Rosalita stays small, short plants. Ildi, black cherry, snow white cherry, chocolate cherry, brown berry will get huge. If you'd like a plant with slightly larger fruit (2 ounces or so,) evans purple pear will take over the planet! We had them 15 feet inside the garden and by the end of the summer they were out in the yard by 2 feet! and they have a cool pear type shape. Black zebra is also a pretty large plant.

Have you tried the Cherry Brandywine? I can't vouch for flavor or size but if it's anything like the biggies then it ought to be good on both fronts....

Thanks Sandy. That's mostly good news! I have a spot for some smaller ones right in front of the taller ones so Rosalita will still get a shot. I've tried all the zebras at farmers markets and haven't been impressed. Evan's Purple Pear sounds perfect if it produces heavily. Have to put that on my wish list. I want to grow Brad's Black Heart on the other side of the property with Berkely Tie Dye, so his jumbo pear cherry will be fine with me. I'm getting Snow White from Sample Seeds (Remy) when the seeds are ready so I should have listed it.

Rocky, I thought I read a bad review of the Brandywine Cherry crosses? Or it simply said, 'does not taste like brandywine'. I'm interested if they get big and have good reviews though.

So far they seem hard to find. But of the 2 places I did find anything about them, they supposedly taste spectacular tho the fruits are on the larger side of "cherry". I found a place that carries them but not sure if it's OK to share that link....?

A tomato hedge - cool! :) Just curious Bob about why they have to be cherries? Though about some of the really big cluster or heart varieties for a bit of variety?

I'd add Gardener's Delight to the list and maybe Rosalita. Sweet Cluster and Ceylon if cluster types appeal to you.

Dave

PS: I never saw a yellow pear get very tall at all.

Pasture...
Matt's Wild Cherry...
Korney's Jelly Bean/Perry's Cherry...
Sungold...
Black Cherry...
Riesentraube...
Millie Yoder's Little Grape...
Peacevine Cherry...

Cherry Roma
Spoon & currant types

digdirt wrote: PS: I never saw a yellow pear get very tall at all.

Wow, Dave, I believe you and always learn from your posts, but this surprised me. I think my YPs get huge. Just this week I hacked 3 feet off several branches on a plant that was out of control. What remained of the plant was still hanging out of the top of the cage. Unfortuantely, I don't expect it do grow much more because late blight has been taking out many of my plants and I expect it will only be a short time before every tomato plant is pulled.

Maybe next year I'll try some of the other cherries mentioned. If they are bigger yet, I'll have a tomato jungle.

15' minimum in my garden this year:

Isis Candy
Black Cherry
Chocolate Cherry
Sugar Lump
Galinas

10'
Brown Berry

I have two rows of plants - two hedges really and they are a jungle!! It's hard to walk around and through. People come over just to admire...

White cherry for sure, and possibly Dr Carolyn (mine sprawled too much to tell total height but it looked big and had dense foliage). Pink Ping Pong. Black Plum is a huge plant, and large cherry size.

Okay thanks for the replies, everyone.

I also have Black Plum and Gardner's Delight/Sugar Lump, but forgot about them too. Azruss highly recommends GD for my conditions, so I picked it up months ago. Those two and other suggestions should get me up around 25.

Sweet Quartz hasn't been mentioned here but it's getting lots of praise elsewhere.

I spent the NFL opener clicking on every cherry tomato in Tatiana's extensive data base. I could be happy, I think, growing just cherries, considering my conditions.

Dave, it's fairly well documented that cherries do better out here in the Gateway to Death Valley. Smaller fruited, non cherry, big indeterminate plants (like Stupice) have heat stunted fruit and look like cherries by mid July anyway. My Goliaths look like Stupice should. My Wonder Lights look like pointy grape tomatoes. Traveler looks like a large blocky pink cherry. My cherries look just like they should, and yield reasonably as opposed to atrociously for the larger types. I'll put in 50 cherries and 50 others of all types next, but the 33 plant 100' hedge that needs to be 10' by July probably needs to be cherries. Besides it will probably bring back memories of blackberry pickin' in my childhood (if done right).

Chadwick Cherry gets big. The fruits are big for a cherry and are really tasty in my opinion.
All these varieties now, who'd a thunk it?

Black Cherry is definitely a large plant. Yellow Pear also gets huge. You might also add Dr. Carolyn Pink and one called Baby Beefsteak. Both of these produce large fruits that approach saladette size and both are great tasting.

Ted

I am saving some of my infammous "Monster Cherry Tomato" seeds. The main stems of those plants got well over 8-9 feet tall. They currently have 4-5 branches each that are probably at least 5-6 feet long. Quite good producers and VERY tasty! The taste of them is the main reason i'm keeping the seeds. I confirmed that they are not Hybrids. I took a handful of seeds out of one I picked about 6-7 weeks ago and grew them. The plants are current over 3 feet tall and already fruiting! Let me know if you want some of the seeds. I'd be happy to send you some, just mail me a SASBE. Pictures of the 1st gen plants are on my blog below (from 2 months or so ago when they did fit into a picture...lol) & also pictures of my "make sure the seeds are viable" experiment plants are on there also.

- Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden

naturegirl - I guess "huge" is in the eye of the beholder. ;) YP, when I grew it would go to 6 feet easy but compared to many of the others that's not huge to me. Stick it in between a couple of Sun Golds or Gardener's Delights and YP looks like a dwarf.

Of course growing locations/conditions will make a big difference too.

Dave

My landlord joked that I had a tomato hedge while he was helping me move my plants off the patio onto the grass (New downstairs tenants wanted to use a patio as a patio - how lame is that?) He said it was nice - now the patio wasn't exposed to the street. :)

I would be awesome to have a 15 foot high movable hedge... :)

Dave, I grew Beam's Yellow Pear last year and had vines that exceeded 15 feet in length. Maybe you pruned yours too much. (grin)

Ted

Dave, Naturegirl -- on Yellow Pear. There appears to be several... I dunno strains, variations, different types of Yellow Pear. I'm even pretty sure I found a determinate or bush type Yellow Pear in my various clicking. So it could be Dave grew a plant with a shorter habit.

Mu current plant, the only one I have ever grown, came from a farmers market in May and is currently over 10' tall if I were to stretch the longest vines. It's winding and bending up against my Patio roof which is 8.5 feet from the soil. It also never stopped producing through some oppressive heat waves. It's not the tastiest mater, but robust enough to grow one every year for my purposes.

Steve, on the Monster Cherry. You can't just dub a tomato a new name because you like it. Well you can, but... what was it originally? :)

Matt's Wild Cherry has spread 8 feet in both directions - sprawling over the eggplant and okra plants and was moving into the mesquite trees before I cut it back

It's a very rampant grower.

Mojave: Ferry Morse organic Cherry tomato. Not sure of the type, as it did not specify.

• "Ferry Morse organic Cherry tomato. Not sure of the type, as it did not specify."

I have a good supply of Ferry Morse OP Large Red Cherry seeds. I've grown them in the past (missed them this year) and listed them in the top post as Large Red. They are massive, healthy, prolific plants. The fruit is considerably bigger than most other cherries (which I prefer and is one reason why I don't care for currant types). I think the flavor is great, nicely balanced between a sweet cherry and a tangy early season tomato. Tons of juice and quite seedy. I think it's under appreciated in a world of exotic heirlooms. Pretty hard to beat all around cherry, imo. Sound like yours?