Sungold tomatoes are an F1 hybrid. They do not come true from saved seeds. A search on the Growing from Seed forum or even Google will provide more information. Some people who do save the seeds report that they produce a good tasting red cherry tomato, but they are not as good as Sungold.

zornitzayoung, why not just plant a single plant and don't remove any suckers? There's no reason to prune except lack of space. If there's room for two plants, planted in the same hole, with one stalk each, then why not a single plant with 2, 3, or 4 stems? I should add that I was raised to prune to the main stem, but realized how severely that limited yield. Then again, I suppose there might be an advantage to 2 separate plants if the season is particularly short. The second plant would bear a week or two before the oldest sucker on a single plant would. You don't give a location or a USDA zone, so I can't tell if that might be the reason. === A few years back, due to family illness, I didn't start my own seeds. The plants I bought were from Bonnie, and many had suckers coming up through the planting mix (which didn't bother me -- and they were pretty determined suckers!). The Black Krim turned out to be two plants of different varieties. When I realized that, I gave them more water than the other tomatoes, but for whatever reason, toward the end of the summer, the BK died. I don't know how typical that is when two plants are started together and barely pruned. [The tomato that survived -- a dark pink egg that didn't match anything Bonnie was selling that year -- was one of the few highlights of a difficult year.]

How are the skins? I've always found that Sungolds, whether home grown or farmer's market bought, had relatively thick skins. I know it's gross, but when I eat them in bulk, more often than not, I keep a paper towel with me so that I can spit out the skins. I would have thought that drying them, while very tasty, would make already tough skin even tougher, but it'd be exciting to learn otherwise (though it probably won't do me much good this year, since that's the plant that the psyllids seem to be loving best :(). Have you tried using a micro-serrated steak knife to cut them in half? I've found that it's easier to use my steak knives for tomatoes, rather than even the sharpest Shun knife in the set.

Thanks, robin and vince. Ah, robin, I think you're right. Some tomatoes are way too bushy nuts w the suckers, but I think that for my sandy soil and not so sunny garden, I need to leave the s suckers on Sun Gold. I just went out and got 5 tomatoes from two plants. True, I need to weed (competition) and I think I am not putting enough fertilizer w minerals often enough for my super well draining sandy loam. I say, "sandy loam" -- it was all construction gravel over a sloped woodland lot (oh, yep, the nice topsoil was pushed by the bull dozer onto the next lot, downslope that, guess what, the excavator w the dozer owned (he's dead ). But I can grab some woodland soil/leaf mold from another wood area, it's just WORK to lug it, even w a wheel barrow. Atop the gravel fill, was spread some unsifted loam (from a pond excavation), but it only covered about 4-5 inches. Over the years I added chopped hardwood leaves, horse manure (weed seeds and all -- don't think I'll do that again), peat moss and decayed (not cooked) compost. One fellow rototilling it some years ago thought it had good "tilth" (word? ). Now there are worms in the soil, there were none, zero, when I started. It is a small area, but I am limited in my gardening work because I have bad back pain 24/7 and lots of other work and projects. Plus ugly interior New England heat and humidity make me collapse into a sogged clothing heap. (I hate it when I want to move quickly, and the humidity is so great that my clothing sticks to me as if I'm trapped in blackberry bushes.) I'll try to go out and "Fertilize" and weed. Shall I go for a blue liquid Miracle Grow hit (1 Tbs per gallon of well water), and the balanced or the superbloom type? Or would it be better to work in (around the plants) some Epsoma vegetable or tomato fertilizer? Or big box store "composted manure" that I bought for I forgot what? I need a climate with gentle breezes for sailing, no more than 40% Relative humidity; 70 deg F (okay, 55-75), a good shake of sunshine. Vince! what soil do you have, man? Zone 8 = warmth? Thanks again, people. The few tomatoes I've eaten are delish, but I need to improve my weeding and environment. What's hosta taste like in a salad? ;?