As August gets into full swing I am pleased to say that the tomatoes are ripening well and one of the first is ‘Tomatoberry Garden’. This oddly named Japanese-bred tomato is an F1 hybrid and was introduced prior to 2008 so is still a bit of a novelty but not new. It is easily distinguished from other tomatoes by its strawberry-shaped fruits which are carried in long, long trusses. Catalogues claim it is sweet with little gel.

It is too early to judge it really but I can already say that it has some good qualities. It has neat growth and the long trusses have nicely spaced fruits. A slight problem is that the lowest trusses hang so low that they touch the soil. The fruits are supposed to be very sweet but I would not agree with that so far but then we have had rather cool weather. But they do taste nice and have a really good tomato taste so what is lacking in sweetness so far is not a huge problem. The fruits have thick flesh and are firm but not hard. But what I do like is that, so far, there has been no cracking of fruits even when they have reached deep red (more ripe than in the photo above which was taken a week ago). It looks as though this could be a good staple for the greenhouse and the novelty shape of the fruits is a nice feature. They ripen to shiny, bright red and look very attractive. All round a good variety.

Geoff’s rating

9/10

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