Topic: Osu and other blue tomatoes

[Jayb]

I wonder if we have any other ‘blue’ tomato growers this year. Love to hear how they are doing and how you are getting on.

I grew OSU Blue and Blueberry last year and I know a few others were growing them too. I loved seeing how the colour developed in the foliage and fruit as they grew. Taste was not brliant but better than I had expected.

This year I have again a couple of OSU and I’m also growing several of Tom Wagner’s varieties with OSU in the breeding;

Dancing with Smurfs F3 (love the name) are looking to be cherries ranging in blueness. To be honest they look more like shiny black berries than tomatoes, very pretty and distinct. The blackest ones are coloured the same dark colour all over, even on the underside. It’s going to be fun cutting into them to see what colour flesh they have underneath.
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I also have Seattle Woolly Blue Mammoth, which is a delight, they range from not woolly to medium woolly to hairly beasts (well they are when young)! Some are blue-blueish, another is stripey with no blue and a couple will be whatever they ripen to.
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These Churra Plums I think are going to be adorable beauties, furry and Blue.  Early days with not much colour showing, but this may increase as they grow and hopefully get some sunshine. Others I think may be striped.
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Come on the blues.......

[goodlife]

OHHH..beautiful..well sort of.. ;D Actually they look like something is seriously gone wrong..
Now if Victorians would have seen those tomatoes..they would have thought, not only them being poisonous but black ones are straight from the devil.. :o ;D
Smurf F3..does that mean that the variety is not stable enough yet to be 'open pollinated'..but it is in process?..sort of working the F numbers up? Will you be saving seeds for further cultivation? Were they sold as F3's?

[Digeroo]

They look amazing but for me taste is still a no 1 priority.  Hiow are they with the blight.

[Hector]

Fantastic looking and great name...have you tasted any yet??

[Jayb]

Lol, well they are gorgeous to me

I bought Dancing with Smurfs as F3. When Tom made this cross the seeds in the resulting fruit would have been F1. Once these F1's were grown out the tomatoes they produced contained F2 seed etc. Yes I hope to be saving seed from some of these although I've not tasted them yet. As a useful trait these plants seem fairly hardy, they are being grown outside, perhaps I'll use them to cross with other varieties. With each generation I can save the tomato I like best and arrive with something unique to me and hopefully suited to my growing conditions. If I continue to grow them it will be several years before the are stable.

Hiow are they with the blight.

I'll let you know.

[Jayb]

Hoping to have some ripe Smurfs in the next day or so  :)

[Hector]

Hoping to have some ripe Smurfs in the next day or so  :)

That sounds like something Shrek would say :)

[antipodes]

They are really strange looking aren't they? I have a red aubergine growing! But it has no fruit yet :( I like growing things that are weird in appearance, the type you never see in the shops.
I am in two minds about the "black" tom varieties, I like a really acidic tomato and I often find those ones a bit bland.

[saddad]

I have OSU and they are blueing (?) up nicely... but are still very hard...  :-\

[no-lottie]

From what I've read on the blue tomatoes, it will be a while before their taste improves, so I think I'll wait until the breeders get something better before I'll grow them.

[Deb P]

I'm a bit of a traditionalist I realise, those dark purple tomatoes just look wrong to me! I am growing a few black ones, but even they are nowhere near as dark as those, they look too much like deadly nightshade for my liking! Might be good for Halloween though.......

[1066]

nearly there, just a day or two and I'll be sampling a Blue OSU (seeds from swap pn here  8) )

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[Growing4twins]

Wow, i had no idea that you could get blue tomato's.  Im growing some from the wild boar farm this year & i thought they were strange enough.  Ive got no fruit (i started a bit late this year due to moving house) on them yet but plenty of flowers.  I cnt wait to see them in all of their glory.  Where did you get the smurf seeds from??  I wouldnt mind giving them a bash nxt year.x.

[galina]

I have OSU and they are blueing (?) up nicely... but are still very hard...  :-\

Same here, they do look like a very bad bruise.  Not quite ready to eat yet.

[bikegirllisa]

I think they look great!  How do they taste?

[Jayb]

Looks gorgeous 1066, my little Smurfs are a few days behind yours, I'm getting itchy to try them though!

Im growing some from the wild boar farm this year & i thought they were strange enough.   Where did you get the smurf seeds from?

I've grown quite a few varieties from Wild Boars farm, really tasty toms and they do look stunning. What varieties are you growing? 

Dancing with Smurfs F3 came from Tom Wagner http://newworldcrops.com/wp/shop/premium-tomatoes/ I think he is sold out of many varieties for this year. I'm not sure if he will relist them but I hope to save seed from the overall best plant, I'm sure I'll have some seed spare if you fancy growing some next year.

[Growing4twins]

Jayb that would be great :)  All of the F1, F2's and so on confuse me what are they all about??

I brought about 9 varities from them last summer & got a few other varities for free.  I cnt remember which 1's i got of the top of my head.  I dnt even know which 1's i'm growing as the postman was very early the day he delivered my seeds & 1 of the twins got to the post before me, opened the envelope then continued to open all of the bags of seeds & scatter them over the floor.  Oh the joy of children :) :)  Ive got to wait & see.  Ive plenty of flowers but no fruit as of yet.  Some of the flowers are huge so im thinking that they are the beefeater type of tom's.  One of the plants in my green house has leaves that look more like a big chilli plant than a tom.  I just cnt wait for them 2 grow, im like a kid at xmas :)

[Ian Pearson]

I'm growing OSU Blue this year. I have found them to be strong germinators and make tough plants that have stood up to some bad weather including hail, strong drying winds, and damaging rain storms. There is a bit of variability in the plants, so I'll select for next year.
Taste - well they lack acidity, and normally that is not good, but I like them - kind of different...

[PurpleHeather]

They are not blue at all they are purple Or, at best, very deep red.

I can see that other growers are impressed. Growers love something different. Huge too.

As a grow to cook and eat sort. Unless these 'blue' tomatoes taste fantastic then I would not be interested in them.

So, exactly how do they taste?

People are conservative about their food so something has to taste pretty fabulous to out rate the generally accepted colour. Red in the case of tomatoes.




 

[saddad]

They set off dark green at the top... which turns blue... then moves down to the tip .. then reddens up from the tip. It starts to soften after it goes red  ... I'm expecting a taste test this week...  :)