TOW- COW'S TIT 9-19-10

[darthslater]

This weeks pic is a paste tomato. I dont usually plant pastes but this was a very good one, even when ripened from the full green stage it had amazing sauce capabilities. This was a great producer and put out lots of large pastes, unlike some pastes this one didnt get BER as bad. It was right up there with Romeo.

[tomc]

Thanks Darth,
Cows Tit makes a cows-horn shaped red fruit on a (mostly) tomato-leaf indeterminate plant. It is good enough to eat fresh, and is meaty enough to be suitable for cooked tomato product. Its leaf shape is v-e-r-y long, I have described it as lanceolate. The drooping nature of this leaf shape makes it easy (for me at least) to over water. I advise to check soil for moisture levels, and to not water based on what the plant looks like.

I expect a good plant breeder can say why this shape accession pops up every so often, This cultivar was collected by Keith Mueller while touring tomato feilds (as a buyer perhaps?) in 2004-5. The plants distict shape made it stand out in a feild. The grower when asked named it "a cows tit tomato". Hence its colorful name.

There are other very similar accessions, I was able to grow CT side by side with Gilbertie, CT out produced Gilbertie in three trials running.

This is a superior tomato and has reliably made crops every year save 2009. '09 was the year that potato blight wiped out most of the tomato crop in the northeast.

[darthslater]

I also planted Long Tom, it is very hard to see a difference between those 2. They look identical. Jersey Devil was another good one for me.

[tomc]

I've grown out what was supposed to be Opalka (five or six times), whatever it was I grew it darned fer sure was not a cows-horn shaped paste. If you can get the right cultivar Opalka might give CT a run for its money.

[stratcat]

Grew Cow's Tit for the first time this year. Tasted excellent in my sandwiches. Shared with a friend whose elderly Grandma said she "loved how meaty it was and not seedy."

Thanks to Tom C whose site I found where it was offered.

Picked my last one today.