Galapagos Island Tomato, Wild Galápagos Tomato, Tomatillo

I got seeds from wintersown.org—so, I'm going on trust that these are really Solanum cheesmanii. Whatever the case, I received some rem...Read Morearkable tomatoes.

They are very early (fruit comes early and it ripens quickly). They're marble-sized (currant tomatoes). They turn yellow and then get a slightly orangish hue. They have a really nice full tomato taste that reminds me of a much larger tomato when they have the orangish hue. They're more acidic when they first turn yellow. I didn't taste a salty flavor (in fact, they were quite pleasantly sweet).

They produce branches faster than other tomatoes. I got fruit indoors (in a south windowsill) before I transplanted them out (although I did grow them rather early).

They are at least somewhat shade-tolerant and are quite heat-tolerant (they set fruit in dry heat, at least; I don't know about humidity). They don't have huge leaves, and although they can withstand hot, full sun, I think if you live in a really hot area, it might be best to filter the light during the hot periods so they'll grow faster (or else give them more nitrogen; I didn't give ours much nitrogen). The leaves are regular leaf and look like regular currant tomato leaves (they're not especially hairy-looking as I thought they might be). They're much more heat tolerant than Texas Wild Cherry tomatoes (my seeds for those were also from wintersown.org), in my experience, and a little less heat tolerant than Black Plum tomatoes (seeds from rareseeds.com)

While indoors, they weren't as bothered by edema as Market Wonder and Peaceful Valley's Beefsteak (none of my tomatoes have that problem outdoors, fortunately, but indoors, lots of my plants did, since they were large, close together, and in humid conditions; that really bothered some of my tomatillos and to a lesser extend some of my peppers, though).

Each tomato has approximately 45 seeds, give or take some.

Tomato taste is very consistent. The ones indoors tasted like the ones outdoors. The shaded ones taste like the ones in full sun.

In April 2015, I saved 137+ seeds from three tomatoes grown indoors on the same plant (rather ripe ones). We've eaten all those grown outdoors so far, but I better save some of those, too.

They can split when picked, but not horribly often compared to other small tomatoes.

Considering out hot year, and the soil conditions, these tomatoes have set fairly well (more fruits than anything else, anyway, even if they are small).

I want to grow these again, and cross them with larger tomatoes. They have a lot of nice traits that would be great for breeding.

I had no problems with germination. They didn't have to go through a tortoise, either (unless that was done before I got the seeds from wintersown.org). Germination was about the same as other tomatoes.

I probably did soak the seeds in hydrogen peroxide before planting, though, but I do that with most seeds. If you do that, either use the food grade kind, diluted, or else rinse your seeds off afterward (don't put the hydrogen peroxide in your soil if it's not food grade; I emailed the manufacturer and they said my particular hydrogen peroxide has organophosphates in it, used as a stabilizer).

These are not at all like tomatillos (so, I'm not sure why the title says that). They are wild tomatoes from the Galapagos Islands.

These should not be confused with Solanum galapagense (which is also known as the Galapagos Island tomato). Solanum cheesmanii does not have whitefly resistance (like Solanum galapagense does), although it is supposed to be salt tolerant. It tolerated the rockdust I gave it (I gave it a lot of basalt rockdust). So, I guess that's a good sign. I don't recommend giving your plants lots of basalt rockdust if you have clay-loam soil like mine that probably has a high PH already. I would recommend greensand, however (at least the Espoma stuff that I tried; I have a different kind that I'm going to try soon).

Anyway, if you read anything that is very old, Solanum cheesmanii and Solanum galapagense used to be considered the same thing, but they have since divided them into two different species of wild tomatoes.

On a lighter note, this species is naturally salt-tolerant. It's being used to breed salt-tolerant varieties of tomatoes.

Seed must pass through the digestive tract of the giant Galapagos tortoise to germinate.