Cherokee Purple, Indian Sripe, Etc.

[TomatoDon]

Hi all, and I hope everyone had a good holiday season and are ready to have a great 2014!

I don't have a lot of experience with growing large numbers of the dark tomatoes, so I wanted to get some advice here. I wanted to grow some to sell this year and wanted to see what people here suggest. I've grown a few Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, etc. for my own personal use, but I want to step it up a good bit this year.

Concerning reliability, production, appearance, being crack and disease resistant, and taste, what do you suggest from the dark varieties? It seems that Cherokee Purple is the overall favorite here, but I also hear more and more good about Indian Stripe.

For someone wanting to grow for market, which dark variety do you consider the best?

Thanks in advance!

DS

[zipcode]

I've grown Indian Stripe, and it's veeery crack prone. Even protected from rain it's very tough not to get some radial cracking. Appearance: good, quite uniform, little catfacing, awesome interior colour. Good taste, perfect texture. Good production early on, not so much after. Disease resistance: nothing special here (early blight, septoria, late blight).
Quite small plant, can be easily grown in containers.
It's worth a try, serious production is a concern, since it seems to lack vigour, which does show after first 3 trusses or so. And cracking...

I recommend Chernomor (PL. ind version). More vigour, much less cracking, jolly good taste (a bit more acidic), no catfacing. Awesome interior colour (very different from IS, with dark green gel). Exterior colour is light than IS, so should be picked earlier than you think. This chernomor might also be the same as Amazon Chocolate, the way everything looks about the plant and fruit is very similar (or maybe it's just a coincidence.)

[b54red]

If you want some very large tomatoes for market then I suggest you give Gary O' Sena a try as it has the longest shelf life of all the dark ones I have grown and I have grown a lot of them. It also has less cracking and a fairly uniform shape. It is a very large plant that requires some heavy pruning to keep it under control and producing the larger fruit.

The best tasting to me of all the large dark tomatoes is JD's Special C Tex. Large tomato with excellent flavor and texture; but it isn't always as reliable a producer for me as Gary O' Sena.

The most reliable by far for me has been Indian Stripe. It has a smaller vine than many but if pruned judiciously can be one of the most productive of all the dark tomatoes. If I had to pick only one dark tomato to grow it would be Indian Stripe.

Cherokee Purple is a good one but sometimes is not a reliable producer for me but in many ways is similar to Indian Stripe.

Carbon is another very productive good dark tomato.

Dana's Dusky Rose is another productive dark tomato similar to CP or IS.

I would not grow Black Krim for market because of the severe splitting problems and short shelf life it has.

Though I have grown a lot more and loved many of them the ones listed above have proven themselves over the years to be the most reliable of the dark tomatoes for me.

Bill

[carolyn137]

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Indian_Stripe

And as you can see from the link above I was the person who first introduced it and have grown it many times, for seed stock, for my SSE listings and also for seed offers going back before Tville started.

And where I grow tomatoes in upstate NY I have never had a problem with splitting,etc.

I do read and post at several message sites and also get the SSE Yearbooks so have great feedback from all of those places, especially the SSE Yearbooks.

It is a version of CP in many ways and there have to be 100 threads about it here at Tville.

Personally I'm not all that fond of so called dark tomatoes, although I've grown many varieties but a few exceptions might include, in addition to IS and CP, Black from Tula, Brad's Black Heart, Vorlon and a coupleof black cherry varieties.

As is oft said, different strokes for different folks, and yes, I used to sell fruits that I left for sale at a farmstand so I know well the difficulty of problems with varieties that split, often due to weather, as well as shelf life, if you will.

Carolyn

[travis]

The most productive and least crack prone dark tomatoes for me have been Spudakee, Big Cheef, and Not Purple Strawberry. I say this while professing a deep affection for both Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple. I'll add that if you intend to grow any of these to sell, you should pick them as breaker stage tomatoes and ripen them indoors to avoid radial cracking and skin splitting. And you should sell them only in less than full ripe condition to avoid disappointing your customers with tomatoes that will be past their prime by the time they get home for dinner.

[natural]

Gary O'sena, Vorlon and Sara Black are the most consistent producers for me year over year. I also prefer Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf due to the delayed exposure to sun scald once foliage diseases take hold.

I always use drip irrigation under plastic mulch for my dark tomatoes so that I can better control the amount of water. If you are attempting to "convert" a new customer base there is nothing more disappointing than a bland dark tomato due to over-watering. If their first taste of a dark tomato is bland, you might lose the customer forever.

Bill

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

The most productive and least crack prone dark tomatoes for me have been Spudakee, Big Cheef, and Not Purple Strawberry. I say this while professing a deep affection for both Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple. I'll add that if you intend to grow any of these to sell, you should pick them as breaker stage tomatoes and ripen them indoors to avoid radial cracking and skin splitting. And you should sell them only in less than full ripe condition to avoid disappointing your customers with tomatoes that will be past their prime by the time they get home for dinner.

I couldn't agree more with your comment about picking the fruits at breaker stage for sale, for me that would be breaker 2-3 or about half way up. I never brought fruits to sell that were ripe, but tried to bring ones that were in different stages of ripeness.

I brought them in a single layer in a standard plastic flat, single layer is also important and we had tared the scale with an empty flat and the poundage of what I brought was recorded.

If they had to remove some fruits b'c of spoilage they weighed them and that was subtracted from the initial weight.

But discussing this brings back a memory I won't forget. I got a call at home from a woman who was having a fancy dinner party,I should say that I had sheets there with all the info I knew about the varieties I was bringing and also my phone number for questions, and she wanted a bushel of only yellow and gold ones, and ripe as well.

And she wanted them ASAP. Well, it was pouring out, I don't like to pick in the rain b'c then I have to spend much more times cleaning off the fruits and I told her that.

She said she HAD to have them so her cook could work with them and said I'll pay you $5/lb. this was back in the 90's when the $$$ for heirlooms was much less.

So I grabbed my third best pair of sneakers, put my rain cape on and marched out to my tomato field pronto;

Carolyn

[TomatoDon]

Sounds like CP and IS are about as good of choices as any of them.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by TomatoDon

Sounds like CP and IS are about as good of choices as any of them.

I can't believe I left out Spudakee. Thanks for reminding me Travis. It is also a great one but with potato leaves. Some years it is my most productive but if I had to pick one it would still be Indian Stripe.

Carolyn, I think one thing that may affect your opinion on the taste of black tomatoes is the cooler climate in which you live. When I first grew them I was totally underwhelmed by their flavor in late spring and early summer but then the really hot southern weather arrived and so did the flavor. I usually wait til at least late April to start setting out black tomatoes because the taste is so disappointing before those high 90 to 100 degree days get here. I sacrifice fruit size and numbers by waiting but it is well worth it. Last summer was the coolest and wettest I can remember and it was also the worst for black tomatoes and the best for large pink beefsteaks.

Bill

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by b54red

I can't believe I left out Spudakee. Thanks for reminding me Travis. It is also a great one but with potato leaves. Some years it is my most productive but if I had to pick one it would still be Indian Stripe.

Carolyn, I think one thing that may affect your opinion on the taste of black tomatoes is the cooler climate in which you live. When I first grew them I was totally underwhelmed by their flavor in late spring and early summer but then the really hot southern weather arrived and so did the flavor. I usually wait til at least late April to start setting out black tomatoes because the taste is so disappointing before those high 90 to 100 degree days get here. I sacrifice fruit size and numbers by waiting but it is well worth it. Last summer was the coolest and wettest I can remember and it was also the worst for black tomatoes and the best for large pink beefsteaks.

Bill

Bill, I don't think it's the weather, I think it's just me.

There are quite a few folks in my area who grow lots of varieties for sales at Farmer's markets and I've been mentoring someone who lives not far from me for that same purpose and giving him seeds for quite a few dark ones that I didn't mention above, as well as tons of seeds for other varieties.

And from Farmer's Market sales and feedback as well as feedback from some tasting events most like the taste of them.

So it has to be me.

Isn't that a song title I'm remembering, or is it you've gotta be you?

When I first joined SSE in 1989 there were only 4 or so so called black ones listed and now it's hundreds. I thought the black fad would be over by now and a couple of us had predicted that the next fad would be the green when ripes.

The GWripes cerainly have become fad, and the blacks are still very popular.

Carolyn

[b54red]

Carolyn, I guess it could just be you; but I think you would be surprised at the flavor some of the blacks exhibit when vine ripened to the right point in hot and moderately dry weather. Last year we had a summer with temps more like what would be seen in the north and too much rain and all the black tomatoes I usually love were just so blah. They reminded me of some of the early types with that mild tastelessness that many people like but I find awful. Until the weather heats up into the upper 90s and above I use most of my black tomatoes for cooking or they end up in the sauce pot.

I was totally awed by some of my black tomatoes when a few years ago I grew a few of them with that elusive smokey flavor that only happens when conditions are perfect. Since then I have been lucky enough to get some repeats but not nearly enough so I have to plant a good number of them every year in hopes of one day having a bumper crop of them with that almost magical flavor. I didn't get any last year so I should be due some this year.

Bill

[ExpendableZero]

Originally Posted by b54red

Last year we had a summer with temps more like what would be seen in the north and too much rain and all the black tomatoes I usually love were just so blah.

Tell me about it. My whole garden was ruined by too much rain. It started raining and didn't stop for almost a month. I couldn't get out there to work because I would just sink half way to my knees in mud. What few tomatoes that I did get were weak in flavor. The only exceptions were the long tom paste tomatoes. They produced more than anything else and were still tasty enough to top my sandwiches.