Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato

The wild tomato that tied the best of the breeding labs

In 2014, Cornell researchers published a study that should have embarrassed half the seed industry. They field tested 39 tomato varieties against modern late blight, the disease that levels whole gardens, and ranked the survivors.

At the top, alongside modern hybrids carrying two carefully stacked resistance genes, sat a half wild cherry collected from Mexico. Its resistance genes were, and still are, formally undetermined.

Nobody bred them in. They came with the plant.

That plant is the Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato, and the same Cornell trial recorded one more detail. Of everything tested, it also earned the highest taste score.

A barely domesticated tomato matching decades of breeding work on disease, then beating the field on flavor, is about as good as tomato stories get. This guide covers where it came from, what wild really means in a backyard, and how to grow it, or more honestly, how to host it.

What the Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato actually is

Botanically, this is Solanum lycopersicum variety cerasiforme, the weedy, semi wild form of tomato that grows on roadsides and field edges in Mexico and Central America. It sits partway between fully wild species and the domestic tomato, closer to what tomatoes were before people got involved.

The fruit is tiny, around five eighths of an inch, deep red, and thin skinned. Think dime sized, smaller than any commercial cherry variety.

The plant is the opposite of tiny. It is indeterminate, rampant, and capable of sprawling 8 feet or more in a season, with fruit ripening very early, around 55 to 60 days from transplant.

How a wild Mexican tomato got a Maine professor’s name

The story, as the seed trade tells it, runs through friendship rather than plant exploration. Teresa Arellanos de Mena brought seed from her family in Hidalgo, in eastern Mexico, to friends on the University of Maine faculty.

Those friends were Dr. Laura Merrick and Dr. Matt Liebman.

Liebman grew it in his Maine garden, the seed circulated, and when Johnny’s Selected Seeds introduced it commercially in the 1990s, the variety carried his name. Liebman is entirely real, a longtime agronomy professor now at Iowa State University.

The collection details rest on catalog lore rather than formal documentation, which is worth saying plainly. What is not lore is the plant itself, whose behavior and genetics look exactly like what the story describes: a wild Mexican field tomato, barely changed by human hands.

The resistance nobody engineered

Here is the finding that moved this variety from curiosity to legend. In Cornell’s published field trials against US 23, the late blight strain that dominates modern outbreaks, Matt’s Wild Cherry showed resistance comparable to varieties carrying the stacked Ph 2 and Ph 3 genes, the current gold standard.

In the 2013 trial season, it recorded zero percent disease severity at the September scoring date. Plants stood clean while susceptible varieties around them collapsed.

UMass Extension now names it in its late blight guidance as a small fruited variety with good resistance. And the strangest part remains: the genetic basis is listed as undetermined. Whatever protects this plant came out of a Mexican field, not a breeding program.

Grower reports mostly agree, with New York and East Coast gardeners describing it sailing through blight years untouched. The record is not unanimous, though. One Texas grower watched early blight spread through it, so treat it as remarkably tough, not immortal.

What it actually tastes like

The flavor reputation is nearly as loud as the disease story. In that same Cornell evaluation, tasters scored it 4.7 out of 5, the best in the trial. It also won the Seed Savers Exchange tomato tasting in 2014.

Growers supply the color commentary. The sweetest tomatoes they have ever tasted, said one Texas nursery. Hard to get any in the house, because they disappear on the walk from the garden, is the most repeated joke.

The honest dissent is about timing and expectations. Picked even slightly early, the fruit runs tart, and one Alabama grower found it more tart than sweet altogether. Fully ripe, in full sun, is when the sugar shows up.

The real limitation is not flavor but format. A fruit this small is a snack and a garnish, not a slicer, and one grower’s complaint says it all: never big enough to use in a meal.

What wild actually means in your garden

Every trait that makes this plant tough also makes it inconvenient, and buyers deserve the full list. Wild is not a marketing word here. It is a behavior.

The vine is rampant. Growers report 8 and 9 foot monsters that swallow a 4 by 8 bed, bury trellises, and shrug off pruning. Give it a fence, an arch, or a corner to conquer, not a tomato cage.

The harvest is a chore measured in patience. Filling a single cup takes real time when each fruit is dime sized, and daily picking yields handfuls, not baskets.

The fruit is fragile. Thin skins split in rain and drop from the stem when dead ripe, which is exactly how a wild plant wants it, since dropped fruit is next year’s seedlings.

The volunteer situation

That last trait deserves its own warning label. This variety self sows with enthusiasm, and gardeners across the country report volunteers appearing for years after a single planting.

Some love it. A tomato that replants itself annually, free, in a spot it chose, is cottage garden charm at its best.

Some regret it. It took over is a phrase that appears in reports from gardeners who planted one Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato and now weed out its grandchildren, with seedlings springing up across yards, compost piles, and neighboring beds.

The practical advice is simple. Plant it where you would be happy to see it forever, harvest thoroughly if you want control, and treat every dropped fruit as a planting decision you just made.

A tomato for the hard places

There is a reason Gulf Coast garden centers push this variety hard. The heat, humidity, and fungal pressure that grind down domestic tomatoes in the South barely register on it.

One Texas horticulturist’s summary covers it: all the things that cause problems for tomato growers near the Gulf, this tomato does not care about. Reports describe it shrugging off humidity and carrying on through conditions that end other varieties’ seasons.

That toughness travels. Gardeners in difficult spots, wet summers, erratic care, marginal soil, keep finding that the least domesticated tomato in the catalog is the one that never quits.

The best ways to use it

Snacking is the headline, obviously. A bowl of these by the back door disappears faster than any crop in the garden, and children treat the plant as a candy stand.

In the kitchen, the size becomes an asset in the right dishes. Whole fruit roasts in minutes, tops a flatbread without slicing, and makes the smallest, prettiest salad tomatoes available.

The intense sweetness concentrates beautifully. One grower makes ketchup with less added sugar because the fruit carries its own, and a tray of these dried or slow roasted turns into garden candy.

How to grow the Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato, start to finish

Starting seeds

Start seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost. Sow a quarter inch deep in fresh seed starting mix, kept warm around 70 to 80°F.

Give strong light the moment they sprout so they stay stocky. Pot up at the first true leaves and feed at half strength.

Transplanting and spacing

Plant out after frost, once nights hold above 50°F. Then think hard about placement, because this decision lasts years if it self sows.

Give it 3 to 4 feet minimum, or its own structure entirely. Crowding it against polite varieties ends with the polite varieties buried.

Soil and feeding

Ordinary, well drained soil is plenty, and rich soil mostly buys you more vine. Skip the heavy fertilizer program entirely. Our guide to feeding tomatoes covers the light touch approach.

A wild plant on a feeding schedule is a contradiction. Compost at planting and nothing more serves it fine.

Light and water

Full sun sweetens the fruit, and 6 to 8 hours is ideal. Water young plants to establish them, then ease off to about an inch a week.

Established plants handle dry spells better than domestic varieties, and heavy watering near ripeness mostly causes splitting. Our guide to watering tomatoes covers the balance.

Support

A standard cage is a joke to this plant. Use a fence line, a cattle panel arch, or a corner where sprawling is acceptable. Our guide to supporting tomato plants covers heavy duty options.

Some growers skip support entirely and let it mound. Yields stay strong, though slugs collect a tax on ground level fruit.

Growing in containers

A container tames the sprawl surprisingly well and contains the self sowing. Use a 15 to 20 gallon pot with a tall support, and expect the vine to cascade anyway.

Container growing is also the honest recommendation for tidy gardeners who want the flavor without the invasion. Our guide to growing tomatoes in pots covers the basics.

Problems to watch

Splitting after rain. Thin wild skins split easily. Pick ahead of storms and harvest at first full color rather than dead ripe.

Fruit drop. Dead ripe fruit lets go of the stem, feeding the volunteer army. Frequent picking is the only control, and our tomato problem guide covers the rest.

Sprawl beyond plans. The most common surprise in grower reports. Site it like a pumpkin, not a tomato.

Early blight in hot, wet climates. The late blight record is remarkable, but one Texas report shows early blight can still take hold. Airflow and mulch still matter, and our tomato disease guide covers the signs.

Harvest and storage

Pick at full deep red for sweetness, slightly earlier for tang. The fruit detaches easily, sometimes too easily, so harvest over a bowl.

One grower’s trick improves shelf life meaningfully: clip whole clusters with stems attached rather than pulling individual fruit. Stem on fruit keeps noticeably better.

Storage is mostly theoretical. Thin skinned fruit this sweet is eaten within a day or two, and the counter beats the fridge for the short time it survives.

Saving seeds

This is the easiest seed saving in the entire tomato world, because the plant does it without you. Open pollinated, true breeding, and enthusiastic about volunteering.

For deliberate saving, scoop seeds from fully ripe fruit into a jar with water, ferment 2 to 3 days, rinse, and dry. A pinch of seed covers next year, since germination runs strong.

There is also a case for saving seed on purpose rather than trusting volunteers. Chosen seed from your best plant keeps the line where you want it, instead of wherever last year’s fruit rolled.

Matt’s Wild Cherry vs Sweet 100 vs Tommy Toe

Against Sweet 100, the engineered sweet cherry, the contrast is the whole point. Sweet 100 gives bigger fruit, tidier trusses, and easier picking, while the wild one gives tougher plants, self sufficiency, and arguably deeper flavor in a smaller package.

Against Tommy Toe, another rugged heirloom cherry, the two share the easy going constitution. Tommy Toe brings fruit twice the size and a more manageable harvest, while Matt’s brings the documented blight resistance and the earlier start.

My honest take is simple. If picking speed and fruit size matter, choose either rival. If you want the toughest, most self reliant tomato in the catalog, with trial data to back the legend, the Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato has no real competition.

The verdict

The Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato is a reminder that tomatoes did fine for a few million years before catalogs existed. Cornell’s trials confirmed what its wild constitution implies: disease resistance to match the best modern breeding, plus the best flavor in the field.

The price is wildness itself. A rampant vine, dime sized fruit, tedious picking, and volunteers for years are all part of one package with the toughness and the taste.

Grow it if you have a fence to spare and a soft spot for plants that refuse to need you. Somewhere between the roadside in Hidalgo and the trial plots at Cornell, this little tomato proved that wild still works.