What is a Grape Tomato?

I have grown grape tomato seeds from Walmart every year and they grow fine and make small, sweet and very tasty grape tomatoes. I suggest just buying some tomatoes and planting them each year. The first generation will come out almost identical to the store bought ones.

The spring of 2010 my wife and I planted three grape tomato starts in a large pot on wheels on the deck so she could grab a few without having to go all the way to the garden for the munchies. They still had some blooms last fall so we pulled it into the sun room. She had grape tomatoes all last winter.

This past spring, I rolled it out on the deck again but it was looking a little spindly. I took cuttings from some of the stems and set them in the dirt, and some seeds from the dropped tomatoes came up also. We just rolled it into the sun room for a second winter and it is fuller than ever. I just took a couple more cuttings and moved down again to keep it going. The tomatoes are a little larger but she says the flavor is great.

It is false that seeds from a hybrid cannot be used to grow a grape tomato. This is something that is repeated over and over and is untrue.

You just may not get a tomato exactly like the one you ate. You may get one of the crossed versions. That could be why some of the posters here report growing larger grapes with the second generation.

They may have actually grown one of the parent tomatoes. All tomatoes are hybrids of one form or another. Your store-bought grape tomatoes simply may not breed "true." You might get a little bit of a different tomato but it will likely be similar.

I had to laugh when I read this article. I thought that our professor was the ignorant one and it turned out, he was. He said grape tomatoes were a cross between a grape and a tomato, so I looked it up. Liberal nutcase.

Why are some grape tomatoes yellow and orange? What make them change colors?

I'm growing "Santa" tomato plants on my balcony in large pots. I bought them as seedlings from my local garden store because I thought they were a bush variety (non-staking). I didn't want big tall long vines hanging over my balcony... I've searched everywhere on the internet for a photo of a full-sized Santa tomato plant because I'm starting to suspect that they aren't going to be as "bushy" as I had hoped, and I'm wondering if I need to stake/cage them after all. And if so, how big of cages I need. Can anyone help here? Thanks!

I know nothing about gardening or botany, but I am growing a grape tomato plant in my San Francisco apartment (the plant thus resides indoors). The plant is about three months old, but is just under a foot tall and about a foot wide. I think it's because I kept transferring the plant to a bigger pot than the previous. It began with a 5"x5" pot. Then it became obvious that it was too small, so I transferred it to an 8"x6" pot. A month later, that pot wasn't enough. Now it's in a huge 2'x2'.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that if you want to grow big plants, don't start out with tiny pots! Obvious, yeah, I know.

the seed from the grape tomatoes are viable, but not to save and use for commercial use. they came from hybrid tomatoes and you can't be sure if they will produce traits similar to the tomato you got it from it will most likely revert back to the main traits of one of the parents of the plant that you got the tomatoes from.. so you can try, might not work well and you won't get a decent crop of "grape" tomatoes, if you're trying to do that.

I have also read elsewhere that tomatoes from the grocery, being hybridized, would not be able to sprout into producing vines. During early summer in Houston, I tossed rotted grape tomatoes from Kroger into my compost pile. In early Fall, my husband tossed the compost into a lavender plant. Both are flourishing, and a now 5 foot long tomato plant with 50 flowers grew out of the small pot. In January, I harvested 10 tiny tomatoes, and another 2 foot high, flowering tomato plant has grown in my compost heap. The newly ripe tomatoes are bursting with flavor and a welcome surprise this winter. My mother, an avid gardener, has taken a tomato from my plant in order to grow another plant.

O.k., I found this discussion and thought I would add to it. I have a VERY small garden and usually plant 3 grape tomatoes to go with our salads. The very first year I purchased the seedlings, we had wonderful fruit. About 1 1/2 - 2 inches long at times, oblong, delicious and sweet. We could pick them by the handfuls and eat them right off the vine. Very hearty growers and bountiful.

Every year since then it has been hit or miss in buying "grape" seedlings. More miss then Hit. Most of the time we wind up with regular 1" long round grapes that just don't have the same flavor. And the plants usually die early. Interestingly enough, we usually have 1- 3 self starters that crop up wild around the yard. (Its kind of amusing to walk by the house and see A huge tomato plant and cage right smack dab in the middle of the front yard). My question is..Where can I find the 1 1/2 - 2 " long oblong grapes at? They really can't be beat! Ron in Baltimore

I used Grape tomato seeds from the fruit. I fermented them to get the gel off and grew them inside until after the first frost (in NC). I hardened them and grew them in pots. Now - late June I have plants about 6ft tall with lots of bloom and fruit that appears to be a grape tomato. They are not red yet but they are the right size. Right now each plant has about 20-30 fruits and about that many flowers. What encouraged me to try this from purchased grape tomato is a chicken ate the seed and volunteered them around the farm last year. Those plants did have grape tomatoes and tasted wonderful.

When the original poster said - "Because the grape tomato is a hybrid, seeds produced directly from the fruit cannot be used to grow more plants." - I assumed that the original poster meant that the seeds of this hybrid plant would be sterile, so that the seeds would be inviable. That is, the seeds of the sterile hybrid would simply not sprout. But it appears that some people planted seeds and they grew. So this - to me - sounds like the seeds are viable, but because it's a hybrid plant, you might not be guaranteed to get the same kind of plant as the parent plant. Hence the 'bigger' tomatoes from the plants grown from the hybrid seeds.

Posted by Kenny

I have two Grape tomato plants. They grew well, and produced a lot of blossoms, however set little fruit. What did set was very easily knocked loose.

The other tomatoes did great.

What am I doing wrong?

JB

Interesting that you say grape tomatoes will not grow from original plant. I planted grape tomatoes plants last year from a local grower. I had numerous plants come up this year on their own (self starters)I usually pull plants up that are self starters but decided I'd let 3 of them go just to see, and they produced larger grape tomatoes than the plants I planted this year.

I planted grape tomatoes last year and had several plants come up on their own and produced huge grape tomatoes. The self starters actually produced bigger fruit than the plants I purchased from a grower for this years garden.

Denise

Okay, I now have a grape tomato on the vine. I found it yesterday. I have lots of blooms. I took a picture. If you have a place where I can send it, let me know. It is a little out of focus because I was trying to get really close. It is very small, but it definitely has the grape tomato shape.

Yes, I have six plants growing, and they look very healthy. I had grape tomatoes in my refrigerator that I bought at Kroger. The package said grape tomatoes. I cut a grape tomato open and planted the seeds directly into the potting soil. This was in February. I wasn't sure it would work, but I thought well, nothing lost if it doesn't. I transplanted them about a week ago. I didn't even know how big the plants would get. I assumed they would be smaller plants so I planted them in big pots on my deck. Then I read that they grow to really tall plants. When I transplanted them, I planted them deep so they are now about six to eight inches tall.

Hm. That's very interesting. Were they specifically Grape Tomato seeds, or other kinds of tomatoes that you have planted? And you say you have a plant growing, but no tomatoes yet? I'm sure we'd all like to hear more about that!

The reason I ask is that I did this. I had no idea it would not work. I've saved my own seeds for years. The plants look great. I guess they are just going to be "ornamental."

Because Grape Tomatoes are hybrids, the seeds they produce will not grow into anything. You may, however, be able to buy grape tomato seeds at your local gardening store.

This article states that since the grape tomato is a hybrid, the seeds can't be used directly from the tomato to grow other plants. My question is: What happens if you do plant the seeds directly from the fruit? Will it produce any type of tomato?