Black Cherry Tomatoes, Not!

[Dieselrider]

All season I was excited about these Black Cherry tomatoes from Johnny's seeds. The pic showed this near black tomato and I thought what a great contrast with the yellow and red cherry tomatoes. Well the reds are red and the yellows are yellow but the "blacks" are more of a muddy brown to slightly maroon. Could I be missing something in the soil or is this what they look like? Any one with experience? Thanks.

[katydidagain]

I doubt it's anything you've done wrong. Pictures are often deceiving. I've never grown a "black" or "purple" tomato that was really the color I thought they should be given their names; I figure they call them those colors because they're not red, yellow, orange or green when ripe but kinda look "black" or "purple". It's the same with potatoes; All Blue IME is delicious but very purple to me.

BTW, how do they taste?

[elkwc]

Your description is close to the color I would describe mine as. Color description is like taste preference. It varies some between individuals. Mine are very good taste wise. I have a Texas Star x cherry cross that is the best cherry I've ever tasted. It is an accidental cross. I've saved seeds and will see if I can stabilize it. Hopefully I can get something close to what this is. Jay

[Paquebot]

There are a number of Black Cherry variations going around in the commercial world and few are correct. It was developed by Vince Sapp and released in 2003 with few people growing it. I got seeds for it in 2004 from a grower who had grown it in 2003. They were indeed black. Unfortuneately, Vince Sapp died suddenly in 2006 and left a bit of a mess via codes known only to him. His wife took over but there were a lot of seed batches that she could only guess at. Black Cherry was no doubt one of them.

I grew mine out again in 2006 and it was the same stable version that existed in 2003 and 2004 from the original release. Seed from 2006 was given to a Fedco contract grower in Wisconsin who grew it out as again black. Fedco then offered it in 2008 and probably still do. I grew the 2006 seed in 2008 and still black. If you got the seed anywhere else except Fedco, you quite probably did not get seed which came from the original release but possibly something from a totally different line which Vince Sapp was working on.

Martin