The Husky Red Cherry was by far the favorite of my mom and one sister, both finding Sun Gold and SS100 too sweet, Juliet, Porters Dark Cherry, and Yellow Pear too mild.

Katy:

Not to hijack this thread, but I always take cuttings of one or two plants and overwinter them so I have "a little something" early next spring. It works better with cherries. I usually do it the day after the first frost, when the plants have a little damage, but the inside sprouts are still OK. Then I put them somewhere a little warm (like on top of a fridge) so they will grow, but slowly. Sometimes I have to re-pot them if they grow too big, or not. Then I plant them out in March or April.

Carla in Sac

The favorites from our garden this year (in order of my older DD's preference):

1. Black Cherry
   2. Sungold
   3. Snow White
   4. Isis Candy

Very little difference between Negro Azteca and Black Cherry except for taste....BC was winner, hands down.

I am very impressed with Husky Cherry Red. It is sweet, tart, "meaty," very crack resistant, and has a very manageable growth habit, especially if you want to grow it in an Earth Box (or similar container). The only down-side that I see is that it's skins are a little tougher than I'd like, but not excessively so. Last, it a very good producer -- far more than you would think for a 4-5' plant.
-WC

Husky Red sounds interesting, especially the part about the manageable size.

The Black Cherry i grew this year tumbled out and over the 8' CRW cage, ripped out the 1/2" rebar stake on one side and bent the stake on the other side in half as it toppled over. Still going strong ; )

Course we do get quite a bit of wind....

I like a lot of the ones mentioned, but I think my favorite this year was black pearl, which I bought at the farmers market. They're delicious and insanely pretty. I saved seeds and can't wait to grow it myself. (Hopefully it's the OP version)

I may have missed it but no one has mentioned my favorite ,which is Galinas. It's a very tasty,productive,Yellow on a Potato Leaf plant.

I grew SunGold last year. Loved it even though we had horrible weather and never had a problem with them cracking.

I'm gonna try Sun Sugar in 2010 though. I prefer a smaller cherry and Sun Sugar is smaller. I've read mixed reviews on people being able to tell them apart or not. We'll see next summer. My other hybrid is gonna be Sun Cherry. SWEET, SWEET, SWEET.

I am gonna also buy Black cherry from a different source too. They did not wow me last summer and they get such rave reviews I want to try them again. I think I'll order them from TGS when I pick some other stuff up in winter. My seed source for BC was Marianna's Heirloom's for 2009.

If anybody wants to try her BC, LMK. I have seed left over.

Melissa1977

A few notes about Sara's Galapagos: Very balanced flavor. Like having a normal sizetomato in cherry form. Holds for a LONG time on the vine and no cracking, splitting, etc. Got a boat load of fruits off of one plant that was grown in part shade. A bit small, butnot a pain in the arse, like currant tomatoes. Black cherry is the most delicious, but even the act of picking them is enough to make them split in your hand.

Just wanted to report back:

Black Cherry-Fine
Sun Sugar-Fine
Sun Gold-Pretty good
Snow White-Fine
Gardener's Delight-Fine
Green Grape-WOW! Really great flavor, thanks for the recommendation.

What else tastes that good?

For Red -- Sweet 100
For yellow -- Dr. C

We've been growing Dr. Carolyn Pink for about 3 years now and it has become a staple in our garden. Nicely prolific, doesn't seem to be so prone to splitting, and great true-tomato flavor. It's the only cherry/grape that we are growing as a repeat this year. The rest of the list is: Chocolate Cherry, Ildi, Orange Peruche, Green Grape and Cupid (Grape.) Green Grape doesn't seem to be doing much so far but all the others have bunches of trusses of little greenies. In our climate we rarely start harvesting before the end of July or the beginning of August. Given the drowning they went through a few weeks ago and this awful heat wave now, that they are setting anything at all is just amazing.

For me it's a toss-up between Cherokee Green Grape (CGG, not GG) and Sungold, with Matt's Wild Cherry my favorite red cherry.

Have any advise for great tasting red cherry, OP, works well in zone 5 cool nites, reasonable size?

Am on the third year of sweet cherry 100, would like an OP.

d

col sprg maters,

I'm 45 minutes south of you in Pueblo. I know it's a bit warmer down here. Here's a pic of the Riesentraube in my garden. In addition to being extremely productive, it's a smaller plant than the other OP cherry tomatoes I've grown here.

I got a late start with my tomatoes this year but my Matt's Wild Cherry has been growing like a weed ( with just a touch of EB ) and started ripening this weekend and we had some on our salad last night ... yummy ! they are small cherries but they are oh so sweet and full of flavor , perfect on a garden salad ;-)

I'm going bump this post because It's been over a month and I'm very curious about any new reports. Has anyone tried Sungold Select II this year??

Beautiful photos! Thank you!!

I really can't say enough good things about Matt's Wild Cherry! They were the earliest to ripen. I'm just amazed in that tiny tomato how big a flavor it has. It's a "beefsteak" tomato in a small "cherry" tomato body. They really burst with all that yummy tomato-y flavor when you pop them in your mouth.

I'll be growing these again.

My other big favorite for cherry tomatoes are black cherry. Yum! It's the second year that I've grown them and will grow them again.

Black Cherry has been a big hit here.

korney19, where do you get seeds for your Cherokee Green Grape? I did a web search and didn't find anything.

Definitely Sungold but in the interest of full disclosure I have never tried Black Cherry. Do they grow well in Zone 5?

I'm in 5B and they grew fine. They were significantly later (about 3 weeks?) to bear ripe fruit than my Sungold and Supersweet100 plants.

Mike63, I'm in upstate NY, zone 5 and yes, cherry tomatoes do well in zone 5.

For cherry tomatoes, the biggest producers with the best taste have been: Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tommy Toe, and Supersweet 100's.

I've also grown Yellow Pears (productive, cute, but a little bland), Brown Berry (yummy, but not as productive as Black Cherry), Blondekopchen (disappointing yellow cherry, productive but no flavor), Jelly Bean (tough skin), and Sungolds (yeah, I thing they mislabelled the seeds. Mine were a dark orange color and not tasty at all. I'm going to try growing these again).

Has anyone mentioned Sungold?

I take cherry and grape tomatoes to work since we have a surplus, and they make such nice snacks. This year I am growing a color mix. Here is the order of disappearance of the cherry and other small tomatoes:

Black cherries
sungolds
green grapes
aliana yellows
texas wild (a red)

I am still in search for a good red OP cherry.

Well, here's another vote for GREEN DOCTORS. A wonderful cherry tomato with outstanding flavor. Just as good as SUNGOLD in my opinion, and better than BLACK CHERRY.

I grew out seeds from BIG SUNGOLD SELECT, not mentioned here, and find it inferior to the hybrid Sungold. Plus it ain't yellow :-)

Gary

mike63: "Definitely Sungold but in the interest of full disclosure I have never tried Black Cherry. Do they grow well in Zone 5?"

I'm in zone 6 and those are pretty much the only two cherries I grow every year. I'll add one other small tomato sometimes, but neither one of them ever comes out of the mix.

And, if I were forced to choose only one, it would be Sungold, and the choice wouldn't be difficult.

I grew Sun Gold and Supersweet 100 and liked them, but they are so small it takes too long to pick a decent volume of them. Ildi is also small but they grow in clusters that make them very easy to pick. Isis Candy gets better tasting as the season progresses, and are about twice the size of Sun Gold. The sleeper no one mentioned is Juliette, not really a cherry because it is oblong shaped. The unique thing about Juliette is it never rots or gets sun scald, and are super easy to pick because they break off clean and don't split while picking them. If they fall off by themselves and sit on the ground for a few days they still look perfect. They don't taste as good as the others, but the no rot, no insect damage properties offset that and I will grow them every year for making sun dried tomatoes.
Chadwick cherry is much bigger than the other cherries, but the taste is just O.K.

Yellow Currant hands down. these tiny little jewels BURST in your mouth with so much flavour. They aren't overly sweet and have a good tomatoey bite.

I wasn't thrilled with Black Cherry this year or Anna Aasa

In my opinon Haley's purple comet, Evan's purple pear (from Wild Boar farms)and Amish gold (a bit larger, with sungold in it's pedigree) are right up their with the favorites, (mine too!) sungold and black cherry. Sweetgold, a hybrid is another winner. These are my favorites. I'm growing 20+ cherries for color and variety but these are the ones I eat off the vine and keep for myself......

Quick update- Green Grape was the most flavorful but yield was low ; ( Snow White was the most productive but keeps poorly.

Next year's grow list so far:

SunGold
Green Doctors
Husky Red Cherry
Riesentraube

Is Green Doctors a sport of Galina? Thinking about trying that one, too.

Californian i like Juliet for all the reasons you listed. It's not my first choice for fresh eating but great for cooking, especially roasted.

Large Red Cherry,and Mexican Midget for salads,And Sungold for eating out of hand in the garden.Sungold too sweet for salads!!

My Sungolds, which are normally my absolute favorite cherry, have been extremely prolific, even faced with a psyllid infestation, however they haven't been sweet. At all.

Isis Candy, however, has been a total and complete scene-stealer. The fruits are larger than Sungold, but beautiful and yellow/red, and they're meaty, fruity flavored, and SWEET! I blame the cool weather for the less-than-stellar Sungolds, but since Isis Candy has done so well with the temps, I think I'll be planting much more next year, and replacing some of the spots I'd normally reserve for Sungolds.

Always Sun Gold. Would like to try a purple/black cherry next year ... Black Cherry or Chocolate Cherry.

SunSugar has been a reliable producer of super sweet cherry tomatoes for the last 2 years in my garden.

And the best part is that they don't crack, even when left to ripen on the vine and we have a heavy downpour!

Happy Gardening,

PJ

Red - Gardener's Delight or Supersweet 100's
Yellow/Gold - Sungold
Black - Black Cherry
Green - ??? NOT Green Grape
JMO,
Tom

ruthz, contact me in January, CGG one of my projects. It won first place in its category at the East Concord (NY) Tomato Festival judging in 2007...

{{gwi:1351703}}

On another note, I should also mention that Snow White won "Sweetest Tomato" at the Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest party both 2009 & 2010!

korney19, sent you a pm regarding above post.

I didn't see even one mention of Sweet Baby Girl. I keep these in pots by my pool and even the tomato hating grandson pops them in his mouth as he gets in & out of the pool. Are they too sweet ? They split in rainy weather but we eat them anyway... is that bad?

There's a new variety out called Val's Red Nibbler. Available from Gleckler Seedmen.It's a Red Grape with excellent production and sweeeet tomato taste. Ami

Here is a link that might be useful: Val's Red Nibbler

Koralik is my new favorite red cherry. It is sweet, flavorful, and prolific. There is no downside.

I have tried Juliet cherries for 3 years. First year it was fantastic. Could not eat enough. Last 2 years, not as good but I thought it was the weird weather. I never see it listed on here as a favorite.
Taste is subjective but I don't quite understand the sweetness issue. Don't care for overly sweet taste. Just wish I could find tomatoes tasting like from my parents' garden in the 50's and 60's!!

Site issue: I always wonder why you must preview your message and can't just hit "post" after writing it!

I like SSE's Velvet Red, the 2009 winner, and Lemon Drop, the 2010 winner. These have more of a "big tomato" flavor in a small size and are not as sweet as a lot of cherries.

I still like Sungold for a sweeter flavor and ease of growing.

If you want to look at some recent tomatoes in this general group, take a look at Blush from Seeds of Change and Wow from Fedco.

DarJones

I am growing super sweet 100 this year for the first time so can't say yet but am glad to see the high praise it has received here.

I grew sunsugar 2 years ago and found it to be the sweetest ever. Produced well. Not a very complex taste though.

Last year I grew sungold. Not as sweet as sunsugar but delicious. My favorite tomato. The first tomatoes were tart but they became sweeter later in the year. Huge production even though a rabbit bit off the top when the plant was still tiny. I took it down on Oct. 18 and it still had over 200 green tomatoes left. Complex taste like wine. I regret not growing sungold again this year but didn't have time to grow from seed and the nursery only had the supersweet100s.

A lot of info to digest.Just what 2 cherry tomatoes would be easy enough for a 1st time gardener?

Just what 2 cherry tomatoes would be easy enough for a 1st time gardener?

Any of them would be fine unless you are using some sort of small container - please don't. The bigger the container the better your results will be as most cherry varieties are very BIG plants.

But unless you plan to grow from seed yourself your choice will be limited to whatever transplants are available for you to buy locally. Can't say what those choices might be in your area.

Dave

I'll cast a vote for yellow pear. Also, who has experience with burpee cherries jubilee?

My favorite by far is the snow white.....I love the sweet ones! Botanical interests carries a "rainbow blend" that has snow white, green grape, red sweetie, multi colored, and sun gold.....the multi colored is very good too......starts off yellow, then gets a beautiful rose colored hue!