Bi-color tomatoes

[dld]

I'm growing several bi-colors this year and was wondering if there really is a big difference in the taste between them?

[landarc]

Many people feel they have a more fruity flavor than other colors of tomato. I have found that they are indeed a different flavor profile.

[johno]

They tend to be on the sweet side, and juicy.

[landarc]

I guess to me that makes it fruity. I think I get melon and stone fruit qualities in bi-color tomatoes.

[skip]

G'Day dld! To me bicolors are fruity and sweet. I've not come across any that have been tart. All the bicolors I have met I have enjoyed, some more than others. It has been a question of intensity of flavor.

So which bicolor varieties are you intending to grow out this season?

Cheers.

Skip

[dld]

Welcome Skip, and let me see, i have
Wagon Wheel
Jewel Tone
Virginia Sweets
BiColor Cherry
Mammoth German
Oaxacan Jewel
Golden Cherokee
Big Rainbow
Old German
Georgia Streak
Vintage Wine

any thoughts to some of these?

[jcm05]

There is a taste difference....Lucky Cross is better than them all. And that includes all other colored tomatoes too!

[PVP]

Let's see, I haven't grown that many bicolored tomatoes.

Hillbilly Potato Leaf
Seed from Seed Savers Exchange, a complete bust, was maybe 5 feet tall and had not set a single fruit by July, several blossoms failed, so I yanked it.

Oaxacan Jewel
Seeds from Solana Seeds, Canada, great tomato, two vines both set many large tomatoes in a very hot, humid year and they were heavy, meaty, sweet, fruity and fairly crack free.

Willard Wynn
Seeds from Dr. Bill Best, Berea, Kentucky, a Rockcastle County strain of German Yellow, one vine never set a fruit and the other vine set late but continuously until cold weather, fair production of large, heavy, dense, sweet, fruity tomatoes that were a magnet for tomato worms and slugs who seemed more attracted to this tomato than any in the garden. Very healthy vines with heavy, dark green foliage on extra thick stems.

Lucky Strike
Mixed results from Victory Seeds. One potato leaf vine was very late and only produced a few delicious, gold, heavily blushed and marbled with red, large tomatoes. Another potato leaf vine produced earlier, more, mostly gold with just a little blush and not much marbling but also very delicious tomatoes. The third vine produced little tennis ball or smaller sized, heart shaped tomatoes with pointed blossom ends, all red with green shoulders and on a regular leaf vine.

Pineapple
Seeds from Audrey Jennings, regular leaf, healthy vine, loads of baseball to one pound mostly red blushed on gold with slightly green shoulders and heavily marbled flesh, sweet and fruity.

Tom's Yellow Wonder was slightly bicolored for me and tasted mildly zingy and sweet.

I guess that's it for bicolors, but I have a few more to try out this summer.

Bill

[stratcat]

I've grown BiColor Cherry, Golden Cherokee, Old German, Georgia Streak, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Lucky Cross, Trees Bottom Yellow and Big Rainbow. I enjoyed the fruity, sweet flavor of all of them. They don't all taste the same.

Jewel Tone is a PL Bicolor that volunteered in my garden in 2004 after I grew Big Rainbow (RL) in 2003. Previously I grew only RL Bicolors. Jewel Tone was firm and delicious. It has remained 100% PL until I shared seeds for 2009 with jt, spudleaf, mj, bizz and bunkie and got some RL offspring. Planted one RL and it was Bicolor.

john

Oops! Grew Gold Medal, too, and that's another tasty one.

[dld]

Thanks for the info on Jewel Tone strat.

[stratcat]

Your welcome. Good luck with your Bicolor growout!

[PVP]

That reminds me, I forgot about Golden Cherokee I grew in 2009.

Started about 20 plants from seeds I got from Neil Lockard thru SSE Yearbook.

Three of the plants came up potato leaf and the rest came up regular leaf.

I chose the healthiest PL and 2 of the healthiest RLs to grow out in the garden and gave away or sold the remainder.

The PL vine yielded earliest and most fruit of the three. The tomatoes were red/orange, a bit lumpy and not bicolor. Fantastic plant. Good fruit.

One of the RL vines made the second earliest fruit, plenty of it, bright yellow, clear epidermis, citrusy tasting, interior not typical of Cherokee Green type fruit, no marbled flesh and not bicolored. Great tomato. Not Golden Cherokee.

Third vine also was RL and made the typical Golden Cherokee tomatoes with yellow epidermis, red blush on gold tomato and some interior pink/red marbling. This was the only vine that appeared to be true to form. Nice flavor but Cherokee Green tastes better.


Bill

[bunkie]

Feb 6, 2010 20:26:34 GMT -5 stratcat said:

...Jewel Tone is a PL Bicolor that volunteered in my garden in 2004 after I grew Big Rainbow (RL) in 2003. Previously I grew only RL Bicolors. Jewel Tone was firm and delicious. It has remained 100% PL until I shared seeds for 2009 with jt, spudleaf, mj, bizz and bunkie and got some RL offspring. Planted one RL and it was Bicolor...........

i had 3 potato leaf plants out of the dozen or so Jewel Tones i grew last spring from strat. very tasty!

i also have grown Isis Candy, very sweet, Hillbilly, very few fruits and fruity-sweet tasting. i have grown several of Brad Gates' fine bicolor tomatoes. i have to agree with most who've posted about the tastes being 'fruity', 'sweet' and 'smokey'.

[timothyt]

I have grown Pineapple for quite awhile and really enjoy the flavor, productivity, and looks. Usually get quite a few over a pound. This year I will also be trialing Golden Cherokee, Lucky Cross, another that slips my mind, and Virginia Sweets if I can find some seeds.... and if I can find the space to grow all I'm wanting to grow this year! ;D

T

[camochef]

I've grown many bi-colors over the years, and on a whole I would have to say I don't care for their taste as much as I like pinks and blacks, which accounts for their diminishing numbers each year in my gardens.
I admit that as I hear how much some people love their taste, I get tempted to try them again. This year I tried Lucky Cross, Golden Cherokee, and Golden Queen.The first two were very unimpresive to me, although Golden Cherokee was a little better than Lucky Cross which I didn't care for at all. My Golden Queen which many consider to be a bi-color was mostly pink (not yellow) with just a hint of yellow. Now that one did taste quite good, but came so late in the season that there weren't many left to compare it to in a true taste test.
Over the years, I have discovered that many bi-colors do better with less than normal amounts of water. I first discovered this when a close friend brought me a Mr Stripey, (the large beefsteak one, not the smaller tigerella). and it tasted fantastic. The following year, I planted 7 Mr Stripey's from two diifferent sources. They all tasted terrible, mushy and bland. I then found out that my friend never watered his gardens, ever! What natured provided was what they got! Here I was watering everything the same in my gardens. It makes a major difference as this years weather re-enforced. All the rain we had made for mushy and bland tomatoes and it was my later planted varieties that fared much better as they were into a month of drier and hotter weather.
So, with the right weather conitions, bi-colors probably taste great, but year after year they've fallen way behind what has become my more favored pink's and blacks.
I have a friend that claims Lucky cross is the only tomato he grows even if he only gets one or two from the plant, because they taste that good. I got plenty from my plants but they just didn't taste good enough for me to eat very many.
In the past, I have had years where Pineapple has produced well and tasted pretty good, probably the best of the many bi-colors I've had, but still, not as good as something like those listed in last years top 40 some-odd. Still not sure if Golden Queen is considered a true bi-color or not, but if it is, than that one would be my favorite bi-color. I had recieved those seeds from a friend in western Canada.
So weather, locale and timing have a lot to do with taste, now I'll admit that most Bi-colors look very pretty especially added to a dish in a restaurant where presentation means a lot, but in my mind I would rater eat a good Brandywine or Amazon Chocolate, a Sandul Moldovan or Lillian Maciejewski's Poland Pink which was a real treat! That and Barlow Jap were two very special tomatoes this past year, but none of these are bi-colors!
Camo