In Past Yard Talks we discussed the round slicing tomato such as Burpee’s Big Boy and Big Girl, Rutgers, and Beefsteak. These big round tomatoes are the most common varieties found in the home garden. Our parents and their parents grew up growing and eating these fruit. When they thought about tomatoes these are the ones that popped into their minds. Ask anyone over 40 what his or her favourite tomato is and they will say one of the slicing tomato.
Ask someone from a younger generation and you will be surprised as they will surely say the cherry tomato. Yes, those funny round things we find buried in our salad greens. My grandmother use to raise them along her patio although I never saw anyone eat them. As a kid they made useful ammunition for our trusty sling shots. It would not seem like Summer if the dogs, cats, and neighbourhood girls did not all sport red spots.
Well folks, as much as I hate to admit it, my favorite tomato today is the lowly cheery tomato. I eat more of these darn things then I care to admit. There are more varieties of these grown then that old slicer and they taste better to boot.
They are used in salads, stuffed, baked, and canned as preserves. Put a bowl of Sweet 100’s out as a snack food and watch how quick they disappear. We really like Stuffed Devilled Cherry Tomatoes or as a quick lunch Tuna Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes. Eaten fresh from the vine, they are sweet and juicy. With a higher sugar content than many tomatoes, cherry tomatoes have become fast food, finger food and kid-friendly.
My favorite Cherry Tomatoes are:
- Super Sweet 100 Hybrid is a scarlet indeterminate which bears cherry-sized fruits in 70 days on long clusters right up to frost. Bursting with sugary flavor. Scarlet, cherry-sized fruits are produced in long clusters right up to frost.
- Yellow Pear has an enormous number of yellow bite-sized fruits in 75 days, indeterminate. This extremely old variety makes a vigourous plant, which bears enormous numbers of bright yellow, bite-sized fruit. The flavor is deliciously tangy. Perfect for summer party hors d’oeuvres.
- Juliet Hybrid an indeterminate tomato that looks like a miniature Italian plum tomato but it is really a juicy and sweet cherry. Big vines produce grape-like clusters.
