~ VINE TOMATO SEED ~
CHERRY AND OTHER SMALL- to MEDIUM- SIZED VARIETIES
These are our Smaller-fruited vine Tomatoes. For an explanation of the differences between bush & vine plant types, click here.
We really like tomatoes - and grow loads of them every year - but only the very best make it into the catalogue! Choose varieties marked "EARLY" for outdoor growing.
Sowing Information
IMPORTANT: Our tomato seed is tested and germinates really well, but you must provide heat for them to go.
Tomatoes are easy, but come from a warmer climate and so need heat to germinate. We test every single batch using the ISTA standard of 25 degrees C - and all will germinate well in 14 days if you provide this. At lower temperatures they will take longer or fewer will grow.
Without a heated proagator, beware that warmth during the day is not enough; they also mustn't get cold at night - they don’t want to risk germinating if there’s still a chance of a late frost. Often on a windowsill (or greenhouse or polytunnel), even if warm during the day, the temperature can fall enough at night to inhibit germination. So take them away to the centre of the room after supper and replace in the morning.
The other danger is cooking them, if using heat mats without a thermostat, or trays with lids, then even a brief period of unexpected full sun can raise the temperature high enough to kill the seeds if there’s not much airflow. If using these then do make sure there is plenty of ventilation.
Once germinated, the seedlings will happily grow on at lower temperatures of 18C-20C , so they don't need to be in the propagator for long.
Gardeners Delight (Irish version) Cherry Vine Tomato
This version was originally from a small seed collection in USA, labelled 'Irish Gardeners Delight'. It has definitely got smaller fruit than what we would normally expect, and we're pretty sure now that it's not really 'Gardeners' Delight' at all, being more in the style of the smaller cherry types such as 'Sweet 100'.
BUT , and it's a big 'but', the flavour is great. This is the sweetest cherry tomato we've ever tried. And the fruit, although small, are produced in huge numbers on enormously long trusses.
We weren't going to list it any more, but many visitors to the gardens pointed out that it was one of the best cherries they'd ever tasted, so we thought we ought to leave it in the catalogue! And it is now one of our most popular. Get your seed now, you won't be disappointed.
This variety slows down if we have a cool spell in late spring/early summer, but it starts growing again once temperatures rise again.
20 seed £
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Galina - SUPER- EARLY SWEET YELLOW CHERRY
A hugely productive cherry from Siberia, and we are really impressed by it - very sweet flavour balanced by good acidity.
The bright yellow cherry fruit are in neat bunches, and don't fall off when ripe, which makes picking easier.
It is early to get going (not surprising given where it comes from!), but just as importantly, it fruits over a long period – it just keeps on going forever , long after most other plants have stopped fruiting.
Early yellow cherry. Grow as a vine but let a couple of shoots develop for highest production.
Makes amazing yellow tomato soup or even yellow ketchup, too!
20 seed £
Millefleur
A centiflor vine tomato variety developed by Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds, from a cross made by his daughter Kusra. They really do make hundreds of translucent yellow tomatoes on a single truss. Each fruit is about 3/4 inch across and they're great in salads or munched straight off the plant.
This one is really tasty and beautiful.
20 seed, organic. £
Stupice - EARLY VINE
This fantastic 1954 variety from Eastern Europe is the earliest of all our vine tomatoes.
We had a rare tomato trial in 2010 and this one was noticeably earlier than the others; we got a great crop simply in large pots on our patio, despite the rainy summer. The plants are vigorous and produce red fruit with an excellent flavour. Ideal for outdoors, but also good in a greenhouse for early crops.
Larger than a cherry tomato, but not as big as a beefsteak type, the fruit are about two inches across and ideal for salad use.
Fast-fruiting variety for shorter summers, ideal if you grow your tomatoes outdoors.
22 seed £
Gardeners' Ecstasy -AMAZING FLAVOUR, EARLY
This is a wonderful variety bred a few years ago by our late friend Tony Haig - mathematician, chess champion, astronomer and gardener at Brithdir Mawr Community, who named it 'Gardeners Ecstasy' because it tasted even better than 'Gardeners Delight'.
A cross between Dr Carolyn Pink and Irish Gardeners Delight, we find it combines excellent flavour and good productivity: hundreds of cherry tomatoes with a delicious mix of sweetness and acid.
18 seed £
Jen's Tangerine
This is a fantastic tomato we're really pleased to offer. It was actually found by Ben in his salad while on holiday with friends in France, and it was so good he knew straight away that we had to add it to the catalogue. It had been grown by a neighbour who we also knew, and we arranged to have some of her polytunnel devoted to seed production for us.
It is a brilliant orange, with a great balance of sweet and acid, and is quite large for a cherry tomato - about one and a half inches across. The vines grow to a decent height and produce lots of fruit over a really long season.
This variety has been selected over the years by Jen Boncyk, a market gardener high in the mountains, so it is used to cold nights and short seasons. Enjoy!
Tasty orange large-cherry tomato, good long fruiting season
22 seed, organic. £
Chadwick Cherry
This is a wonderful cherry tomato. A mid sized bright red cherry, it is really, really good, quite possibly one of the tastiest we have, and is the one we always pick out for eating at lunch during our tomato-deseeding sessions.
The plants make long trusses with large numbers of really attractive, bright red tomatoes that are right at the top end of the size range for a cherry type. It has become a new favourite of ours.
Sweet and firm cherry, great flavour and high yield. Picture show a fantastic crop of them near Cardigan in Wales.
20 seed £
Chocolate Cherry
This is a new variety we intoduced in 2013. A very sweet cherry tomato, with lots of purple-brown fruit about 1 inch across.
You should get about 6 to 8 fruit per truss, and they keep well after picking. As well as the unusual colour, we think that this is an especially tasty variety, nicely sweet and fruity with a good balance of acid.
Selected for good flavour. Oliver Harbury got first prize with these!
20 seed £
Blue Fire
A very unusual tomato that starts out deep blue and then ripens to red and black, eventually becoming covered with gold splashes.
Originally from the tomato collection of Bill Minkey, we have been selecting it for improved flavour and more consistent fruit size.
Although good for a blue tomato, still not an amazing taste, and this is definitely one to grow for appearance more than flavour.
20 seed £
Primabella - BLIGHT RESISTANT!!
We’ve been trialling a range of tomatoes outdoors, to find out which will produce well and withstand the inevitable late blight which is the main barrier to outdoors tomato growing in the UK climate.
We’re always sceptical about blight resistance, before now we’ve not found any supposedly resistant varieties that we’ve felt worth recommending. Primabella though has done extremely well for us, with the plants still growing through into November, even if a bit battered by gales and rain.
Photo below taken outdoors on our Pembrokeshire field November 16th, still ripening a last few fruit. We find the flavour excellent, they are quite fleshy for a cherry tomato and as a result are also very resistant to splitting even in wet weather.
Be sure to keep pinching out the sideshoots on this one, as it is very vigorous.
18 seed, organic. £
Sunviva Tall Vine tomato - GUEST VARIETY FOR TRIAL
A new variety of yellow cherry tomato from the Ecological Outdoor Tomato project at the University of Göttingen. Possibly blight-resistant, they did well for us in our initial 2025 tirals. They aren't the earliest to start to fruit , but then kept on producing well into autumn after others gave up. Very good flavour.
Indoors you can grow the vines as a double-leader to get more fruit. Outdoors they are very tall.
14 seed (rare!), organic. £
Saving Tomato Seed:
Here you can seed the seed and juice squeezed into a jar & let ferment for 3 days (no more, no less!)
Good seeds sink and bad ones float.
(And, yes, it is supposed to be mouldy & smelly)
Water is added and poured off several times to clean them, the seed is rinsed in a sieve and put on a plate to dry.
Detailed seed-saving instructions are included with your seeds, and in the menu to the left of this page, so you can do this yourself.
And of course this is only possible because these are all real, non-hybrid varieties.
