Cherry Tomato Seeds 10 Seeds

Golden cherry tomatoes are the sweet, sunny side of the tomato world. Each small, round bite-size fruit ripens to a glowing yellow-gold colour with a low-acid, honey-sweet flavour and a bright, fruity aroma that sets it apart from common red salad tomatoes. The cheerful colour and clustered, ornamental fruit make these plants as good to look at as they are to eat, while the pop-in-the-mouth size makes them ideal for fresh snacking, tossing whole into salads, threading onto skewers, or scattering over a finished dish as a vivid garnish.

Planting

Tomato is a warm-season, frost-tender crop, so timing matters. Start the seed 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 about 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Keep the mix warm at around 24 to 29 C and seedlings will usually emerge in roughly 7 to 10 days; a heat mat helps hold that temperature until they sprout. Once true leaves appear, thin or move the seedlings to about 5 cm apart, and harden the young plants off over about a week before planting out. At transplanting, set each plant deep so only the top 2 to 3 sets of true leaves sit above the soil, because the buried stem grows extra roots. Space plants about 45 to 90 cm apart in the row, with roughly 90 to 150 cm between rows, and choose a full-sun, sheltered site that gets at least 6 hours of direct sun a day, ideally 8 to 10.

Fertilizing

Begin with a starter fertilizer that has an NPK ratio under 10 at transplanting, and go easy on nitrogen, since too much produces leafy plants that are slow to set fruit. Side-dress with nitrogen when the first fruits begin to enlarge, or about 3 to 4 weeks after planting, using a nitrogen and calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0). For plants grown in containers, feed every 10 to 14 days with a high-potassium liquid feed once the first fruits start to swell.

Care

Steady moisture is the key to good cherry tomatoes. Aim for even watering of about 2.5 cm of water per week from rain and irrigation combined, 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. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms, Colorado potato beetles and whitefly, and for diseases including early and late blight, Septoria leaf spot, bacterial spot, tomato viruses and grey mould. Harvest when the fruit reaches full size and the colour has fully developed for the variety, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; the first ripe fruit usually arrives about 52 to 90 days after transplanting depending on the cultivar, and any green fruit can be ripened indoors at around 21 C. In Egypt, the highest-production window is a late-winter to early-spring transplant, roughly February to March once frost risk has passed; in the cooler Nile Delta and around Cairo wait until February or March to avoid frost injury, with a secondary planting around September to October. In hotter Upper Egypt, lean toward autumn (October to November) and late-winter (January to February) plantings to dodge extreme summer heat while making the most of the mild winter.