Earlier this year, I did a lot of research this year on cold tolerant varieties and published an article on my top picks for cold tolerance HERE. I had grown some of the varieties myself but others made it on the list based on their descriptions. I decided to test every variety on the list I made in my 2019 fall and winter garden.

I have to say how impressed I am because so many of them have exceeded my expectations with their cold resistance. I am still harvesting many vegetables right now in January!!! It was research time well spent!

After a difficult year with disease in 2019, I decided to do similar research except this time I would focus on finding disease resistant varieties and sharing my own favorites. 

My hot and humid climate makes plants very disease prone so if a crop shows no disease symptoms from our difficult climate then you can be sure it’s legitimately disease resistant! 

I am going to focus on heirlooms and open pollinated seeds since it’s more difficult to know which of those are disease resistant as opposed to hybrids which usually list that information.

This list includes vegetables. If you have any open pollination vegetable varieties that have been very disease resistant for you I would love it if you would comment! I’ll add them to the list. My hope is that this post will be continually evolving with recommendations from the gardening community in addition to my own ideas.

Tomatoes

Paste:

Roma VF Virginia Select– This is a strain that was selected for large fruit and tolerance to septoria leaf spot.

Martinos Roma– Early Blight Resistance

Cherry:

Matt’s Wild Cherry– These produced lots of little cherry tomatoes even amidst tons of disease pressure in my garden this year.

Black Cherry– A winner for both flavor and incredible disease resistance, I will always grow this variety in my garden.

Slicing:

Tappy’s Heritage– A great all around tomato with disease resistance, crack resistance, uniform shape and good flavor!

Green Beans:

Provider– an early to mature variety that has high resistance to bean mosaic virus and powdery mildew.

Jade– Produces well even in high heat conditions. High resistance to bean mosaic virus. It also boasts intermediate resistance to bacterial brown spot, curly top beet mosaic virus, and rust!

Cowpeas:

Hardee– Incredible disease resistance. Plants produce red-brown seeds.

Ozark Razorback– A favorite from my own garden, these out produced my black-eyed peas and were incredibly productive. They also proved much more disease resistant which was part of the reason for the higher yields!

Cucumbers

Homemade Pickles– My all time favorite pickling cucumber. All my other cucumber plants die off from powdery mildew long before this variety shows any signs of disease. I usually plant just four plants and get a year supply of pickles (roughly 40 pints). 

Chicago Pickling– Another pickling cucumber that is said to be “amazingly prolific, and disease resistant, too.”

Poona Kheera– Light green to yellow fruit and an early producer. A heavy producer that has high yields.

Natsu Fushinari Cucumber – Resistance to powdery mildew especially in high heat.  Natsu Fushinari has great flavor along with being very disease resistant.

Peppers:

Doe Hill Golden Bell– Flattened, small orange mini bells and good producers with disease resistance.

Emerald Giant– One of my very favorite peppers (shown in the image above). Much more disease resistant in my garden than California Wonder, a very similar and popular bell pepper variety.

Banana Pepper– The very first pepper to produce in my garden this year and produced heavily until frost. There was no sign of disease, this is one of the most prolific and disease hardy peppers I’ve ever grown.

Tam Jalapeno– Jalapeno’s in general are quite disease resistant but Tam is my favorite because it’s a little bit more mild than most jalapeños. 

Winter Squash:

Waltham Butternut– My favorite winter squash. Disease resistant, incredibly long storage life, good flavor, and manages to stay alive even with squash bugs and borers.

South Anna Butternut– Same long keeping characteristics and good flavor but with downy mildew resistance.

Summer Squash:

Success PM Straightneck- High yielding and powdery mildew resistant.