- 10 Tips for Growing Heirloom Tomatoes
- Webinar Slide Deck | Tomatoes: 10 Unsung Heroes | 34-pp PDF
- Common Tomato Pests, Diseases & Physiological Disorders | An Overview of Biotic & Abiotic Problems
- French Heritage Tomato Varieties | The Best of the Old World Marries the New
- Grafted Tomato Plants | Key Growing Information
- Greenhouse Tomatoes | Key Growing Information
- Grow a Rainbow Mix of Cherry Tomatoes
- 'Maxifort' Rootstock Tomato Germination | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Open-Pollinated Revival Project: 3 Improved OP Heirloom & Heritage Tomatoes
- Rootstock Tomatoes | Key Growing Information
- Determinate Tomato Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Greenhouse Tomato Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Greenhouse Tomato Pruning & String Trellising | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Heirloom Tomato Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Indeterminate Tomato Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Tomatoes | Key Growing Information
- Paste, Plum & Roma Tomato Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Basket-weave Trellising Instructions for Tomato & Pepper Plants | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Side-Grafting Tomatoes | Advantages, Materials, Technique | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Top-Grafting Tomatoes | Advantages, Materials, Technique | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Tomato Production Challenges & Issues | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Video: Tomato Top-Grafting Demo: Splice Grafting & Cleft Grafting • Materials & Technique
- Video: An Intro to the Fundamentals of Tomato Grafting Success | Johnny's Webinar Series
- Video: How to Grow Cherry Tomatoes • From Seed to Harvest
- Video: Artisan Tomatoes™ | from Johnny's Selected Seeds
- Video: How to Prune Greenhouse Tomatoes
- Video: 'Cherry Bomb' | JSS-Bred Organic Cherry x Grape Tomato from Johnny's
- Video: 'Clementine' | The Tangerine-Colored, Organic Cocktail Tomato from Johnny's Breeding Team
- Video: Tomatoes: 10 Unsung Heroes | Johnny's Webinar Series
- Video: How to Identify Late Blight on Tomatoes
- Video: How to Manage Late Blight on Tomatoes (Phytophthora infestans)
- Video: How We Process Our 'Washington Cherry' Tomato Seed
- Video: How to Prune Tomatoes
- Video: How to Graft Greenhouse Tomatoes
- Tomatoes: 10 Unsung Heroes | Johnny's Educational Webinar Resources
- Video: Growing Tomatoes in Containers with Niki Jabbour & Johnny's
- Late-Summer Recipe Preview with Farmer-Chef Frank Giglio | Three Lily Farm, Thorndike, Maine
- Video: Choosing & Growing Paste Tomatoes for Sauce-Making • with Niki Jabbour
- Video: 'Hot Streak' : The Vibrant New Striped Tomato | Exclusively from Johnny's
- Video: High-Value Crops & Varieties for Your Garden • Tutorial with Niki Jabbour
- Tomato Variety Trends: How Breeding Influences Your Seed Selection | Johnny's Educational Webinar Resources
- Video: 'Mochi' : The Gumdrop-like Cherry Tomato | Exclusively from Johnny's
- Video: Tomato Pruning 101 • Tutorial with Niki Jabbour
- Tomato Innovation: Breeding & Trialing for Your Finest Harvest
- Fundamentals of Tomato Grafting | Johnny's Educational Webinar Resources
- Webinar Slide Deck | Fundamentals of Tomato Grafting | 15-pp PDF
- Top-10 Field Tomatoes to Try in Your High Tunnel
- Tomato Innovation: Breeding & Trialing for Your Finest Harvest
- Webinar Slide Deck | Tomato Variety Trends: How Breeding Influences Your Seed Selection | 29-pp PDF
- Trellising & Crop Support Systems for Tomatoes | Stake & Basketweave, Stake & Hanging String/Wire, Lower & Lean
- Video: Tomato Variety Trends: How Breeding Influences Your Seed Selection | Johnny's Webinar Series
- 3 Ways to Choose the Best Tomato Varieties | Johnny's Selected Seeds
by Lynn Byczynski, Author & Founder of Growing for Market
A colorful mixture of cherry tomato varieties is a popular item at farmers' markets, farm stands, and supermarkets. Creating a rainbow mix elevates the humble cherry tomato to gourmet status and calls out for a taste comparison. Customers who buy a cherry tomato mix once will be back for more because these varieties really do offer different flavors as well as colors, and all of them are delicious.
At Johnny's research farm, we grew a mix of cherry tomato varieties that are all about the same size and ready to harvest simultaneously. The varieties we chose for our suggested mix are 'Black Cherry', 'White Cherry', 'Favorita', 'Sun Peach', 'Cherry Bomb', and 'Sun Gold'. All are indeterminate varieties and range 58 to 65 days to first harvest, and all the fruits are about 1¼" in diameter. (However, any selection of cherry or grape tomato varieties can make a good mix — choice is part of the magic of growing your own!)
The tomatoes were grown in a high tunnel with drip irrigation underneath ground cloth to eliminate weeds. Plants were spaced 12" to 14" in the row and pruned to create two vines, or leaders. Suckers were pruned off the plants as they grew. String was tied to the high-tunnel purlins, and the vines were trained onto the string utilizing tomato trellis clips.
If you plan to keep any indeterminate tomatoes all season in a high tunnel, you should leave extra string after attaching it to the purlin. Tomato plants can get so tall you will need to let the strings down late in the season to harvest the fruits — unless you want to pick from a ladder. Alternatively, consider using the trellising system known as lower and lean; this method provides a way to increase efficiency if you intend to keep your vines productive over time.
In the Johnny's trial, the high tunnel tomatoes had few pest or disease problems. Nor was pollination an issue; just walking through the high tunnel can vibrate the plants enough for them to pollinate themselves. The variety 'Sun Gold' is prone to cracking if it gets too much moisture, so we put a valve on the drip line to those plants and reduced the amount of water they received relative to the other varieties. In seeking to provide growers with an alternative solution, we additionally have subsequently bred 'Citrine', an orange cherry tomato variety that very closely approximates 'Sun Gold' but with less cracking.
Labor is the biggest issue with cherry tomatoes. They need to be picked every day or two for maximum yield, which makes them time-consuming, pound for pound, compared to regular tomatoes. But, cherries offer beauty, flavor, versatility in the kitchen, and convenient snackability — they are certainly an eye-catching produce item that pulls in customers.
Byczynski and her family have been growing vegetables and cut flowers since 1988, selling through CSAs, at farmers' markets, to chefs, grocery stores, and florists. They currently grow cut flowers and hoophouse tomatoes on about 2 acres of their 20-acre farm near Lawrence, Kansas.
She is also the author/editor of two of our favorite books about market farming, The Flower Farmer and The Hoophouse Handbook.