Many thanks to silvercreek_garden@Flickr aka Terry for sharing today’s photograph (original image). Terry has also posted a related image on the UBC BG Forums: Tomato Bounty. Makes me hungry!
The scientific name for the tomato in general use for over two hundred years was Lycopersicon esculentum. However, molecular studies in the past fifteen or so years have helped to shift the name back to the one originally assigned by Linnaeus, Solanum lycopersicon.
Purdue’s Center for New Crops and Plant Products has a good set of links about the tomato (under the taxon’s old name): Lycopersicon esculentum. Among the resources suggested by Purdue is a link to a short essay about the history of the tomato, “How the Tomato Succeeded” – quite a good read.
Just a word to say that i like your widget much. Also to say that there are so much varieties of Tomatoes and that there is one mainly unknown and that is so succulent. In french it’s called “coeur de boeuf” whiwh should be “heart of Ox”.
Would the French “coeur de boeuf” tomato be what is called “Beefsteak” in English … very large, deep red, meaty, succulent and utterly delicious!
S. Facciola, CORNUCOPIA II (Kampong Publications):
“Oxheart: 85 days. Large, heart-shaped, rose-pink fruit; weight often 1 1/2 pounds, occasionally up to 2 pounds; flesh solid, meaty, mild, with very few seeds. Vigorous, indeterminate vine; best grown in cages to protect fruit from sunscald. An old-fashioned home garden favorite.”
yes you got it ! So you think it should be protected from diredt sun ? I never did (in south of France) and have wonderful fruits (almost 4 or 5 kgs per plant). It’s a real pleasure to see them grow without any adjonction of anything (completely biological grown-ups)
I have a friend who’s mother-in-law carried some seeds of the ox-heart tomato with her from the Ukraine, probably close to 40 years ago. She still grows these wonderful tomatoes by saving seeds every year. They are truly wonderful plants and the fruit… well… spectacular!
Lovely photograph. Perhaps we could do before and after ad:
Protect from sun–only the fruits, not the plants. They need full sun. I have an Italian variety that is the same: Cuor di Bue. Oxheart. Slightly pointed shape, like a heart. It is very tasty!
If you are growing along the coast – try using red plastic as mulch – it increases the yield!
I live near Barcelona and I have planted 7, different varieties of tomatoes: noir de crimée, gregory altai,geant d’Orenbourg, coeur de boeuf, la russe, green zebra , a catalan one called “de penjar” “to hang” that lasts all winter and you can make”pa amb tomàquet” that is bread, rubbed tomato, virgin olive oil and salt. The ones that have been more productive have been de “coeur de boeuf” and the spanish one.
Every year I keep the seeds on top of kitchen paper.
Many regards,
Conxita
Although we still eat a lot of tomatoes and sauce each time I put one in my mouth I shudder that I might be eating GM that is genetically modified chimaera some manipulated abomination.
While now we get the sodium and trans fat content of foods we do not get irradiation level or GM status. There are rumours that all rape that is in newspeak canola and potatoes corn and all soy products from North America are unfit for human consumption ie they are GM.
Tomatoes alas are also rumoured to be such.