I've grown several Appalachian bicolor type tomatoes and Hillbilly Potato Leaf (from SSE Public Seed Catalog) was the most disappointing of them all.

It grew vigorously enough but failed to set a single blossom from early June until mid-July when I gave up in disgust and yanked it. Yes, we had a bad weather year in 2009, but other tomatoes, including bicolors, were able to set fruit and make a decent showing. Not Hillbilly Potato Leaf.

Additionally, Hillbilly Potato Leaf was among the most disease prone varieties in the garden, contracting both Septoria and Early Blight and seemingly unable to outgrow either.

As far as rangy, lanky growth, yes that too. Lots of rampant growth with few flowers and none that set fruit. Pffft.

By comparison, Willard Wynn, another Appalachian bicolor did quite well, although late. And Oaxacan Jewel did fabulously and did it early, often and longterm.

I don't know if anyone has directly compared Hillbilly RL and Hillbilly PL in the same season to make a direct comparison.

For genetic reasons I don't assume that a PL variant of an RL variety is the same as the original.

There are now over about 150 listings for gold/red bicolors in the SSE YEarbook and I don't say different varieties b'c there's no way of knowing if they're distinct without DNA analysis.

Mary Robinson's German Bicolor stands out a bit b'c the seconday color goes all the way up to the stem so the final color is pretty much red.

I've grown may 15 bicolors and many times I've posted that I think they are sweet and wonderful when grown in X year but the same variety grown the next time can be mealy and bland. So I don't grow them much these days. If I did the ones I'd grow would be from this list:

Virginia Sweets
Lucky Cross
Big Rainbow

I know, it's a very short list. LOL

Carolyn

Well, hehe, I must say I'm a bit surprised about the review hoosiercherokee. Since my wife picked it out, I have to grow at least one for a trial - I guess I'll keep it to one and no more. Funniest part is, I had picked out Oaxacan Jewel as the bi-color I was going to try, but got veto'd :)

I've grown tomatoes at my current place for going on 3 years and have yet to have a tomato not set fruit, though I imagine if I have the same luck as you, I'll feel the same way. Even with how bad last year was on weather, I got a bunch of fruit from every variety I grew, even some that got chewed down to stumps by birds early in the season.

The way I figure is, I'll try it, if it's a waste of space for me, then so be it - one more crossed off the list. I really do appreciate the honest feedback though - wish I had posted the choice earlier in the season before I had ordered seed.

Also, thanks Carolyn for the good choices for bi-colors. If this one is indeed a flop for me, I'll try any of those others. Bi-colors are a mystery to me still, but the pictures of them always look so amazing and I've heard how amazing they can be when conditions are just right.

Thanks

you may also want to try vintage wine very good choice

Golden Cherokee is a nice bicolor tomato too. It may not be stable yet, depending on from whom you get seeds. I got three distinctly different tomatoes from mine, but the one that matched the official description of Golden Cherokee was the best of the lot.

My experience and opinions about bicolors pretty much is the same as Carolyn's.

But I did have a pretty nice run over several years on a couple other varieties: Georgia Streak, and Burracker's Favorite. Eventually my Burracker's Favorite seed crossed
and the following year was a real disappointment with it.
But Georgia Streak hung in there consistently good for a number of years, till I just moved on to mess with several
other new varieties.

I know this is a year late, is it frowned upon to post on something so old? Anyway, I'm trying HPL and Brandywine as my two potato-leaf type tomatoes this year. The HPL is outgrowing the brandywine and has big happy leaves and is very sturdy. It has tons of flowers right now, and is about 4ft tall. If you care, I'll let you know if any flowers turn into fruit.

Hope this helps this year!