meet the spectacular black strawberry cherry tomato

The Black Strawberry Cherry Tomato (60 days, indeterminate) is apparently a cross of Bosque Blue with the Strawberry Tiger variety. This is certainly one of the most striking tomatoes I have ever grown. I ordered my seeds from rareseeds.com (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) after falling in love with this tomato on its 2022 catalog cover. I think this is one of the most photogenic tomatoes around, and there are so many good looking tomatoes these days.

The Black Strawberry is a large vine and the fruit ripens in about two months. I grew mine in a raised bed with a hoop. It needed support because the trusses can get heavy with fruits. All fruits start out green, then the dark purple stripes quickly become visible. The fruits eventually turn into a marble of deep purple, pink, green, and gold. When the fruits ripen, they carry a certain luminescence, almost looking like large red grape clusters with the top of the fruits, maintaining its deep, almost black hue, and the bottom turning shades of punch or crimson.  If you remove the fruit's sepal, a light colored five or six-point star is revealed at the top of the fruit; its color typically matches the bottom of the fruit color. The pointed stars have no known function but how amazing is that?

The Black Strawberry has a thick skin, a meaty bite and a slightly sweet and tart flavor. The fruits are larger than your typical cherry tomatoes found in the supermarkets. The taste is not quite mind boggling as I thought it might be but compared to the Black Cherry that I grew last year, this has a much fuller taste. Would I grow this again? Absolutely. This is not the best tasting tomato I grew this year, but I remain mesmerized by its color transformation throughout the growing season.

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