Skip to main content

Growing Sungold Cherry Tomatoes in the South

I am growing about half a dozen of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes in my garden this year, but Sungold deserves its own post. From my experience, Sungold is one of the best tomatoes to plant in the South. In areas with mild summer, tomatoes grow like weeds. We struggle to grow tomatoes here and Sungold makes it really easy.

 
Sungold cherry tomatoes on the vine
Sungold cherry tomatoes on the vine


Plant Profile

Sungold is an indeterminate hybrid cherry tomato. It is a fast growing plant and early producer. Although I started the seeds after other tomato varieties, Sungold was one of the first that I harvested. It can tolerate the heat and humidity very well. Below is a Sungold tomato plant in my garden during the peak of the summer. After a month long heatwave in Houston, it is the only tomato variety that still flowers and sets fruits. The other tomato plants just look stunted. The Sungold plant in the image is a 4-foot wide bush, growing next to an apple tree. I purposely wanted to give it partial shade. As you can see, there is no sign of tomato plant early blight. If you are going to grow it as a bush, I recommend at least 4 feet apart.

 
Sungold cherry tomato plant
Sungold cherry tomato plant in July, Houston, Texas


Taste and Characteristics of Sungold

The fruits that I harvested were small cherry tomatoes of 1 inch diameter. When the color was yellow, it tasted sour. The sweetness increased as the color changed to dark orange. The inside did not have a lot of seeds. Its texture reminded me of a yellow Rainier cherry. It is not the sweetest cherry tomato that I have ever had, but it is the best tasting. Overall, Sungold has a balance of tangy and sweet tomato taste; its texture is smooth and juicy. A major con about Sungold is that its thin skin cracks easily. Even with regular watering, the fruits always cracked after it rained. 


Cross section of Sungold cherry tomato
Cross section of Sungold cherry tomato, texture similar to a yellow Rainier cherry


Cracked Sungold cherry tomatoes
Cracked Sungold cherry tomatoes after a rain


Propagation

Because Sungold is a hybrid tomato, you would need to buy and plant hybrid seeds, produced from a well controlled environment. Another way to propagate it is to root the tomato sucker. A month ago, my four-year old dinosaur knocked over and caused a Sungold tomato plant to break. I removed the suckers and rooted them. This way, I can have more Sungold tomatoes in the fall and save the hybrid seeds for next year.


Rooted Sungold cherry tomato sucker
Rooted Sungold cherry tomato sucker


 

Labels:
Location: Houston, TX, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Did My Persimmon Trees Die?

Finally, I succeeded growing a persimmon tree after failing three times in a row. Below is a Giant Fuyu persimmon tree that I recently planted in the winter. I bought it as a bare-root stick from a mail order nursery. Now, it is one of the fasting growing fruit trees in my backyard. Although too young to have fruits, persimmon glossy large leaves make it beautiful to look at and quite ornamental. Before this, I have planted one potted and two bare-root persimmon trees which died after a few months in the ground. Here are the three mistakes that I made. Giant Fuyu persimmon tree after 5 months in the ground Planted It Too Low My backyard has dark rich clay soil that can be hard as rock during drought or turns into a long-standing puddle when it rains. No fruit tree likes constant wet feet. When I pulled the dead persimmon tree out of the ground, there were barely any roots. To help with drainage this time around, I planted the Giant Fuyu tree on a mound with grass cutting and dried leav...
Post a Comment
Read more

Growing Jujube Trees in Texas Clay Soil

As Houston continued to burn in record heat, my garden looked really sad during this time of the year. All winter squash vines got roasted. Many tomato plants either have shown signs of blights or were already gone. Even the grass has turned brown. The jujube trees, on the other hand, were growing better than weeds. Both the Li and Shanxi Li jujube trees have flushed out flowers for the second time and still maintained their beautiful glossy, green leaves.   Jujube tree flowered the second time. Plant Profile Jujube is a deciduous tree that grows in zone 5 through 10 and requires little chill hours. From my experience, it does well in clay soil and has no problem with heat, drought or pests. The Shanxi Li jujube is self-fertile, but the Li only produces a few fruits by itself without cross pollination. The cons about growing jujubes are the tree has sharp thorns and its roots can be invasive. I heard the jujube roots can run and grow suckers over 20 feet from the tree. Since my bac...
Post a Comment
Read more