tomato - Redcurrant???

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

In one of the swaps I got some tomato "redcurrant" variety. The note said - I think - needs pruning, can cross-pollinate with other toms. Any more info on this variety?? I'm assuming that this is some very vigorous, very old type, with tiny fruit??

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

[Jeannine]

Hi, this was one of mine. It is a wild tomato from South America, intense flavour,pea size,loaded with fruit trusses.

Still will cross pollinate though as all toms did originally before they were bred to be self pollinating.

I grew it alongside my toms as I don't save seeds usually so I wasn't worried about the pollination bit. It will grow outside if the weather is good. It is a fun type to grow but you have to eat  a lot of them.

I think Biscombe is growing wild tomatoes this year too.


You could have fun crossing it with another one
XX Jeannine

[saddad]

We grow yellow curant outside.. one year we were still picking on bonfire night and the plant had got to 6' in all directions! Trusses of @10 fruit and over two hundred trusses..
They split easily and you get toms coming up for years!
;D

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

thanks again Jeannine. You know the strange story of the tomato-how early European settlers in America wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, and how thomas Jefferson(perhaps) brought it to Europe, where we still wouldn't eat it, and European settlers only started eating it after the French took it Back to Louisiana - some bloke ate a bowl outside the courthouse in Salem Mass. just to show they weren't poisonous etc. With all the theories as to why we didn't like them - they looked poisonous, they were obviously related to things that were poisonous, that they had associations with witchcraft, that the acidity of the fruit leached Lead out of pewter bowls etc - someone suggested that perhaps the early wild tomatoes brought to Europe actually WERE poisonous, or at least pretty indigestible to Europeans.........so i'll look forward to eating your wild redcurrant tomatoes  :D

[cleo]

With a name like that it has to be small fruit and red? I`m trying a new one this year called Currant Sweet Pea.

Saddad-I know what you mean about Yellow Currant. A few years ago I was doing a car boot and someone asked how large they grew-I smiled and said-"well a paddock helps-but how much room do you have"