Apero, Conchita, Mini Belle

Red cherry tomatoes.  Of which, when it comes to choice for which to grow, we’re well and truly spoilt. So should any of this trio be put through to next year or were they for this year only?

Apero is my favourite of the three. The fruit is of an attractive colour, shape, size and good flavour; and nicely arranged on the truss ( if I’m allowed to say such things without coming over all Constance Spry). If the world wasn’t blessed with so many tomato varieties and so few hot, British summers I’d gladly welcome back Apero. But as it is, fickle I must be, and instead plump for something shiny and new…. but would definitely recommend.

Conchita was a Suttons Grafted plant. Nothing bad, but nothing that ‘spoke’ to me. And I didn’t manage to get a standard sized crop from my plant, let alone a bumper one , which is meant to be a benefit of the grafted selection. But I’d always blame the gardener before the tomato ! But still, not a variety that I want to shout from the trusses about.

Minibel. I only had one of these and it was given to me as a plant; a dwarf variety. As a one of one – it got a bit ‘dwarfed’ by the 8 Yellow Balconis which surrounded it. It was productive – what I would think of as a ‘helpful’ little plant; doesn’t need attention, just gets on with growing tomatoes. To my shame I don’t even seem to have a photo of it; so I’ve imported one from Google images – a better version of it than I managed to grow but given all I’ve said, that’s no surprise. So now I know what I’m aiming for – time to try again ? No – given there’s also a red variety of Yellow Balconi, and that’s on my Yes list, then I think I’ll go for different hues of the same variety.