Tomato Brad’s Atomic (aka Brad’s Atomic Grape)

A multi-coloured grape shaped cherry tomato on indeterminate vines.

Description

Another blue/multi-coloured tomato from the 2019 seed swap which we’re growing in 2020 for the first time. According to the web it was developed by Brad Gates the owner of Wild Boar Farms in California. The descriptions seem to be of a tasty, grape shaped, multi-coloured cherry tomato which seems to go though a number of colour changes as it ripens. Grows well in California. It will be interesting to see how it does in the cooler, less sunny UK climate.

There’s an interesting video about Brad Gates here.

Update

2020 April: We sowed our seeds slightly later than usual this year because the polytunnel was destroyed over the winter. However, we had good germination and they are growing well.
2020 July: Fruit set 33 days after planting. Still waiting for them to ripen.
2020 September: As you can see from the picture below, the fruit (at least the ones we’ve grown) are hardly “blue”. These are ripe (in fact they fell off) but, in all honesty the flavour wasn’t up to much and they didn’t add flavour to salads. Probably not something I would choose to grow again.

2023 August: We are obviously not alone, one of our readers says: “I have found them to be disappointing so far. Spindly branches with fairly sparse crop. Not the heavy cropping as advertised. Might be because of our cold UK Spring but they are painfully slow growing after an initial spurt of approx. 10 tomatoes they don’t seem to want to produce many more!. Now August 10th. Small black fruit, very hard, still waiting for any getting remotely softer to eat. I will certainly not grow this again. Probably need Mediterranean climate to get anywhere with them.”

2024 February: Another comment from somebody else: “Very unique growing type, with very weak spindly looking leaf at first, but then goes bonkers when growing on. Hard to keep it pinched out as it just keeps growing from every available point. I’ve grown it for a couple of years now, and it’s certainly a curiosity, but I wouldn’t buy it again.”

Updated: 07/01/2021