Sounds like some great varieties. If you find a good source for these seeds please let us know!

You can get the plants you want from Selected Plants. The owner of that place posts here from time to time, and offers more types of tomato plants than anyone anywhere. I'm drawn to bi-colors for their appearance and was prepared not to care for their taste because they generally get reviewed as bland, too mild, insipid, or better, fruity and sweet. They're pretty but don't taste so great.

Well, I really liked Ananas Noire and Pineapple, and will be growing both annually, I suspect. I thought Orange Russian 117 (a beautiful heart)and Mr. Stripey were pretty good, but nothing special. Those are the only four I've tried. I like sweeter tomatoes and nuanced fruity flavors work for me, so maybe I'm just a good candidate for bi-colors where many prefer a more traditional mater thus are critical of bi-color taste. Something like that.

But to me Ananas Noire was sensational, and Pineapple was this big meaty dense slurpy luscious treat.

You mentioned that you might not be able to start from seed. Have you considered using the wintersowing method? There's a wintersowing forum here at Gardenweb or the site itself is wintersown.org

I've had amazing luck with wintersowing. I grew so many veggies and tomatoes last year using this method. And given that you plant them in their milk jugs or 2 liter bottles in the winter, it gives you something to do when the weather outside is frightful. I highly suggest you try it out. It is so much easier than growing indoors under lights. Plus, you never have to harden off the plants.

Karen

A bicolor is one where there's a secondary color that moves from the blossom end towards the stem and that same secondary color is also found in the interior of the flesh, all to say that I don't consider Ananas Noire to be a bicolor. ( smile)

Almost all bicolors I know are of the gold/red type and some that I like are:

Virginia Sweets, grew it several years ago and sent it to Linda at TGS to trial. Seeds at TGS and I forget where else but Google is everyones friend.

Big Rainbow, one of the few that is very reliable for me and doesn't show as much concentric cracking as do others.

Regina's Yellow, same comments as above

Lucky Cross, one parent is Brandywine and LC as well as Little Lucky are darn good.

I've grown about 12-15 different gold/red bicolors but in my experience variety X can be sweet and fruity one season and the same variety the next season can be mealy and bland. I think it's b'c they are very much influenced by weather.

Ananas Noire? Grew it once, that's all folks. LOL

So bicolors are as I described above and varieties such as Tigerella and all the tiger lookalikes that have distinct stripes aren't bicolors b'c there's no secondary color in the flesh.

And I second the suggestion made above for plants to go to Selected Plants b'c there's a huge number of varieties available, the shipping is terrific and the prices are reasonable. Darrel has many many satisfied customers.

Carolyn

Carolyn said:

• "I don't consider Ananas Noire to be a bicolor." ( smile)

I agree but it was asked about in the OP. So what is it? A black? A green when ripe? It's definitely "bi... er multi-colored" all the way through. I'm surprised you didn't like it. I bought one from a farmer at market, took it home and ate it alongside four others new to me, went back the next week and bought five pounds for seed and eating. The only other tomato that got a similar reaction from me was that heart I sent you (Bobbie). AN from this grower was a lovely tomato, and I can only hope the seed and my conditions produce something similar. I have Lucky Cross on my list for next year and really hope it produces for me, but I won't hold my breath. I've seen you recommend Big Rainbow before. I have to add it to a future grow. I also seem to be one of few who like Pineapple (same grower with the AN had the yummy Pineapple). Hmmm, maybe he just does something right that most don't? I still think it's my tastebuds though. I like sweet and fruity. :)

Thank you Karen,

The Winter Sowing Method allows seeds to germinate naturally--it's done outside in vented containers made from recylced items; milk jugs is a classic example--you can always come over to the WS forum and ask to see our jugs ;-) Winter Sowing, btw, has been accepted by the USDA as a genuine method and with help from the USDA and Extensions I was trained to hone and build a top notch .org website; I just reported my yearly stats back to them and between Oct 08 and Sept 09 I had over 7M hits--woohoo!

At any rate, years back because of skepticism, I said I would give people the tomato seeds to try it. Well, it's not really so controversial anymore--the naysayers did in effect drive people into my loving embrace and WSing tomatoes took right off. Many WSers do post here and share their own wonderful variations for sowing as well as seed saving. Originally, I selected varieties to send out, but now someone sending for seeds gets to select what they want to try, so it's gone from being a Six Pack Tomato SASE with six different types that I chose to now being the "Your Choice Tomato SASE" with six packs that you choose. Being able to bring that list online has been a very exciting event with many tomato growers participating by requesting seeds and/or sharing their seeds for inclusion on the list. (I will be adding another thirty varieties or so before this year's end hopefully by the end of 2010 the list will be 180 varieties--it's a large open-to-the-public, publicly generated, tomato seedbank.)

Currently, there are a total of 120 offerings on the list, including three Solanum cousins--two tomatillos and wonderberries. I do have some bicolors on the list. Keep in mind that bicolor can mean flesh that is not only one tone--such as Hillbilly, or it could be skin that is not one tone--such as Speckled Roman.

Here is a link that might be useful: Your Choice Tomato SASE

There is only ONE bi-color as far as I'm concerned....Lucky Cross. Nothing else even comes close.

Any opinions out there on Gold Medal?
That's the one bicolor I plan to try in 2010.

Authorities do not apply such limited criteria to defining a bicolor.

There are other manifestations of fruits which have two (bi) colors on the interior. Such as red coloration in the outer pericarp wall while the rest of the interior (septa and columella) are yellow/gold. One of the European photodatabases have an example but don't recall the variety.

There are tricolors too. It is hard to say whether Ananas Noire or others like it {{gwi:1395721}}

are tri or bicolor. To me they seem to have at least 3 colors.

It just depends on which stage of ripeness one looks and whether or not one wants to count placental tissue, which does vary in color, as well.

But there are also fruits with multicolors (pink.red.yellow.gold.orange.white)
{{gwi:1395723}}

I still fail to see what's "natural" about plastic milk jugs.

Authorities do not apply such limited criteria to defining a bicolor.

****

Which means to me that you as an authority don't agree with me. LOL

K, let's agree to disagree on what a bicolor fruit is.( smile)

Mojave, I don't know how to refer to Ananas Noire or Copia or most of Brand Gate's varieties for instance. You suggested multi-colored, and that sounds pretty good to me as long as "multi" means more than two colors. LOL

Carolyn

Mule, you know better than teasing me ;-)

And I thank you for the opportunity to explain how a WS milkjug container works. I'll add a search link to this reply so people can read on their own other people's opinions.

Milk jugs make a protective environment, however they allow in wind, rain, snow, yet keep out critters and wind blown seed, and their funnel-shaped top is the perfect flue for venting out air that has been heated by the sun.

Oh, btw, I know you'll just love this (hehe), in the most current issue of Washington Gardener Magazine they have an article about how I save tomato seeds with bleach-based kitchen cleanser. WGM uses their own photos in the article, they did a great job with the article and photos! I didn't know the article had been published yet--I thought they would wait to coincide with their annual seed swap but it was the AgNIC Secretariat that let me know it was out. Way cool!

Here is a link that might be useful: WS Forum Search Results for

Which means to me that you as an authority don't agree with me

It meant what your saying is different than the published descriptions I've read by authorities whose careers are spent describing and detailing the genetics.

Your description is limited to one gene that produces two flesh colors, ry. There are several other genes which produce two flesh colors at the same time other than red in yellow. One, virescent orange, is the one that produces the reddish flesh on the outer walls with an orange/tangerine center color.

The ARS-GRIN / Tomato CGC descriptors have two codes for interior flesh color FLESHCOLOR and FLSHCOL2. Those codes have several classifications with at least two colors assigned; "YELLOW AND TANGERINE", "YELLOW AND RED", "TANGERINE AND RED", "YELLOW & TANGERINE & RED" in addition to the single colors like green.

The pictures also show otherwise that other expressions of multicolor flesh exist besides just red on yellow.

Call it "Norman Borlaug green" if you want but plastic milk jugs are just hillbilly cloches to me!

Oh, with what is currently available ...

* jtcm05 Zone 6 CT

...Lucky Cross.

MMM

Oh, with what is currently available ...
* jtcm05 Zone 6 CT
...Lucky Cross.
MMM
******
Which I also first listed in this thread and with which I agree as well. ( smile)
Keith, there's a world of difference between the geneticists and the identification of genes that are involved in all aspects of tomato traits and those not genetically trained and just grow tomatoes for food and fun.
No doubt you're perfectly correct in citing the genes you did for flesh color, etc., and there are so many more as we both know.
But from the time I first got involved with heirloom tomatoes, which was in 1983 or so, and I have to chuckle a bit b'c some that we grew on the farm when I was a kid would now be considered heirlooms, as would I myself, LOL, the word bicolor has always been used as I used it above.
Looking at old SSE Yearbooks or old Gleckler lists or Jan Blum's lists and even the earliest catalogs from SESE one sees the word bicolor when describing the common gold/red fruits that you found out about when you were in NC where so many of them were just referred to as Candystripe or had no name at all, which is true for the one my brother's neighbor grows in his garden just above Ashville.
So I think it's just a different perspective that is present here.
As I certainly accept your perspective from a genetic point of view I would hope you would accept my perspective from the long used terms that have been applied to such fruits from the time that they started being available commercially to others.
In the end what's important, I think, is how a particular variety performs and tastes to whomever is growing it and I don't think too many think about the genes that dictate tomato traits except for the leaf form genes, the epidermis genes and such.
There are many many folks now who are doing directed crosses, aside from yourself, who have delved more into the genetics involved b/c they want to be able to predict what the outcomes might be from those directed crosses and at that point they do delve more deeply into gene function.
And you've been very helpful in helping many of them with that, just as you once helped me determine how Cherokee Chocolate could morph to Cherokee Green and how the variety Dr. Carolyn could change to what we know as Green Doctors, from a genetic point of view.
Carolyn

Well, since people here at GW have a fondness for changing and creating variety names to suit them, how bout we ALL agree to call the "MULTI-colors" from this point forward. I figure, all we need to do is bring it up here in a few threads and over at idig and by next spring it will be worldwide!

Norman Borlaug and Hillbilly--in the same sentence. How nice!

Well, being green means $aving some green too ;-)

Thank you very much Mule for highlighting the con$ervative and economical and a$pect$ of Winter $owing. It is a winning combination. Woohoo!

Oh, and Striped German is on the list too.

Well, since people here at GW have a fondness for changing and creating variety names to suit them, how bout we ALL agree to call the "MULTI-colors" from this point forward. I figure, all we need to do is bring it up here in a few threads and over at idig and by next spring it will be worldwide!

*****

Your choice what you want to do John, but I'm sticking to bicolors when talking about the red/gold typical fruits of which there are well over 100 of named ones and who knows how many unnamed ones.

And sure, I think multi-colored is fine for those varieties that have more than two colors both inside and/or out, so go to it and report back in the Spring.

I'll just note that if and when I post I'll say that "multi-colored" fruits are not bicolor fruits. ( smile)

Carolyn

Just noticed Tomatofest lists Ananas Noire as a 'black' type of tomato. It's close enough, imo, to fall in that category as long as the description gives a little detail, no?

Works for me Bob!

Just noticed Tomatofest lists Ananas Noire as a 'black' type of tomato. It's close enough, imo, to fall in that category as long as the description gives a little detail, no?

*****

Maybe that's b'c the name translates out as Black Pineapple? ( wink).

It is an interesting one in that it was oringally found in a patch of Pineapple Tomato plants by Pascal Moreau in Belgium, so it has a bicolor, ahem, background. His SSE friend Luc Fichet first listed in the SSE YEarbooks in 2003.

It isn't known what the so called black variety it was that had crossed with Pineapple. The accidental hybrid was grown out, a selection or two made I imagine and what we know as Ananas Noire is a genetically stabiized selection from that intial hybrid.

And the majority of family heirloom varieties we know today came about in the same way, that is a natural cross, and then genetically stabilizing selections to the OP state. The rest of the family heirlooms are mutations from pre-existing varieties.

Carolyn

I am not an expert. I grew Ananas Noire for the first time this year. They rotted for me. I don't think I knew when they were ripe; I picked some early and put them on my counter. They rotted. I admit to expecting tomatoes to be red so maybe I was letting the ones in the house get too ripe also. I grew a number of heirlooms. Ananas Noire and Sophie's Choice were my only failures.

hillbilly ciche could be another name for calling plastic milk jugs what they really are - white trash

That's translucent trash.

OMG. We take dumpster diving seriously. Some WSers have come up with truly ingenious methods of snagging milkjugs from recycling bins. Broom poles with a bent coat hanger taped to the end is a favorite. Personally, on Monday nights here, the green bins go out to the curb and I choose to walk the dog at midnight. Best dibs after the superbowl--just love those football shaped snack-trays with the domed lids ;-)

Hmmm. Checking the pidgeon holes as I type, I've got a limited amount left of packed Green Zebra but it's on order from my bulk supplier.

Well, I looked at the winter-sowing thing a couple of years back as an option. The trouble is, I'd have to put them out way before it starts to get cold- I mean I still have plenty of leeks, lettuce and radishes starting to freeze at night out there because I can't make myself go out in the cold. Not to mention it's also dark when I get home from work- although in the summer I'll just head out with a flashlight if I need something. Also, I'd have to move them out & replant when we till in the spring. Maybe I'll try it someday when I'm not driven in by the cold and muscle spasms, but for now I'd rather either buy plants or gloat over the little seedlings in the relative warmth of my basement.

OK, let me see- from what I can tell from posts up above, bi-colored and multi-colored may mean something different to different people. I will tell you that I was thinking of something with more than one color outside and inside, but that is only because I (falsely) assumed the pretty colors in the pictures continued into the flesh of the fruits. Strictly like someone caught staring at pretty jewels and not really thinking beyond- ooh I'd like one of those. Sorry about causing a minor argument, but after all, that's how we learn lots of things. and that picture labeling the parts for dummies like me who say skin, meat, gel and seeds and didn't know there were any other parts or names was cool.

So, I'll look up Lucky Cross, Little Lucky (is that a cherry?), Ananas Noire, Pineapple and Big Rainbow.

Carolyn, when you said you gave Virginia Sweet seed to TGS, it didn't come with any comments- any thoughts? Their description is tempting to say the least.

And I will DEFINITELY check out selected plants.

Thank you.

So, I'll look up Lucky Cross, Little Lucky (is that a cherry?), Ananas Noire, Pineapple and Big Rainbow.
****

Lucky Cross and Little Lucky are both beefsteak type gold/red bicolors with PL foliage, the latter having slightly smaller fruits than the former.

(Carolyn, when you said you gave Virginia Sweet seed to TGS, it didn't come with any comments- any thoughts? Their description is tempting to say the least.)

For many years Vince Sapp, Linda's husband who died unexpectadly a few years ago, used to scan some message sites and then compile a list of those varieties that others praised highly. Linda sent me a list of varieties he'd noted one year and Virginia Sweets was on that list as I had liked it very much and so had some of my SSE friends as well and had posted that.

So I sent the seeds for trial.

But since the early 90's I've been sending seeds to Linda and certain other commercial places whom I trust for trial and when I do send the seeds all I write on the pack is the name of the variety. it's up to the recipents if they like a variety to write their own descriptions.

I've known Linda since the early 90's and she usually thinks well of what I've sent and many of those varieties have been and are in the TGS catalog/website.

Until Vince died he did most of the initial trialing at the home where they then lived b'c they had to have X number of seeds to send out on subcontract for seed production. So I let them, and now Linda make up their own minds as to whether they think this or that variety would make a good addition to their listings and Linda writes all the descriptions for the varieties with no input from me, or actually no input from anyone who sends her seeds since it's her call on what she, and formerly Vince think of them.

She also is an SSE member and has gotten varieties through the Yearbook as have many owners of companies that feature lots of tomato varieties. But almost all owners of such sites get sent seeds to trial from individuals, and if selected for listing it's a great way to help ensure preservation of varieties just by having them grown in a wider area.

Carolyn

Hey Cat, I feel for you, I really do. I have a sister in Florida with no tolerance for the cold, our brother in Conn. makes up for it by being an ice fisherman (even I don't like that much cold, brrrr), my other sister and I are stuck on the island and just sorta limp around until we get warmed up in the morning ;-O

Selected Plants is a really nice site, the owner posts at a tomato forum and tom live chat I frequent--this is a wonderful man, very bright, very savvy, and a wonderful businessman. I can't say enough nice things about him.

If you still want to do some seeds you're very welcome to try with ours--they don't come with a limitation that they must be wintersown. I agree with you that conflict can be educational--this was just a small dust-up and nothing like the all out purity-troll wars of hybrid vs heirloom, but we haven't even seen that intensity in a while.

Be well, stay warm, and do visit Selected Plants.

T

Just thought I would toss this out there for any other desert growers. Over at that site that does 'plantfiles' and let's home growers submit reviews, both Pineapple and Big Rainbow have great reviews from residents in Phoenix and Lancaster, CA. Those are my awful conditions, so I'm bumping some variety to make room for Big Rainbow. Pineapple was already on my list, though I had very low expectations for it. Now I'm a little excited to see how these do here.

I'll throw in my two cents:

Ananas Noire is the hands down favorite among my family, friends, and neighbors. I know Carolyn doesn't care for it, but everyone else that I've come across loves it (LOL).

Some of my other favorite bicolors:

Big Rainbow
Hillbilly
Marvel Striped
Striped German

Did I mention Lucky Cross????

I think that I should mention Lucky Cross since noone else did LOL

caroyln mojavebob and Slo garden -
I think if carolyn lived in warmer calif with longer growing season she too would still be growing the black pineapple AN - my wife has this in her top 5 and I like the "multi-colored" AN also

I love Pineapple, it's kinda late here, but ripens nicely off the vine, very pretty and tomato-ey tasting.

Hillbilly was good the first year I grew it, but melted down the next, didn't grow it this year, mostly for space/time restrictions.

Definitely worth a try is Virginia Sweets, and I've read many great things about Lucky Cross.

Good luck with Virginia Sweets. Mine did not come out very good
last summer. It was sweet, but not much flavor. My yellow's had
no flavor either. It did rain quite a bit last summer and maybe that's
why the flavors were washed out. The only bi-color I'm trying next
year will be Lucky Cross. My yellow's and gold's will be Persimmon,
Pineapple, Lillian's Yellow, Porkchop, Orange 1, Aunt Gerties Gold,
Dr. Wyche's Yellow, and I think I will give KBX another try. Hopefully
next summer will be a little drier.

I planted 60 Virginia Sweets this year and was really disappointed in their flavor.Very bland. I'm going back to Oaxacan Gold, the prettiest bi color I have ever grown though it does catface.