Cherokee Purple Tomato

Cherokee Purple tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) is an heirloom variety grown for its unusual color, rich taste, and irregular shape. The fruit of Cherokee purple may be red or a light or dark purplish red. This tomato is a beefsteak type tomato that has a rich, sweet, tomato flavor without any tartness and very juicy. Cherokee Purple tomatoes usually have pronounced ridges or shoulders and are not perfectly round as most tomatoes but are irregular in shape. The photo below compares from left to right: Boxcar Willie, Cherokee Purple, and Celebrity tomato varieties. Note that Cherokee Purple produces a large tomato fruit.

The Cherokee Purple tomato is believed to have originated with the Cherokee Indians in Tennessee more than a century ago.

Cherokee Purple is indeterminate, so it keeps growing and setting new fruit all summer long until frost. It’s large fruits are great for slicing up and using with any sandwich or serving with your favorite meal like green chile chicken enchilada and beans.

Cherokee Purple Tomato is an heirloom variety that Trees That Please Nursery usually has available in 4-packs for planting each spring. If you planted yours in May you are probably enjoying some of these tasty fruits now.

Photos & Narrative By:

Stephen Sain
Staff Plant Physiologist

Comments

All About the Shantung Maple!

The Shantung Maple ( Acer truncatum ) is also known as the Purple Blow Maple due to the color of its newly emerging leaves which are red-purple (see photo below). These young expanding red-purple leaves change to green as they mature. Leaves are small, about the size of Japanese Red Maple leaves, perhaps 3’-4’ wide at maturity. The Shantung Maple grows 1′-2′ annually reaching 25″ tall and wide. This is our tree for all planting situations. This Maple does well in heavy clay, sandy soils, full sun, or part shade. It can be planted in a lawn or next to a hot asphalt street (see photo below). It seemingly is a happy tree enjoying life wherever it is placed. One place we would not recommend planting this tree is in a rockscape which is just too hot and inhospitable to support this beautiful tree. A smaller tree, the Shantung Ma...

How does nitrogen work in the soil, and where does it come from when we don't have a bag of fertilizer to supplement it?

I've spoken many times on this subject at conferences and it was the main theme of my talk when I represented North America at the World's 1st Humus Experts Meeting in Vienna Austria back in 2013. Most of the Nitrogen used by the vast tropical rain forests, or the fastest growing biomass place on Earth, the Coastal Redwood Forests of California, comes from the production of protein by the Free-Living Nitrogen Fixing bacteria in soil and the massive biomass structure of the mycorrhizal fungi. The proteins as it breaks down in the soil into amino acids are the building blocks of life and the explanation of the Soil Food Web. However, in order for those amino acids to enter a plant and be part of the nitrogen budget of the plant they must have the assistance of the mycorrhizal fungi. It's much more efficient for a plant to uptake amino acids whose molecules include nitrogen needed to build tissues than to uptake just nitrogen minus the amino acid. ...

Desert Willows

The Desert Willow ( Chilopsis linearis ) is a small flowering tree grown for its orchid like flowers and tolerance to hot arid landscapes. The Desert Willow is a New Mexico native tree that normally grows with multi-trunks to about 15′-18’ tall and wide. If pruned into a single-trunk tree it can grow much taller. This trees common name, Desert Willow, is given due to its willow-like leaves (photo). The Desert Willow is not related to other willows like Globe or Weeping. The Desert Willow is well suited for the xeric landscape or to cool down a west or south facing wall. In particularly hot areas, areas with low annual rainfall or where water is limiting the Desert Willow makes a great specimen tree because of its tolerance to these conditions. In hot, dry areas the Desert Willow is sometimes used as the sole landscaping tree (photo). It produces a light dappled shade due to its leaf and canopy structure that is ideal to cool down hot sun facing walls (photo). It produces orchid li...

Trees That Please Nursery

Search This Blog