"Indigo Rose" tomatodid I fall for a scam?

I have been growing tomato starts from seed indoors ever since early february, and just a week ago its finally been safe enough to put them into the garden place i just finished up this year. I have Red Brandywine, Black Krim, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Hillbilly, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, and a new type that I found called "Indigo Rose". Being the sucker that i am, i bought some of those indigo rose tomato seed, because i was lured in by the promise of deep nearly true purple-black fruits with splashes of red on them.

So all of the tomato seedlings are in the garden now, and all seem to be doing well. All but the indigo rose seedlings, they kind of went "PFFFFT" on me. they have taken on a sort of black type of coloring also. we did have 2 nights of temperatures in the mid 40's, the other tomato seedlings just shook it off like it was nothing, i guess the indigo rose couldnt handle it, even with the covering i put on them all.

I have Indigo Rose seedlings ,but I have not put them outside yet
as this is zone 3 and we could still have frosts.
I'll let you know how it does after it is outside.

jmc1987
I grew Indigo Rose for two years.
The first year I bought the transplant and it grew very slow and it took forever to ripen the tomatoes.
The second year I started from seeds and I had the same result. Actually the tomatoes never completely ripen. What a waist !
It is a NO for me.

never completely ripens? hmm that has my head scratching about if i should see if these seedlings bounce back or just toss them and get another type--as pretty as they are, if they are a type that will never fully ripen--or if it does, takes longer than a growing season to do so, doesnt sound like something i want to try again

jmc1987also remember that we are in completely different growing zones. Maybe Indigo Rose will do well up there ...

I don't understand how they didn't fully ripen? Did they rot on the vine? I've heard they taste better when allowed to fully ripen, but how do you know when that is?

Jmc-if I were you I would grow them out. Evey area is different and everybody's taste is different

i am just hoping they even survive at this point, they seem to look more pitiful by the day, i do have to agree with drthor though, they did seem to be the slowest growing out of all of the varieties that i am growing, by the time they were half a foot tall and had quite a few leaves on them, the indigo rose was just barely starting its first set of true leaves

You may try googling it and see what you find out. That is really slow.

Just a few tomatoes did ripen after a very long time.
The rest were just hard like concrete green balls and never turned color. They didn't root.

jmc1987
do a search on DG I remember there was another thread started last year with this topic.

No, not a scam at all. Indigo Rose is the first one offered to the public by Dr. Myers at OSU and the goal is to get something tasty since the whole mission has been to up the anthocyanin level in adietary way just by eating tomatoes.

The do ripen up completely. The side of the fruits that the sun hits do turn purple, but the backside is red, and in terms of knowing when ripe, you don't look for all purple ones, you judge by touch.

I read and sometimes post at several message sites and the feedback I'm seeing is that Indigo Rose doesn't taste that great. Some have compared to the OSU P20 selection that preceded it, and based on that I kn0w I Ihave no interest in any of the so called blue ones bcI've tasted P20 and right now consider them to be novelty varieties,

I could make a list o fthose Iknow who are working to find a blue with good taste, I didn't say very good andI didn't say superb taste.

So we shall see what the future brings.

Carolyn

today i have decided to plant a "Big Boy" tomato beside of the indigo rose in case it really does not perform well, i will not be at too much of a loss ;)

ive been reading up more on the culinary uses for the indigo rose tomato, and something i found says that they make excellent salad tomatoes, and that putting balsamic vinegar in would bring out their flavor better.

Also read something about trying them oven roasted, so i have two ideas already about what to do with them if i get a yield this go around.

They taste good ... but not excellent ... and that is not the problem.
They just never ripen ... and I know how to grow tomatoes ... these were some form last year

ok that photo just made me REALLY hungry, lol.

the indigo rose seedlings arent declining anymore, which must mean they have gotten a grip on their situation, and hopefully will be growing soon

Well the Indigo Rose tomato plants are indeed bouncing back from their damage they took not long after transplant, however i still do not count on it being a good yield-er because of how late in the year that it finally regained its composure. I could always be wrong, but hey at least it lived.

Well i am bumping this page up to let you guys know how this variety of tomato done. Well, it DIDN'T do, lol. It was the slowest growing tomato plant i had ever seen! By the time my other plants were reaching 4-5 feet tall, this one was just struggling to barely make the 1 Ft tall mark, lol. And then it gave me ONE little tiny yellow bloom, then suddenly the whole entire plant just pooped out--deader than a door nail. I dont think i will be trying this type again.

I grew them last year and while they didn't produce a large amount they grew as well as anything else. The plants do have a bluish purple cast to the leaves.