Rare Heirloom Tomato: Raising the Purple Cherokee
This year has been my first experience cultivating the purple Cherokee heirloom, and so far, my impression is that it’s a little bit precious.
According to Slow Food USA, that may be because it’s a bit endangered.
First off, imagine my surprise to only find twelve seeds in an itty bitty packet. Granted, you might expect to pay more for a packet of organic heirlooms.
But these are more precious than your average heirloom.
Twelve seeds? Leave little room for error.
They take their time in germinating, the purple Cherokees. I sowed 1-2 seeds per peat pot right alongside some red Brandywines, and they sprouted up a full week after their counterparts, some taking as long as two weeks to pop up.
Have any of you had luck growing the purple Cherokee? Because these plants just don’t like me.
Transplanted, they were slow to take off, and did eventually become hardy, but have barely flowered. Side-by-side with plum tomatoes and Brandywines, the purple Cherokees just don’t seem to be getting what they need to bust out in flower.
Last week, one of the farmers who sell at my local farmer’s market was selling purple Cherokees for about 6 large tomatoes for $5.50.
Her table was covered with them, and the crates of tomatoes behind her were a testament that these babies aren’t so picky for everyone.
Though I was en route to pick up my weekly farm share box from our local CSA, which included a bountiful selection of other heirlooms to choose from, I didn’t hesitate to plunk down the money for a heavy bag of these juicy gems and rush them home to slice them open.
My houseguest and I rushed to the cutting board, slapped together juicy sandwiches, and immediately stopped talking and ate them at the sink, dripping tomato down our shirts and not quite chewing enough to properly digest.
Then we each ate another.
An unusual rosy brown in color, these tomatoes are juicy and sweet, with definite body to the flavor.
If I could only figure out what conditions they’re happiest in, I’d definitely give growing them another try.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Odd. I’ve never had any trouble with Cherokee Purple. They germinate for me as well as any of the other heirlooms. I’m also not sure why you finished up with so few seeds in the packet. It’s not as though they’re rare seeds. I actually prefer their brother/sister, Cherokee Chocolate, a now stabilised variety that came about as a result of a spontaneous mutation of a colour gene on a Cherokee Purple plant. Craig LeHoullier in the States did all the hard work growing it out.