Sweet Hearts Hybrid Grape Tomato Seeds

Days to Maturity: 60 from transplant

Indeterminate

When Sweet Hearts entered the American market 10 years ago, it swept away nearly all the competition. This grape tomato is simply better in most every way from others. Its color is a deeper red; its sugar content is higher; its skin is less tough and more resistant to cracking. Best of all, it sets huge crops all season long, so you need never leave the garden without a handful of warm, aromatic Sweet Hearts in your palm.

What is Sweet Heart's secret? Well, flavor is the primary one. Cherry and grape tomatoes can be very tough: it's a balancing act to produce a skin strong enough to resist cracking, yet tender enough to be toothsome. Sweet Hearts reaches this balance effortlessly, even in late season, when many tomatoes become rather tough. And unlike many cherries and grapes, Sweet Hearts is strongly flavored, with a high score on the Brix sweetness scale and a good mix of solids and gels in each little ¼-ounce fruit. This tomato actually tastes better than it looks—and that's saying a lot, because that dark, nutrition-packed red color is pretty attractive.

A secondary advantage is the disease resistance and vigor of this plant. Sweet Hearts is indeterminate, so it keeps producing all season as the plant grows taller and taller. Well, this vine takes that to extremes, appearing to set new clusters of fruit pretty much continuously, beginning early and staying late. Big yields is a boast that many tomatoes make, but Sweet Hearts lives up to consistently, thanks to superior resistance to tobacco mosaic virus (races 0-2), gray leaf spot, leaf mold (races A-E), and fusarium wilt (race 1). If you have ever found tomato gardening challenging (and who among us hasn't, especially in organic settings where we use no chemical sprays), Sweet Hearts will restore your faith and lessen your chores.

Sweet Hearts was bred in Japan by one of the premier seed companies in the world, and we are honored to make it available to home gardeners this season. Once you grow your own grape tomatoes, you will never look twice at those overpriced supermarket specimens in the clamshell packaging. Sweet Hearts is out to win your heart!

Start your Sweet Hearts seeds indoors 5 to 6 weeks before the last frost date. Plant outdoors when danger of frost is past and night temperatures consistently remain above 55 degrees Fahrenheit. If an unexpected late frost is forecasted, protect young plants with plastic sheeting or other cover. Set plants 2 to 2½ feet apart. Marigolds are a good friend to tomatoes in the garden, destroying root-knot nematodes within the soil. Consider planting our special nematode-battling variety, Marigold Golden Guardian, around your Sweet Hearts. Harvest promptly to encourage the plant to set new flowers and fruit.