Posts Tagged ‘Cherokee Purple’
Tomatoes For a New Gardener
If you’re just starting out with your garden, you may want to know some good “beginner” tomatoes. What are some tomato varieties that are easy to grow, good to eat and fun to watch develop?
Tip #1 for a New Tomato Garden
If you’ve never grown tomatoes before, I suggest growing just three plants your first season. Why?
First, you want the best chance for your plants to grow and produce tomatoes. This means that you’ll have to watch your plants and see how they react to your particular growing conditions. If you put your plants out into your garden too soon, they might get killed by frost or stunted by chilly weather. If you plant too late, you risk both the plants not pollinating well because it’s too hot, or your fruit not ripening fast enough before season end.
So, your first planting season shouldn’t be more than three tomato plants; the next season, after you become familiar with the growing conditions, you can plant with abandon!
Which Tomatoes for a New Gardener?
I suggest three different varieties for your tomato garden; a determinate, a cherry and an heirloom. These three will give you tomatoes both early on and all through the season.
Determinate: Determinate tomatoes tend to be smaller plants and bear fruit earlier. Many don’t even need staking, which is a plus for the beginning home gardener. Determinate tomatoes tend to be early-to-mid-season tomatoes, so they will be among the first of your homegrown tomatoes harvested. In general, I’ve found the determinate tomatoes to be a bit more resistant to diseases.
Cherry: A cherry tomato is one of the very easiest to grow, and the plants usually very prolific. Cherry tomatoes are small (usually less than 2 ounces) and are born in clusters…sometimes very large clusters of 10 or more tomatoes! Because the plants are so prolific, there are usually tomatoes ready at any given time. Great for salads and snacking. The cherry tomato plants are normally indeterminate, so they continue producing their fruit for the entire season.
Heirloom: Finally, I suggest an heirloom, because most taste absolutely divine! Heirloom tomatoes tend to be late-season, so they are ready for harvest after the determinate and cherry tomatoes produce. I like the beefsteak-style heirloom tomatoes for their truly tomato taste, and the fact that they make great tomato sandwiches!
So, those are the tomato types I suggest for the first-time tomato gardener. Now on to the varieties you can plant!
Tomato Veriety Suggestions
I’ll give you two different groups of three. The first group should appeal to anyone; they are beautiful red tomatoes that are easy to grow.
The second group of three is for anyone who wants to get a little more adventurous. Instead of red tomatoes, you’ll find these in three different colors!
Group #1: Red Tomatoes
My three picks are: Celebrity, Supersweet 100 and Brandywine, and here’s why.
I have found Celebrity to be a tried-and-true addition to my garden. The plants are easy to grow and it’s rare they need staking. The tomatoes are medium-sized and quite good — much better than the grocery store tomatoes. Beyond regular watering an a little fertilizer now and then, Celebrity produces without fuss.
Supersweet 100 has been a great perfomer for me — the plants sprout and grow quickly. The cherry tomatoes are produced rampantly, once the plant has been established. It’s hard to go wrong with this plant, and the cherry tomatoes are very sweet. You will need to stake this plant, however.
Brandywine is a favorite of many a gardener (not to mention one of my favorites). It’s known as one of the best-tasting of the heirloom varieties. It’s reasonably resistant to diseases; just make sure it has plenty of air circulation around it. A somewhat sprawly plant, it could use staking or a tomato cage. The fruits are late season, and generally in the 1-pound range — definitely worth the wait!
Group #2: Tomatoes of Different Colors
For adventurous souls, here are my picks for different-colored tomatoes: Razzleberry, Jenny and Cherokee Purple. Determinate tomatoes are usually red, but Razzleberry is a pink determinate. Another thing that’s different is that Razzleberry is a mid-season tomato, instead of early-season. This means that although you’ll have to wait a bit longer for those fruits, they will be more succulent. Razzleberry is just a fun plant to grow, with delicious, sweet fruits. One caveat; you’ll very likely need to stake this plant (also rather unusual for a determinate).
Jenny is an orange cherry tomato, very small (less than an ouce), sweet and prolific. Jenny sets fruits before Razzleberry, so you’ll be eating them sooner, not to mention throughout the entire season. Jenny is indeterminate, as are most (if not all) cherry tomatoes, and the plants are prolific enough to need staking. It’s a nice way to branch out into a cherry tomato of a different color.
My heirloom choice is Cherokee Purple. Cherokee Purple is one of the more widely-adapted of the heirloom tomatoes, and pretty easy to grow no matter where you are. A late-season producer, Cherokee Purple has medium to large fruits, with a heavenly tomato taste. Now as to the purple. never fear, the tomatoes are really a deep pink tinged with brown (much prettier than how it sounds). No neon colors! Altogether one of the nicest and easiest of the heirlooms to grow.
A Word to Florida Gardeners
Summers are brutal in Florida, and hard on the tomatoes; they just don’t pollinate or set fruits well in high temperatures. So, I grow my main crops in two seasons — Spring and Fall.
For a Spring crop, you’ll want to plant seeds by the middle of February (end of January is better). This way most of your tomatoes will be harvested before the temperatures get really hot. Your cherry tomatoes may continue to produce fruits, though, into the summer heat.
For a Fall crop, plant seeds by the end of May; a bit earlier if you live in the inland North Florida and Panhandle area, where it gets cooler sooner.
I can and do plant crops for Summer and Winter, seeing as I live in South Florida. However, I plant the fewest tomatoes then. While I may have a few dozen tomato plants in Spring and Fall, I may grow only 5 or 6 most summers and winters. But for the beginning tomato gardener, I don’t recommend starting out with a Summer crop — the chance of tomato diseases is higher, due to the heat and humidity.
Heirloom Tomato Seeds
Heirloom tomato seeds aren’t any more difficult to plant than hybrid tomato seeds. The trick is finding the seeds you want to grow — and there is quite a variety!
But before I talk more about the seeds, let’s talk a little about what makes an heirloom tomato an heirloom.
About Heirloom Tomatoes
So what exactly is an heirloom tomato — what makes it different than “regular” tomatoes?
First of all, heirlooms are produced natually from seeds. In other words, if you save seeds from an heirloom, the resulting plants will be just like the parent. Not so with a hybrid tomato, because you’ll never know what you’ll get! This is because a hybrid is a cross between two varieties, neither of which may be great on their own (but wonderful together).
So that’s one; an heirloom produces plants like itself. The next is how long the plant has been producing tomatoes; that is, how many generations have been produced with consistent results. I’ve heard quite a few different numbers — 100 and 50 seem to be the two that pop up the most. Some people use the year 1945 as the cutoff; if the tomato variety was growing in 1945 with consistent fruit results, the plant can be considered an heirloom.
One other thing about heirloom tomatoes is their taste! In general, the heirlooms produce a sweet, meaty tomato. Many of the heirloom varieties produce big fruits — beefsteak or larger. If you love tomato sandwiches, you’ll love these tomatoes.
There is a downside, though. Heirloom tomatoes are pretty strong growers, but they are not necessarily disease-resistant. So especially if you live in a hot and humid climate, you need to keep a closer eye on your heirlooms. (But it is worth it!)
Heirlooms generally produce, on average, fewer tomatoes per plant than hybrids. If your household is small, that’s not always a bad thing, so you’re not drowning in too many tomatoes at once!
Heirloom Tomato Seeds
There are tons of varieties or heirlooms out there, and I’ve tried many of them in my day. But I keep coming back to a few that are the easiest for me to grow, but that also have fun results! I like red tomatoes for sure, but I also get a big kick out of the purple and the striped tomatoes. That being said, here are a few of my favorite heirloom tomato seeds.
Brandywine always seems to be on the list whenever I do my seed planting. I love the big fruits and the juicy meat of this heirloom tomato. The seeds germinate fairly quickly and transplant easily. I do have to keep my eye out for blight here in the south, though. Some of that can be circumvented by putting a protective layer of mulch over the soil. Whenever my friends ask for suggestions on tomato varieties, Brandywine is always on the list. This is an indeterminate plant that needs staking and bears fruit in about 80 days.
This is a fun tomato because it’s purple! OK, it’s not the kind of bright purple you might be imagining; it’s more of a dusky violet. The name comes about because it’s believed to have originated among the Cherokee people, and is over 120 years old. These are big tomatoes, which can weight a pound or more. Sweet and meaty, they are great for salads and sandwiches. But the purple does take a little getting used to, especially when you serve it to guests! Cherokee Purple is an indeterminate tomato that bears fruit in about 80 days and requires staking.
I plant these heirloom tomato seeds just about every time because my husband David loves them so much. He claims that they make the very best tomato sandwiches, and they sure are pretty. Why? Because Pineapple is a yellow-and-red striped tomato! They are absolutely gorgeous to look at, and deliciously sweet to taste. Pineapple is also a great way to introduce a tomato of a different color to people who have never eaten anything but a red tomato. This tomato is indeterminate, needs staking and is late-season, bearing fruit 85 to 95 days out, so it’s best grown in a warmer climate.
If you regularly use tomato sauce, you really need to consider growing this heirloom tomato. Once you make sauce from this red tomato, you won’t want to go back to store-bought. Not into sauces? You can eat this tomato fresh, too. This variety is among the smaller of the heirloom tomatoes, but is still nice-sized. One thing, Constoluto Genovese really likes warm weather, so it’s not great for cooler climates. Another indeterminate, this heirloom tomato needs staking and produces fruit at around 78 days.
The last of the heirloom tomato seeds I’ll talk about today is one that bears monster fruits — Big Rainbow. It’s also another of the striped tomato colors, with gold and red, so it’s very pretty to look at. Not to mention great to eat! This heirloom tomato can get fruits up to 2 pounds in size! Naturally that’s with optimum growing conditions, but 1+ pounds tomatoes can be expected on average. This tomato is also exceptional in that it’s one of the most disease-resistant of the heirlooms! (Reason enough to grow it.) Big Rainbow is an indeterminate, requires strong staking (possibly multiple stakes). It bears fruit roughly 90 days out.
So there you go; some wonderful heirloom tomato seeds for you to consider planting. For additional information on planting, check out the post on planting a tomato garden. Not to mention how to germinate tomato seeds!
