Cherokee Carbon Hybrid

[ABlindHog]

Saw this on a bonnie rack at Home Depot and brought one home. It's getting awfully late here but I could still squeeze this in. Has anyone tried them?

[Jax&Izzy]

Originally Posted by ABlindHog

Saw this on a bonnie rack at Home Depot and brought one home. It's getting awfully late here but I could still squeeze this in. Has anyone tried them?

I grew them last year. They were very large and productive plants. They handled the heat of the California Central Valley and set fruit except during "hot" spells. The fruit was tasty, not the best but good. The fruit had a nice color. Not necessarily red but not very dark either. I am growing it again this year. I purchased my seeds from "Territorial Seeds" out of Washington state.

[Rockandrollin]

There is another thread in the General Discussion forum called "Cherokee Carbon....Experiences?" that was started last month that you might be interested in. Sorry, I'm not good at creating a link, so you will need to do a search.

I'm trying it for the first time also.

[ABlindHog]

Cherokee Carbon....experiences?
Thanks R&R

[Al@NC]

I haven't grown it, there's just so many black/brown/purple varieties to try! I'm curious as well how many attributes it has from either of it's parents if any at all.

But what I am curious about (if it tastes well) is what the F2 grow outs would be like...

Al

[DocBrock]

I can't get them to grow. I've had 4 plants from 3 different stores and they are the only variety I have that go nowhere, I don't get it. I ended up pulling 3 of them after a month when they were the same size as when I bought them so I wasn't wasting space. I've got one left in a container and it's the same height, but flowered and now has 2 golf ball sized tomatoes on it. I'm leaving it to grow because I'm curious to see if the tomatoes will get larger and ripen. I'm a rookie tomato grower, but it almost seems like someone broke off the main growing tip when it was young so it never got any taller. Not sure how that's works but the plant is only 14" tall. When I pulled the other plants, they all exhibited the same short stature but had made some pretty impressive rootballs. I've got a half dozen other plants, including a cherokee purple purchased at the same time as my first cherokee carbon and it's doing great.

[DocBrock]

I wanted to update my last post...I started watering my cherokee carbon heavily just to see if maybe that was to blame for the slow growth and it's starting to take off. Still fairly short (about 2' high), but it flowered and set about 10 tomatoes. Now if I can keep it alive in this ridiculous south Florida heat and humidity I'll be in business. Planted this on a whim, but it's way to late to be growing tomatoes down here so it's all an experiment.

[DocBrock]

Finally was able to harvest ripe fruit. It's been in the 90s for the last month, and we had a tropical system come through last week that dumped rain for 4 days straight. The fruit was cracking so I picked it a few days early. I sliced one last night and it's my favorite variety of the season. Really good taste, IMHO, better than the cherokee purple this year.

[Rajun Gardener]

Nice Doc B!!! I'm getting into that high heat too and hope the plants make more tomatoes before they shut down.

Originally Posted by Al@NC

But what I am curious about (if it tastes well) is what the F2 grow outs would be like...

Al

I have an F-2 growing from the swap, I'll try to report the results.

[DocBrock]

Originally Posted by Rajun Gardener

Nice Doc B!!! I'm getting into that high heat too and hope the plants make more tomatoes before they shut down.




I have an F-2 growing from the swap, I'll try to report the results.

Sounds good! It's too late to grow down here, but I started late after some root aphid issues and once they got sorted out I couldn't find it in my heart to pull the plug on all my plants. It's been a season of low expectations but so far so good. A lot of the plants didn't really take off until it got hot and most look great right now minus the large fruited varieties cracking. With the 4 days of clouds and rain, most of the plants put out more blossoms and set fruit so it was kinda advantageous. However, I think I'm starting to get fungal issues though after the rainy spell so I've been spraying with copper to see if I can prolong the fight. Also once it rained it's like the bug kingdom woke up. Seemed like my mostly clean yellow sticky cards were solid black overnight with leafminers, thrips, and whiteflies. The whiteflies are getting more numerous by the day. It's only a matter of time til I'm done.

[Rajun Gardener]

I've been watching all the rain you guys have been having and wondered how the plants are doing.

I know all about that, last 2 years were floods and this years it's been drought so far but this thing in the gulf might give me too much rain at once and ruin the season. I'm watering with drip tape and even that is tricky due to the temps. I don't expect the plants to produce too many more tomatoes till fall. The night temps have been the low 70's and it's Really Freaking Hot already too early.

The Gulf should be active this year, I'm sure the water temp in higher than normal.

All we can do is deal with it and hope for the best!!!!!

[DocBrock]

I'm a rookie at gardening in south Florida as well, so I figure if I can get a few tomatoes this year in containers than I'm doing pretty well. It was 97 today with heat index and 80+% humidity. Half my plants are in earthboxes and the other half in 7gal nursery pots and I tend to overwater the pots just to try and keep the roots cool. Everything has been growing well and tasting good so I'm just keeping up the watering 2x a day until something goes wrong and I need to re-evaluate. Also move the containers under an awning at lunchtime before I head back to the clinic to minimize afternoon thunderstorms dumping water on them. I forgot the other day and I think that's when the cracking got worse. My black cherry got beat up pretty bad by wind but it pulled through and is still flowering. My best looking plant by far is cherokee carbon. It's short, only about 3' tall, but so far has produced 8 softball sized fruit and just set about 5 more.

[SharonRossy]

I grew Cherokee Carbon last year and while I got some huge tomatoes, I wasn't crazy about the taste. I much prefer Indian Stripe to any of the Cherokee tomatoes.