Micro cherry tomatoes

Well this has been a revelation. A real roller-coaster of anticipation, disappointment and then dawning appreciation. I bought three of these plants in spring thinking they’d be brilliant - lovely homegrown tomatoes without any of the hard work. But very quickly the plants became all scrawny and scraggly, and they seemed to flower and flower with no signs of any progression towards fruit, and eventually two of them sort of collapsed in on themselves despite my attempt at staking, so I got rid of all but one.

What a mistake-a-ta-make-a. I put the remaining one plant in a big container outside, fed it with Tomorite for a while and then let that slide, watered it occasionally during the hot, dry weather, and then basically forgot about it. And now it is absolutely covered in tiny pearl-like tomatoes which are super sweet and super cute. The girls absolutely love them.

Yes the plant looks pretty wild. It definitely needs better support (even though it’s supposed to be a bush variety), or possibly it would be happier in a hanging basket as it seems to be determined to cascade. But actually even in this state there’s something kind of beautiful about it and I’ve since seen it used in flower arrangements, fruit and all. Very Constance Spry.

Now that I know you just need to be a bit patient, I could not be more onboard with the micro cherry. I’m already planning where next year’s will go. They are the perfect vegetable for growing with children and unlike a lot of garden crops, they’re actually useful: no preparation or cooking required, garden to plate in seconds.

The micro cherry tomato - patience pays