Ciliegia - a flawless cherry tomato?

[travis]

Marko, I'd like to ask you a question about the photograph you posted last season of the large amount of fruit you picked in one day.

Those tomatoes appear to be high beta carotine type tomatoes. What I mean is the deep orange color looks like the color expressed by some of the high beta carotine tomatoes bred specifically for the purpose of delivering beta carotine.

Is that mentioned on the seed package or in the literature connected with the variety?

[Marko]

Travis, I believe this is not the case here. Below is a photo of a back side of seed package, there's nothing about high beta carotine values. I couldn't find any info of this variety online as well.

[horses4jess]

Has anyone had mature fruit yet this season? I have to wait until autumn to start mine, but was wondering if they are OP for sure, and what results everyone was getting from this variety.

[dipchip2000]

I have been eating the fruit for about 2weeks now. It was the first to ripen for me. The plants are huge and loaded with hundreds of greenies now and must pick the ripe ones daily before the Mockingbird gets them first. Taste is average to good as expected from a Cherry. Production is completely off the charts. It will probably be the only Cherry other than SunGold that I grow next year.

ron

[RenePom]

My thanks to Marko and all the participants for a very helpful thread. It looks like your seeds have found their way from Italy through Estonia to Chicago.

One of my neighbors bought a plant for their 3-year-old daughter to grow in a pot out in our condo's parking lot. A few of us in this condo have been gardening both in the ground around the perimeter of our parking lot and in pots where we can put them, but no one had a tomato that progressed as rapidly as this one.

The plant was bought at the annual Hyde Park Garden Fair the second week-end in May. There was a hand written tag identifying it as "Ciliegia Cherry Tomato". My search for information led me to your thread about it.

You might all be interested in something else I found in my search:
http://ventmarin.free.fr/passion_tom.../tomates_c.htm
is a database where this tomato is listed.
The names in the listing include a Gallicized version and an alternative name that looks like it might come from the Italian meaning "dwarf cherry".

In English, the entry says: "Fruit round, cherry type, 15 to 20 grams. Trusses of 16 to 18 fruits. No depression at the stem attachment point. No umbilical [blossom end] mark. 6 sepals. Blossoms with 5 petals. Nice texture. Plants 180 to 220 centimeters [6 to 7.5 feet] in height. 70 to 75 days. Indeterminate growth. Fixed variety originating in Italy. "

"Vent marin", the name of the site, means "sea breeze" and the author says it refers to the warm moist south winds that bring him rain in the French Pyrenees. But I suspect he was influenced by the similarity in sound to "Vilmorin", the seed company that dates back to the 18th century and the court of Louis XV and produced the first seed catalog. Details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilmorin

So it looks like this thing is known as "THE cherry".
Or we might combine the Italian and French names, dropping the "i" after the "g" to give "ciliega", and pronounce it "cheel-YAY-gah".

[carolyn137]

I know Ventmarin well, and have for many years. It's my go to place as well as Tomodori, except Tomodori usually hands off to Ventmarin, when I can't find a variety in the SSE Yearbooks, nor by Googling nor at Tania's website.

And most of the info at Ventmarin is correct, but not all, b'c he does not raise each and every variety himself, how could he with that list of varieties, and has to rely on info he digs up and/or is provided to him.

I misplaced the seeds that Marko sent me and was mad about that, they'll turn up eventually, but then got quite a few seeds from a friend in Canada and Ciliega was included as well as Fiaschetto , also from Italy.

I'm just hoping that both of those plants are doing OK and they weren't ones that the woodchuck, groundhog to some of you, ate b'c someone else does all my gardening for me since a fall in Dec of 2004 and since then I've been chained to this walker so I can't get out there to check on things myself.

[barefootgardener]

The winner for being the first ripe tomato of the season..I picked several off of a couple plants, and they were so good. The color was more of an orange/red. The flavor was sweet, and had a nice tomato flavor. not quite as sweet as Sungold, but will see what the next ripe ones will taste like as the season progresses. This is the earliest I have ever had a tomato ripen, beat Sungold by a couple weeks compared to last season..

[salix]

I realize that we are WAAAY behind most of you, but just wanted to note that the first tomato to set was 'Marko's Flortis Cherry'. Actually three little green beads on a nice truss today. Just a few blossoms on Sun Gold right alongside.

[bower]

Very interesting! The lovely truss pattern and the rounded leaf shape are the same as Gardener's Delight, which I'm growing for the first time this year. It is setting full trusses of 15 fruit around 1inch cherries, same as Black Cherry size, and didn't drop any blossoms when we had two weeks of cold rain drizzle and fog.
I'm looking forward to hearing all about the Ciliegia.

[NewWestGardener]

That's 7.4 lbs from a single plant today. There are more ripening on the vine. That is a winner!

[carolyn137]

Marko, I'm sure, well pretty sure, that I'll find the seeds you sent me, but Alex did send me Nano Ciliega, as noted in an earlier post here, as well as Fiaschetto, both from Italy and both red cherries and I grew another red cherry, an heirloom from Serbia called Durmtorske.

Of the 40 plants out back I only got a few fruits from each of the above three and two unnamed pink heart fruits. A really terrible year here for my tomatoes for several reasons.

The tastes of both Ciliega and Fiaschetto were good, pretty much average, but the taste of Durmtorske I found to be outstanding.

I know I'll have seeds of Nano Ciliega to put in my seed offer for 2013, just in case there are any others here who didn't get seeds, but also for me to send for trial to several seed sites, But the person doing the seed production for the other two hasn't gotten back to me yet, so fingers crossed on those two.

This is the thrid season in a row that the growouts here at home have not done well, and it really does depress me, but Freda, who does all the gardening for me had a rough summer, without going into details and she simply was n't here enough to take care of them, get the weeds out of the containers and Gro-bags, fertilize, or spray for foliage diseases.

Then there was the weather, which was terrible.

OK, I'll shut up now, but I call the tomatoes I grow my tomato kids, not having any human kids, and I like to see them grow up and make a difference in the lives of other tomato growers if they do well. Kind of getting on the Honor Role at school, if you know what I mean.

[velikipop]

Carolyn,
My Fiaschetto was the best tasting of the three. The Ciliega was grown in a container and did not taste very good. The Durmtorske was average. Jasmin cherry, from Serbia, which I think I also sent you turned out to have great production of small cherries but is one of the best tasting. Very sweet and intense. Also, the Russian Queen, from you had excellent taste. It is a keeper.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by velikipop

Carolyn,
My Fiaschetto was the best tasting of the three. The Ciliega was grown in a container and did not taste very good. The Durmtorske was average. Jasmin cherry, from Serbia, which I think I also sent you turned out to have great production of small cherries but is one of the best tasting. Very sweet and intense. Also, the Russian Queen, from you had excellent taste. It is a keeper.

Alex, it just goes to show, once again, that it makes a difference where plants are grown and what the tastebuds are for different folks.

I'm looking at the list of ones you sent me right now and Durmtorske was not on that list. I remember I PMed you to ask if you were the one who sent me that Serbian Cherry and you were travvelling at the time but said you didn't think you were .

My seeds for D were from Bill Minkey which I found out when I looked at another data book, with whom I exchange seeds every year and I can't find it in either the 2011 or 2012 SSE Yearbooks so will call Bill, he has no computer, and ask him about it.

Was I the one who sent you the seeds of D, for I can't right now find the list of ones I did send you except I do remember that Russian Queen was one of them.

I do have the Jasmin seeds and maybe to be grown next summer and I want to PM you about several of the others you sent as well, and that when the snow flies not now.

I'm finding that in general I do very much like varieties from Serbia.I've been thinking of trying to find a way to contact Novak Djokovic, the tennis player, to see what his relatives might find for me at the risk of him thinking I'm crazy.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by velikipop

Carolyn,
My Fiaschetto was the best tasting of the three. The Ciliega was grown in a container and did not taste very good. The Durmtorske was average. Jasmin cherry, from Serbia, which I think I also sent you turned out to have great production of small cherries but is one of the best tasting. Very sweet and intense. Also, the Russian Queen, from you had excellent taste. It is a keeper.

Alex, I'm sure I now know where my Durmtorske seeds came from.

I called Bill today and he said he'd never heard of it.

Then I remembered that you sent seeds separately from the others and said they were from someone in CA.

It turns out that on the ones I got from Bill I'd started a list and had already written Durmtorske and under it VT red heart, wondered where the heck the Vt one came from and then listed those that Bill had sent me.

Sorry, for the confusion , I apologize, and yes, the seeds were from you.

[velikipop]

Carolyn,

Sorry for the confusion. I checked with my source in San Jose and indeed he did send me the seed that he got from his grandmother in Montenegro. He named it after the region, Durmitor and I carelessly renamed it Baba's after his grandmother. That is why I did not recognize the name at first when you inquired. So the best would be stick with the original name Durmitor.

Alex