When you’re planning your 2010 garden do make room for Tomaccio. This new gourmet cherry tomato is the best tasting variety around. I’ve never grown such a productive tomato before. It yielded cluster after cluster of luscious, very sweet fruits. All in all a single plant can easily provide over 15 pounds per season. You can start harvesting the fruits as soon as they turn red.

The sturdy, vigorous plants are vines. The stems can reach ten feet or so in length. For best results, provide Tomaccio with a good sturdy support. They could be grown in containers provided the pot is large enough to support the large root system. As with all tomatoes, these will need full sun.

The plants are finally being introduced to America. They’re already very popular in Europe. These will only be available in independent garden centers and nurseries. The plants will be sold under Hort Couture’s Culinary Couture line.

As a member of the Garden Writers Association I received free samples of the plants for testing in my garden during 2009. My plants proved to be very healthy and reliable. They exhibited no sign of disease.

I harvested enough to eat from July onward. These are great for snacking right off the vine. Any surplus that you don’t eat or give away can be dried. This variety was especially bred for that purpose. In warm, dry climates the fruits will dry naturally. Here in western North Carolina it is too humid for that to happen. So I put them in the oven at a very low temperature for a couple hours.

When dried the sweetness becomes much more concentrated. They retain their red color as they dry. They proved to be as tasty as raisins, which would serve to explain why they’re also called sweet raisin tomatoes. The fruits dry well due to the large pores in the skin.

Once the Tomaccio fruits begin to reach their mature size, avoid overwatering the plants. Too much water can sometimes cause the fruits to split, which can also occur with cantaloupes as well. Here in western North Carolina I watered only on those days when no thunderstorms were forecast. It also helps to harvest the fruits in a timely manner just as soon as they turn red.

It took Israeli scientists over ten years to breed this special variety. They started with a wild plant that had small fruits.