if you could grow only cherry tomatoes...
 

If the only tomatoes you could grow were cherry tomatoes, what 4-6 varieties would you grow, and how would you use them? These would be the tomatoes you eat in salads and salsa, for tomato sandwiches and roasted tomatoes, and for canning, as well as snacking in the garden. So presumably you'd want a full range of flavors, not just sweet.

so far --- only Supersweet 100s will grace my garden next year for cherry tomatoes. Extremely plentiful and so very very good! Yes, they are super sweet, but they make every dish I have them with so very good. A cherry is not for sandwiches or canning in my opinion. Salads and snacking. They make a sweet salsa, but I would use a sauce tomato in my salsa.
I have some San Mazanos (plum) for sauce, but still waiting for them to ripen.

I mostly use cherries for fresh eating, and for my taste buds I prefer them super sweet. Some of my favorites are Sungold, Isis Candy, and Snow White. Favorite currants are Coyote, Tomatito de Jalapa and Champagne Cherry.

However, after reading your post again I think you are asking which cherris best approximate their larger cousins that are used for slicing and canning, etc. Now that's an interesting question. I would say Carbon Copy tastes like a large black slicer...

SunGold, Champagne Cherry (same as Coyote?) and Black Cherry

Slicing/Canning: Porter - prolific, old fashion taste, and known as a canning tomato.

Sweet: Sungold and Red Ambrosia

Different: Oranje Van Goeijenbier

Fun to grow: Blue cherry sized tomatoes - Brings up garden conversations. Edit: Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blue produced really well for us - good taste.

Currents for fresh eating and salads, and a large cherry tomato a neighbor has been raising since the 40's. I don't know it's name but it's the absolute sweetest tomato I've ever had. I grew Sungold this year since it's supposed to be the sweetest tomato out there. In my garden the unknown variety was way sweeter than Sungold.

Can I ask why you are only wanting to do cherries?

Do you have a short days to maturity? They just grow better for you? You like the size and shape?

My friend buys a cherry tomato plant as he usually does every spring and sticks it in a large planter on his deck. They eat of it every year and really does not care what the name is. Matter of fact he tossed the tag...:no: We were there this weekend and he said the cherry tomatoes were the best tomatoes he's ever had for the several years he's been doing this. I got several of them and have them fermenting and will plant them this spring. I hope they are OP (open pollinated). The tomatoes are dark colored ones.

If I had to start my tomato breeding project all over again using only cherry tomatoes, and I was limited to 6 cultivars, I would choose:

[B]Sungold F1[/B]. Because it has a lot of potential buried inside, including genes for larger sized fruits.

[B]Yellow Pear[/B]. Because it grows really well here.

[B]Solanum pimpinellifolium[/B]. Because while it's a poor fit for my climate, it might have a lot of potential as a parent for making crosses.

[B]Large Red Cherry[/B]. Because if I have to grow cherry tomatoes, then I might as well get the most return for my labor.

A determinate cherry tomato. Because the determinate growth habit is very valuable in my climate. But not a dwarf tomato. Something along the lines [B]Hy Brix Tomato F1[/B] or [B]Mountain Belle F1[/B]. I'd choose a hybrid so that I could select among the offspring for traits that please me.

[B]Jagodka[/B]: If you'd let me get away with calling it a cherry tomato... Because it is the current flywheel variety in my garden.

My 6 favourites are

Brandywine cherry
Super snow white
Dr. Caroline pink
Ambrosia gold
Reisentraube
Helsing ★★★★★★★★ blues

I do not like cherries for anything other than fresh eating or the occasional toss with pasta. Too much seed to flesh ratio for me and cooked seeds can make a sauce taste bitter imo.
KarenO

I would be crying if I only could grow cherries...
my garden they only good for give aways and presents- lots of work to collect and not much in return.
Anyway, from recent years grow- Sungold, Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blue, Blue P20, Kiss the sky, Risentraube, Medovaya Kaplya, HHHS/ see baker creek seeds for Hssiao His .../, Isis Candy.
I will be growing a dozen of varieties for next year plant swap as many people do want to grow only cherries...

For a red, I would grow LA0417, a single plant selection I made a couple of years ago. It is very disease tolerant, very good production, and has that S. Pimpinellifolium sweet but rich tomato flavor I like.

For an orange, I would grow the high brix Orange Pear that I grew this year. It is super sweet with a unique texture that makes it an excellent salad tomato.

Black Cherry wins hands down for robust tomato flavor.

Galina's Yellow Cherry would be my favorite yellow.

Dr. Carolyn Pink hits all the major trait requirements in my garden.

I don't really have a favorite green when ripe, there are half a dozen I've grown that I like, but none of them are standout winners. Green Grape, Green Gage, Green Doctors, Green Doctors Frosted, and Green Zebra cherry come to mind.

I find most cherries to have limited use. Mostly snacking raw. Because for me they are too sweet to add to food.
There are exceptions, like Galina, Black Cherry to some extent, and a few more (unnamed) local varieties.
For modern hybrids it's tough, most are really really sweet, but can have some fantastic production. Tomatoberry is still producing decently with very little green left in the leaves after a massive spidermites attack.
I find cherry tomatoes to be also quite ok for sauce, the taste is stronger and the amount is not as bad as I thought.

Last few years Ive tried a few cherries both modern new F1's and heritage and personally my favourite is sungold, its the earliest for me and also the sweetest.

I do find cherries excellent for putting in pasta and lasagne sauces, gives it a really nice sweet flavour.

I will actually grow less cherries next year as I just find the labour of picking too much and I always seem to let them go over ripe as a result.

Black Cherry for tomato, basil, mozz appetizers and for slicing and eating fresh. Sungold for snacking. Trying out a few others. I like to have a few cherry plants because they always have some ripe fruit when the other plants are still trying to ripen.

Ginny

Can pear tomatoes and grape tomatoes fit in this list?

Any of the tigers or bumblebees
Brandywine cherry
Black cherry
Bosque Green cherry
Ambrosia Orange UBX
Big Sun Gold Select
Summer Sun F1
And way to many more i cant remember right now.

[QUOTE=Lorri D;504915]Can I ask why you are only wanting to do cherries?

Do you have a short days to maturity? They just grow better for you? You like the size and shape?[/QUOTE]

It's an interesting what-if, and a question that hasn't been asked before, as far as I can tell.

I was looking at my tableful of tomatoes the other day and noticing that most of the larger tomatoes have catfacing or BER this year, or else are much smaller than usual. But the cherry tomatoes are doing ok, though not as prolific as usual, so it hasn't been a chore to pick them.

I've always liked great-tasting cherry tomatoes in sandwiches, and i was also wondering what else i could use them for. This year i've discovered a few more garden shares, and cherries are a lot easier to share than larger varieties.

The squirrels have discovered the melons and sunflowers at my home garden, but not the tomatoes...yet. At least if they go after cherries, either i won't notice or the damage will be minimal.

Anyway, although i might actually grow only cherries at home next year, i can't imagine not having all the other varieties at my other gardens.

I have 4 must-haves:

Black Cherry (Black Opal is close but too many for us and not as consistent in flavor)
Granada
Mexico Midget
Sweet Linda

Plan to try at least Carbon Copy, Oranje Van Goeijenbier, the "Bumbees" and Submarine Blush next spring.

This has been a cherry year for me. So glad I planted a lot of them - I just wanted a cherry zoo for to have a nice platter of cherries for my friends' wedding. We had a terrible summer. Almost all the cherries and small fruit were very good to great tasting as well as early and on time for the wedding.... and the larger fruit were dissapointing in flavour and hard as rocks with greywall and uneven ripening across the board, with just a couple of exceptions.

In the OP's I have loved Black Cherry, Sungold, Isis Candy, Galinas Yellow, Blush, even Peacevine but all these plants have been less than perfect to grow in my greenhouse due to their gross amount of vine and foliage per yield of tomatoes. I had Medovaya Kaplya last year (from you I think, Habitat Gardener.. thanks! :D) which I was more impressed with production than taste at the time.. however I crossed MK with one of my F1's (Kimberley X Zolotye Kupola) and got really lovely large cherries from these, one yellow which is long about the size of Blush or a little larger and just fantastic taste, and a respectable large red. I also had six F2 plants of a cross between Stupice and Black Cherry - only one of the six was below average taste, a little small and sour (and also died early of the endemic rots) the others were pretty excellent as well as early and productive.

I have a breeding project to develop semideterminate cherries and small fruit, to try and balance the ratio of lanky cherry vine vs fruit. Starting with a cross of Black Cherry and Napoli a Fiaschetto (determinate red small pointy fruit pretty excellent and all purpose). So I had three F3's of a semi-determinate black cherry this year, but also four plants of a cross between the black semi-determinate F2 last year, and a larger fruited F1. The two reds were average but the two blacks blew everything out of the water, so tasty and amazing sweet.

So the big winners for taste this year were crosses involving cherries and larger fruit, except for one straight F2 out of Stupice. I would like to see that amazing flavour in a slightly larger fruit, I guess time will tell.

Other than fresh, I really liked sauce made from random cherries that were tossed in olive oil, garlic, herbs then roasted. When I froze the sauce, the skins were afterwards super tough and annoying though. When I blended the sauce to get rid of skins, there's an undesirable flavour from the ground seeds. Best thought is to cut cherries in half before roasting, and after a half hour at 400 F take them out, cool and pull off the skins. Cherry sauce was awesome when the individual fruits stayed themselves ie yellow, red, black whatever because you get the morsel of diversity and this was also not enjoyed when the sauce was blended.

"cherry zoo": love that!

Absolutely , positively I will refuse the proposition.:no::shock::))

This year I've loved Sungold, Black Cherry, Mini Yellow, Matt's Wild Cherry, Ambrosia Gold, Esterina, Rancho Solito. Well, seven's not bad...

Every year I grow:

Black Cherry (Surprise)! (this is the wifes fave).

Tommy Toe. (This is my fave)...so far.

I saw Durmitor on the Victory Seeds website,and thought I would chance it this year.I see that several members here like it,so I am looking forward to seeing how it works for us here in the tropics.

Late to list and kind of off the top of my head with no deep thought involved , here are six I would always enjoy eating.

Black Cherry
Verde Claro
Green Zebra Cherry
Galina's Yellow
Sungold F1
Casino Chips or Mt Magic F1

Carolyn

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Purple Haze. It's a great tasting red cherry, but it is also a long keeper.

Picked when ripe and stored on the kitchen counter, they taste as good after 6 weeks as the day they were picked.

Purple Haze and Ramapo Cherry (not released yet) have permanent spots in my garden. Claud

[QUOTE=saltmarsh;505193]I'm surprised no one has mentioned Purple Haze. It's a great tasting red cherry, but it is also a long keeper.

Picked when ripe and stored on the kitchen counter, they taste as good after 6 weeks as the day they were picked.

Purple Haze and Ramapo Cherry (not released yet) have permanent spots in my garden. Claud[/QUOTE]
Yeah that was one i forgot to mention. My Purple Haze F1 was tied for best cherry along with the Summer Sun F1 this year. It was an amazing larger black/purple cherry that everyone in the neighbor was knocking down my door to get.

I grow a lot of cherries, because we like them. These are my favourites:

[B]Sungold F1[/B]
[B]Ildi [/B] (multiflora yellow, incredible flavour and yield, if kept on the dry side almost as sweet as sungold)
[B]Snow White[/B] (pale yellow, very sweet with great flavour and yeild)
[B]Pink Bumblebee[/B] (pretty striping, good flavour and size, great keeper)
[B]Blush[/B] (an elongated cherry, wonderful delicious taste, gorgeous colour and good keeper)

I grew lots of cherries this year but only two will be returning -

Iva's Red Berry - red, sweet and prolific
Sirja's Love - deep yellow, great flavor and does well in a basket.

Black Cherry, Sweet Beverly, Blush, Nichols Family from Native Seed Search, Britain's Breakfast which is a largish cherry mostly hollow great for stuffing and yellow pear which my 6 yr old granddaughter loves.