A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum Leather Skin on Cherry Tomatoes

This year all six of our cherry tomato plants have fruit with skin so leathery it can't be chewed. The inside tastes fine but when that's gone the entire outer skin stays intact in our mouth and has to be removed. We've never had this happen with cherry tomatoes. The plants were grown from seeds we saved from last years crop and grow in a spot where our compost pile sat so the soil is excellent. We did have several spells of very dry and hot weather when we were not home to water.

Any ideas or suggestions from forum tomato growers so we can avoid the same thing next year?

Were the tomatoes you grew last year hybrids? seeds saved from hybrids, do not come out true to form. One of the parent cultivars may have that- which you describe as a characteristic, but through hybridizing with another type it may lose it. Usally when planting a hybrids saved seeds, it reverts back to one of its parent cultivar, which can give you undesirable traits.