Imported Red Cherry Tomato Seeds (5 Seeds)

These imported red cherry tomato seeds give you the small, round, bite-size fruit that has made cherry tomatoes a favourite worldwide. Each glossy red tomato is packed with a sweet, lively flavour and a fresh tomato aroma, so they shine straight off the vine, tossed whole into salads, roasted, or used as a vivid garnish. Their compact size and bright colour also make them a cheerful, decorative crop for pots, balconies, and home gardens.

Planting

Tomato is a warm-season, frost-tender crop, so give it warmth and full sun. Start the seeds indoors about 5 to 8 weeks before the last spring frost, and only move plants outside once the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed. Sow each seed about 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Kept warm at roughly 24 to 29 C, the seeds germinate in about 7 to 10 days, with around 18 C the minimum needed to sprout. Choose a warm, sheltered spot that gets at least 6 hours of direct sun a day, ideally 8 to 10 hours. When you set plants out, space them about 45 to 90 cm apart in the row, with roughly 90 to 150 cm between rows.

Fertilizing

At transplanting, use a starter fertilizer with an NPK ratio under 10, and avoid too much nitrogen, which encourages leafy growth that is slow to fruit. Once the first fruits begin to enlarge, side-dress with nitrogen, or feed about 3 to 4 weeks after planting using a nitrogen and calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0). For plants in containers, feed every 10 to 14 days with a high-potassium liquid feed once the first fruits start to swell.

Care

Steady, even moisture is the key to good cherry tomatoes: aim for about 2.5 cm of water a week from rain plus irrigation, and avoid swinging between wet and dry, which causes fruit splitting and blossom-end rot. Container plants may need watering every day in hot weather. Thin or transplant seedlings to about 5 cm apart once the true leaves appear, and at planting set them deep so only the top 2 to 3 sets of true leaves sit above the soil, as the buried stem grows extra roots; harden plants off over about a week before they go out. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms, and whitefly, along with diseases like early blight, late blight, Septoria leaf spot, and grey mould. Harvest when the fruit reaches full size and the colour is fully developed, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; first ripe fruit usually comes about 52 to 90 days after transplanting depending on the variety, and any green fruit can be ripened indoors at around 21 C.

Tip for Egypt: Tomato thrives across several windows here. For the main, highest-yielding summer crop, sow indoors around December to January and transplant in late winter to early spring (about February to March) once frost risk has passed, so the plants set fruit before peak summer heat. In the cooler Nile Delta and around Cairo, wait until February or March to avoid frost injury, and you can add a secondary planting in September to October. In hotter Upper Egypt, lean toward autumn (October to November) and late-winter (January to February) plantings to dodge the worst summer heat while making the most of the mild winter.