PlantFiles: Tomato
Lycopersicon lycopersicum 'Sungold'

First summer growing these. My daughter and I loved them. Beautiful glowing color. Very tall plants that put out a decent crop. Very early ripening and I wintersow my seeds. Taste was good in the begining and improved/deepened as we stopped getting ton's of rain late in the season. They were never too sweet for me, but if left to develope a solid orange on the vine, I thougt they had a slight hint of tropical fruit. Nice difference to a red cherry. I did a test of ripening indoors in paper bags and letting them stay on the vine and not only did I notice a taste difference, but the indoor ripened Sungolds never got to be that solid orange. Please try to leve them on the vine to fully ripen. No cracking at all on these babies. I may try an OP orange cherry next year instead though. I really prefer very small cherries, but I would still recommend growing these in the garden at least once to try them out if anybody asked. Seed source was Renee's Garden.

I'm a huge fan of sungold. I've grown it a few years and it's got a superb flavor that I've yet to find in another variety of tomato. Just wish I could find a large version of this one. Lots of fruit and easy to grow. I rate them neck and neck with my old standing sweet 100's. Recommend this one to everyone.

This little orange gem is a celebration of all that the summer has to offer plus it's beautiful in a salad and I am very pleased with how it did grow well in a container with Spider Mites attacking everything EXCEPT the Sungold Plants. The dang things lived up to the things you would expect--like webbing on the basil, and DEVOURED even my Marigolds, but they completely left the Sungold alone. Heck, I even had major problems with earwigs which went after my peppers and left these plants alone.

The taste rivaled even the Sweet Millions or Sweet 100; the sunlight was limited to late afternoon and early evening, yet I had a very good turnout considering. I started these guys again thi year in the first part of April with a Germination mat and a 4' Grow Light...I kept them in the attic since the weather has been genuinely cool this spring but when I went up to water/reposition all of my 'maters, basil, and the peppers and noticed that one of the Sungolds was starting to bloom already so I planted it iinto my new raised beds and am expecting great things from that guy!

Once you've tasted this one...I've been hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't remark on how much they a) Had a garden to grow them or b) They wants to get some seeds or plants (or more fruit for that matter..note to self...can a single person produce enough to sell some to pay for a year's gardening expensess? Hmmmm...well, at any rate; in my and friends; this tomato is DYNAMITE!

Thor

I grow Sungold in 12" plant pots, and trim them to be about 6" high and not much wider than the pot. I use recycled potting soil and Plant Tones Organic fertilizer sprinkling about a level teaspoon about once a week while plant is fruiting. They also get one treatment of liquid seaweed fertilizer when transplanted over whole plant, and one more when they set flower, but only over the roots. Unfortunately, my cherry tomato space is limited to 12 plants per season, so I only grow 2 of these each year. These golden cherry tomatoes are as sweet as candy, often the first to ripen, and are still producing ripe fruit well into October. I get 100-200 fruit per plant, even in the relatively small pot. The day before first frost, I usually pick 60+ green fruit, and most of those ripen in brown bags in my kitchen, so I am still eating fresh ripe fruit on Thanksgiving. These are phenomenal!

LOVE the sungold! It is sweet, prolific, and I have not had any problems with disease. It is not as acidic (tastewise) as a traditional cherry tomato. Easy to grow and by far one of my fav's and must haves in my garden every year.

Hi everyone,
This spring is my first year for cherry tomatoes.
I want to put mine in a pot and wondered what size I should put them in?
I wrote NatureWalker, but I need to get them in ASAP!
Thanks for any input.
Karen in Austin, TX

Very productive. Has a wonderful taste - it's sweet but if you wait until it turns orange, it has an amazing almost tropical taste to it. I don't like growing hybrids but this is one I'll always grow (at least until the wonderful souls working on it get it OP!)

Unique sweet flavour, nothing quit like them. My vines were almost 12 feet long by season end, need I say that they were productive. They do crack more then most, easy solution, just eat them right away. Appears to me that the negatives are really cases of mistaken identity.

The best tomato I´ve tasted, ever!

I started germination inside in February, planted out in May/June (I live in Finland, where the summer is very short and cool).

The mistakes I made: not feeding them early enough, and side-shooting them from early spring.

I have only had a couple of tomatoes so far to taste, and some more are coming off nicely. So, for me, not a tomato-producing machine (my mistake probably!) but they do have a wonderful, almost exotic flavour.

Will definitely start in Feb/March next year, feed more, earlier, not side-shoot in the beginning of summer. Oh and will get more of them! :O)

This was my first year growing 'Sungold' and it won't be my last. It's the first tomato to ripen in my zone 4a garden, and the flavor is slightly sweet, but still has that great tomato bite. I love them!

A very tasty, and beautiful, little tomato. In my experience, it has more "real tomato" flavor than most varieties of cherry tomato plus a little hint of fruitiness. The only problem with it is that over-ripe fruits develop a sort of fermented super sweet flavor that I think is unpleasant. The vines are fast growing and highly productive. I have also grown Sun Sugar, but frankly can't tell the difference between the two. They are interchangable as far as I am concerned.

I've grown Sungold for several years now, and I always share any extra plants and bountiful fruits with co-workers and friends. They always ask when I'll have some. I've started adding it to fruit salads and fruit cocktail, and it really fits right in.

I grow Sungold every year and have for many years. It is one of my favorite cherry tomatoes, second only to Galina, a Russian heirloom, rarely grown.
Sungold is always my first tomato, even my first cherry tomato. It has a very complex and interesting flavor -- sweet and tart and more. I have a friend who feeds it to her toddlers as candy and they are happy.
It comes in earlier than Sweet 100, but a bowl with each is a delicious appetizer.
It is incredibly productive and the plant grows huge, sprawling all over the place. Make a good trellis for it or plan a lot of back breaking bending to pick it.

The best cherry tomato in the world. It does split, but who cares.

Despite the full-sun rating, this variety produced very well for me in a part-shade location (less than 4 hrs of sun per day). And the taste is as good as the notes above indicate. Pick the ripe orange ones soon after a heavy rain or they tend to split.

Will definitely grow this one again- a very sweet golden-orange cherry size tomato. It's like candy and I can't resist popping one in my mouth every time I walk by. It's a great producer too- very prolific. Mine needed a lot of staking, and probably would be better in a cage. Great in salads as well (if they make it into the house!).

After all the hype, I tried one. They failed from seed, but I picked up a a sort of sikly one at a store, and thought what the heak, and planted it in a pot. The plant just exploded with growth and flowers and is very productive , but slow to ripen. I can' t wait to try them and see if they are as good as everyone claims!
Later
9/8/07 Yuck it was terrible, they were extreemly bitter, they were pear shaped and they turned bright red. I don't know what happened or if the nursery mixed up the signs.

First tomato to bloom this season, and set fruit! So far, amazing.

I bought this plant as an afterthought. I was late buying tomato starts last year and all the Black Krim starts in town had sold out. This was on special so I picked it up. It is absolutely the best, most trouble-free producer I've had in 2 years of growing tomatoes. It's foggy here and every other tomato variety has fallen to some sort of fungus. Sungold never showed any signs of fungus infection and gave like gangbusters.

I'll need to be more prepared this year. I grew it without a stake or tomato cage last year and it sprawled all over. While it dealt with that pretty well, I wonder how much better it might do with proper staking. Highly recommended for the foggy parts of the Bay Area.

Great plant. Firm, good size for cherry type, prolific, great taste, etc. Produced from July 1 until Oct. 15-started inside in March in a grow box, planted early June with a minature hoop house, thick strong stems. Covered with larger hoop house mid September-first frost was late September at our 5500' place. Will plant again. Joan

I'll simply echo the previous positive comments about taste and productivity. Be prepared to trellis this baby, because the growth rate is almost aggressive (but in a good and highly productive way). This isn't a tame little patio guy despite the size of the fruit. We are not growing it this season for the first time in several years (limited space and just HAD to try something else) but we'll be back with Sungold next season. Just too tasty and productive to pass up. We won first prize at the local county fair (in the cherry tomato category) the first year we grew them. And the sight of all those nice orange-gold tomatoes in a dish or an a platter: just gorgeous!

A tomato-producing machine! The plant is incredibly prolific and healthy, and the tomatoes have a wonderful rich flavor. They're gorgeous in salads. The only faults I've found is that the tomatoes develop a 'winey' taste when very ripe, which I find unpleasant, and they're very prone to cracking.

I live in Sacramento, CA and planted tomatoes for the first time this year. I bought the Sun Gold plant from the local farmer's market and planted it in mid-June. At first it seemed to do well and popped out 3 tomatoes right away, then slowly, branch by branch, the plant started to wither. I cut off a couple of withering branches and took them to a local nursery. They examined the branches and determined that I had fusarium wilt in the Sun Gold. I bought 2 other tomatoes (Red Zebra & Yellow Brandywine) from the same vendor. The Red Zebra is popping out tomatoes like crazy & looks great. The Brandywine is dropping all it's flowers (probably due to our 100+ degree heat), but otherwise looks healthy. I planted the tomatoes in a raised bed with garden soil and Gardener's Gold, plus some homegrown compost and some CA clay soil. Previously (winter garden) I had planted lettuce, Swiss chard, arugula, & red onions in this soil. I'm very saddened by this experience & wonder if it's really fusarium wilt, or some other disease.

I live in Alabama, and my soil is composed primarily of red clay. To this, add our problematic weather... and you've got some pretty funky growing conditions. As far as tomatoes are concerned, my major problems have always been splitting and fungal infections. This is obviously due to periods of heavy rain and/or high humidity...

Sungold tomatoes seem to tolerate everything, though. They're prolific even in my poorly conditioned soil. Our current drought hasn't phased them, even with my sporadic watering habits. My plant produces about a quart of ripened tomatoes every three days right now (June 25th), and is approximately 9' tall. I've resorted to giving them away to friends and neighbors... and this is just the result of ONE plant.

My only recommendation is that you support them to the best of your ability. I used an 8 ft steel fence post hammered at least 1 ft into the ground, and backed by 2 tiers of semi-circular sections of rabbit fence for the "cage." Doing so allows me to tie the plant to a very stable structure while leaving half of the area open for easy harvesting.

i have grown sungolds in 5 gallon containers for the past 3 years. they keep producing sweet tasting tomatoes all season long.

I almost always put in a Sungold or two for fall crop. The plants hold up very well and produce loads of fruit for me before first frost. Love the flavor; one of the few hybrids I still regularly grow.

I haven't yet grown Sungold, but I can attest to its enormous popularity in this area. I've eaten them, and they're sweet bites. With only one exception, everyone I know who's grown them raves about their disease-resistance. They're on my "must-have" list of tomato varieties for next season.

Update 9/24/06:

I grew Sungold successfully this season, now drawing to a close, and can understand why they're so popular. They're truly sweet little fruits, productive plants, and I observed no disease problems. I enjoyed it, but with other cherry tomatoes to compare it to, decided it's too light and sugary, lacking in flavor that should be present (IMHO) in a tomato. It's still good, but probably won't be on my list for next year. For those who prefer a really sweet, attractive cherry tomato on reliable plants, though, it's a good choice.

I've grown SUNGOLD in my garden every year for the past 10 years. A PROVEN performer!!!! Prolific, Xtra sweet,
first to fruit & last of the season to quit. You MUST grow this one!!

A favorite treat to eat in the garden. Too good to be able to share because it is difficult to stop eating them. Sweet and simple taste. The golden color is beautiful as well. Texture is perfect- soft but never mealy.

They really grow very well in containers that's the way we grow them, never in the ground because our soil is mostly clay up here in the mountains of New York State. We've bought our seeds from Cook's Garden.com, and the germination rate has been fantastic over the last 5 years. We have even used seeds that were over 2 years old. The flavor is sweet and tasty, so you really can't resist them; going out each day to pluck them is a challenge because you don't know how many you can save of them to get into your kitchen. Cook's Garden.com is under new management, and their website has been revamped. Their new link is: [HYPERLINK@www8.mailordercentral.com]

This is info that I've been able to collect about the cultivation:

Sun Gold: Botanical: Lycopersicon esculentum; hybrid

Growing Seedlings: Don't start too early! Root-bound, leggy plants that have open flowers or fruit when planted out may remain stunted and produce poorly! Sow in flats, using soilless peat-based mix (NOT potting soil). 5-6 weeks before plants can be transplanted out after frost danger. Keep temperature of the starting mix at 75-90°F (24-32°C); tomato seeds germinate very slowly in cooler soil. When first true leaves develop, transplant into plug trays or 3-4" pots for large, stocky 7-8 week transplants for earliest crops. Grow seedlings at 60-70°F (16-21°C). Water only enough to keep the mix from drying. Fertilize with fish emulsion or a soluble complete fertilizer.

Transplanting Outdoors: Transplant into medium-rich garden or field soil 12-24" apart for determinate varieties, 24-36" apart for indeterminate, unstaked varieties, and 14-20" for staking. Water seedlings with a high-phosphate fertilizer solution. For earliest crops, set plants out around the last frost date under floating row covers (see Index) which will protect from frost to about 28°F (-2°C). If possible, avoid setting out unprotected plants until night temperatures are over 45°F (7°C). Frost will cause severe damage!

Bite-size, "tropical fruit". A bright tangerine orange sweet cherry. Sun Gold's exotic taste makes it one of the most talked about items. High-sugar, orange fruits have a yummy "tropical" or "winey" taste. Vigorous plants start ripening early and bear right through the season. Indeterminate.

Resistant to diseases: Fusarium Wilt (Race 1), Tobacco Mosaic Virus. Does well when grown in a container. Does especially well when started in, or grown in, a greenhouse environment.

Fertilizer: Abundant soil phosphorus is important for early high yields. Too much nitrogen causes rampant growth and soft fruits susceptible to rot. Fertilize with fish emulsion or a soluble complete fertilizer.

Pruning And Staking: Variety should be staked, trellised, or caged, and pruned for best results; fruit ripens over an extended period.

Diseases: Refer to a good Extension publication or Identifying Vegetable Diseases. Learn the common tomato diseases in your area. Select resistant varieties. For prevention, use young, healthy transplants, avoid overhead irrigation, plow in tomato plant refuse in the fall, rotate crops, and **__Do not__ handle tobacco or smoke before handling these plants.** Fungicides can reduce certain diseases when properly selected and applied.

Blossom End Rot: Prevent it by providing abundant soil calcium and an even supply of soil moisture.

Insect Pests: Use rotenone to discourage flea beetles on seedlings. Tomato hornworms can be controlled with Dipel. Use BT for potato beetle larvae, and rotenone or pyrethrin for adults.

Harvest: Fully vine-ripen fruit only for local retailing or use. To deliver sound fruit, pick fruit less ripe the further the distance and the longer the time between the field and the customer.

Storage: Store firm, ripe fruit 45-60°F (7-16°C) for 4-7 days.

Hope this info helps someone.

I have grown Sungold for the last few years and have always had success with it, even in times when I did not give it the TLC it deserves(but does not need). The taste is so sweet, it is a perfect dessert tomato. They produce heavily so there is always plenty to share with friends.

This is an outstanding cherry tomato plant. It grows fast, produces steadily, and the flavor is incredible. Unlike the supersweet types, it has a full flavor more akin to the old fashioned heirloom tomatoes, with a crisper acid/sweet balance. It produces well even in the foggy Bay Area/coastal Nor. Cal, where most tomatoes fail. My husband didn't care for tomatoes and the taste of these made him into a fan. They are neat, relatively compact plants that grow well in the ground or in pots.

Sun Gold is a popular variety here in Alaska where cherry tomatoes are popular due to their short maturity dates. Here in South Central Alaska, all tomatoes are a greenhouse plant, and these tasty tomatoes are a treat.

If you want a sweet tomato, Sun Gold is it. Juicy and so sweet it will "melt in your mouth." Its striking color is a plus, also. It looks similar to Sun Sugar, but is far sweeter.