jether
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Cherry tomatoes, anyone?

Hello there! I'm planning to grow organic cherry tomatoes, but not sure which type is best to grow on the countryside. I have tried growing other organic vegetables, but it’s my first time to try cherry tomatoes. I’ve heard that Sweet 100 tomato is one of the most sought-after varieties due to its natural sweetness. I would like to know, however, if this is really better than any other variant of cherry tomatoes in terms of demand and return of investment. I’ve been told that Sunsugar is also a good option. Can anybody please shed me some light on this? I would really appreciate your feedback!

pepperhead212
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Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

Welcome to the forum, Jether!

Not sure where you are located, but I grow a LOT of cherry tomatoes, partly because of the heatwaves I get here, which causes tomatoes to drop their blossoms. Cherry tomatoes rebound very fast, while large ones take a long time to get a ripe tomato after this.

Sunsugar and Sungold are my two favorites for sweetness, as they have great flavor, as well. Many years ago I tried Sweet 100, and was not impressed with the tomato flavor - it just seemed very sweet. Black cherry is a favorite, and a couple years ago, in a very hot summer, it was the only tomato that did not drop blossoms in the heat. Last year I tried some new ones, and one in particular turned out really good - Purple Bumblebee. Great flavor, and incredible production, and it kept well, without getting over-ripe sitting at room temp., as many seem to. The Pink Bumblebee was also good, but a little more tart, a little smaller. Here are my notes on all the ones from last season. I couldn't tell if any were heat resistant, as I finally had a mild summer, and they produced constantly!

Nichol's Heirloom - Small, pink tomato, looking and tasting almost exactly like the Porter Cherry, but a larger plant. Rather late (maybe 80 days), but very productive, once they got going. Good flavor, and no split tomatoes.

Porter Cherry - Good, but probably will be replaced in my garden by Nichol's HL. Very large for a cherry - about 1 1/2" x 1"

Pink Bumblebee - Good, but purple one better. This one's flavor is a little flatter, and more acidic, but still good, and no split tomatoes.

Purple Bumblebee - Definitely a keeper! Productive and flavorful, and none split, and the plants seem resistant to things around them. And these store well after picked, not getting those soft spots I always end up finding on Black Cherries, even when the shoulders are green.

Sunsugar - delicious, and the sweetest of all, as always. I still eat more of these in the garden than elsewhere

Black cherry - Every plant (four) broken by heavy winds soon after transplant, due to thin stems, as with the Champagne - the only two to get broken. I made some clones with the broken plants, but only one took, and is about 3' tall with flowers on 8-11.

Black Hole Sun Cherry - Good flavor, and fairly large, elongated cherries, at least the few I got. But after I started getting those occasional heavy summer thunderstorms, every single fruit slit deeply, and could not be saved. Could have let them rot, to save the seeds, but I won't want to grow it again!

Blue Tears Cherry (another free sample, but I have to grow at least one, being a Tom Wagner tomato!) - Dark leaves are probably the reason for the name. Fairly productive, though a little late, and the one in the ground came down with some blight, while the UD was OK. And another one of those of which heavy rains split EVERY tomato.

Champagne cherry - didn't get a plant to survive the winds of spring, due to the thin, brittle stems. Might try again, but I'll keep this in mind, and maybe use a WOW.

RI-Mike
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Location: 6B / 7A - RI

I second sungold, they are so sweet they taste like candy. I've given up growing ay other cherry other than sungold.

River
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I also favor the sun golds . I haven't found any other cherry Tomatoe that tastes that good.
My 2nd is black cherry.

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Lindsaylew82
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Location: Upstate, SC

Brown berry were good for us last year. They cracked a bit, and we're kind of large for a cherry. They were shaped like a small plum. Very tasty! Rich!

Sungold were very heavy producers, but cracked with high heat and heavy rains. I like more balanced richness in my tomato, but everyone else in my Fam really liked these.

Black cherry were on my husbands top 5 of all time, but they are splitters, too.

Sugary Grape is a pinkish long cherry with really high production, and reasonably good flavor.

We grew Taxi once...very early, but blah. The plant was really compact.

Sweet Pea made a MASSIVE plant with hundreds of pea sized red tomatoes. They were really cute, kinda tasty, but a huge pain in the hiney to harvest.

Isis Cherry were pretty sweet. They were yellow with blotchy red and they had an X on the bottom. They were very juicy.

We weren't fans of red and yellow pear. They did make a HUGE harvest, but we thought they lacked good flavor. We also dried ours (4 gallons!!! Off 2 plants!!!)

Green zebra were a large cherry (I guess it's not really a cherry) that had good flavor, and interesting yellow and green stripes. That year we had 4+ days of 110F heat that took it out. Around July 4th.

This year we are excited to try Coyote! A white cherry tomato.

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Are there organic sungold tomato seeds? It is a hybrid and very good. They have won many taste tests but they are prone to cracking when they are ripe.

Sunsugar is also sweet and does not crack as much.

Suncherry is a red sungold from what I understand

I have grown sweet 100 before and they are very sweet and prolific. Sweet millions is an improved sweet 100. I don't know what the improvement was.

Black cherry is has a good flavor but does not produce a lot of fruit.



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