seyson, it's too bad that it has not done better for you where you live and your conditions, so it seems best for you to move on with other varieties.

Carolyn

Bump It !

I have started from seed and have aleady planted followings:

--- Cherokee Purple
--- Kumato (from store bought fruit)

I was in a nursery yesterday and bought A Japanese Trifele Black plant. I have read mix reviews on it and wanted to try it myself. It also seems to have a relatively short maturity time (73?).
Anybody is growing it this (2014) season ? I read that it does fine with less sun and cooler temperatures. Any comments on this ?

I grew JTb a couple of years ago from a plant I bought and really liked them. They held up well and they were mid season. I'm growing them from seed this year. They are very hardy even when temps dropped. It was my first time growing a black so I didn't realize it was ripe even tho the shoulders are green. In all I recommend growing it.

Thanks Sharon. You always give good reviews and I have trusted your opinion. So here we go , JTB. I also read some reviews elsewhere on the net. Mostly I liked what I read. For example, it taste as good as BK, CP. It is more productive, it is early. And the plant is a compact indet.

The plant is still out there and have not planted it out yet. It is a nice study plant. Probably I will plant it in a container, like 5 gal. bucket.

I do mostly container planting. I grew mine in a 10 gallon container and it did really well. It's a sturdy plant and quite prolific. It was the first time I had grown a potato leaf tomato. I was amazed at how healthy it was. I bought it as a plant, because I wasn't growing my own from seed at that point. I had stopped for a few years. Like I said, I had never grown a black tomato before either. All that to say, I am growing it this year from seed as well as CP (this is my first time with it), Black from Tula, and Indian Stripe. I'll be interested to see how this year fares with the blacks. BFT is also fairly early for a black. BTW, how's bloody butcher doing?

Thanks Sharon,

I will try to get a bigger container for my JTB. It is one of 3 tomato plants that I bought . T have started the rest (Close to 30 ) from seed. I gave away some to relatives and still have to plant out some more.

My Bloody Butchers (2of them) are doing fine. One has multiple flowers but no fruits yet. The same goes for sungold.

Our temperatures (quite predictably) is still cool, mostly in 44 to 62F range. But we are seeing more and more highs getting to 68F and even low 70s. This is quite normal for the month of May.
Talking about weather : Take it or Leave IT !

Set out 12 Cher Purple this afternoon. I've had kohlrabi and onions out for two weeks but I never feel I've started until I set my first tomatoes. 12 down and only 68 to go...woo hoo!

Happy plant out, bigpinks. 12 CP ? that is impressive. I have like 4 of them.
You are right I think, those cool crops won't give me any satisfaction either nor they can cure my itch: )
So real growing season starts with planting good old matoes.

Impressive! I have 85 seedlings growing of which I will grow 20-24 plants. My son will take another 20 or so and the rest will be given away. I'll be growing one CP, one black from Tula, one JTB and one Indian Stripe, b/c I think Carolyn had given it good reviews. And of course a Black Cherry! Not exactly sure if Indian stripe is considered a black or not. I didn't have good germination. Only two seeds, so we shall see....
I grew many blacks last year and wasn't overly impressed, especially b/c they didn't hold up well. BK was slow going, so I nixed it for this year.

I have growing Brad Gates Wild Boar Blue collection. Looking forward to tasting all, cherry's and big boar types.

I have Cherokee Purple, Black Prince, and Black Krim growing this year.

Black Prince was a transplant from Bonnie Plants. Both are growing like mad. One is setting fruit like no tomorrow. The other is catching up. The hail storm we had beat it down to almost the bare stem. It has made a remarkable come back.

Black Krim was started a bit too late from seed. I have several going in containers, and one in the ground. Two are not that tall, and already have one fruit set on them. Those I will leave alone, and see what happens.

Cherokee Purple I have one large healthy plant. I started it from seed a bit before the others to see if I could get anything to grow inside. It is quite healthy. It is starting to show signs of buds forming. I hope to get at least a couple of fruit to set before the heat wave kicks in here. Though that is a bit of a crap shoot. 95 plus degree days can start anywhere from the third week of May, and the third week of June. After that it will last till mid to late September. First frost can happen anytime after that. It is not unusual at all to have highs in the mid 90's late Sept. Then a frost in the first week of October.

It is so heart warming to hear that your weather is warming up an your tomatoes are growing.
Ok. lets see who will pick the first ripe mato and from which variety. And polish up your cameras to take some pictures. I will use my cell phone. as well.

Double post.
Purged the contents
................
seysonn

This post was edited by seysonn on Wed, Jul 16, 14 at 8:05

Time to shake up and wake up this thread. I do that once in a while instead of starting a new thread. I like it this way , because there are a lot of interesting historical info/comments here.

We are getting close to harvest time.

I have several CPs, one JBT and one Kumato. They all have fruits. CPs have few larger ones (~ 6+ oz now). JBT has several ( ~ 3 oz in size). Kumato was very slow to get going. It has 3 trusses, having a total of about 30 fruits. Thats prolific to me. But the largest one is about a large grape now.

BTW: should remind you that I am growing Kumato from the store bought tomato. So there is some element of suspense and drama, as how it will turn out. I like that part too. Because Kumato is supposed to be a hybrid. (F1 ?)

OK. Let us see how your so-called black/brown tomatoes are doing. We should have some taste comments. We all know that taste can be personal and subjective. That is fine.

Also: How about some pictures ? I will post some when I have ripe fruits.

I m growing CP and have several fruit but nothing close to ripe, JBT just starting, but I planted that late, black cherry, nothing ripe, and Indian Stripe, also just starting to produce fruit as it was also planted quite late due to weather, and other mitigating factors. I might add that my black cherry is having to deal with squirrels trying to decimate it, so I'm not sure how that one is going to fair.....

I started my tomatoes late this year and was out of the country when it was my normal time for setting them out. I think they got planted on June 9th.

We've had some nice weather this past 2-3 weeks so the tomatoes are catching up and doing very well. Hard to believe those tiny seedlings have become these healthy, stocky plants with blemish free leaves in such a short time.

For black tomatoes, I am growing:

Cherokee Purple
Black Krim
Japanese Black Trifele
Paul Robeson

Black Krim is probably my favourite of the bunch.

I'm growing Black Krim, Cherokee Purple and Japanese Trifele Black. So far, JTB is performing the best of the three. Black Krim is second with about 5 fruits per plant and Cherokee Purple is poking along behind with only two noticeable fruits on each plant. They are all in containers. Black Krims are each in their own very large pot and the JTBs and CPs are planted two plants each in what would best be called a small raised bed. They are shipping crates lined with landscape fabric and filled with 4-way garden mix, which actually drains quite nicely. My CPs were sulky from the start, even as seedlings, and I had to coddle them along. The BKs are doing better than the one plant I had last year, which I saved seed from and started this year's BKs from. So as of right now, CP probably won't be grown again, JTB will, and BK is still on the chopping block. Next year, I'm planning to try Indian Stripe and Black Prince for blacks.

Last year I grew Cherokee Purple and Black Krim. CP was the first of all my tomato plants to ripen, but it wasn't very productive. BK sulked a bit and wasn't very generous either. Although I loved the taste of both, I grew neither this year. Instead I am growing Indian Stripe and Black Early, neither of which has ripened yet.

Linda

O'wite ! Keep reporting. Tomato talk is in season.

My CPs are also very poor performers in terms of number the fruits. But the fruits are growing and growing bigger, JBT is the only one in container. Some of Its fruits size nearing maturity. Kumato remains a big surprise with over 30 fruits and lots of blossoms. It grows more like cherry indets.

We have also been having unusually warm July. That help growth and ripening.

I am very interested to hear how the Kumato grows/taste. I've eaten the store bought ones and thought they were terrible, but it may be that they were artificially ripened and taste improves dramatically if picked ripe right from the vine.

This is my first year doing Indian Stripe (I usually grow CP). I can say without a doubt that it is much more productive. That's a huge plus when it comes to black toms as they tend to be yummy, but not very plentiful on the vine.

smithmal

Linda, you should try growing Black from Tula. I think you would really like it. I have high hopes for CP and indian Stripe. BK was a disappointment last year.

Hi Smithmal,

I am curious about Kumato too. The store boughts were/are greenhouse grown probably harvested much early and gassed.
But the taste, as I can remember, was similar to Black Krim ; Pasty, not much juice. I think it was a bit of acidic too.
Yeah, CP is not productive. Let us hear how your Indian Stripe does, in terms of production and taste.

Finale Note:
This is great that we can benefit so much from networking and learning from each others feedback. This way we can learn more efficiently, with least mistakes (= personal experience).

Hi Sharonie,

I have high hopes for Indian Stripe because it is said to be similar to Cherokee Purple, but more productive. (I have the RL one).

Sounds as if Black from Tula performed well for you. I have seeds, so will grow it next year.

Thanks for the recommendation!
Linda

July 25th and I just picked 4 8-10oz Indian Stripes. I am absolutely shocked. I generally don't start getting CPs until mid August. IS has beat my "early" toms such as Pink Honey and Moskovich. Truly amazing.

What's more, the production of IS absolutely blows CP away. I've grown CP, Black Krim, Paul Robeson, Nyagous and none have done nearly as well as IS. The only other blacks I can think to try for future seasons are maybe Cherokee Chocolate or Black from Tula (I've heard good things about them).

Maybe this is just a great year, but I haven't notice my other tomato varieties excelling more than usual.

I think I may have just found my "goto" black beefsteak...

smithmal

IS is doing great here. Early, very productive and taste great!
Noir De Crimee produced one very early ripe and now about to get more ripe, looks to be productive as well. I like it better than BK... although BK never was pastey for me, quite juicy.
Picked up yesterday first Gary OôSena. Less productivity and not as early as others.
First 1884 Purple is about to be ready as well, very productive.
Haleyôs Purple Comet is stunning in taste. Does split easily with rain but taste is superb. Black Yum Yum is slightly bigger that Haleyôs but milder in taste. Having salad with Yum Yum and red sharp salad tomato is a pure heaven!
Am still waiting for Helsing Junction Blue, Black Shadow, friendôs Tashaôs Black- could not figure out what that was so ended up with friendôs name, Rosella Purple, Perth Pride, Tasmanian Chocolate, Wild Fred, Amazone Chocolate RL.

I've grown Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, and Chocolate Cherry.

Chocolate Cherry - I was disappointed with the flavor.

Cherokee Purple - Great flavor with a tendency to crack. Can produce large fruits.

Black Krim - Also great flavor (not as good as CP though, IMO), more uniform and round than Cherokee Purple. Also cracks. Produced medium size fruit.

three Indigo Apple first to go, small from first set on seedlings, tons above to ripen, black/blue but turn dark red bottom when time to pick. Sweet Beverly is so loaded I cant imagine how the plant can hold such huge sprays. really eager to try Blue Berry Boar cherrys, tons waiting to ripen, oh the waiting.... Aug 17 is the tasting luncheon at Wild Boar in St Helena ca! Blue Beauty and Blue and Gold looking good too. Black & Brown Boar, just fascinating to watch them all growing and how different they are! How tall are your plants? Curious if ming are sizing up ok? Mine are all in containers, VOLES, moles and gophers :- ( You have made Indian Stripe a MUST Try! Maybe Petaluma Seed Bank will have some? Heirloom Expo in Sept.

No Black/brown/purple turning color in my garden. JBT has good size fruits . CPs just keep getting bigger.
Surprise Kumato has over 30 fruits but the shape is not round, but pore like roma. Below is a picture taken 5 days ago. I will report on final shape, color and taste.

Season,

That's odd. I've always read that Kumato was true at least for the F1.

Did you harvest the seeds yourself from store bought tomatoes or obtain them from someone?

smithmal

Does anyone have any updates on growing Kumato plants that originate from store bought tomato seeds?

I'm wondering about:
- Plant size
- Ripening time
- Tomato size and shape
- Tomato flavor

Thanks,

smithmal

This post was edited by smithmal on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 10:42

OK. I have to report:

What I was thinking all along as "KUMATO" was a yellow /orange grape/cherry. Dang it !
I Think I planted /tagged wrongly. Unless one of the parents of KUMATO had been a golden yellow grape tomato and mine reverted to that. But I doubt it. I also saves seeds from some store bought heirloom cherries of different colors. I saved seeds from those.
Looking back at the picture below, what I have is the ones on the bottom not KUMATO>

Ah-hah...

Well that would explain the weird tomato shape you are getting. Any idea what you are actually growing?

Also, any feedback on growers growing F1 Kumatos this season would be appreciated. Kumato is on my radar. I'm especially interested in if the F1 fruits are tastier than the store bought ones (which are most likely artificially ripened). The store bought ones that I tasted don't hold a candle to any garden grown tomato and seem to be "exotic" in color only.

smithmal

Linked is a great blog from "The Tomato Addict" regarding the Kumato.

Some interesting facts noted in the comment section are:

1. The Kumato may be a hybrid, but it is also probably stablilized over multiple generations which is why growers are able to grow it true from seed
2. Growers have reported Kumato grows true from seed up to at least 3 generations from store bought seed propagation
3. The Kumato is edible in all three stages of it's growth (not sure exactly what this means)
4. Syngenta markets the Kumato as "Galapagos Island" (GI) derived tomato. Commentors have indicated that there are no black tomatoes on the GI however it may be that one of the original parents strains used during the initial hybridization studies originated from the GI which is why Syngenta lauds it as a GI tomato.
5. Others have reported the Kumato is 2nd only to CP in their mind when ranking Black tomatoes (which is high praise indeed)

I find it interesting, being that this blog was from six years ago, that the Kumato doesn't get more praise here on GW. I'm definitely going to go out later this summer, obtain some store bought Kumatos, dry down the seeds and give it a go next season.

smithmal

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Addict Blog link

This post was edited by smithmal on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 11:12

Smithmal,

Have you tasted a Kumato from the store yet?

A friend recommended them as "simply wonderful for a store-bought" so I rushed out and bought them. Unfortunately, I didn't think they were all that great. Maybe it depends whether they come from Mexico (in the winter) or were hydroponically grown in Canada. Mine were the latter, so they were obviously picked green and gassed for their long journey to NC!

I have a feeling that people don't think they taste all that wonderful, and that there are far better open pollinated varieties to try.

Having said that, I too read all the hype online about Kumato and I saved seeds, but gave them away.

Linda

No, I agree that compared to summer fresh tomatoes, the Kumato doesn't taste that great, but in February when the only alternative is anemic pink cardboard, it sure beats THAT hands-down!
Edie

I've tasted it and thought it was incredibly bland. However, as you mentioned, it was probably artificially ripened. The comments in the blog indicate garden grown Kumato is a WHOLE DIFFERENT flavor and rivals CP. If this is the case, I'm sure that it beats out CP for production and most likely disease resistance. Also, if this is the case, the Kumato should be blowing up here on GW. It is not, and I find that odd to say the least.

More tomato varieties are starting to ripen. Of the early varieties, Bloody Butcher and Glacier, and Early Pick, the Bloody Butcher seems to be the best flavor. Both BB and Glacier are small tomatoes. Early Pick is larger but it sure isn't very early.

I have been picking Cherokee Purple for over a week and still haven't picked an EP. The 2 larger Cherokee Purple in the picture are right at 1# even. The 3 small tomatoes in the foreground are Indigo Rose.

The Indigo Rose look great, but have kind of bland flavor. They reminded me of store bought tomato taste.

The varieties that haven't ripened any fruit yet are Mortgage Lifter, Super Steak Hybrid, Super Beef Steak and Black Krim. These have a LOT of tomatoes set on them and picking should start next week. Most of the nights have been down into the 50s so that has slowed them down some.

Here are the Cherokee Purple and Indigo Rose:

Nice photo northernmn,

The CPs look fantastic. Too bad about IR. It was all the rage a couple of seasons back and hailed as a prolific cherry packed full of flavor and anthocyanin. Unfortunately, it's flavor rating was a bit overstated and many complained of it's bland taste (just as you've commented on) and days to maturity (which is think is like 80 which is a lot for a cherry).

IR was on my 'list' this year, but then when I began to hear about the taste, I decided to skip it. If there's one thing a cherry should have, it's an abundance of flavor.

I guess this puts the "Black Cherry" as the lead contender for black color cherries. Black Cherry also is a bit lightweight on the flavor rating, but some have indicated it has a somewhat earthy smokey flavor that we all love in black tomatoes. I've grown BC and it is a prolific monster and the fruit is large for a cherry and not bad in taste (not great, but not bad). BC is on my cherry tomato short list due to it's coloring, production and fruit size.

How prolific is IR? Do you think you'll grow it again, or is it effectively "zapped" from your rotation?

Try letting the Indigo Rose ripen more. They turn red when they are ready, and are pretty tasty to me.

I found this little tip earlier this year here in this group. You could search the group and that thread will be one of the most recent with Indigo Rose in the subject line.

Here, I took a picture for you of the two I didn't eat tonight. Hoping the one or the right will be more solid red by tomorrow night.

Indigo Rose

Plaidbird,

Thanks for the photo. This is the first I'm hearing that one should leave the IR to ripen to a solid red color. I've read that there should be a red blush to the bottom, but not a solid red color.

This could be the reason IR gets such a bad rap in terms of flavor.

Two questions:
1. How long does it take IR to go from a "red blush" state to a "solid red" tomato
2. How does the taste differ between a red blush version vs. a solid red version

Thanks,

The amount of red vs black is a function of sunlight hitting the tomato, NOT ripeness. I have Indigo Rose in both pots and in the ground. They are also in 3 different locations that get different degrees of sunlight. The actual tomatoes that get less sunshine will have larger red areas when ripe. Some of the IRs that were 2/3 black were actually over ripe. Getting too soft.

My guess would be is that when they are picked and brought inside your home, they are no longer getting direct sunshine. The black area will diminish because of no sunshine, and the red area will increase.

I left them on the vine longer to see if the flavor would improve. It doesn't. When they turn red where the sun doesn't shine on them, and they have a slight "give" to them, they are ripe.

They could taste different in other conditions, and of coarse there are different taste preferences, but I won't be planting IR again.

This post was edited by northernmn on Wed, Aug 6, 14 at 19:42

THIS is Indian Stripe....

Believe it or not, 4 out of five of these tomatoes came from one truss. Really impressive size and production for a black tomato variety and I only get about five hours of good sun a day where this is growing.

smithmal

Nice! Still waiting for IS to ripen. Got a few CP on the counter, hoping to eat one very soon!

Black Krim is delicious, nice big fruit, but (for me) not highly productive, and the plants are decidedly weaker than the very healthy plants surrounding them. But worth it for flavor. Black Cherry tastes great, sweet but smoky and complex, and they're producing like crazy. My mistake was trying to grow them to a couple of stems, up a grid. They want to branch all over. Next year, I'll grow them in my biggest cages.

I picked a smallish (4 oz) CP yesterday. I picked it a bit early and I'll let it fully ripen on the counter before I taste it.

seysonn

I don't know what happened to that CP. I guess I ate it without paying attention.
But talking about "BLACK" tomatoes I just discovered that I have another kind but did not know its name untill today. Black Pineapple (aka Ananas Noire). It is not reayly black.
Here is a picture .

I love the multi color flesh and it tasted good too.

Carbon Copy is a cherry version of Carbon.

I'm not sure if it can really be classified as black because mine look more of a brown/red. At first I wasn't wowed with the flavor, but later when I picked some truly ripe ones straight from the vine, I realized that they taste pretty darned good!

Linda

Gardenwheels: My Black Krim have a few similarities to yours, but are different in many other respects. It's amazing how much different areas will vary with the same variety.

My BK are the most robust of the 11 varieties that I am growing. They will need my biggest cages next year. They are about 6ft tall, and a lots and lots on stems that have been pulled back to the outside if the cages with wire ties.The plant is so dense that you cannot see through it.

The BK tomato plants have a very heavy set of fruit, but are so slooow at ripening. I've only picked 1 BK so far (very good taste). But we have been picking CPs for about 3 weeks now. Seed start, and plant out date was the same for both of these. Maybe BK doesn't like cool nights. We have had a lot of night is in the mid to high 50s this summer.

I had some issues with Black Krim last year and this year Noir de Crimee is wonderful and full production. IS started very early and now taking break, 1884 Purple started later is large robust plant, just as productive as IS. Gary o'Sena is producing less than IS or 1884 but very nice flavor. The best is Haley Purple comet which is from doublehelix farms, tasty!!!!
Grown Amazon Chocolate this year RL and I think I prefer PL version of it, have to grow both side to side next year I think.
Black Yum yum was on early side, larged than Haley and more buttery in taste.
Now Tasmanian Chocolate, Rosella Purple and Wild Fred are still coming just got first ones to ripen but did not taste.
One that does not seem get mention often is Pierce Pride, stunning, loved the taste very much but am not growing this year, will do for next.