These Cute Trendy Tomatoes Probably Aren't Worth Growing Yourself

Let's make one thing clear — we go hard for tomatoes. One of the fun facts you didn't know about tomatoes is that there are thousands of varieties, ranging from ordinary heirloom fruit to the rare Dixie Gold Giant tomato, which, as the name suggests, is massive and yellow. New tomato cultivars are being propagated all the time, and one more recent development is the spoon tomato. Photogenic and unique, you can fit several of them in the bowl of a teaspoon. Spoon tomatoes would add a bright pop of flavor to many dishes, but we think we'll take a pass on actually growing them in our gardens.

According to Redditors, spoon tomatoes are often annoying to harvest due to their minuscule size and prodigious yield. They can be finicky to get sprouting but, on the opposite end of the spectrum, may take over a whole garden plot like kudzu if they're successful. "I grew a currant tomato that was similar pea sized. They were super fun and cute to grow, but such a pain [...] to pick," reported one commenter. "It took forever to get all of the tiny ripe tomatoes off the vine. I knew some other people that grew them too and we all agreed it was a once only variety." 

On another thread, a Redditor complained about the spoon tomato plant doing its best Little Shop of Horrors impression: "Once in the ground it grew like crazy and within a month it was bigger than three other plants. I pulled it out after 4 months because it was overgrown and I got tired of picking them."

We've heard it said that, when it comes to swimming pools and boats, the best ones belong to somebody else because the upkeep is too strenuous and expensive. Likewise, your best bet if you really want spoon tomatoes is to find somebody else with a thriving plant and offer to help them out with harvesting. This way, you keep the encroaching vines out of your own garden and help out another gardener. Alternatively, maybe just stick with regular-schmegular small tomatoes that are perhaps less Insta-ready, but also less work. There's a difference between cherry and grape tomatoes, but either one will suit your need for petite toms. 

The biggest appeal of spoon tomatoes is their novelty. Many home gardeners who grow them (like on those same Reddit threads mentioned above) don't have anything superlative to say about their flavor. If you are looking for dainty tomatoes to round out your salads or pasta dishes, or to pop for snacking, a garden-variety (pun fully intended) cherry or grape tomato will likely give you a lot less hassle than spoon ones, which seem to coast on the gimmick of being among the world's smallest. We agree with the idea that spoon tomatoes are fun in theory and do have some ingenious culinary uses, but we have lots of things we want to grow in our gardens. Frankly, spoon tomatoes seem like a lot of work for tiny fruits that would be just as easily replaced by bigger "small" tomatoes or cut-up regular ones.