I sell cherry tomatoes in pints, not quarts. Here is the varieties that we sold last year. We sell them as a mix, so that the people get a chance to try some new varieties without having to buy the entire pint, only to find out that 'that' variety they don't like.

The varieties from last year were: Snow White (whitish yellow, almost cream colored) Black Cherry (wonderful, but splits if lots of rain, blackish/purple color, great taste, lots of seeds) Large Red Cherry (they don't sell as well, but I have alot of seeds, I do have 1 customer that wants ONLY them tho), A red grape(from a friend), Yellow Plum, Yellow Pear (garden candy, and VERY prolific, heirloom and will reseed the next year), Isis Candy (good, but probably won't try again, not enough positive feedback).

Yes we ask our customers for feedback on ANYTHING that we try new. And our customers are more than happy to tell us what they think. That way, they think they have input on our decisions for the following year.

T

Here is my annual cherry tomato line up. I started to grow cherries in my high tunnel. I will never plant them outside again. There were very few splits and the dry picking day when it was raining outside is worth it. I also started picking a month or more earlier.

Orange: Sungold very good, does split easy. Pick daily or every other day. Pick them when they are just turning. They will ripen up nicely.
Red: Sweet Millions very prolific, split resistant
Tomatoberry: a strawberry shaped tomato good flavor and neat shape. Expensive seed, but worth it.
Yellow: Sweet gold a very yellow variety Good flavor and productivity
Black Cherry Can't grow enough of them. I don't find them to split easy, but I am always picking early and letting them ripen up.
Pear: Red and Yellow some love them, some hate them. I still grow them because the loves out number the hates.

Looking for some more shapes and colors to trial next year.

Jay

try the Snow White's and yellow plum (shaped like mini roma) I don't grow the Sungold, because another vendor grows them and she doesn't have much. If she ever quits, I start growing them. I pick all my tomatoes little on the green side and allow them to ripen. My customers like the idea that they don't have to eat all of them the same day or next. Most of my customers only come to market 1 day per week, even if the market is open 3 days each week.

Jay, check out tomatogrowers.com. They have lots of varieties, alittle more expensive that I like, but really good for trying something new.

I get almost all my tomato seeds from Tomato Growers. I have been happy with their service and selection. I know other seed places have the same varieties, but I am afraid they could end up being a little different. Probably not the truth, but it makes me feel better. I need to work on my seed order this week. Maybe place a few. Most times I wait until the first of the year. Still haven't gotten my new Johnnys catalog. I have been checking them out online though.

I don't know where I would put that big of plants if I started them now.

Jay

The only reason that I don't buy all of my seeds from tomatogrowers is that with the ounce quantities that I buy, I find several companies cheaper and I have found them being the same seed. I buy larger quantities because I can save them for close to 7 years, and this allows me to spread my seed costs out over several years. I do this with almost all of my seeds. A few seeds don't carry over, but most do. Most of the seeds don't lose much on the germination rate. Plus I have the seeds when I NEED them, instead of when the company wants to send them to me.

Some of my favorite cherry tomatoes are:

Sungold . . . always sold out of plants during spring and fruit at the Farmers' Market.

Isis Candy: large cherry type with excellent flavor.

Black Cherry: very good and unique color.

Chadwick: Great orange-red type with super flavor.

Fox Cherry: large cherry type with excellent flavor.

Lots of others, but these are the most popular for us.

Thanks for all the answers everyone. What kind of yield could I expect? I would grow them in an unheated hoophouse looking for early season sales. This may be difficult to answer but how many quarts (or pints) will 1 plant yield? I don't want to overplant since hoophouse space is at a premium.
Its been many years since I've grown cherry tomatoes and I never have under cover.

Cherry tomatoes are far more prolific than slicers. If grown properly and things do as as they should you will have heavy yields. As far as how many to grow in your greenhouse . . . it depends on its size. We grow a minimum of 15 cherry tomato plants and have high yields from all, but it's virtually impossible to say how many pints/qts. you will get from a plant. Just plan on LOTS!

I will share with you my yields last year. If you are growing them in a hoop house, expect lots of perfect fruit with very few bad ones. I try to sell every cherry tomato regardless of size. Yes I cull all splits, bad spots, and really tiny ones. Other than that, I put them all in the baskets. I started picking a few on May 26. Production really started around the June 20th. These tomatoes were planted on March 28th. It was a tough spring. Many cold nights, an early May frost and one of the hottest Junes on record. However, when they started to crank them out, look out! I planted 6 varieties, 27 plants total. They were spaced out at 18 inches. They were put in concrete wire cages, about 15 inch cages and watered with a soaker hose. All tomatoes had suckers prune to the first flower cluster. Then all suckers were pruned that stuck out in the walking paths. What happened was a 40 foot wall of cherry tomatoes, 7 foot tall!

Yield, I didn't keep track by variety. I did keep track of total pounds. I averaged between 40-65 pounds every 7 days. I usually picked every two days and averaged between 10-15 pounds each picking.

I picked straight into pint baskets. Each basket weighed about.55-.60 pounds. It just depended on the variety and size. So, every two days I would pick 15-30 pint baskets. of the 27 plants. I would sell between 60-100 baskets a week in the last week of June - July and into early August. Once school started, my record keeping died. I didn't have time to pick, weigh, write down and do school work. However, I did keep picking into middle of November. The fall was a cool and cloudy one. My demand at two of the markets started to die around the start of September. However, the third market I was able to keep a high demand. I sold them for $2-2.50 a pint basket. I was the highest priced, by $0.75-$1.00 a basket. I felt that they were worth it (Probably much more!)

Next year I am going to increase the number of plants to ensure more quantity of certain varieties, Black Cherry, SunGold and Red and Yellow Pears.

Finally, I guess you can expect 1.5-2.0 pounds of cherries per plant. However, if you plant a hybrid red tomato like a Sweet Million, I know they produced more than that. I remember one day I walked up to two plants, never moved my feet and picked 15 baskets that would be 7-8 pounds!

Some of my varieties, I get WAY TOO many. Yellow Pear is one that can make you want to pull the plants.

I agree that MOST varieties will produce LOTS. This last year was not a good year, so we did not enough. Plus we cut back on the number of plants. We planted 100 plants, 5 varieties. There was still days that we were picking 2-5 gallon buckets full. We usually sell more than that on any Saturday. We were charging $2-$2.50 per pint. Of course, some toms split before we could sell them. The grandkids loved that, because they got to eat the splits. Customers seeing the grandkids eating the toms just encouraged the customers to buy more.

I'm thinking of about 30 plants and maybe planting them about April 1st. That would mean starting them about March 1st. I had good experience last year growing regular size tomatoes in the hoophouse with most of the fruit in excellent condition. Maybe quarts will be too big but I already have that size containers.

how does everyone feel on the determinate vs inted, varieties? I am getting very tired of the tangled mess of ind, cherry toms, I see RUPP is offering det. cherry toms,
Kristi

I plant indeterminate when possible, because I like the coninuous bearing of these plants. It seems just as soon as my customers really start buying, the determinates stop.

wackybell: How do you grow your tomatoes? To avoid a "tangled mess" use a weave support. Here's how we do it:

We use 10' rebar inserted about 18" into the soil spaced about 8' apart. As the plants grow we use baling twine connected from one rebar support to each tomato, then "weave" each plant till we get to another support, secure the twine, then continue to the other plants till the end of the last support. As the plants grow we do another row and so on till our plants are over 8' tall, and still growing, but most of the vines are supported enough to stand upright. In the end we have a "wall of tomatoes", all off the ground, open to sunlight, easy to harvest, and less chance of diseases.

What about Grape tomatoes. I am going to add these this year. I will be growing them in my tunnel too. I would like a red and a yellow one to start off with. I have checked out Johnny's. Some of their varieties are listed as grows well inside. Any recommendations?

Jay

Grape tomatoes are very prolific! During the heat of the season we could hardly keep up with them since, like the cherries, they are tedious to pick. We grew both golden and red grape and sold them mixed. Just a couple of customers would have rather bought just the gold as they are sweeter. We planted a 20' row of each. We found that grape tomatoes are a pretty good sell to restaurants too. This past summer we made a contact at a local restaurant ( a chain, but local) that told us they would buy any grape toms that didn't sell at the market...wouldn't we all like to find a place to do that with all our "left overs". This year we are planting 20' just for them. I can't emphasize enough--sturdy trellis! We use fencing, placed it 6' high and mid summer it was beginning to lean over, this made picking TOUGH. Another note on these little buggers be they grape or cherry...you've got to keep up with picking them! Otherwise the already tedious job becomes much more difficult. We'll put a couple plants in the hoop house to get an early start but I don't think there $ input justifies more than that. It's on!