I don't have much experience growing cherry tomatoes, but would like to try some this summer. I welcome your recommendations! Which varieties do you enjoy most/have you had the best experiences growing?

My ideal parameters would be...

• Heirloom/OP
  A reasonably compact plant (doesn't need to be dwarf, though)
  DTM of 75 days or less
  Red, orange, purple, or bicolour
  Fantastic taste

Thanks!

Maglia Rosa, a compact plant with /green bullet-shaped tomatoes. I grow them in 3 gallon containers.

Blush, yellow/red bullet-shaped tomatoes that I grow in the garden in cages

Both have fantastic taste!

Big Sungold Select is a pretty good-tasting orange one with medium-large cherries. Don't expect it to be super sweet like SunGold F1 (but it's good nonetheless, on merits that don't particularly have to do with sweetness). It's not exactly compact, but the plant isn't huge like some.

Snow Fairy is a decent dwarf with large red cherry tomatoes, and although the flavor is good, it's not shocking or anything. Pretty standard, but good, red flavor.

If you wanted bigger plants and other colors, I might have more suggestions, though!

Shule wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:35 pm
If you wanted bigger plants and other colors, I might have more suggestions, though!

Sure, I would love to hear them!

Rosella and it's sibling, Garnet are fabulous. All of our KARMA series are OP, and are delicious large PL cherries, there are 6 of them. Hybrid, but SunGold is always a pleaser.

Your compact plant requirement is the most limiting of your parameters. Cherry tomatoes seem to be the most sprawling of indeterminates. I have had vines grow over ten feet long in the course of a summer.

I like Maglia Rosa, too. And it is not op, but there is a compact red cherry hybrid called Terrenzo that is quite good. Lizzano is from the same seed company and gets good reviews, but I have not tried it myself.

I'll second Maglia Rosa, but it's a pink and yellow, not green.

I adore Rosella. Amazingly delicious purple cherries on indeterminate but fairly tidy plants.

Dee wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:21 pm

Shule wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:35 pm
If you wanted bigger plants and other colors, I might have more suggestions, though!

Sure, I would love to hear them!

For other colors (without the compact requirement, too), Ovita (pink) is definitely my favorite for taste, followed by Green Tiger (green), and Porter (pink). Their plants actually aren't huge, but they're indeterminate still and not small. Porter can get big, and it is prolific, but it's slow-growing in my garden. Chocolate Pear (brown) has good taste and in my garden it's early. It's fairly prolific, too (but definitely a cherry-size); the plant is not small.

I don't have a strong recommendation because I don't feel I've grown enough cherries to be an authority.

I will throw out that for some reason I've never had the typical reaction to Sun Gold. I've grown it three times and enjoyed the early fruit, but not as much as the Black Cherry next to it. Also, SG seems to develop a thick, unappetizing skin as the summer heats up here.

Black Cherry has become the cherry I grow every year. I did start some Large Red Cherry this year from a 20 cent American Seed packet and the seeds germinated well and the seedlings are vigorous and fast growing. Interested to see how they taste.

Also trying Super Snow White, Blondkopfchen and Christmas Grapes this year so I'll report back.

We also like Black Cherry here and we think that Sun Sugar beats Sun Gold

Thank you all for your recommendations, this info is very helpful!

My favorite cherries so far have been Maglia Rosa, lucky tiger (amazing flavor, green/red/yellow color), black cherry and all the bumblebee tomatoes (sunrise, pink, purple). Sungold is a classic with great flavor and very productive, but a hybrid. I also grew Blush last year, we had a rainy year and it was very prone to cracking, but everyone liked the flavor (wasn’t my favorite so I am not going to grow it this year).

I'm posting this here.
I have a cherrytomatoes cooking experiment I just thought of never before seen by human kind.
I'll post it in the cooking section if it works.

Average size plant with great tasting large-ish cherries: Dr. Carolyn. Large plant with great tomatoey -tasting small cherries: Post Office Spoonful (Italian heirloom, I have seeds).

Another vote for Black Cherry. For a super-sweet red, Sweet Aperitif is great. The fruits are on the smaller side, the plants are not, so a couple of plants can give you lots of tomatoes. And our favorite yellow is Galina's. We grew them along our deck last year and let the railing support them. I think some of the plants probably got 12 -15 feet in length

Edie, do you find Galina's crunchy?

Linda

EdieJ wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:49 pm Another vote for Black Cherry. For a super-sweet red, Sweet Aperitif is great. The fruits are on the smaller side, the plants are not, so a couple of plants can give you lots of tomatoes. And our favorite yellow is Galina's. We grew them along our deck last year and let the railing support them. I think some of the plants probably got 12 -15 feet in length

Sweet Apéritif will give you very sweet small tomatoes but is a monster of a plant in the garden....

Linda, no, Galina's had about the same size and "edible-ness" as Black Cherry for us. Not real thick skins either. My DH prefers them over all the others that we grow.

EdieJ wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:07 pm Linda, no, Galina's had about the same size and "edible-ness" as Black Cherry for us. Not real thick skins either. My DH prefers them over all the others that we grow.

It's a good tomato.
Way under utilized.