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Alan -- USDA Zone 9
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 Sep-19-03, 00:27 AM (EST)
 
"Strange Mutant Tomato Berries"
 
   Hi, I'm a brand new member with a question. I grow several different varieties of tomatoes each year and I always have a few volunteers. This year I have some sort of strange mutant tomatoes that have small single spade shaped leaves and the tomatoes are only about 3/8" diameter and dark purple or black in color. The bush is very plentiful and the "berries" grow on clusters of about 5 berries per stem. They are extemely sweet (sweeter than blueberries or blackberries), with hardly any tomato flavor at all. They are thin skinned and very delicate. They can't be picked from the stem without bursting, so you have to eat them directly off the stem. The seeds are very small and you can't really taste them. I can't get enough of these "berries" and hope the seeds will grow next year.

Does anyone know what kind of tomato this is? Thanks, Alan


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Diane Franklin -- USDA Zone 5
Member since Feb-3-02
390 posts		 Sep-21-03, 06:18 AM (EST)
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1. "RE: Strange Mutant Tomato Berries"
In response to message #0
 
   Hi Alan,
Since you like the tomatoes you can try to save seed from them and MAYBE you will get the same next year but don't be surprised if you don't. We save seed from the heirlooms but never from Hybrids because they don't come back true to the parent and often they are very inferior with poor taste. This is how you probably got such a strange tomato but were fortunate that they taste good. But the fact that they can't be picked shows that this tomato has weak points. We don't bother any longer with volunteers for this reason (inferior taste the biggest reason) plus we are always rotating the crops so where the tomatoes grew last year will be different than this year so any volunteers would be out of place.
Happy Gardening,
Diane


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