Helsing Junction Blue tomato

For a few years now (ever since they mysteriously made their way into the country) I have been growing different varieties of high anthocyanin tomatoes.

High anthocyanin tomatoes turn dark blue to black where the sun hits them. Unlike the old heirloom varieties that were called black but were really a muddy brown, high anthocyanin tomatoes actually can be black.

Anthocyanins are a group of powerful antioxidants, darker varieties contain higher concentrations of these antioxidants so are presumably even healthier to eat than regular tomatoes. The early high anthocyanin lines such as ‘OSU blue’ were incredibly black, but didn’t taste all that amazing. Sadly they didn’t taste all that much better than store bought tomatoes.

These early released black varieties have been used in breeding efforts to create tomatoes that are black and also taste good, huge improvements have been made in this area and some of the more recent released high anthocyanin varieties are starting to taste pretty good.

Helsing Junction Blue tomato - not ripe yet

I have been growing a tomato called Helsing Junction Blue (or Helsing Junction Blues, I am unclear if it has an ‘s’ on the end). This variety is said to be bred by Tom Wagner and named after the Helsing Junction Farm in the Chahalis River Valley, Washington state. Normally I am not a fan of Tom Wagner’s tomatoes (other than a tomato named Verde Claro, which is truly exceptional), and normally I am not a huge fan of high anthocyanin tomatoes (although many of the newer varieties are actually really good), but this one yields well and tastes great.

Helsing Junction Blue grows into a tall and vigorous plant with regular leaf. It is an indeterminate variety, meaning it will fruit all season long until killed by frost, or can be grown as a perennial if protected from frosts. Being tall means they will need some form of staking or they will sprawl and cover a lot of space. Like many indeterminate varieties it is incredibly simple to grow from cuttings.

For me Helsing Junction Blue produces high yields of large cherry tomatoes over a long season, they are sweet and have a decent rich taste for a black tomato.

Early in the season this variety looks like any other, you can tell it is high anthocyanin as the stems get a purple tinge to them at times. Its flowers and unripe green fruit are round and look unremarkable.

Before the fruits ripen they start to turn purple, bright purple, it is almost unbelievable the purple they turn. I really wish they stayed this colour when they were ripe, but they don’t.

Helsing Junction Blue unripe fruits

Not ripe, but they look great!

Eventually they start to ripen, places the sun does not hit turn red, and anywhere that is hit by the sun turns black with red underneath. Higher exposure to ultraviolet light makes them darker, and strangely enough cool temperatures combined with high light intensity enhances the dark colouration.

This means that fruit produced in autumn is noticeably darker than fruit produced at the height of summer. It is only the skin that is black, inside the flesh of this variety is red.

Helsing Junction Blue - ripe fruit

Helsing Junction Blue, they do get much darker black than this

Once they have started to ripen you end up with a large plant covered in fruit from unripe to ripe, ranging from green, to an interesting purple, through to red and black.

I have had people stop and stare at my plants and ask me questions, bewildered that such interesting colours can actually be real. People always want to eat a bright purple ones, I try to explain that purple are not ripe and the black and red ones are ripe. They taste those and like them, but are always a little disappointed that I won’t let them eat the unripe purple ones.

People want to eat the purple ones, but they aren't ripe yet

Helsing Junction Blue tomatoes have a nice, reasonably rich taste, and are pleasantly sweet. I have never cooked with them by themselves so can’t comment on that. We have frozen them in with other tomatoes and cooked with them all mixed together, the results vary but the number and composition of varieties of tomatoes included in these frozen packs also varies considerably.

Being a cherry tomato means they are often eaten whole and are good used in salads. My kids happily pick them and eat them from the plant whenever they walk past the plants and I am not watching. Yeah, they think they are being sneaky but I know they do this, I just don’t try to stop them because they know not to pick the ones with string that were used for breeding and/or isolated for seed saving.

I recorded Helsing Junction Blue as taking 166 days from planting the seed until picking the first ripe fruit (this is often referred to as 60 to 70 days by most seed sellers, but they don't start counting until transplant).

Towards the end of the season when the weather cools the fruits looks its darkest, and the stems take on more purple colouration. No tomato tastes its best when ripened in cool weather (or if ripened in warm weather but then put in the fridge for a few hours – seriously why do people ever do that), and Helsing Junction Blue is no exception. I have never been overly impressed with the taste of any variety of tomato that ripened when the weather was cold.

Some of my plants flower through light frosts, then they start to produce flowers and fruit that are odd. I don’t know how to explain, some fruit are almost like they are inside out. Some of the flowers look like they produce fruit before the flowers open and had no chance to produce pollen.

I don’t know if they are parthenocarpic and set fruit without pollination or if something else is happening here. I have never had these weird fruit ripen as heavier frosts kills them off first, so I don’t know what they will look like or taste like or if these late fruits contain any seed. I assume these oddities are caused by the cold temperatures, perhaps it is a trait from one of the wild species that was used to breed in the dark colour.

Fruits forming before the flowers even opened

Anthocyanin concentrating in the leaf tips during high UV and low temperatures

Weird fruits forming before the flowers opened

Based on their taste, yield, resistance to disease, and impressive looking fruit I am pretty happy with Helsing Junction Blue tomatoes. I don’t grow them each year as I have far more varieties than I can fit in the garden in any given year, but they are in my rotation to be grown every two or three years.

 I sell seeds of several varieties of tomato as wel as a bunch of other perennial vegetables and herbs on my for sale page.