The Yellow and Orange Tomatoes

The Yellow, Gold and Orange Tomatoes

Amana Orange ($4.95) (BB) 80 days. This huge and beautiful late season heirloom beefsteak is named for Amana, Iowa. The light-orange fruits grow to 2 pounds or more. Amana Orange is full flavored and slightly sweet with an enticing hint of tropical fruit flavors and a lovely texture. My customers in the southern states, including Florida, and in Texas are reporting great success with Amana Orange in hot weather.

Aunt Gertie's Gold ($4.95) 85-95 days. This big beautiful 12 oz. golden jewel of a tomato is luscious, creamy, smooth as silk, with incredible flavor, in my top 10. A rare treat, sometimes late to ripen, but worth it a thousand times over. Introduced by the legendary Chuck Wyatt.

Azoychka ($4.95) 70 days. (E) One of the first to ripen in your garden, this lovely lemon yellow 7 to 8 ounce tomato has a delightful sweetness with just a touch of acidity. Ripening in only 70 days from planting out, it has a delightful yet subtle hint of citrusy flavor. This Russian heirloom has become a favorite of chefs and tomato lovers world wide.

New for 2008! Big Orange Stripe ($4.95) (B) 82 days. This marvelous fruit has set off quite a commotion in the tomato world. A wonderful heirloom from the Carter family in Kentucky, Big Orange Stripe fruits are huge--up to 2 lbs. with delicate red striping outside and in. Delicious and sweet, one of the best orange beefsteaks available. With all the attention being garnered by the orange tomatoes and their health benefits, this one deserves a place in your garden.

Brandywine Yellow, Platfoot Strain ($4.95) 85 days. (B) From Gary Platfoot of Ohio, this magnificent big 1 to 2 pound brightly-colored smooth-shaped yellow tomato with marvelous complex taste is a special strain of Yellow Brandywine which has a higher yield than regular Yellow Brandywine and offers the same elaborate, delicious tomato flavor. Gardeners who try this variety continue to grow it in their gardens. Disease resistant and very easy to grow. It's a classic. I love it.

Cerise Orange ($4.95) 70 days. (E) (Ch) Cerise Orange is rapidly becoming a favored cherry tomato among tomato lovers and especially chefs worldwide, its name is French for orange cherry. From Norbert Parreira of Helliner, France, Cerise Orange produces a huge harvest of tiny, luscious, ½" sunny orange cherries with a delicate subtle striping and flavor just bursting with gratifying deliciousness. Along with Hawaiian Currant, Bianca, Gold Currant and Peacevine, They are being used by chefs worldwide to create a spectacular edible miniature tomato display for restaurants and special events.

Chuck's Yellow ($4.95) (HG) (E) 75 days. This big luscious 1-2 lb. deep yellow, almost orange beefsteak is named for the late great seedsman Chuck Wyatt. Very sweet with a tropical nuance, its enchanting tomatoey flavors have made it a favorite this year among growers and gardeners worldwide and it is now one of my favorites. Chuck's Yellow is a very prolific producer, fabulous for eating right out of your hand in the garden, and disease resistant--an all-around winner!

Dagma's Perfection ($4.95) (E) 72 days. As described by Gary Ibsen, renowned tomato expert, gourmet, author, connoisseur, and owner of Carmel TomatoFest, who named this extraordinary tomato for his lady love. This vigorous and abundant plant offers a bountiful harvest of medium-sized, 3" 12 oz., light yellow beefsteak fruits with beautifully delicate red striping. Deliciously flavorful with lingering sweet overtones of tropical fruit and subtle hints of lime, it is firm, juicy and elegant in the mouth. An enchanting tomato...delightful and jewel-like, just marvelous.

Dagma's Perfection is a best seller.

Dixie Golden Giant (4.50) 75 days. (E) (B) This magnificent beefsteak heirloom has been grown by an Amish family since the early 1930's. It grows on large plants and yields big harvests of 1 to 2 pound, clear lemon-yellow fruits that occasionally have a pink blush on the blossom end and pretty green shoulders. Fabulously sweet, fruity taste with a perfect tangy balance and meaty texture.

Earl of Edgecombe ($4.95) (E) (HG) 73 days. When the 6th Earl of Edgecombe died in the 1960's, the heir to the title was a tomato aficionado and rancher living in New Zealand. He traveled to England to claim the title, and took this extraordinary tomato with him. The smooth, beautiful 3-inch round, orange, mango-colored fruits are perfectly globe-shaped, growing in clusters of two or more. Flesh is smooth, meaty and marvelous, with sweet, rich flavor, rather tropical and fruity.

Flammée aka Jaune Flammée($4.95) (E) 70 days. Very prolific and stunningly beautiful, Flammé is an unforgettable tomato. Intensely orange with a reddish blush on the blossom end, these flame-colored 2 ounce globes have a rich, tangy and exciting flavor that literally bursts in your mouth. Cut open to reveal a red interior, this fruit reminds me of a blood orange with its spectacular contrasting colors. Fruits of Flammé appear to glow on the vine against a backdrop of deep green foliage. Just marvelous.

Galinas ($4.95) (Ch) (E) 68 days. This 1" yellow cherry tomato matures in only 65-70 days. From Russia with lovely color and intricate sweet flavor, it is a bountiful producer in cool and hot weather and continues to set fruit right up until frost. The fruit matures from green to ivory to yellow finally ripening into deep golden yellow, its beautiful fruits borne in long clusters on a hearty potato leafed plant. Galinas has a depth of flavor normally found in larger tomatoes and has become a favorite in tomato gardens worldwide.

Gary Ibsen's Gold ($4.95) 75 days. (E) Seeds for this tall, leafy variety were sent to Gary in 1990 from a gardener in Boone County, West Virginia who had been growing these for 40 years. He was given the seeds by his uncle who had grown them in Tennessee.

Gary says, "In 2006 while eating some of this fruit just off the vine, I found myself so pleased with the flavor that I said to my wife, "Now this (slurp) is my kind of gold!"

"She suggested I call it Gary Ibsen's Gold, harvest more seeds, and share it with our friends. This big plant produces lots of very juicy, 14 oz., brilliant orange-gold globes with tropical fruit flavors with enough acid balance to guarantee a burst of tomato delight."

Gold Currant ($4.95) (Ch) (E) 76 days. Gold Currant tomatoes are tiny golden garden candies. These delightful miniature ½" golden cherries have a delightfully sweet and snappy flavor with perfect acid balance. Great for dressing up a salad--or any dish--or just for snackin'. With Hawaiian Currant, Mini Charm, Sweet Pea and Cerise Orange, they make a spectacular display if the precious morsels ever make it from the garden into your kitchen. .

Golden Grape ($4.95) 78 days. Super-sweet, with a grape-like pop of ambrosial golden nectar when you bit into them. This little beauty grows in clusters of 10 to 15 sweet 1½" golden fruits. Ahhh. When the plant first blooms it becomes covered with thousands of beautiful blossoms--a stunning sight.

Golden Grape is another of the many marvelous Russian varieties--as a bonus they keep extremely well after picking, but because they are so luscious and irresistible, they won't all make it into the house. For the ones that do, they look stunning served alongside Grape Tomato, Black Cherry and Porter's Dark Cherry for a show-stopping red, pink and gold display.

New for 2008! Gold Medal Yellow ($4.95) Look at this tomato! As delicious as it is beautiful, Gold Medal Yellow is sunshine yellow with a delicate orange glimmer here and there, brimming with juicy, sweet, refreshing flavors. Delicious, slightly fluted, and reaching 8 to 10 ounces, about 3" wide, it is a fantastic fruit. Marvelous!

New for 2008! Gramma Climenhaga ($4.95) This fantastic Canadian tomato has been a huge favorite of mine for years. With a luminous orange hue and brilliant, citrusy sweet flavor--it's perfectly balanced and delicious. Grown by T. McIntee's grandma, it is easy to grow, a very reliable producer of 6 to 10 ounce meaty fruits, about 3" across, round and smooth -- a truly memorable tomato. Give Gramma a try!

Hawaiian Pineapple ($4.95) (B) 90 days. A huge, breathtaking and much sought after golden-orange beefsteak with fruit that grows up to 1-1/2 lbs. When fruit is ripe it has a luscious, very rich, sweet pineapple-melon like flavor and heady tropical fragrance. Add the unusually high production of this plant, and it makes my top 10 list. A real knock-out and a top-seller.

Hillbilly ($4.95) (BB) (E) 78 days. This old time heirloom from the hills of West Virginia, growing to 2 lbs., has stunning yellow and red dappled skin with sunset-hued rainbow stripes inside; makes gorgeous slices. Very sweet. Another top vote getter at TomatoFest in Carmel, California. This one has sold out early every year.

Homer Fike's Yellow Oxheart ($4.95) 85 days. This stunning, yellow-gold, heart-shaped fruit reaches up to one pound and produces a bountiful crop. Truly a wonderful gift to place in the hands of a loved one or friend. Guaranteed to get "WOW!" in response. Meaty flesh, very few seeds and delicious fruit-sweet flavors. Seeds of this luscious and stunning tomato were sent to Gary Ibsen by Karen Teets of West Virginia who told him: " This variety was grown by Mr. Homer Fike for as long as his 78-year old daughter can remember."

New for 2008! Ildi ($4.95) (Ch) 54 days. This is the earliest high-yielding grape tomato we offer. Sold in local Farmers Markets as Yellow Grape, Ildi grows in huge clusters of 75 bright yellow oval shaped fruits on a big bold 6 to 7 foot plant. The 1" cherries are very sweet and delicious, producing right up to frost. With it's extremely high yield, you will have lots of fruit to eat fresh right off the vine, toss into salads and share with family and friends.

Japanese Yellow Trifele (TRY-feluh) AKA Truffle Yellow ($5.25) (SM) This lively 6 ounce cousin of the Japanese Black Trifele has a lovely refreshing citrusy-sweet flavor. Juicy and delicious with a huge production of fruit, this productive plant stands up to cooler weather, it's exactly the size and shape of a Bartlett pear and keeps well for several weeks after picking. Not Japanese at all, but Russian, Yellow Trifele ripens from yellow to a glowing golden hue when fully ripe. Some fruits have pretty green patterning on their shoulders.

My seeds are from my friend Lisa., owner of Amishland Heirloom Seeds who has graciously let me use her photograph here. Lisa points out that this tomato looks a lot like a Shmoo. If you remember Al Capp's Shmoos, you will see the resemblance. Lisa has a Shmoo picture here: www.amishlandseeds.com

(Yellow Trifele plants will be available in mid to late April.)

Kellogg's Breakfast ($4.95) (E) 78 days. Wow whatta tomato! These big 1 to 2 lb. bright orange beefsteak beauties from West Virginia are exactly the color of orange juice. This terrific fruit with its sweet, buttery, ambrosial flavor with a perfect balance of bright tanginess is a favorite of gourmets and gourmands everywhere. Sliced open, it reveals a rich creamy bright-orange flesh, just bursting with juice. A top seller year after year.

Laurel's California Gold ($4.95) 80 days.

This very sweet, delicious new variety arose in my garden in the summer of 2001. I walked out to the garden one golden summer morning, saw the fruit and yelled "You're yellow!" This is one of the best tasting fruits I've ever had. Fruity, sweet with tropical overtones, it's among my favorites.

We expected it to ripen deep pink from a Brandywine-Cherokee Purple cross called 'Brandokee', developed by Keith Mueller, but from one of the plants we got this magnificent yellow-golden fruit with pink streaking here and there and a winsome blush on the blossom end. I took one bite and was hooked.

Sweet as it can be with just a touch of tang, Laurel's California Gold is juicy and rich with a tender skin and rich, fruity, tropical flavor. Weighing from 12 to 16 ounces it measures about 4" across. It was first nicknamed 'Blondokee' by Keith, after my hair color and its parent plants. I asked Amazing Terry to give it a permanent name; he decided on 'Laurel's California Gold'...(garsh). Growing on a big hearty-vined regular-leaf plant, it really is very sweet and satisfying--a beautiful, delicious tomato!

Lemon Boy ($4.95) (H) (E) 72 days. A perfect jewel. Lemon Boy is sunshine yellow, perfectly round and occasionally lemon-shaped, from 6-10 oz. with a rich satisfying flavor, bright, smooth, juicy, luscious and very prolific. Slightly tangy, sweet with lingering overtones of citrus. Bountiful on the vine, easy to grow, beautiful and all around winner--one of my top 5 favorite hybrids.

New for 2008! Mirabell ($4.95) 70 days. Once in while I taste a tomato with a flavor so elaborate and fine that I rave about it for weeks. Mirabell is one of these. I hadn't tasted it for several years and then popped a few into my mouth at TomatoFest. Wow. Ambrosial, just sublime. My notes on this variety are a series of 9 exclamation points. The tiny golden-yellow 3/8" fruits grow in bountiful clusters of 8 on a big rangy plant. Along with Camp Joy, Mirabell is my new favorite cherry tomato. Just as I did with Hawaiian Currant years ago, I went back to taste this one many times over.

Moon Glow ($4.95) 85 days. Beautiful, brilliant, warm-orange tomato with smooth fine flavor. 6-8 oz., 3 inch, blunt-tipped globes. A real winner and one of the best round golden-orange tomatoes you'll ever eat. Considered by many the finest flavored of the golden tomatoes. The first time I tasted it, it just knocked me out. It is always among the favorites each fall at Carmel TomatoFest in California.

New for 2008! Orange Strawberry ($4.95) With the orange varieties receiving so much attention because of their health benefits, I want to share with you one of my favorite orange tomatoes, Orange Strawberry. This amazing variety has been earning accolades from celebrity chefs and gourmands world wide and was recently displayed on Martha Stewart's show.

New for 2008! Orange Russian #117 ($4.95) A gorgeous and delicious cross of Russian #117 and Georgia Streak, this fantastic tomato can't be beat for richness of flavor, with a heady tropical taste and fragrance and big perfectly balanced flavor. Weighing in at 1 to 2 lbs., meaty and heavy in the hand, its beguiling heart shape and marvelous flavor make it a great choice for your garden.

Persimmon ($4.95) (B) (E) 68 days. This vigorous and prolific heirloom, introduced in 1983, yields a bountiful crop of creamy, stunning, persimmon colored fruit. Its rich distinctive sweetness makes it one of the best among the marvelous family of orange heirloom tomatoes. The fruits range from 12-ounces to 2 pounds and glow so beautifully on the vine you won't believe your eyes. Smooth, meaty, creamy, very sweet with few seeds and spectacular flavor. Persimmon is a customer favorite and has been a big winner at numerous tomato tastings.

Roman Candle (4.95) 85 days. These sweet, smooth, banana-shaped tomatoes are 4" long and 2" wide with a lovely bright lemon color and fine meaty texture. Marvelous for fresh eating, cut up in salads or for a gorgeous and flavorful sauce, with it's fabulous color and grand flavor, it will be a real show-stopper in your garden. Along with Green Sausage and Opalka, you can create a stunning and highly edible display.

Super Snow White ($4.95) 70 days. (E)

A gourmet's delight. I can't say enough about this exquisite, ping pong ball sized, white cherry tomato which ripens from white to ivory to palest yellow with a bright, rich and sweet juicy flavor. Very prolific, easy to grow, pretty as starlight and a top seller.

Sun Gold ($4.95) (EE) (H) 55 days. This is the one of the best cherry tomatoes I've ever tasted, rivaling Isis Candy, and ready to pick in only 55-60 days. It has the big, rich flavor of a full-size tomato, in a beautiful little deep-golden fruit growing in bountiful clusters on a huge plant. Sweet, rich, so beautiful...just left of center in top photo. Most of them won't make it into your house from the garden. If you send someone to pick them for you, keep your binoculars trained upon the picker.

Sun Sugar ($4.95) (H) (Ch) (EE) 50 to 60 days. Virtually identical in appearance to Sun Gold, I have used the some photograph to illustrate Sun Sugar until I take its picture, too.

This delightful new golden-orange cherry tomato has fine rich flavor and superbly high production, very sweet and fruity, borne in long gorgeous clusters of 20-30 tomatoes. With big rich flavor, Sun Sugar, although thin-skinned, is crack resistant, and shows excellent disease resistance. Rapidly becoming a new favorite, this surprising tomato is a rival of Sun Gold in many gardens. Just a delightful new variety which stands up to hot or cold weather.

Tangella ($4.95) 80 days. Hailing from England, this very distinctive and easily recognizable little heirloom tomato is borne in heavy clusters of 1½" to 2" round, brilliant orange fruits with a refreshing snappy tang. Bite into it; the flavor explodes in your mouth, then gives way to a passionate sweetness and intense citrusy fruitiness. The flesh is sweet; the juice is tangy, the experience is unforgettable. Glowing sunset-orange against deep green foliage; it is spectacular. I ate this tomato right after I took its picture.

Extremely productive and disease resistant; Tangella is in my top 5. Fantastic.

Tiger Paw ( $4.95) 77 days. This extremely productive plant produces pale yellow lightly lobed fruits with a pink blush and distinctive cats paw type marking on the skin along with a fruity, tropical, distinctively citrusy flavor. From Reinhart Kraft of Germany, this beautiful, scrumptious, thin-skinned tomato is a delight to behold and a great pleasure to eat!

Yellow Pear ($4.95) (HG) (Ch) (E) 75 days. Yellow Pear is back by popular demand. These precious little pear-shaped tomatoes are 2 inches long and a beautiful bright, pure, clear yellow. They are very sweet and delicately flavored. These very prolific fruits make a gorgeous and delectable display on your table in a bowl or basket -- if they make it into the house. The plant gets quite tall, and bears incredibly bountiful harvests all season. This is often called the prettiest tomato of all, and favorite of children who are thrilled to pick a huge basketful of tomatoes in only a few minutes, and proudly bring them to you.

New for 2008 Yellow Submarine ($5.25) 70 days. (Ch) (E) Similar in appearance to Yellow Pear but with a deep, rich flavor and excellent texture, Yellow Submarine is replacing Yellow Pear for many gardeners who long for this beguiling shape and color yet with really big yummy tomatoey taste. Now the cutest little tomato has great big flavor!

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