Everglades Tomato- Pine Island Strain

We found this tomato growing wild on Pine Island near the fantastic plant nursery Fruitscapes. It appears to be a strain of Everglades tomato and grows in the same way thousands of Florida gardeners have grown to love. The rampant vines are heavily resistant to pests and diseases that plague tomatoes in Florida. The little tomatoes aren’t going to be grown for export but they make a great tomato to go straight from the garden to the salad or eaten as a garden snack. These tomatoes can even often survive growing during the sweltering Florida summers when all other tomatoes are totally off the table. Everglades tomato is likely a form of currant tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium. It is possible there are genes of normal domestic tomatoes also (Solanum lycopersicum) in Everglades tomato populations. Tiny but bulletproof tomato for Florida gardens!

Everglades tomato has wild genetics which make germination more erratic. This strain has erratic and sometimes slow germination. We will be continuing to select for early germination in our population. We are generous with our seed count here to make up for this erratic germination. When we did our germination tests we thought we did something wrong only to find some seeds eventually coming up 8 weeks later. Some germinate readily like normal tomato seeds.

~ 40 seeds