Tom Wagner's "Blue Fog".

[Indyartist]

Here are some pictures of the "Blue Fog" tomatoes I'm growing. This is a Tom Wagner variety which, from what I have gleaned from his forum is a cross of OSU Blue with San Francisco Fog.
I have eight plants with two showing some blue, a few are just in the flowering stage and some have green tomatoes on them.
Pictured is one plant showing the blue and one which at this point does not seem to.

[Tom Wagner]

When I visited San Francisco a few years ago I picked up a tomato called the San Francisco Fog. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from the market place. I rather like the idea of collecting a plant from the very area it is named for. According to Bonnie Plants...

San Francisco Fog Tomato

• Fruit size: 2 to 3 inches
• Matures: 70 days
• Plant type: Indeterminate

This heirloom produces clusters of round, smooth, red fruit about the size of golf balls. As you can guess from its name, this tomato is well adapted to cool, wet California coastal areas and wherever else cool weather may cause tomatoes not to set their fruit dependably. Produces prolifically in cool climates.

I brought the plant home to Washington where I live now and thought about what I wanted to cross to it. Among the crosses were some crossed to the OSU Blue and when I made observations about the hybrid in the cool maritime west coast climate in several locations in the state of Washington, I knew that this hybrid should be exploited for adaptation to cool climates as exist in the coastal areas of California, Oregon, and Washington. Maybe a first early for most of the lower 48 but it could work in areas like Europe, Chile, New Zealand, etc.

The hybrid is one I called Blue Fog. I thought that the segregating seed from this hybrid should retain the name and besides, it would be fun for folks to find an even better "Blue Fog"....one that would be deeper blue on the shoulder and still have red flesh.

Anyone like myself who has crossed the Golden State Bridge knows what the fog looks like and a blue tomato with the San Francisco Fog tomato background should look at this picture for inspiration:





Indy Artist has two tomatoes showing the segregation of some blue or not at all. The one I would save seed from is the one with what looks like a heterozygous phenotype.

I don't think too many people had a chance to get this seed from my website but keeping things rare for a while actually has its merits.

One of the serendipitous things going on with this breeding line is that I started with a coastal California variety...bred it to a coastal Oregon variety, selecting the hybrid plant in Washington; now ready to test where? Vancover Island? Then Alaska? Anything further north would have to take on the name Blue Ice?

I tried to find an idealized fruit or two of San Francisco Fog and this is what I thought to be the most perfect....


Now just put a blue foggy like shoulder on them...Hmmm

Indy Artist might appreciate my take on art among tomatoes....
It isn't just finding the best Blue Fog tomato...some times it is the walk among the possibilities. Tom Wagner


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