When searching for the right tomato to plant in your garden, it’s hard to ignore the appropriately named Mountain Magic Tomato. Not only is it a high-yield, disease-resistant tomato plant, but its fruit is sweet and delicious.
It’s the perfect addition to your summer salad. Or, if you’re looking for a snack while weeding your vegetable beds, it can be a sweet little treat right off the vine. The most remarkable aspect of this tomato is its resistance to early and late blight, and the fruit refuses to crack. It’s a tough tomato and truly a magical plant.
History of the Mountain Magic Tomato
Dr. Randy Gardner, a long-time North Carolina State University professor, now retired, set out to create a disease-resistant, delicious tomato. In his career lasting more than 30 years, he has become affectionately known as the Tomato King because he’s responsible for developing over 20 tomato cultivars now widely available.
If you see a tomato variety with the preface Mountain, you can bet Dr. Randy Gardner had something to do with its cultivation. The Mountain Magic Tomato is just one of his many successes.
The Key Features of the Mountain Magic Tomato
Type of Tomato
The Mountain Magic Tomato is indeterminate. They are vining plants and will continue to grow and flower. For this reason, staying on top of staking and pruning indeterminate tomato plants is essential.
The Fruit
The fruit is considered to be a grape tomato. They weigh two oz., are round, and are about the size of a golf ball. They grow on a vine and start green but become vibrant red as they ripen.
What Do They Taste Like?
They’re very sweet. They are delicious in salads or plucked right off the vine.
Some Recipes for the Mountain Magic Tomato
These delicious tomatoes can replace cherry or grape tomatoes in any of your favorite recipes. Just remember that they’re very sweet. However, despite their sweetness, it’s nice to know that tomatoes are a nutritious addition to your daily diet.
Here are a few recipes that I recommend:
- Delicious Pomegranate Salad
- Guacamole Mango Salsa
- Sautéed Tomatoes with Garlic and Basil
Like most tomatoes, once picked, they only store for about five to seven days. However, if you’re interested in storing them for longer, here are some tips on how to do that.
How to Grow the Mountain Magic Tomato
Planting Instructions
The Mountain Magic Tomatoes are about as user-friendly as any other tomato grown from seed. Check out our thorough and complete guide to growing tomatoes.
To get the best results from this tomato, plant them indoors 5-8 weeks before the last frost date. Place the seeds about 1/4 to a 1/2 inch below the soil. Then, pot up after you notice the first true leaves.
Soil Type
To get the highest fruit yield, provide these tomatoes with soil low in nitrogen. For the health of the plant, the soil should also be well-draining and rich in organic matter.
The soil temperature for tomatoes is essential. When first planting indoors, soil temperature should stay warm. When potted on, the soil should be kept a little cooler to harden the plant off before going into the garden.
Once in the garden, you want to ensure that you don’t have multiple nights in a row below 45° Fahrenheit. Otherwise, the plant will struggle.
Watering
Tomatoes like moisture, but they don’t like to sit in it. So water regularly, but make sure the soil is draining properly and the roots aren’t sitting in wet.
Pruning
Like all indeterminate tomatoes, pruning is essential to get the highest and best fruit yield. Check out our complete guide to pruning indeterminate tomatoes.
This may sound like a lot, but actually, like most tomato plants, it’s fun to care for.
Harvesting
When the fruits are nice and ripe, you should be able to pull them gently off the vine. This usually takes about 70 to 80 days from when the seed goes into the soil.
Diseases and Pests to Watch Out for
Unfortunately, many diseases can affect tomatoes, but the most magical thing about the Mountain Magic Tomato is its resistance to some of the more common issues.
It is moderately resistant to early blight and highly resistant to late blight. It’s also resistant to Fusarium wilt varieties 1, 2, and 3 and Verticillium wilt.
Pests can vary widely depending on your location. Check your local information about common pests for tomato plants, or ask around. It’s always nice to commiserate with other gardeners about what’s eating their fruit and trade home remedies.
The most important thing you can do to avoid diseases and pests is to keep your plant healthy. If the plant is strong, it’ll have a much better chance of fighting off whatever comes its way.
Other Ways to Grow Tomatoes:
Tomato plants are most gardeners’ favorite plants for a reason. You can grow them in so many different ways: indoors, outside in pots, or even upside down. I highly recommend experimenting with growing tomatoes. It can be fun, convenient, and decorative all at the same time.
Where to Buy the Mountain Magic Tomato Seeds
These tomatoes might be hard to locate at your hometown grocery store. However, they’re trendy amongst growers. Because of that, you might have some luck finding the fruit at your local farmers’ market.
As a high-yield and disease-resistant tomato plant, they are a splendid seed to grow. Here are some places you can purchase the seeds:
The Magical Sweetness of the Mountain Magic
The Mountain Magic Tomato is a delicious, nutritious treat. It’s easy to grow and fun to care for. Its magic power to resist cracks and common tomato diseases makes it great for the novice gardener or the expert grower. The small round fruit is more substantial than your run-of-the-mill cherry tomato and is super sweet.
Dr. Randy Gardner accomplished some magnificent feats as a tomato cultivator, and this magical fruit is up there as one of his more impressive achievements.
If you’re interested in learning more about other similar tomatoes, check out the 18 Best Indeterminate Tomato Varieties.