The Difference Between Grape and Cherry Tomatoes

Just the right size for picking and eating whole, cherry and grape tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) are small-fruited tomato types. Cherry tomatoes are round, juicy and tend to be thick-skinned. Grape tomatoes are oblong, thinner skinned and have drier flesh. Native to South America, tomatoes, including grape and cherry varieties, are frost-tender perennials hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 10 through 11. They grow as annuals in zones 9 and below. Taken to Europe in the 1500s, tomatoes now grow worldwide.

Grape and cherry tomatoes have both determinate and indeterminate growth varieties. Indeterminate tomatoes keep growing for the life of the plant, producing a vining growth. Determinate tomatoes stop growing, usually at around 3 to 4 feet tall, for a bush type plant suitable for containers as well as garden growing. The grape tomatoes "Santa" and "Jolly Girl" have determinate growth, and varieties "Sweet Hearts" and "Five Star Grape" have indeterminate growth. Cherry tomatoes range from indeterminate, sprawling plants such as early-maturing "Black Cherry" and "Sweet Million" to dwarf varieties such as 18-inch-tall "Tiny Tim," which produces fruit in 60 days.

Cherry tomatoes come in a wider range of fruit colors than do grape tomatoes. Both types come in red, pink, yellow and orange. In addition, cherry tomatoes come in green, black, brown and ivory. Some examples are "Green Grape," which despite the name is a cherry tomato that is determinate with 70-day maturation; "Snow White," ripening to ivory on indeterminate, 75-day plants, and "Black Cherry," with complex-flavored black fruit on indeterminate, 65-day vines.