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habman_gw

Going all cherry

habman
15 years ago

The reason I'm going all cherry next year is simply because :

1) I find most of my regular tomato turn mushy.

2) They have a very small window of time that allows me to pick them when they are at their peak.

3) I love cherry :-)

4) Low productivity of non-cherry

5) cherry do not suffer from BER

So next year I'm growing all Cherry tomatoes (except 4 plants : 2 Opalka's and 2 "undecided" ).

Right now I have selected 3 cherry toms that I already grow and love (Sun Gold,Balck Cherry ( my favorite ) and Sweet milion).

I need help findind 5-8 other variety of cherry that have a wide range of taste and look but they need to taste good and be productive.

Any recommendation would be appreciated.

Thanks

Comments (19)

  • phantom_white
    15 years ago

    I suggest Chello. It's a yellow/orange cherry that's very prolific and it tastes good.

    Abby

  • eylee
    15 years ago

    I highly suggest Reisentraube or Riesentraube (literally translated in German as bunches of grapes). The plant is very prolific and the taste is like a meaty beefsteak tomato. Its a winner.

  • carolyn137
    15 years ago

    Cherries that I like might include:

    Black Cherry, a must, you already have it
    Galina's Yellow, a deep gold PL variety, a must
    Green Doctors, better than Green Grape, I think, a must
    Camp Joy, aka Chadwick's Cherry, red
    Risentraube, red, multiflora, mentioned above
    Mini-Orange
    Sara's Galapagos, a stable interspecies variety, size and shape like a currant tomato, huge burst of flavor
    Gardeners Delight

    .....for starters and not in any particular order.

    Carolyn

  • sunnyk
    15 years ago

    BrownBerry is a favorite in my family :)

  • elskunkito
    15 years ago

    ildi
    yellow grape like cherries that produce in huge amounts.
    According to some sources it's s'posedly cold tolerant
    like this
    http://www.reimerseeds.com/ildi-tomato.aspx

    I gave my mom one. is about 8' tall now, has dozens of the trusses. ( grown in a modified raybo's earthtainer )

    I think they are tasty, but your opinion may vary.

  • jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
    15 years ago

    Be prepared to be overrun with cherries if you do.

    I grow for Farmers Markets and I can never keep up with them. I planted 28 cherry tomato plants this year.

    Some of my favorites are: Sungold, Black Cherry, Sweet Millions (replaced SS100 hands down), Sweet Gem (Yellow) Red Pear, Yellow Pear (because I sell the heck out of them) and Sun Cherry.

    Good Luck

  • habman
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thank you all for the great suggestions :)
    I would never have selected these toms because I never heard of most of them before so I had to do a bit of searching.
    I found most of them are available at Sand Hill Preservation but they only ship in January.

    Another one that I will grow after looking at the seed website is Matt's wild cherry.
    Tiny 1/2 inch fruit with high flavor sounds like a winner to me!

    I will plant 18 Cherry and 4 regular toms and that should be more then enough for 2 adults :-)

    *****
    Sara's Galapagos is it really from the Galapagos island?

    Risentraube I've heard alot about these toms but never grew them before.

    How does BrownBerry compare to Black Cherry?

    Yellow/Red Pear I won't be growing. I tasted them before and found them bland but yes they do look good and sell very well at the market.

    *****

  • carolyn137
    15 years ago

    I found most of them are available at Sand Hill Preservation but they only ship in January.
    *****

    Correct for the reasons given but you can send in your order now if you wish to get to the top of the list. In your zone 5 you don't need to sow seeds until about the first of April. The catalog and updated website won't be available until late Dec, maybe Early Jan but if you know what you want now, why not order. It was a rainy rainy early summer at Sandhill and so I hope that Glenn and Linda got enough fruits for good seed production. And I say that b'c they carry over 400 varieties but sell no tomato seed older than 2 years old, which is amazing, but it also means a tremendous number of plants to put out each year.

    Another one that I will grow after looking at the seed website is Matt's wild cherry.
    Tiny 1/2 inch fruit with high flavor sounds like a winner to me!

    *****

    Some love Matt's, some say so so and some say no. LOL I MUCH prefer Sara's Galapagos as a wee fruited variety over Matt's, anytime. And yes, I've grown Matt's as well.

    *****
    Sara's Galapagos is it really from the Galapagos island?

    Yes, it's from the Island of Santa Cruz for there are several islands that surround the main IS of Galapagos. The Galapagos Islands have many tomato species that reached there from Peru and Chile so very many years ago. And it's one of the few places where native S. cheesmanii grows, which is salt tolerant.

    (Risentraube I've heard alot about these toms but never grew them before.) I think Riesentraube is a good one and those multiflora blossom stalks are amazing.

    How does BrownBerry compare to Black Cherry?

    I haven't grown Brown Berry and won't be. it was bred in the Netherlands by Sahin Seeds, but from the feedback I've seen it can't hold a candle to Black Cherry.

    Carolyn

  • solanaceae
    15 years ago

    I have begun to think along the same lines. I will grow the others but cherries will become the main tomato. I can't see picking much over black cherry. They are legendary around my house.

  • digdirt2
    15 years ago

    Gong all cherry - that's too bad. I really hate to see anyone grow nothing but cherry varieties as they miss out on all the true jewels of the tomato world.

    But if you must limit yourself to cherry varieties then I'd add another vote for Sungold and Sweet Million. JMO

    Dave

  • naplesgardener
    15 years ago

    I suggest adding Dr. Carolyn-a larger ivory colored cherry. When it's first picked it's sharp and bright tasting. It's a good keeper and becomes mellower and sweeter after a week. Also very productive and a pretty one.

    I've grown Matts WC-nothing special at all. Black Cherry is special and BC and Dr. C are permanent fixtures.

  • wvtomatoman
    15 years ago

    Personally I can't image a summer without making tomato sandwiches, BLTs, etc. with a big ole beefsteak, one slice that covers the bread with a little over hang. That's what I'm talking about. You're going to miss that I feel badly for you.

    I admire your picking ability though. When I grow SS 100 or Sungold after about the 500th tomato I get tired of picking them. I can usually talk a couple of co-workers to come over and do a "you pick it you can have it". I give them a gallon zip lock bag and tell them to have at it, either fill up the bag or when you get tired of picking whichever comes first.

    IMHO 18 cherry tomato plants is enough to feed an entire community. :-)

    Good luck. Let us know how it turns out for you.

    Randy

  • carolyn137
    15 years ago

    Would it be at all useful to go back to your reasons for growing all cherries and look at the options?

    1) I find most of my regular tomato turn mushy.

    I find the mushiness has more to do with weather than it does with any specific variety.How many varieties have you grown to date and do the same varieties get mushy every year or just some years?

    2) They have a very small window of time that allows me to pick them when they are at their peak.

    Do you grow early and mid and late season varieties so that peak time for harvesting is spread out? I'm also in a zone 5 and while I'm not that fond of early varieties, with few exceptions, in a normal season I'm harvesting the others from about mid-August until first hard frost, which of course can vary each year and be as early as the first week of September into late October as it was last year.

    3) I love cherry :-)

    I do too, but as others have said, and I agree, growing all cherries does limit the ways in which you can enjoy your tomatoes as to their use.

    4) Low productivity of non-cherry

    With that I can't agree. You can look at fruit numbers, high for cherries, and then look at total pounds/plant for larger fruited varieties in terms of productivity.

    5) cherry do not suffer from BER

    True to date for me b/c I've not seen a cherry develop BER. Perhaps it's b'c cherries are closest to the progenitor wild type. While certain varieties such as paste tomatoes are highly susceptible to BER and BER can appear on a variety one year and not the next year for the same variety, I still would not be without larger fruited tomatoes in my garden.

    But if your mind is made up about growing all cherries, I respect your decision, of course, but just wanted to raise some points about your reasons for growing all cherries.

    Carolyn

  • doof
    15 years ago

    Brown Berry I HIGHLY recommend. It tastes very different from black cherry. The color is somewhat similar, although a bit more bronze-y, and the skin is glossier. It's sweeter and fleshier, less tart than black cherry. I prefer black cherry, but they are so different that if you are going to go all black cherry, you should include them.

    Snow White is a nice cherry. It tastes good, although not outstanding, and it looks great mixed in with the other colors of cherry tomato. If you are growing that many cherry tomatoes, you might ant to include it.

    Matt's is just okay, at best. Galina's I hated, although it's popular on gardenweb.

  • mickyfinn6777
    15 years ago

    If you want to try something really special, try the new tomato on the block this year (Stramato) A.K.A. strawberry tomato, but now commonly called (Stramato) they are a bit bigger than the average cherry, and are mini heart shaped or strawberry shaped, and the flavor is out of this world a real exquisite taste that beats hands down -tomatoes like Sungold and sweet million, once you have tasted them you will never want anything else after that.

    They come in long strings on the vine of about 18 to 20 per string and ripen to a lovely dark red- and you just cant stop eating them-they are so good.

    As far as I can tell they were developed in Holland and may not be hybrids as such,when I first heard about them I thought they were japanese as there are similar strawberry tomatoes coming from there too,but-no, these definitely come from Holland, and are quite hard and scarce to obtain on the seed market as yet- but will probably be available in the USA in time for next season- so if you happen to see any (Stramato) seeds anywhere -grab them while you have the chance-you wont regret it- other than eating tons more tomatoes than you normaly do :)

  • habitat_gardener
    15 years ago

    I love Black Cherry.

    One year I grew Galina's Yellow next to Sun Sugar and found them to have a similar taste -- both very good.

    My favorite red is Tommy Toe, an Australian heirloom. It's prolific, the cherries are large, and they're good at every stage of ripeness.

    At a recent local tomato tasting, Cuban Yellow Grape was good -- but that was only one tomato. It had a nice pear/grape shape.

    If you're interested in a tomato a little bit larger than a cherry, Black Plum is good. I grew it a couple years ago, and last year the Black Cherry seedling I bought turned out to be Black Plum. This year the two Brown Berry plants turned out to be Black Plum (or maybe Brown Cherry, which I've grown before and was similar to Black Plum, unless that one was mislabeled as well).

  • trudi_d
    15 years ago

    I love Brown Berry, it's a totally awesome cherry tomato, I agree with above that it is a different flavor than Black Cherry. Brown Berry is one of the toms I brought down the first year of MAGTAG, and if I recall correctly it was in the top ten ;-)

    T

  • drcindy
    15 years ago

    I am trying Chocolate Cherry this year. Although the weather in my area is rotten and I've maybe only had 5 ripe ones so far (but the plant is heavily loaded), I really love the taste of these. Sungold is something I have to grow each year. Tried Snow White last year and wasn't very impressed.

  • pappabell
    12 years ago

    mexico midget(both the red and orange variity)
    large red cherry