How hardy is Indigo Rose?

[Balr14]

Weather here has sucked pretty much since Mother's Day when I planted. Lots of rain and cold weather. Rain almost daily and only about 7 days of temperatures in the 70s or more; mostly 50s and 60s. I have 2 Indigo Rose plants and their leaves are consistently turning blue-black, even lots of the flower buds have this color. I've been pruning off branches with this discoloration. It's even on the sides of a few tomatoes. Other plant, in the same containers, that are touching these are not bothered at all. But I do have a number of plants that show signs of too much water and cold temperatures.

[Dewayne mater]

Very wimpy in my experience this year. First time growing it. It did manage to produce probably 15-20 tomatoes, but, it was among the hardest hit by disease, slowest to rebound, not very vigorous in growth over all. The largest tomato it produced for me was not much bigger than a golf ball. The taste was good, not great with a tendency to be mealy textured. It won't be returning to my garden.

Dewayne Mater

[Fusion_power]

One of the genes that causes Indigo Rose fruit and plant parts to turn blue/black is temperature sensitive. Cooler temps result in significantly darker colors. If the plant parts you are removing are otherwise healthy, then what you are doing is comparable to letting blood because someone is sick. Indigo Rose is supposed to turn blue/black!

[LMinAL]

This is my first year growing it too. If I'm not mistaken, the blue black color on the leaves is normal. The fruit turns a purple color, then reddens when ripe. This tomato has been very hardy in my garden and just starting to ripen, so not sure about the taste yet. Do you have a picture?

[Dewayne mater]

To clarify, I was not talking about purple colored stems, which I did have some of those. I had leaf disease issues, mold and blight, that affected it badly. I see that 1-2 ounce fruit is normal. Probably only the top half of mine turned purple, not the entire fruit like some folks got. The wimpy characterization definitely applies though. Its the smallest plant in my garden by a couple of feet and is the first to get any disease. Some may love it, but, it's an easy one to lose for me going forward.

D.M.

[Cinnamon]

Useful advice. This is my first year to seriously grow tomatoes and certainly my first year to grow Indigo Rose. I'm in England so yes, we have cold weather. I've got 20+ varieties outdoors. One of my Indigo Roses has been outdoors in a cloche since March and the other I put out in mid-May. Yes, it's very dark-leaved and there's only this variety and one other that has such dark leaves. My bigger Indigo Rose is outdoors, very purply leaved and has 9 trusses that have set fruit (3 trusses nearly ripe) and another 3 lots of flowers on the go.

(This is an unresearched guess...) The dark colour is anthocyanins, which are the antioxidant chemicals that people are getting excited about. It's one of the reasons why this variety is on the market. Generally plants that have darker flowers and fruit tend to express the genes for that colour elsewhere e.g. by looking at the colour of the bulbs, you can tell whether a hyacinth will be blue or white flowered. It's the same here I imagine, plus the anthocyanin is a protective chemical for the plant. Gene expression varies with things like temperature e.g. in Siamese etc cats the cold bits are dark coloured because of gene expression in the cold extremities.
I wouldn't worry about it in your tomatoes here, though you're right in other plants an unusual dark colour is a sign the plant is stressed.

[Balr14]

I think I figured out that the blue/black coloration was normal and stopped pruning it off; better late than never.

Anyway, here's blue leave and some tomatoes just getting started.

[Cinnamon]

Mine are waaay bluer than that! Yours are looking very green in comparison.

[Balr14]

How big are yours?

[Cinnamon]

Rather variable. (By the way, I'm in England so the climate's different.) I have two main plants from the 4 seed I started with. The fruit are very variable in size. Most are around golf-ball sized, but some are almost twice that size. Of the larger ones, some are clearly from megablooms (fused flowers) and are not as round, but other big ones seem to have come from regular flowers. I started them off in late Jan indoors and kept one plant in an unheasted greenhouse til a month ago and the other has been outside with some protection since March. (The still produce dark foliage even though the temperature has warmed up.) I keep squidging, but despite their shiny blackness, not one is ripe. Edit: the hairs on the fruit are highly visible when the fruit are young, but mine soon turn to shiny black, with just green where the sun can't reach.
(That photo is maybe 10 days old.)