Black Cherry Tomato Seeds

Black Cherry Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) stands apart from ordinary red cherry tomatoes for its striking dusky colour and its flavour. The small, round bite-size fruits ripen to a deep purple-mahogany blush with a smoky shoulder, and the taste matches the look: rich, full and sweet with the earthy, almost wine-like depth that black tomatoes are famous for. Vigorous and indeterminate, the vines keep setting trusses of glossy little fruit all season, making them a joy to snack on straight from the plant, to scatter through salads, or to arrange on a colourful platter where their unusual shade really shines.

Planting

Tomato is a warm-season, frost-tender crop, so start your 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 the seed roughly 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Keep the mix warm at around 24 to 29 C and seedlings should emerge in about 7 to 10 days; a heat mat helps hold that temperature steady until they sprout. Choose the warmest, most sheltered spot you have, because these vines need full sun, at least 6 hours of direct light a day and ideally 8 to 10 hours. When you set out transplants, plant them deep so only the top 2 to 3 sets of true leaves sit above the soil, as the buried stem grows extra roots. Space the plants about 45 to 90 cm apart in the row with roughly 90 to 150 cm between rows; as a vigorous indeterminate type, Black Cherry appreciates the wider end of that range.

Fertilizing

At transplanting, use a starter fertilizer with an NPK ratio under 10 and go easy on nitrogen, since an excess produces leafy plants that are slow to fruit. Once the first fruits start to enlarge, side-dress with nitrogen to keep the long-cropping vines productive; about 3 to 4 weeks after planting you can feed with a nitrogen and calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0). If you are growing in containers, feed every 10 to 14 days with a high-potassium liquid feed once the first fruits begin to swell.

Care

Steady moisture is the secret to clean, unsplit fruit. Aim for about 2.5 cm of water per 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 young seedlings to about 5 cm apart once true leaves appear, and harden plants off over roughly a week before planting out. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms and whitefly, along with diseases like early and late blight, Septoria leaf spot and grey mould. Begin picking when the fruit reaches full size and the colour starts to change for the variety, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; first ripe fruit usually arrives about 52 to 90 days after transplanting depending on the season. Any green fruit can be finished off indoors at around 21 C.

Growing in Egypt: Tomato thrives across several windows in Egypt's mild winters and hot summers. The main, highest-production crop is sown or transplanted in late winter to early spring, roughly February to March, once frost risk has passed, so fruit sets on warming spring temperatures before peak summer heat; in the cooler Nile Delta and around Cairo it is safest to wait for February or March, starting seed indoors about 5 to 6 weeks earlier in December or January. A secondary autumn planting around September to October works well, and in warmer Upper Egypt you can lean on autumn (October to November) and late-winter (January to February) plantings to dodge extreme summer heat while exploiting the mild winter. Mid-summer transplanting is the hardest window because of high-temperature injury and poor fruit set, so for a home grower it is best avoided or given protection.