very usefull tomato varient of the variety Piccolo.

[michael johnson]

Today I do not want to talk about Piccolo, but instead one of the variants thats splits off from it, as piccolo is unfortunatly a hybrid,- with a difference- it splits only into two types, one is a normal very nice tasting cherry tom, which I am now de-hybridising,

But the other as I pointed out in an earlier post a month or so ago, is a strange tomato -cherry that appears not to ripen, and is a dull orangy colour at the time, but otherwise identical to the normal piccolo in every way, plant growth, truss size etc, etc,

Of this one -I decided to save a few seeds to experiment with next year.

However- I cut the remaining trusses off the plants and tied a bit of string round them and hung them up on the inside of the conservatory wall, to dry out -or so I thought, they have remained there since september a matter of five and a half months, and looked unchanged except for perhaps a little deeper orange colour, today I decided to get some down and have a look at them.

They were as fresh as the day I hung them up, no shriveling of the skin,no mould, no rot of any description , so I cut one or two in half and tried them, realy nice and a good sweet taste too, the seeds inside were as fresh as the day I picked them five or more months ago, flesh was a little softer and much more palitable than at harvest time, so it appears to be well worth saving them as very long keepers to enjoy during jan/feb/march when all others are not available, I am also quite sure they would go on for at least another couple of months in good condition so they would be 6 or 7 month old tomatoes in almost fresh condition.

To me this is a very good added bonus discovery, all one really has to do is sow just the usual normal Piccolo seeds thats available and use it as a dual purpose sowing, plant both types and harvest the red cherries in the atumn off one type, and cut and store the others for use in january to early spring-Brilliant

Fresh home grown cherries in January to march to eat as many as you like 8) .

On the other hand I am saving some seed from the long keeper to grow as well as a seperate entity.

Its not very often in this world you find a completly dual purpose cherry tom like this one,

[patty_b]

Looks like I found the dull orange discussed above. I rec'd my seeds from someone other than Michael but they may have possibly gotten them from him.
I was very impressed with the early bright red cherries and only today did I notice these less attractive trusses when pulling stakes. I had planted two seeds and grew the two plants together. The dull orange came later but other than color look the same. Have these showed up for anyone else this summer?? Patty