Favorite Heirloom Cherry (Or Grape) Tomato This Year?

sherilou_2010

13 years ago

Which heirloom cherry tomato (or heirloom grape tomato) is your favorite in your garden this year? Please tell us why, if you have time. Thank you!

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Comments (6)

neohippie
13 years ago
Black Cherry did great for me! Good yields and delicious flavor.
sami_k
13 years ago
My all time favorite and the only one I grow now is Golden Nugget. I tested a lot of heirloom tomatoes and these grow in semi shade, are abundant and don't split when the rains come. Oh yes, they taste great too. Mine actually run about an inch. A few are larger. I have grown them in pots as well as in the ground. They need a little staking.

Here is some info. You can get them at many places:

Open pollinated. 60 days.

Determinate. Compact 24 plants support a heavy crop of early bright-golden 1.5" fruits. These garden gems have a rich well-balanced flavor. Most fruits are seedless and resist cracking. A prolific and decorative plant for the home garden. Developed and released by Dr. James Baggett Oregon State University, Dept. of Horticulture.
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I LOVE a small cherry tomato called Matt's Wild Cherry. It's got little tomatoes, but it produces prolificly, grows LARGE (approx.12') and produces until it gets killed off with a hard frost. Best of all, it has an incredibly intense tomato flavor. Because they are a good bite-size, they are great eaten out-of-hand, like candy. It volunteers for me, everywhere I put down compost (dicey, over-ripe tomatoes get composted), but I don't care, I just pull up those that I don't want and transplant a few to places I do want them. I do resow seeds every few years - I THINK I got them from Johnny's Seed Co., but it might have been another one. Since this year is a resow year, I'll have to recheck, but google for them and you'll find sources.
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We grew about 800 heirloom tomatoes this summer, testing 11 varieties. We sell to several restaurants in the Central Arkansas area and the farmer's market. Our niche is large, great tasting heirloom tomatoes. We need flavor, good size, productivity and a tomato that makes it to ripe with a decent appearance. Our best three without a doubt were Carbon (a big dark red), Goldie ( a large golden, not yellow, high acid tomato and Annis Noir, a tomato that when dead ripe is green with red marbling. A little experience is necessary to know when this French heirloom is perfect but you learn quick and it is a fantastic tomato. I almost forgot, we also were extremely pleased with German Giant--big early flush of huge great tasting red tomatoes then a quick die off. There is a lot of competition growing heirlooms and we find it helps to have a color different from fire engine red and we also have found that small heirlooms are more common that truly large ones. Large is tougher to grow--they cat face and often, not as prolific and sell for more. I agree with Pauln that in the South, Brandywine is a non-productive tomato, one that I don't think taste any better than a Carbon. Other years we have had great luck with Oxxacan Jewell and Mariannas Peace but when we planted in subsequent seasons, they did not come through. These four appear to be great, dependable heirlooms in a very harsh climate.
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If it were me I think I'd look at the links Dave gave, b'c the question about cherry tomatoes has been asked many many times. And I know I've posted about cherry tomatoes many times here in most of those threads, but there are always new ones to consider so I'll name just two new red ones that I like. Durmitor, from Serbia (seeds at Victory Seeds) Nano Ciliega, from Italy (seeds from Tania) If you don't know about Tania's superb tomato data base I'll put the link below. If you know the name of a variety click on shortcuts at the top, then use the alphabetical method of finding the page for that variety, which has basic traits, opinions of others, and most with pictures as wekk as seed sources, when available. She features over 4,000 varieties and you can also choose to look at thelink, on the first page, for JUST cherry tomatoes. Hope that helps, Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Tania's tomato database
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So does that make Black Cherry a "new" heirloom (contradiciton in terms)? Is it an heirloom-to-be, or just another hybrid? ******** No, Black Cherry is not a hybrid, it's OP. There's more than one definition of what the word heirloom means when referring to tomato varieties. Most definitions say that the variety should be OP and most say that the variety should have been around quite a few years. One common definition says before 1940 b/c after that date hybrids became available to the public. Another popular definition says the variety should be around for 50 years, so it's a sliding scale. Not an heirloom this year, but it beomes an heirloom next year, if you will. Another definition says it should be a variety passed down within a family from generation to generation. And that can be added to either of the two definitions I mentioned above if you wish/ Another definition says that an heirloom is any variety treasured, but that is not a definition used by many. So take your pick. ( smile) It's a controversial issue and I've given you some different definitions, but it's nothing that I personally want to discuss in detail. Black Cherry and Brown Berry were both bred within the last five years or so which would not make them heirlooms by anyones definition other than those who say that an heirloom is something treasured. And there are darn few folks who adhere to that definition which actually I think was first suggested by Tom Wagner, the breeder of Green Grape, Green Zebra, Lime Green Salad, Greenwich and a few others. Carolyn
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sherilou_2010
Original Author
13 years ago
Sugar Lump a.k.a. Gardener's Delight ended-up being my favorite in 2010. I like a sweet cherry tomato and Sugar Lump was sweeter than Snow White, Porter's Dark Cherry and even sweeter than the hybrid Sweet 100!!
zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
13 years ago
My favorite is "Elfin", an OP grape tomato. Meaty with few seeds, and pleasantly sweet without being "fruity". Huge yields on compact bushes that require no training. Cut in half, they dehydrate very easily. My source was a seed swap; but Tomato Growers Supply & Tomatofest both carry it.
carolynp
13 years ago
Black cherry is my favorite, but I don't grow many cherry tomatoes.
gardenfresh
10 years ago
I've grown many heirloom cherry tomato plants.

The only cherry/grape tomato I've grown every year is Green Grape.

I understand green grape was bred by Tom Wagner, a US plant breeder from Washington State by crossing Yellow Pear with Evergreen and released it in 1978. I found this fact very interesting because I live in Washington State and I've grown both Evergreen and Yellow Pear. I enjoy Evergreen, but the Yellow Pear taste is bland and the texture mealy.

Green Grape has a mixture sweet and tart taste. The seeds are tiny in comparison to other cherry/grape tomato seeds.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:877225}}

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Favorite Heirloom Cherry (Or Grape) Tomato This Year?

Comments (6)

neohippie

sami_k

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Favorite Heirloom Cherry (Or Grape) Tomato This Year?

Comments (6)

neohippie

sami_k

Related Discussions

sherilou_2010Original Author

zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin

carolynp

gardenfresh

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sherilou_2010
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