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The mutant tomato

See this rather odd, mutated bloom on my ‘Supermarmande’ tomato plant? This is a cristate, or king, flower, which is limbering up to produce a big fat monster of a tomato. Cristate flowers are pretty common on the big fat beefsteak types such as Supermarmande, and I’ve got three or four in my patch this year.

You can pluck the flowers off to prevent them from producing such enormous, mis-shapen fruits, but why would you do that? Some growers even claim that the king tomatoes on their plants taste better than the prettier, normal fruits. I’ve never noticed a huge difference, but I love plucking off fruits as big as my hand to scare supper guests with.

There is actually quite a lot of variation between normal tomato flowers. These are flowers on my ‘Sungold’ plant, which are small and single:

And these are the bigger, semi-double flowers on my ‘Hugh’s’ tomato plant. The bigger the fruits (and ‘Hugh’s’ fruits can grow to pretty mighty sizes), the bigger and showier the flowers. I’ve never had much love for tomato flowers, but these are almost pretty:

In between poking my head between the leaves on my tomato plants to peer at their flowers, I’m also inspecting the fruits that they are throwing out. I can’t wait for my first tomatoes of the year, and judging my the size of the fruits on the ‘Sungold’ plant, it won’t be long.

Meanwhile, the ‘Peremoga’ tomatoes, billed as the ugliest and tastiest that you can grow, are starting to swell. It’s all very tantalising.

One Response

  1. Chris Maciel

    Yes, the Sungold are great little tomatoes; we’ve been eating them since late June.
    Need a bigger garden to try out more heirlooms….next year.
    Nice photos.
    Thanks.

    Reply

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