The easiest way to increase fruit set on tomatoes is to plant a variety that tends to produce a lot of fruit. Unfortunately, the information you can find on the web rarely tells of the productivity.
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In my experience size matters on productivity. Smaller tomatoes produce better. I find large tomatoes are slow to produce. Not all but many. I found one that produces really well but tends to get BER. You canāt win sometimes. Not like I want the hormone for tomatoes, i want it for grapes, but since I have it. Iām going to try it.
Eva Purple Ball is known for high production. Arkansas Traveler, Druzba, Lynnwood, Box Car Willie, and many others will produce better than many commercial hybrids. They are not huge tomatoes, but definitely respectable slicers.
While I agree that there is a link between fruit size and total fruit production, many varieties do both. I really enjoy Omarās Lebanese because it makes huge fruit and also because it makes a lot of them.
When I make a hybrid, I try to include genetics from Eva Purple Ball because it conveys the genes for setting large numbers of fruit to the resulting plants. The most productive tomato Iāve ever grown was a hybrid made by Randy Gardner at NCSU using one of his numbered disease resistant lines crossed to BBXEPB which is a stabilized cross of Big Beef with Eva Purple Ball. I picked 2 buckets (about 84 pounds) of tomatoes from each of the three plants I grew in my garden. Had I given them better care, they had potential to have more than doubled that.
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I was thinking of that one too, good tomato!!
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I have also never had one of the purple/dark/black/brown tomatoes that really knocked my socks off. But I keep trying. Last year Bear Creek was productive and probably the best tasting. Cherokee Purple, which I had never grown before, but decided to give in to the peer pressure and try, was very good as well, but surprisingly unproductive. I did have a dark red tomato from Spain called Morado de Fitero that I grew last year that was probably the most delicious of any Iāve tasted, but that is really more of a sienna or burgandy color - really more of a red than a black tomato. It was also pretty pitiful for production, so Iām skipping it this year.
This year Iām growing a bunch more, with a few repeats (=repeat):
Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Carbon
Margaret Curtain
JDās Special C-Tex
Indian Stripe
Big Cheef
Plus these that arenāt really true black tomatoes, but get partial credit:
Girl Girlās Weird Thing*
Chocolate Stripes
Noire de cos boeuf
Mocha Splash
Dark Galaxy
I know Girl Girlās Weird Thing will be great, like it was last year, but Iām also really hopeful about Margaret Curtain, Indian Strip and Big Cheef among the black tomato types. Cherokee Purple gets one more chance to shine. Iām hoping to get it down to 2-3 from each of these lists for next year.
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Cherokee Purple, J.D.'s Special C-Tex, and Indian Stripe are the best of that batch. Big Cheef comes very close.
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I know this thread is about black tomatoes, but I wanted to mention that last year someone gave me a Green Bee F1 plant (bred by Artisan Seeds in Sunol, CA). Here is the description: āGreen Bee is a unique hybrid cherry tomato that never softens. Although these crunchy cherry tomatoes never soften, they certainly do ripen, and when ripe the flavor is sweet and tangy with hints of plum. When ripe, slight hints of yellow and/or pink are visible in the fruits.ā It is the most unusual tomato I have even eaten. It is crunchy and tart, and extremely good! I have a packet of 20 seeds and will grow a row of these this year.
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Agree Black Krim is not a prolific tomato. I have been planting the same few the last few yearsā¦I go for flavour , that is my number one priority. I plant Brandywine (the true pink brandywine) and Black Krim and two open pollinated varieties that I simply refer to as ābig Stripey " and ālittle stripeyā. ā¦the latter being one of the most delicious tomatoes I have ever tasted (very sweet , but not a light , white sugar sweetness, more of a a heavy almost malty sweetness with mega flavour) I went to a local place that sells mainly heirloom vegetables,I sat in the back seat on the way home while my wife drove so I could sample all the tomatoesā¦and I saved the seeds from just one varietyā¦the tomatoes are oval-ish, slightly larger than a typical cherry tomato, can be mainly red with yellow or mainly yellow with red and in either case the skins have a sort of silvery/bronzy cast to themā¦anyone know what this is ?My big stripey is either a ābig rainbowā ā¦'Amishā or combination of thoseā¦large, usually a deep yellow/gold when ripe with a red sunburst on the bottom , (but being open pollinated it is sometimes a red tomato with yellow stripes) They are almost apricot fruity like with very low acid. ā¦love them !
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Sound good! Reminds me I grow Flavor Queen pluot and most think it is bland. I love it. So different from other Asian plums. No tartness in skin, and a coconut or tropical like subtle flavor. I really look forward to them every year. Big too for a glorified plum (Pluot).
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It is not a black, but I had an excellent blue tomato of good size. It is more difficult to find good blue tomatoes than black ones.
Fortunately, I have seeds left.
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