that gardeners will be able to order in time for indoor seed-starting. It’s available only by direct-ordering from the producer, California-based Norfolk Healthy Produce.

Seeds went on sale in December and were expected to sell quickly despite a price of $20 for 10 seeds (plus shipping).

Besides the fruit-color novelty, the attraction is a nutrition makeup that’s exceptionally high in antioxidants – on par with the so-called “superfood” levels found in blueberries, according to Norfolk Healthy Produce.

Cherry-sized Purple Tomatoes are purple inside and out. Their color is compared to a standard red tomato in this photo. Photo by George Weigel

Tomato WonderStar Red

On the more conventional tomato front, this new standard-size variety stands out for its good flavor and unusually rich-red fruit color.

PanAmerican Seed’s WonderStar Red is a beefsteak-like tomato that’s a good yielder even though it’s a determinate type (i.e. produces mostly at one time and then calls it quits).

Fruits mature quickly (60-65 days after transplant), and plants also have good resistance to two of the biggest tomato scourges – late blight and septoria leaf spot.

The fruits of Wonder Star Red tomatoes are dark red and sweet in flavor. Photo by George Weigel

Passionfruit Poppin’ Passion

If you’re intrigued by something different, here’s a tropical vine with unusual flowers that also produces edible fruits.

Star Roses and Plants is introducing a new variety of passionfruit vine called Poppin’ Passion that’s being marketed as an edible under the company’s Bushel and Berry collection.

Poppin’ Passion thrives in warm weather, is ideal for summer patio containers, and can be moved inside to overwinter for ensuing seasons in colder climates. (It’ll die with frost if left outside.)

The flowers are a show in themselves – a purple inner ring surrounded by a white perimeter with stringy tips and protruding stamens in the center – and the reddish-purple fruits are oval, about the size of a grape, sweet in flavor, and gelatinous inside.

Plants can climb 10 feet tall and produce best in full sun.

The flowers of Poppin’ Passionfruit are shown at left, and the edible fruits are at right. Photo courtesy Star Roses and Plants

Kohlrabi Konstance

Konstance is a new deep-purple kohlrabi that performed well enough in independent nationwide garden trials last year to earn one of four 2025 national All-America Selections best-edible awards.

AAS judges cited its smooth skin, crack-resistant crunchy texture, good keeping ability, and especially its performance in fall when most kohlrabis aren’t happy.

This is also a good-looking vegetable that not only produces four- to five-inch purple globes (the swollen edible roots) but also has purple leaf margins.

A hybrid variety from Bejo Seeds, Konstance grows about 16 inches tall and is a fast maturer at just 42 days after direct-seeding in the garden.

Kohlrabi Konstance has deep purple globes and a crunchy sweet flavor. Photo courtesy All-America Selections

Pepper Pick-N-Pop

The second 2025 AAS edible winner is pepper Pick-N-Pop, a miniature, banana-type pepper that – you might guess from the name – is intended as a “snacking” variety.

AAS judges say this Seminis Home Garden hybrid produces a heavy yield of yellow-maturing, four-inch fruits that are both crunchy and sweet. The two-foot-tall plants are capable of churning out 50 to 100 fruits each.

One judge also mentioned that Pick-N-Pop plants grow a dense leaf canopy that’s good at protecting the ripening fruits from sunscald, which is a mid-summer problem that can ruin overly sun-exposed pepper fruits.

Fruits take about 90 days from seed to ripe harvest.

Pepper Pick-N-Pop is a heavy-yielding “snacking” pepper that matures golden. Photo courtesy All-America Selections

Basil Everleaf Lemon

Here’s a new herb with a flavor you’ll either love or hate – strong lemon.

Everleaf Lemon is an upright, light-green-leafed basil that flowers weeks later than most lemon basils, extending its useful harvest season.

Both the scent and taste are distinctively lemon, which some gardeners prefer to “regular” basil but others describe as a chemical scent reminiscent of lemon furniture polish.

Everleaf Lemon plants can grow up to three feet tall.

The variety can be started from seed at home, it does well in pots or the ground, and growth is best in full sun.

Basil Everleaf Lemon, ©PanAmerican Seed

Squash Green Lightning

A third 2025 AAS edible winner is a “patty-pan” summer squash with an eye-grabbing look – a green-and-white striper in the shape of a fat, scalloped turban.

“The color and pattern of the squash was novel and cute enough to use as a decoration,” said one AAS judge of Green Lightning.

A PanAmerican introduction, this squash can be direct-seeded into the garden after frost with fruits ready in 48 to 52 days.

Green Lightning plants grow a fairly compact, bushy two feet tall (no sprawling and no staking), and fruits grow three to five inches wide and one to two pounds in weight.

AAS judges add that the seed cavities are small, and the flavor is good.

Green Lightning is an award-winning new “patty-pan” summer squash with an eye-grabbing look – a green-and-white striper in the shape of a fat, scalloped turban. Photo courtesy All-America Selections