RedCherryTomato#

A very early, red, cherry Tomato, produces prolifically. These are our earliest Tomatoes without fail, and they go on and on and on producing until we basically get sick of seeing them and yank them out, or they simply stop growing due to Winter rolling around.

Tomatoes are tasty, tart and juicy. Skins tough enough that they can cope with transport and handling, but not so tough as to become intrusive, like some other cherry Tomatoes we've chewed on. Fruit borne on trusses of 5 or 6 , fruits ripen in progression from the oldest (nearest the plant stem) to youngest, so truss-presentation (for market gardeners) is going to be a challenge with these; fruit sizes range up to about 1.5cm diam.

Leaves are conventional, finely cut. Plants range to over a metre in diameter, sometimes as much as 2m; very sprawley; would definitely benefit from caging (forget about staking!) though we never bother. RedCherryTomato seeds itself freely and we subsist on volunteers from one year to the next. We weed out far more plants than we can ever use.

Flowers are small (to be expected!) and modern -- anther cone remains fused and the pistil never emerges, so pollination into this variety would have to be by hand.

Not many pests seem attracted to them, and we've never seen any disease on them, either. The only problem we experience is with MouseBirds eating the ripe fruit, and even that is not too bad, as the fruits are usually pretty well hidden by the foliage.

Seed source: Unknown -- almost certainly commercial originally, but now completely naturalised over many years in our garden.