Sunrise Bumblebee Cherry Tomato Insta-Garden

Name: Sunrise Bumblebee Cherry Tomato Insta-Garden
Brand: Alchemy Gardens
Price: 30.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

Cut one in half and the pink watercolor inside swirls like paint. Bright, sweet, tropical flesh with just enough tang to keep you coming back. Your guests will ask where you got them. "I grew them" is the answer.

Indeterminate Open-Pollinated (Artisan Series) · Seeded February 17 · Flowering now, first ripe fruit in 3–5 weeks · Full sun

📦 What's Included

This isn't a tomato start. It's an Alchemy Garden — seeded in February, fed on the farm, flowering and fruiting now, delivered ready to harvest from. You skip the hardest eight weeks of tomato growing and go straight to the table.

Every Insta-Garden comes with:

Established 2-ft tomato plant in a 3-gallon soft pot, seeded February 17 and grown out on-farm
2.5 ft support stake installed (indeterminate varieties will outgrow this — plan to upsize by July)
0.5 lb of Alchemy Gardens weekly feed — the same Mittleider-based formula I use on all 246 tomato plants across my farm, tomato/pepper optimized
Pre-measured weekly scoop — no guessing, no math
One-page growing and feeding instructions — written for Tulsa conditions

You water. You feed once a week. You harvest.

📖 The story

Bred by the late Dr. Fred Hempel, a plant scientist with a PhD from UC Berkeley who left a senior scientist position in biotech in 2006 to breed tomatoes full-time at Baia Nicchia Farm in Sunol, California. His Artisan Seeds line emerged from years of intercrossing old forgotten heirlooms — elite breeding material tested by chefs and high-end grocery stores. Sunrise Bumblebee is one of his standouts. Hempel passed away on October 31, 2023; his germplasm lives on at Bene Seeds, where his work continues. Every plant in this line carries the fingerprint of one man's obsession with tomatoes that taste as good as they look.

🍴 What you're getting

Round large cherries, golden-yellow streaked with orange, crack-resistant. Flavor is bright, sweet, and tropical — a unique taste experience, with flavors that vary through different stages of ripening. Cut one open and you'll find pink marbling inside that swirls like watercolor paint.

📅 What to expect

Long productive window — picking through first frost. Vigorous all-season producer bred specifically for tough conditions and continuous harvest.

💧 Care in Tulsa

Water 2x per week. Better crack resistance than most cherries — more forgiving if watering goes sideways. One scoop of feed per week. Prune suckers for airflow.

☀️ Heat mitigation

Bred by a California grower for tough conditions; handles heat better than most heirloom cherries. Shade cloth optional during peak afternoon heat. Mulch and morning watering as standard practice.