Purple Dragon

AlittleSalt · January 4, 2017

I'm looking up varieties that are about to be sown in cell trays. Purple Dragon is an Antho tomato. What I'm curious about is - is it thought of as a blue tomato?

Here's a picture from this link https://www.mariannasheirloomseeds.c...on-detail.html

Cole_Robbie · January 4, 2017

I thought Antho and Blue were synonyms?

If those are from my seeds, mine looked so dark that I barely noticed the stripes. Maybe the truss I remember just got a lot of sun, but they looked almost black. Mine were larger, too, up to medium in size. I looked for a pic of my Purple Dragon, but I can't find one. The pic you posted looks a lot like my Gargamel:

AlittleSalt · January 4, 2017

Cole, my Gargamel seeds are from you. I found/read that the have a one-to-two month storage life. I'm planting some this year.

The Purple Dragon seeds came from you too. So here in Texas, I should expect some very dark Purple Dragon tomatoes - excellent (Monte Burns)

Cole_Robbie · January 4, 2017

Despite having good red tomato flavor, the water content was a little bit lower in Gargamel, which would make for a longer shelf life. Two months is pushing it, though. Tomatoes with low water content tend to not rot. They just wrinkle and dry up on the counter. Grocery store tomatoes are often like that. I used to think that low-water and firm varieties were all bad, and I still think most are, but that is certainly not an absolute rule. I've had a few that taste quite good.

Grot and Zarca are my two best shelf life tomatoes so far, both of them red saladettes. Of course I have seed if you want any. I'm going to try to pit the two of them versus the de Colgar(s) next fall as my storage tomatoes.

January 4, 2017	#3
AlittleSalt BANNED FOR LIFE Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 13,333	Cole, my Gargamel seeds are from you. I found/read that the have a one-to-two month storage life. I'm planting some this year. The Purple Dragon seeds came from you too. So here in Texas, I should expect some very dark Purple Dragon tomatoes - excellent (Monte Burns)

January 4, 2017	#4
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	Despite having good red tomato flavor, the water content was a little bit lower in Gargamel, which would make for a longer shelf life. Two months is pushing it, though. Tomatoes with low water content tend to not rot. They just wrinkle and dry up on the counter. Grocery store tomatoes are often like that. I used to think that low-water and firm varieties were all bad, and I still think most are, but that is certainly not an absolute rule. I've had a few that taste quite good. Grot and Zarca are my two best shelf life tomatoes so far, both of them red saladettes. Of course I have seed if you want any. I'm going to try to pit the two of them versus the de Colgar(s) next fall as my storage tomatoes.