User avatar
Signal30
Cool Member
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:50 am
Location: Cincinnati

I just found my favorite tasting tomato.

Heirloom green zebra stripe tomatoes. The green throws you off. You expect t unripe tomato taste, and BAM it's explodes with flavor.

Next year I will grow a few more heirlooms. I will tell you that Green zebra stripes will be in my garden next year.

User avatar
gixxerific
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 5889
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:42 pm
Location: Wentzville, MO (Just West oF St. Louis) Zone 5B

Cool I will keep this in mind.

Seeing this post made me make one on the worst tomato which I have been wanting to for a while.

Click here https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38347

Oh sorry where are my manors? :oops:

It is hard to say with mine (favorites that is) maybe Giant Syrian, maybe Spudakee. With Cherry's definitely Black Cherry. :D

TZ -OH6
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2097
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:27 pm
Location: Mid Ohio

Glad you like Green Zebra ("Stripes" is not part of the name). Its not really an heirloom. I like to call it a designer tomato. It was bred by Tom Wagner in 1983 and has an unusual flavor some love some don't. The flavor also changes with degree of ripeness. Some of his other tomato creations with similar "non traditional" flavor are Lime Green Salad and to some extent Green Sausage.

Green Zebra has, as a parent, provided stripes for several other varieties, most notably those by Brad Gates at Wild Boar farms

https://www.wildboarfarms.com/wild-boar-farms-tomato.html

Here are some of Tom Wagner's current crazy tomaotes
https://newworldcrops.com/wp/shop/premium-tomatoes/

User avatar
hendi_alex
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3604
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:58 am
Location: Central Sand Hills South Carolina

I ordered some black tomato seeds last year. When the tomatoes stayed the wrong size and seemed to be ripening to a golden green color, I consulted the web. It turns out that my mislabeled tomatoes are green zebra. I wouldn't say that they quickly became our favorite tomatoes, as they do both look and taste so unique. But they did instantly become a great favorite and we will likely grow some every year. I can't see them as a substitute for our favorite slicing tomatoes, and not even a full time replacement for having red tomato added to a salad. We do add green zebra to salads and also peel and quarter them as a side to our meal. They are a wonderful culinary treat.

User avatar
soil
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1855
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:40 pm
Location: N. California

if you like green zebra, you have to try the black zebra.

pizzarrhea
Cool Member
Posts: 83
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 2:33 pm
Location: Boston

thumbs up for black zebra, way better :P

User avatar
Signal30
Cool Member
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:50 am
Location: Cincinnati

Next year I will probably plant 4 or 5 Heirlooms. I have to figure out which ones to get.

Jeffross1968
Senior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 11:00 pm
Location: Western NC Zone 6b

This was my first real year gardening. I planted a lot of common things, but I also planted some Cherokee Purple. Wowzer! Big beautiful purplish tomatoes with a taste that literally floored my wife and I. Next year, there will be more of those for sure...

mattie g
Green Thumb
Posts: 583
Joined: Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:58 am
Location: Northern VA, USA -- Zone 7a

I'm one of those people who doesn't like raw tomatoes (*at all*), but loves to grow them. I do, however, love sauce and salsa, which is how the majority of my maters have been ending up.

I hadn't intentionally eaten a raw tomato since I was probably five years old until just the other day when I tried a BK and a Brandywine my wife was chopping up for a sauce. The Brandywine had a really strong flavor - almost salty and acidy - while the BK was a lot smoother. But eating them raw isn't something I'd relish doing again in the near future.

However, they, along with a couple handfuls of Romas, did make one mighty fine sauce!

User avatar
Fig3825
Senior Member
Posts: 286
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:40 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

My wife gave me some [url=https://www.parkseed.com/gardening/PD/5437/]chocolate cherry tomato[/url] seeds from Park for my birthday last year. I finally have them in the ground this year and am looking forward to trying them! Anyone have experience with these?

User avatar
gixxerific
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 5889
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:42 pm
Location: Wentzville, MO (Just West oF St. Louis) Zone 5B

Fig3825 wrote:My wife gave me some [url=https://www.parkseed.com/gardening/PD/5437/]chocolate cherry tomato[/url] seeds from Park for my birthday last year. I finally have them in the ground this year and am looking forward to trying them! Anyone have experience with these?
They are supposed to be like Black Cherry. Some people may even argue (and argue and argue) that they are they same but someone somewhere just named one different.

Either way they "are similar" to Black Cherry and it is one of my favorites, I have yet to have anyone spit them out. I have given them to a lot of people as well.

I want to do a chocolate v. black cherry maybe next year. :wink:

gardenbean
Senior Member
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:47 pm
Location: Westminster Colorado

I'm gonna chime in and say that my two most outstanding plants types that I have growing in my garden are Summer Salsa and Brandywine.

Yes, my Summer Salsa are a saladette type and in my neck of the woods some think they "really aren't tomatoes". (What do they know :lol: ) So far, I have such a heavy harvest of "fruits" that I have to pick everyday to keep up with them. They are heavy in size and delicious right off the vine. Since the middle of July, my family and I have been able to a tomato dish every day whether it breakfeast, lunch and dinner. And yet I still have plenty left over to donate to local commuinty food bank. :wink:

As for my Brandywine, this is the first year I have attempted to grow them. So far, I have 10 medium size fruit that are like 4 - 6 inches around growing on the plant. And the are continuing to grow....... They are just beginning to ripen and than I will have a chance to see how they taste. Being a first time grower of Brandywine, wow, do their fruit get large!! Growing this next year for sure!!

gardenvt
Green Thumb
Posts: 302
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:21 am

I really like tomatoes and IMHO they are what summer is all about. We grow mostly heirlooms and we love the black varieties. This year we added Rose and Brandywine for comparison and love them both.

Cherokee Purple does very well here and it has great flavor. As for the Chocolate Cherry - I don't think it will compare at all to Black Cherry. It is very large, brown/burgundy in color when ripe and with good flavor. The plant gets very large and it produces in clusters of 8 for the entire growing season.

A friend gave me a Green Zebra plant a few years ago and we just didn't like the "zip" part of it. We tried very hard to like them but - we don't.

I used what was ripe last night to make ratatouille - Black from Tula, Paul Robeson, Black Prince, Rose, Brandywine. DH took the leftovers to work for lunch today - he loves summer!

User avatar
soil
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1855
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:40 pm
Location: N. California

gardenvt black zebra puts green zebra to shame imo. looks like you like the black tomato taste as well.

gardenvt
Green Thumb
Posts: 302
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:21 am

The Black tomatoes have an amazing flavor to them. I make my sauces out of them. We are growing Brandywine and Rose for the first time and really enjoying them as well.

We also like Kellogg's Breakfast and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

gardenbean
Senior Member
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:47 pm
Location: Westminster Colorado

Brandywine is a black tomato? I didn't know this.

I have one Cherokee Purple that has grown like a bush with only two fruits on it so far. Is it also consider a black tomato too? If so , what does it taste like. Frankly I had high hopes for it but just never came thru for me.

However, I do have a green zebra which does have a different taste to it. The jury is still out on this one.......



Return to “TOMATO FORUM”