May I recommend cherry/grape tomatoes instead? In my (granted: limited) experience, they require a bare minimum of work, have a generous harvest window, and -- most importantly -- you can eat them straight off the vine (though sometimes they need a rinse, first).
+100! I have been growing tomatoes for a few years and am slowly improving but the guide here notes they’re “moderately difficult” to grow, which, yes, yes they are. Tomatoes will break your heart.
Cherry tomatoes, however, are easy, produce plentifully, and are great for kids or sprucing up a salad. Sungold are a great variety.
Full tomatoes are of course fantastic and have a great payoff. I love the high acid ones like Green Zebra. I know people honestly like making their own sauce, but, it’s a PITA and Rao’s can be bought, so I don’t recommend paste varieties.
My normal tomatoes fruited at cherry tomato size for some reason :( I got a few maybe an inch and a half wide, but since then the rest stop and turn red earlier.
No idea what the problem is, maybe it's fungal. Quite a few leaves were turning yellow/black lower down.
