Flavour bursts often come in small packages — and cherry toms are a comparatively no-fuss crop.
Words Jennifer Stackhouse/ Variety table photos Diggers Club
Although we’re in the midst of harvesting tomatoes, there’s plenty of time left to grow a crop of cherry tomatoes.
They can be started from seed or bought as seedlings from your garden centre or hardware store and planted now.
The vines keep producing fruit right through autumn. Indeed, last year, despite a cold winter, I was still harvesting cherry tomatoes in June and July.
In tropical and subtropical climates, grow cherry tomatoes in preference to ordinary tomatoes in the hottest, most humid months of the year.
Tomatoes are among the most popular and rewarding crops for summer gardens but they can be tricky to grow and are often slow to ripen. If you want a trouble-free yet tasty tomato, grow cherry tomatoes.
Cherry tomatoes are highly productive. While each fruit may measure just 1cm in size, trusses can produce 10 or more fruit.
Importantly, cherry tomatoes escape many of the pest and disease problems that afflict larger tomatoes.
In particular, the small, cherry-sized fruit with its slightly tough skin is overlooked by one of the most problematic of all tomato pests — fruit fly — making cherry tomatoes a good choice for organic gardeners.
They tend to avoid blossom end rot in the crop and, quick to form fruit, they also tolerate extremes of both heat and cold.
They are a great beginner plant and highly rewarding in a children’s garden.
If you’ve grown cherry tomatoes before you may already have discovered one of the joys of these edible plants: they often self-seed in the vegetable garden or in the compost heap.
If you have the space — and cherry tomatoes can become large, sprawling plants — let the self sown tomato grow or transplant it to a better location.
If you already have too many tomato plants, just remove the volunteer plant (or pot it up for a friend).
Growing tips
Like all tomatoes, cherries grow best in full sun (or with light afternoon shade in hotter climates) but are productive even in more shaded situations.
Tomatoes may stop flowering and fruiting when temperatures rise above 35°C. However, when the temperatures drop below this level, they’ll return to productivity. Tomatoes prefer a slightly acidic to neutral, light, well-drained soil but will also grow well in slightly alkaline soil.
Dig in compost or well-rotted manure before planting — though self-sown cherries seem to grow even in poor soils.
In areas with heavy or poorly drained soils, grow tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, in raised garden beds.
Cherry tomatoes are tall-growing vines (indeterminate) that need plenty of space and the support of 2–3m high stakes, tripod or trellis. When planting, space plants 50–60cm apart.
If growing from seed, expect germination in 6–14 days and thin out seedlings to avoid overcrowding. Water seedlings gently.
As the plant grows, tie growth to the stakes using a soft tie so as not to damage the stem. Fasten below a leaf stalk or flower cluster.
Cherry tomatoes are naturally bushy and leafy but can be pruned to prevent the plant breaking under the weight of its growth or to control its size if it outgrows its support.
Although cherry tomatoes are self-sufficient, with care they’ll grow better and produce fruit for longer.
Keep plants weeded, mulched and well watered. Spreading organic mulch around each plant suppresses weeds and helps retain soil moisture. As flowers appear, apply an organic tomato food every 2–4 weeks.
Although cherry tomatoes avoid most problems that beset their larger cousins, they can still suffer from tomato russet mite.
While this tiny mite is hard to see, its damage is obvious, particularly in hot weather: leaves start to brown and die from the base of the plant moving upwards.
Control with regular applications of tomato dust, which will also control other pests such as caterpillars and thrips. Removing the lower leaves from the plant and keeping it well staked, mulched and away from contact with soil can also slow the mite attack.
Harvest and use
Cherry tomatoes start flowering and fruiting while the plant is still young and will keep on fruiting while the plant continues to grow, which is often long after other tomatoes have stopped being productive.
Leave fruit to ripen on the vine or pick a fruiting cluster that has a mix of ripe, slightly coloured and green fruit to ripen fully indoors. Ideally, once they begin to ripen, harvest cherry tomatoes every day.
Tomato lovers may feel that the small fruit of the cherry tomato won’t have the flavour or be as enjoyable to eat as a larger variety; however, cherry tomatoes are sweet and full of flavour and juice can be used just like any other tomato, including in tomato sauces, in salads and on sandwiches.
They’re also a great snack straight off the vine while you’re in the garden. Kids often like the small, sweet fruit and may eat cherry tomatoes in preference to other varieties.
Varieties of Cherry Tomatoes
The commonly encountered cherry tomato that may pop up in the garden as seedlings will have small, round, red fruit but there are varieties with larger fruit. There are also cherry-style tomatoes with pink, yellow, green or purple-tinged fruit and some that have oval- or grape shaped fruit. Growing a mix of fruiting colours adds interest to summer salads.