This year, at our Victory Gardener grow out patch, we decided to grow a bunch of different types of cherry tomatoes and see which was the best. We chose the cultivars based on experience and reviews. Most people choose their cherry tomatoes for several reasons:
- It is most often an indeterminate, so they put out small yummy tomatoes all summer.
- They come in all sorts of colors and sizes to add texture and fun to salads and recipes.
- Kids will often eat them right off the plant opening the door to possible wider food choices and good eating habits.
The Cherry tomato makes it into most people’s garden, however they become overwhelming if not picked regularly. Most people only need a plant or two in their garden unless they truly enjoy the cherry tomato. Cherries don’t have much meat, so they are not much use in sauce or stews as by the time they are pealed there is not much left. Cherry’s also have lots of juice and seeds which adds flavor but does not add meat. Even with all this said, cherry tomatoes are often our largest seller as plants at our market booth in Columbia Missouri. Cherries are also in high demand in our online seed store. Everyone wants to try at least type.
We planted the following 6 Cherry type varieties this year.
- Egg Yolk
- Blue Berry
- Indigo Apple
- Yellow Pear
- 10 Finger of Naples
- Minibell
Results from Worst to Best:
10 Fingers of Naples: This plant did well in the garden, it put out a decent yield of Roma shaped cherry tomatoes. They taste good and have a nice pink tone to them.They are mildly acidic.
Minibell: These patio tomatoes turned out to be the small plants at less than a foot high. They did well in a container on the porch and put out a cute little yield. The taste was OK but not great. This was a fun ornamental, but I would not depend on it for much food.
Yellow Pear: This was a yummy, low acid tomato that put out a good show and then mysteriously just started to die. It was not a nutrient thing, as the leaves just went limp and died while I was out of town. I got a decent yield off it before it gave died, but I was hoping for a longer showing on this one.
Indigo Apple: This was a Wild Boar Farm Tomato seed. The tomatoes were a little larger than cherries. They came in clusters like cherries and were used like cherries in cooking and eating. The plant did well but like many darker tomatoes they took longer to mature and gain flavor.
Blue Berry: This was a Wild Boar Farm Tomato. This tomato was one of my first cherries to bloom and put out fruit. The fruit was tart and acidic.The plant put out a lot of beautiful and colorful tomatoes. The cherries were each red with a dusting of purple on top.They were very beautiful and made a nice splash in the salad. This tomato was a runner up and I would not hesitate to grow it again.
Egg Yolk: This year’s winner of the great Cherry Challenge of 2018 was the Egg Yolk. This tomato was so wonderful. Not only did it put out a very large yield of lovely yellow cherries, the taste was out of this world. They were so yummy that every time I walked by this plant I had to grab some and pop them into my mouth.The Egg Yolk had very little acid and lots of delicious taste. The plant itself was rather lanky has spread its branches over other tomato plants leaving a lovely spray of yellow cherries as it grew.
This year has brought some new tomato cultivars into my garden and I am very happy to have discovered the Egg Yolk and the Blue Berry. They will both be included in the 2018 seed collection on-line, in our plant nursery farmers market booth, and in our own suburban garden.
Stay tuned for The Great Colorful Tomato Challenge of 2018.
