I have a farm that sells tomatoes to restaurants in my area. This year we had around 1000 tomato plants but only 70 cherry plants, so we sold out of cherries every single week.
This year I’m looking to grow around 200 cherry tomato plants.
Last year my cherries were:
Auriga
Black Cherry
Blondkopfchen
Blue Cream Berries
Green Doctor’s
Green Grape
Hartman’s Yellow Gooseberry
Helsing Junction Blues
Honey Drop Cherry
Isis Candy
Porter’s Cherry
Rosella
We try not to grow any hybrids (although I think Honey Drop was one). So Sungold is out.
What are your favorite cherry varieties? I need help picking more for next year!
by thetangible
9 Comments
I only grow two because they top anything else we’ve tried…black cherry and Tropical Sunset. Both heirloom, both incredibly flavored and you can’t beat the color combo 🙂
Midnight snack
We grew Purple Bumblebee and Indigo Rose this year. The Purple Bumblebee were incredibly prolific, and I thought the flavor was similar to a Black Krim, which I loved. The Indigo Rose had a nice flavor especially when fully ripe, but took foreverrrrr to ripen and with two plants I maybe got the same production as I did from one Purple Bumblebee.
Prairie Fire or Suncherry Extra Sweet.
The late Fred Hempel’s artisan cherry tomatoes are all excellent. I like blush, pink tiger, and sunrise bumblebee. They are indeterminate. If you also grow determinates, Fred made another great variety called Maglia Rosa.
My midnight snack cherry produced HUNDREDS from one plant and is such a cool looking tomato
My favorite cherries, aside from Black Cherry, are all hybrids (and would be even more strongly so if I was doing it for money!)…..but I consider any of the Bumblebee series worth growing. Been awhile since I grew any, but they were always reasonably sturdy plants, decently productive and good eating quality, and “fancy” enough to pique peoples interest.
Sunrise Bumble Bee did great for me and produced the longest
Katinka cherry is a heirloom comparable to SunGold.