I have been dazzled by some of the colors of store-bought grape tomatoes, but never impressed by the taste of the non-red ones. In some ways, grape tomatoes are the perfect size; you can eat one or a handful at a time. The texture is often crunchy and the taste of the red ones is often sweet, at least, and sometimes complex! And they often last longer in the pantry than other tomatoes. I want tasty, crunchy, sweet grape tomatoes of different colors and if they don’t exist I will try to make them myself! Towards that end, I grew many types of grape tomatoes this year (2025) and in anticipation of there being some good varieties amongst them, made 34 crosses. But once I was able to evaluate the flavor and vigor during the whole season, I narrowed it down significantly to the following 13 that I’m interested in growing next year:

Red Grape x Pink Champagne

Elf Tears x Baby Red Grape

Frosty Grape x Green Tiger

Frosty Grape x Lucky Tiger

Yellow Grape x Green Tiger

Frosty Grape x Medovaya kaplya

Medovaya kaplya x Yellow Grape

Orange Grape x Medovaya kaplya

Red Grape x Medovaya kaplya

Medovaya kaplya x Lucky Tiger

Medovaya kapyla x Prairie Fire

Medovaya kaplya x Mountain Vineyard

Mountain Vineyard x Prairie Fire

I thought four or five would be enough to make a nice mix, but now I can see there are enough interesting crosses I’ve made already that I could end up with “Nine Grapes” which has a certain ring. I don’t know if some or all or none will have potato leaf, I imagine a greenflesh bicolor, a red striped, and at least some with anthocyanin. I’ll see and taste what happens.

Note: This quickly became an insanely ambitious multiyear project, (I think I’ll end up growing thousands of plants towards this) but I’ve got my eyes on the prize and I know what I want, so if there’s a way to get there, I will go the distance.