Black Cherry Tomato

By now the black tomatoes are well known for their smoky, rich taste. Black Cherry is no slouch in this department; it wins raves everywhere and even beat out the sugar snack hybrid, Sungold, at the Laytonville Farmers' Market tomato tasting of 2010. Sweeter than most blacks, as befits a cherry, Black Cherry still retains a deeper, more complex taste than other cherry tomatoes. It's a bit larger too, so you can use it in cooked dishes or halve it for salads.

Though the fruits on the vine have a beautiful opalescent sheen, the plant itself is a rangy sprawler, not a front porch ornamental. It produces heavily all season but needs hot days to bring out its full flavor.

Culture: Start seeds indoors six weeks before last frost. Good soil, full sun, and they’ll definitely need to be caged or staked.

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Grown in 2010; germination tested November 2011: 95%

Packet = around 40 seeds -- $3.