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.
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| 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.
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| Helsing Junction Blue unripe fruits |
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| 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.
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| Helsing Junction Blue - ripe fruit |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Fruits forming before the flowers even opened |
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| Anthocyanin concentrating in the leaf tips during high UV and low temperatures |
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| 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.
