Black Cherry Tomato Review

Black Cherry.

As the name suggests, it is a cherry. It has the typical bush habit of most cherries. Height in open ground is about 6 ft (180 cm). There are a lot of tomatoes, and just as many suckers. They sprout from absolutely everywhere; I tried pruning them at first, then I just gave up and waved my hand at it.

Because of the massive weight of the foliage and fruits, they were constantly falling over on their side and breaking off the trellis net they were tied to. Basically, I got sick and tired of all these cherries (and not just the black ones). Because of Late Blight, about 50% of all the fruits didn’t ripen, everything was destroyed. I don’t know, maybe someone loves cherries and likes fussing with these little things, but this is definitely not my kind of tomato. I only planted it because of my greedy eyes and grabbing hands, and also because I caved to my daughter, who promised to eat them ALL!

In the end, everything went into juices and sauces. I also did something heroic! I made 3 liter jars of peeled cherries in tomato juice according to Natasha from Rostov’s recipe (🌹). My family highly appreciated both the taste and the hard work I put into it 😄
This year I will plant 3 cherry bushes (1 of each color) just for my grandson 😉

I grew them in 2011, they are tasty, but the clusters are a bit small for a cherry, and they split open when canned in jars. The skin is thin, lots of juice. By the way, the kids didn’t like them. They prefer Honey Drop and Green Cherry.

I grew them for 2 years. Very prolific, they were early for me, sweet, overgrown with suckers at breakneck speed, and stayed in the greenhouse until the very end of the season. The ones I picked fully ripe for canning cracked in the jar, but the slightly underripe ones held up very well. But this year, I am skipping it.

Grew in open ground. Yield was average, they were small, and the taste was rather plain. The bush wasn’t prone to diseases, though.

Mine grew in open ground. It was my first time growing cherries, so I can’t say much about the yield—I simply don’t know what it’s supposed to be like. But having read up on it, I think it was average.

They were very tasty, sweet, with thin skin.

The battle with the suckers ended not in my favor—they won! 😂😂

They turned out to be unpretentious, didn’t get sick with anything, and continued setting fruit and blooming right up until the frosts—until around October 20th.

I collected the green ones and pickled them in jars under nylon lids. Haven’t gotten around to eating them yet.

My son and his family told me I absolutely have to plant it again next year.

Quote from deliza:
My son and his family told me I absolutely have to plant it again next year.

DO NOT plant it in the greenhouse! It will bury you in fruits. Very productive, and just as productive with suckers.

Quote from o-lya-lya:
DO NOT plant it in the greenhouse! It will bury you in fruits. Very productive, and just as productive with suckers.

I will plant it in open ground. We built a greenhouse in the fall. I’m still reading up on how to use it and what to plant in it, since I’m a total “newbie” at this 😂😂 And this Black Cherry already grew well in the garden—that’s where I’ll put it…

A highly productive, unpretentious indeterminate… the first year I grew it indoors in a greenhouse, but even in our climate, this variety is better grown outdoors in open ground. It produces a massive amount of suckers, but the fruits that set are able to ripen fully on the plant…

Quote from Yaroslavna:
A highly productive, unpretentious indeterminate… the first year I grew it indoors in a greenhouse, but even in our climate, this variety is better grown outdoors in open ground.

I also love this variety, it is very tasty, but when growing it in my greenhouse I noticed two drawbacks – if overwatered and during ripening, it cracks very easily. Furthermore, like all dark-fruited varieties, it is susceptible to fungal diseases, catching them much earlier than red varieties do.

A good variety. It didn’t turn out to be particularly early for me. I also note the high yield. The tomatoes are tasty, but not very sweet.

The skin is thin. The bush takes up a lot of space in the greenhouse. Probably for these reasons, I didn’t grow it last year or the year before.
It grows fine outdoors, but there both the bush and the fruits are significantly smaller.

Compared to other cherries, the fruits of Black Cherry are significantly larger (the greenhouse ones).

Here are more photos.

Grew in open ground – a beauty! 👍 Tasty and productive.

Thanks for the seeds, Olya-Zolushka! 🌹

Tasty little cherries, fun for the kids. A huge amount of suckers, like most cherries. Succumbed to Cladosporium (Leaf Mold).

This year I repeated it in the greenhouse – gorgeous! 🍅
Initially, I planned to prune it to 6-8 stems, but by July I gave up – I just tied the growing suckers to the central stem and thinned out the foliage… I like the taste, but it’s hard to describe… I had Yellow Cherries growing nearby – they are sweet, but the Black ones, as my husband said – are salty.. 😄

For me, this variety has remained one of my most favorite and sweetest cherries for several years now. In the greenhouse, it grows very vigorously. The yield is excellent.

Ilya, they reached an excellent weight for you. One piece weighs almost 1 oz (30 gr)! For a CHERRY type, this is excellent. Svetlana (Drosera) also noted their larger size compared to other cherries.

Ilya, did you grow them in open ground or in a greenhouse?

Quote from Cherry:
Ilya, did you grow them in open ground or in a greenhouse?

Thanks, Olga!

I grew them in a greenhouse. I gave up on open ground because in my conditions (heavy loam) and with capricious summers, the result there is unpredictable.

A gorgeous variety. On the plus side – you can sow it quite late, and you don’t really have to bother with suckers. Plus, the tomatoes are larger than the usual cherries – ideal for pickling/marinating.

Very productive and tasty. In the greenhouse, it was over 6.5 ft (2 m), with many huge clusters featuring a bunch of fruits. Beautiful, tasty. Suitable for both fresh consumption and canning (I always can an assortment of cherries in small jars). True, they can “fade” a little when canned.

My favorite variety. It’s not just a favorite, it’s the gold standard—in my garden, all tomatoes are compared to it) I will repeat it forever!

Indeterminate, height approx. 5 ft (1.5 m) in open ground. 110 days from sprouting to the first ripe cherry. Doesn’t get sick with anything, but if it suddenly does get sick, it will recover and continue to grow. And if it suddenly completely, absolutely dies, it just grows back from the root))) In general, to kill it—you have to try very, VERY hard.

And it’s also photogenic)))

I have no problems with suckers. I prune to 1-2 stems with a planting scheme of 12×12 inches (30×30 cm). With such spacing, it doesn’t “act up,” but you have to pinch out (or rather, scrape out) the suckers at the “just peeking out” stage, because if you wait for the sucker to be big enough to easily snap off, the tomato quickly splits into two equal “heads” (stems).

With a “tasty” existence in a favorable year, there are up to 30-40 fruits per cluster with a total weight of about 1-2 lbs (0.5-1 kg), it’s almost a multiflora type))) The weight of one cherry is 0.7-1 oz (20-30 gr). The taste is classic for dark-fruited varieties—spicy—and very complex: first you taste the spice, then a tartness, and after that—a strong sweetness.

It stores perfectly (doesn’t spoil, leak, or rot…), ripens off the vine excellently. As a life hack—you direct sow it in the open ground in May so as not to take up table space with seedlings—and in September you harvest the full clusters at the technical maturity stage. For a month, or even two, you have tomatoes that delight the mouth)))

Very beautiful on pizza/focaccia, etc.