I have a few seeds coming from Italy...anyone ever grow these?

[drew51]

These tomatoes sound excellent, I hope eventually they will be spread around. Thanks for all the info, awesome!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by drew51

These tomatoes sound excellent, I hope eventually they will be spread around. Thanks for all the info, awesome!

I sent out seeds for all of my current volunteers from Tville and am now contacting some others to send seeds for the ones that Roberta is sending me.

If all goes well this summer I expect to offer them in my next seed offer in Jan of 2015.

Carolyn

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by antichevarieta

yes these tomatoes are from Belmonte, Calabria
here is a wiki link for more information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmonte_Calabro
there are two varieties..one is heart shaped, the costoluto variety is called "il Gigante" and weighs anywhere from 1.5 to over 2 pounds. it is described as "rosato intenso" (deep red) w pochi semi (few seeds)

Thank you! I had purchased some Belmonte seeds a couple of years ago, but they did not do well in my garden (a lot of cat faced and oddly shaped tomatoes), and I didn't keep any notes about color, basic shape, etc.

And, I believe I received Chilo seeds in Tormato's seed swap! I could not find much info on it and therefore did not put it on this year's grow list? I have at least one variety that isn't showing any sign of germinating, so I may dig them out and start one or two as a substitute.

[gorbelly]

Sorry for resurrecting a zombie thread, but I was wondering whether you had grown any of those, Dork Fish, and how you'd rate your experience. I'm particularly interested in how Costoluto di Parma did.

[drew51]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

Sorry for resurrecting a zombie thread, but I was wondering whether you had grown any of those, Dork Fish, and how you'd rate your experience. I'm particularly interested in how Costoluto di Parma did.

i grew that variety this year. It did fairly well. i had two plants and one got septoria spot, as did many of my plants. One did not. Both are still producing.
The septoria with treatment slowed down on this plant. And the plants was determined to just grow more. I use the fruit for sauce only and think it's good, I don't eat them fresh myself. I have other tomatoes for that.

[gorbelly]

Thanks, drew51.

Originally Posted by drew51

I use the fruit for sauce only and think it's good, I don't eat them fresh myself. I have other tomatoes for that.

Is it the typical paste tomato flavor which is kind of underwhelming fresh but cooks up well?

[AdrianaG]

The mystery will be to see if Cuore de Bue produces heart shaped tomatoes or ruffled pears as both types have been given that name.

Do you have commercial seed packets or is it saved seed?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by AdrianaG

The mystery will be to see if Cuore de Bue produces heart shaped tomatoes or ruffled pears as both types have been given that name.

Do you have commercial seed packets or is it saved seed?

About Cuore di Bue.

In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned that I was expecting seeds from Roberta who lives in Parma, Italy, and she grows her varieties at a farm where what she called traditional varieties are grown.

The Cuore di Bue that I knew from long ago was a lovely red long heart if you will, but here's what she sent me;

Cuore di Bue Rosa (pink)
Cuore di bue Albenga, and yes the Albenga and Liguria, etc ones are ribbed piriforms.

And I forgot the website right now, it could have been Baker Creek as well as Reimers, who got seeds from Italy for what they thought was a Cuore and was all wrong, yes, it was Baker Creek and they traced back where their seeds came from and it turns out that there were places in Italy selling hybrid Cuores.

Same thing with Belmonte, from Italy, I grew the original large pink beef but what Roberta sent me was:

Belmonte Costoluto, aka ilgigante , pink
Belmonte Calabro, a heart and pink

So it seems to me that with several of the Italian varieties names came from the places where they were first found such as

Costoluto Genovese, from Genoa, Costoluto Fiorentino, from Florence, and I've forgotten the other two right now. In Italian the word costoluto just means ribbed.

Again, Roberta has field access to this farm which grows what are called traditional varieties, and that' what I got along with

Chilo della Garfagnana, beefsteak
Licata Rosa, from Sicily

There were a few others she sent that I already knew about such as

Re Umberto
Cornuto della Andes

I expect to offer most of the above in my now very late 2015 seed offer.

Hope that helps,

Carolyn

[drew51]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

Thanks, drew51.



Is it the typical paste tomato flavor which is kind of underwhelming fresh but cooks up well?

Yes, I thought so, but I really didn't sample much. Some of the ribbed tomatoes are good fresh, still not a reason i grow them, and I never eat them fresh, again i have other tomatoes for that. Some I only know what they taste like cooked. Main reason is it takes a lot of tomatoes to make a fair amount of sauce, I can't be eating them up!