Various Cherry Tomatoes, taste and ease

[Irv Wiseguy]

I'm growing Tiny Tim this year. The plant stays small so it's good for container growing. However, it's determinate and I only got about 15 tomatoes total from it. They tasted good, but not a lot of fruit.

You could probably pick out a cherry tomato at random and like it; most of the ones I've tried taste great. The only one I won't grow again is Baxter's Bush Cherry. It had a sour taste, kind of like an unripe apple.

This year I'm also groing Sungold F1 and Husky Cherry Red F1. Sungold is unbelievably delicious, but it's a hybrid and the plant is huge. Mine grew to about 8 feet and the weight of the tomatoes caused it to fall over onto my other plants. That was in mid-June. I just let it intertwine with the other tomato plants so I don't know how tall it would be if I kept building the cage higher.

Husky Cherry Red has a traditional tomato taste; not sweet like Sungold. It's indeterminate but remains compact.

I hope you find a cherry variety that you like.

Irv

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by madddawg

Are any of the ones mentioned above a big cherry type. pop in the mouth, golf ball size. My customers and us dont care so much for the smaller cherries.

Golf ball size is by definition not a cherry tomato! Golf ball aize is a "salad" tomato. I grew Pink Vernissage (aka Vernisazh Rozovyi) last year. Very productive! Pretty good fresh, really wonderful as a dried tomato.

Pink Ping Pong is also in that size range. The one year I grew it the flavor was good, but production was sparse.

Bulgarian Triumph is another good one. I grew it very late in the season and got only a few tomatoes, and have been meaning to grow it for a full season ever since.

Tommy Toe is a larger cherry, but not nearly golf ball size.

[spacetogrow]

I'll agree that Tommy Toe has a lovely balance of flavor. Some of mine got to at least ping pong ball size.

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

Would love to try Black Cherry in the future - but it's a bit confusing with so many dark-colored cherry varieties ... How does BC compare with Chocolate Cherry?
*don't laugh at me, please*

No one on this forum would laugh at you! We only laugh at Worth.

Another thread recently asked the same question. While their appearance is similar, they are totally different varieties supposedly with very different parentage. I haven't really checked, but I'm not aware of that many black cherry types. Their is a confusing line up of black tomatoes of various sizes, but not many black or mahogany colored cherry varieties. I grow Black Cherry, but haven't grown Chocolate Cherry.

Ted

[NarnianGarden]

Thanks Ted. I understood they're totally different cultivars with different parenage, just seems very confusing to a layperson whose main goal is to find good-tasting varieties that actually might grow here in my climate. Wonder how the taste compares and if the Chocolate cherry has any chocolate-ish flavor ..

Not going to ask if Chocolate Cherry has Theobroma cacao in its pedigree

[feldon30]

I found Sungold and Black Cherry seeds at Bilka in Copenhagen, so I imagine seeds may be available in Finland without mail order.

Black Cherry and Sungold are both very sweet, which is an important factor to me.

[NarnianGarden]

We have lots of seeds available in Finland, including Black Cherry... but I like to purchase mine via internet from gardeners /growers. My Black krim ones were from an American Ebay vendor who has their own garden and her seeds are from their own crop. I must say the seeds did very well, the plants are very vigorous, and I'd gladly buy some more from her again.

I took a conscious risk purchasing seeds outside the EU - the current law requires all sorts of phytosanitary certificates, but I figured that since BK is officially accepted and readily available in Europe too, it's not too big of a crime to buy their seeds overseas. And anyway - I do not agree that any administrative system has the right to dictate what I should grow in my garden, registered or not. Obedience to the governing authorities is fine, as long as they do not cross the boundaries of reason. *ok, rant over*

[kath]

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

Would love to try Black Cherry in the future - but it's a bit confusing with so many dark-colored cherry varieties ... How does BC compare with Chocolate Cherry?
*don't laugh at me, please*

I've grown both Black Cherry and Chocolate Cherry and preferred the taste and texture of the first. To me, neither tasted anything like chocolate- I thought "chocolate" in the name referred to their color. I grew another dark cherry variety once that was supposed to taste like grapes if the ripe fruits were refridgerated...but they still tasted like tomatoes to me.Can't remember the name of it now.

Tomatoes and taste preferences vary wildly and you'll find that your keepers may be someone else's spitters. You just have to try as many as you can to find your own favorites...enjoy!

kath

[BucksCountyGirl]

If you are open to trying a GWR cherry, I would suggest Green Zebra Cherry to suit your needs. It is a stocky, but manageable plant for a cherry. It is about golf ball sized and has a complex sweet, bright flavor. It is not related to the famous Green Zebra, but is instead a unique cherry found in a mixed pack of seeds from Germany (according to Dr. Carolyn). It is a bit later than say, a Sungold but it is really loading up mid season. As far as disease resistance I can only speak to how it is fairing my my garden. The Amazon Chocolate to the right of it has grey mold and the Jaune Flamme to the left of it has some fairly bad Septoria. The GZC is touching both of these plants and has nary a speck, spot or wilted leaf. YMMV. Cheers!

NarnianGarden,

I think "looking for the perfect cherry tomato" may be a life long endeavor. I grow four varieties each year in my personal search. I grow Juliet every year for my daughter and I'm not a fan of it. I may have settled on Black Cherry as one of the best. I may also have selected Porters Improved as one of the four I will grow each year, but it could easily be knocked off it's perch near the top of my list. For the fourth variety, I've tried Sungold F1 (to sweet, to small, and to fragile). This year I tried Cherry Roma, and while it is a good tasting cherry that holds on the vine very well, it is so tiny I consider it more of a currant tomato than a cherry tomato. I also tried Blush this year. It has a great taste, but the skin was so tough I could have saved the skins and made a saddle or a pair of boots from them. They also exhibited a trait I've never seen in a cherry tomato. On the pointed blossom end, they displayed something similar to blossom end rot on about ten percent of the tomatoes. It may actually be blossom end rot which would make the problem my fault instead of the tomatoes fault. It didn't appear on any of the other varieties growing in the same bed.

Ted

[NarnianGarden]

Thanks for the suggestions and comments, everyone. They are greatly appreciated!

I'll definitely want to try a green cherry variety next year - in fact, I have some mystery seeds from China, (thanks, ebay...) supposedly heirloom seeds of mixed variety, and there should be a green colored cherry there too...

Ted: In no way am I looking for 'the perfect cherry tomato', just interested in hearing opinions and people's experiences. Am aware that soil, climate, and other factors play a huge role in how the results turn out to be.

Still, I have found many common denominators in the various tomato forums: it seems that Maskotka is universally loved, as is Black Cherry. That gives me an inkling they might do well in containers even in this Nordic climate.

Thanks a bunch for your opinions, keep them coming!

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by kath

...I grew another dark cherry variety once that was supposed to taste like grapes if the ripe fruits were refridgerated...but they still tasted like tomatoes to me.Can't remember the name of it now....

Sounds like Black Pearl F1. The year I grew it, I had lots of varieties of cherry tomatoes and this one was more tart, so I gave them all away. I didn't know about refrigerating them.

Black Cherry did well the first time I grew it, but not the next 2-3 times. At its bes, it was a rampant vine and had a wonderful flavor.

[kath]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

Sounds like Black Pearl F1. The year I grew it, I had lots of varieties of cherry tomatoes and this one was more tart, so I gave them all away. I didn't know about refrigerating them.

Black Cherry did well the first time I grew it, but not the next 2-3 times. At its bes, it was a rampant vine and had a wonderful flavor.

Wow- you're right! Checked my list and I grew Black Pearl in 2009.

My experience with Black Cherry sounds similar to yours as I really liked it the first time I grew it but its habit was hard to handle. Each of the next few years I had terrible problems with splitting and the taste was never as good as the first time.

kath

[MileHighMike]

Narnian,

I'm growing a lot of cherries this year. Here are some favorites that I highly recommend, and all are quick to produce, which should help up in Finland.

- Nicholayev Yellow Cherry - VERY early (my earliest tomato every year for four years) and tastes great, not just for an early one. Determinate
- Koralik - nearly as early as the Nicholayev. Not quite as good, but another great one. Determinate.
- Black Cherry - My favorite cherry. Not as early, but excellent taste.
- Chocolate Cherry - I'm growing this for the first time this year and ate my first two yesterday. I liked it. I thought it was sweeter than the black cherry. Grow this and the black cherry and decide for yourself. I will likely continue to grow both.
- Honeydrop - I'm also growing this one for the first time this year. Peach-colored (unique) and very sweet. I really like this one so far.

Mike

[simmran1]

MHM got me to thinkin' - if you can support a 15 dollar minimum, you maybe better off ordering from Tomatofest rather than from Ebay. Nonetheless, I like the Honeydrop, (originally from FEDCO) now from my own saved seeds. Italian Red cherry from Bountiful is a winner and will be a repeat, and the Micro-Tom cherries we have growing in hanging baskets are pretty good.