It reminds me of Zapotec, but there are many ribbed variety.

It's impossible to identify the exact tomato variety from a plant or the fruit. But that looks to be one of the piriform (pear-shaped) tomatoes that are usually Italian in origin. They're usually large, meaty, and excellent for fresh eating as well as for sauce, with a very viney growth habit (floppy vines that need good support) and many retain green shoulders when ripening. I'm growing one of these varieties this year, the pomodoro red pear sel. Franchi, a selection by the Franchi seed company from a pear tomato grown around their HQ inBergamo. Others have variety names like pera d'Abbruzzo, cuor(e) di bue identified as from Liguria (Ligure), Albenga, etc. (and not to be confused with varieties named cuor(e) di bue which are actually oxheart shaped). There's also a variety from Johnny's called "red pear piriform" which is very similar and one called "Goldman's Italian American", which is apparently from hybrid seed for a pear variety Amy Goldman of Heirloom Tomatoes fame obtained in Italy that was grown out and stabilized as an open pollinated variety. There are also hybrid large pear tomatoes.

My tomatoes are all very late this year and I'm only just now starting to get ripe fruit. I can't report on the Franchi red pear yet, as mine are all still hanging green on the vine. The plants have been pretty healthy and flowered and set fruit fairly early. There were some issues with BER, which is to be expected with any elongated larger tomato, and also since they were in a new bed that doesn't have terrific tilth yet, but early fruit and recent fruit have been fine. Based on the sepals, I'd guess that what you have is not the Franchi red pear, but except for having much longer sepals, these fruit looked very similar when smaller.

That is a bit exotic to me.

I think it fits into "piriform" category , ie, pear shaped heart.

This might be what you have.

It is of an Italian origin called : Cuore di Bue

Some pics of Franchi red pear at early stages of development:

The plant is growing huge, but the flowers are still falling off. The tomatoes are looking beautiful, there are 6 on the plant. If they taste good, I'll try again next year.

Any ripe ones yet, Riley ?

Please keep us posted on the final size, color and taste.

Thanks

Sey

If you can contact the seller, she might be able to tell you the exact variety, given it's unusual (beautiful) shape. Definitely save seeds, and grow it out again if it's a good one, and maybe you will run into the seller again in May 2017 .......

Linda

Hadn't thought that they might be set up next year. Seemed they were trying to get rid of the excess plants they grew. At the start of the day, the plants were $1, when I went back for another, they were free. I'll look for them next year.

None are ripe yet. Had a ripening green zebra, but the dog chewed it up yesterday. He didn't eat it like usual, so I'm guessing it was less ripe than I thought. The aunt ruby's, from the same batch of plants, has done nothing, except get taller, no flowers.

They look exactly like my Franchi red pear tomatoes now. The large Italian pears are generally very tasty and very meaty.

The first one of mine came ripe today.

It was one of the smaller fruit on the plant at 156g/5.5oz. Others that are ripening are around twice as big.

FWIW, I ate that tomato^ in the pic above today. Despite a very minor touch of BER, it was hands-down the best tomato out of my garden thus far. Surprisingly sweet, but with a good acid backbone so that the sweetness tastes bright and not flat or one-dimensional. Nice intensity of flavor. Extremely meaty texture that manages to avoid feeling dry at all. Very pleased with this variety.

I will second piriform. I am growing Red Pear Piriform this season and yours has many similarities, though I don't think it's the same variety.

Personally, they're not my favorite for fresh eating. They taste fine, but Brandywine, Stump, 1884 and several others are much better fresh eating IMO. Mine are rather hollow and very pepper-like on the inside. I would imagine they'd be fantastic in sauce or stuffed and roasted.

Regardless, they're a very unique tomato and a lot of fun to grow. I highly recommend.

Here are what mine look like on the plant:

Two orangeish looking ones at the top-right (they've since fully ripened to red). The larger one on the left is over a pound, the one on the right about 9oz.

nbm1981: Personally, they're not my favorite for fresh eating. They taste fine, but Brandywine, Stump, 1884 and several others are much better fresh eating IMO. Mine are rather hollow and very pepper-like on the inside. I would imagine they'd be fantastic in sauce or stuffed and roasted.

nbm, the Franchi red pear is a selection of a traditional tomato grown around Bergamo, Italy. It's a variety that is traditionally grown for fresh eating. Franchi advertises it as a "red beef tomato" in parts of Europe. Mine definitely tastes like a tomato bred for fresh enjoyment. Mind you, I'm growing Malakhitovaya Shkatulka and Cherokee Purple as well this year, and neither are slouches in the taste department, but Franchi red pear is better so far. Of course, there's no accounting for taste, and I do expect things to change as later CPs and MSes become more intense in taste. But I do agree there are obviously some significant varietal differences between Red Pear Piriform and what I'm growing. Either that, or one of us is having a very atypical experience with what we're growing in our gardens this year--also a distinct possibility.

I didn't have a camera with me, but one is changing color. It is the only one that has a touch of blossom end rot, so I'm not going to pick it, I'll wait until the next. Seems to me that tomatoes with BER ripen prematurely and don't taste good, I could be wrong, but that has been my experience.

The blossoms stopped falling off and it has probably 20 tomatoes on it now.

rileyblue: I didn't have a camera with me, but one is changing color. It is the only one that has a touch of blossom end rot, so I'm not going to pick it, I'll wait until the next. Seems to me that tomatoes with BER ripen prematurely and don't taste good, I could be wrong, but that has been my experience.

Not my experience. Often, they rot faster, but ripening always seems on par with other tomatoes. I think they appear to ripen more quickly because BER affected tomatoes are often the first tomatoes to set (the plant later outgrows the issue), so they give that impression.

I find that tomatoes with "wet" BER (mushy, rotten) usually have off flavors, so I usually just chuck those in my worm bin, but if it's just a touch of "dry" BER (just looks like a dried up old scar), there is no alteration in taste, and I just cut off the affected part and the rest is just fine.

YMMV.

Well, that's good news then. My experience is pretty limited.

Almost ripe

First tomatoes off the plant are often lacking in flavor. I don't judge a variety by its early fruit.

Maybe that's why I associate BER with lack of flavor, cause they're the first fruits, usually. Good thing this plant has so many tomatoes to try :).

Riley, That is a nice looking tomato. But on my monitor it appears as orange. I wonder if it will eventually get red. Tomatoes with yellow epidermis start with a yellow/orange color. The ones with clear skin start with pink/purple color , depending on the flesh.

Sey.

It looks to me as though the photo is overexposed.

The photo is a bit yellower than normal, lighting was weird. The tomato looks like it'll ripen to red.

I cut into this tomato today. It was very juicy. I tried it and it was bland and watery. But then I tried a better boy, and it tasted the same. Then I tried a cherokee purple, and it was exactly the same. The golden boy I tried next was not bland, but was gross and bitter instead. So then I went to my favorite Mexican restaurant, ordered my favorite meal, and it was horrible.

So, yeah, no idea if this tomato tastes good or not, because nothing does! :). I almost completely lost my sense of taste (I could taste sweet only) for a couple months 2 years ago, and this is reminiscent of how that started. I hope it doesn't happen again, I thought that was a fluke.

They're not quite this pink, but I'm using my old computer, hard to fix with this computer because the screen is crappy. Once the blossoms stopped falling off, the plant went a bit nuts, lots of tomatoes! My taste buds are back to normal, so I'll try another one and see how they taste.

I have always thought that Johnny's Red Pear Piriform is probably the same one as Franchi Red Pear. Are they different?

These pics look like my Franchi Red Pear, which is robust, productive, great-tasting, and very early. It will continue in my garden. The pics do not look like Cuor di Bue, also from seedsfromitaly (I think Franchi), which is a very whimpy weak plant, very, very low production, but tastes good. It will never be in my garden again.

The Cuor di Bue is an oxheart tomato. Oxhearts are generally known for being wispy looking plants. Many people make the mistake of overwatering and overfeeding them or even pulling them thinking there's something wrong with them. However, many oxhearts have excellent production on those wispy vines. I haven't tried the Franchi Cuor di Bue oxheart, though.

Many Italian varieties called cuor(e) di bue are piriform/large pears and not oxhearts, however.

I agree that the Franchi red pear is an excellent variety which looks similar to riley's tomatoes. Very good taste and very productive. However, it's impossible to say for sure what variety riley's are. The best that can be done, if riley really wants a named variety, is to do a growout of different piriform type varieties from trusted seed sources, select the one that most closely resembles what has grown this year, and grow that seed from now on. Of course, if riley's not interested in having a definitive name, which is obviously not necessary to enjoy eating a nice tomato, he or she can continue to grow seed from this variety and, if it's not a hybrid, continue to enjoy it as a no-name home garden lucky find indefinitely.

And while hybrid piriforms exist in Italy, I think they're mostly OP varieties here. I would expect that a piriform plant bought from a garden center here would be OP.

It's definitely OP, all the tomatoes they had that day were. I will probably never know which variety (unless I stumble upon the grower next spring - and she remembers), but I'm not too worried about it, I'm just growing for myself and family.

It's a nice tomato, very juicy, which surprised me, and good flavor.

I'm glad you can taste it now! My Franchi red pear tomatoes look like they'll be on the dry side because their seed pockets are often semi-hollow and the fruit feels like it won't be juicy when you squeeze it, but looks are deceptive. They are meaty yet juicy. And much sweeter than I expected.