"Small sweet orange tomatos..."

[TomatoDon]

Hi gang,

I received an email from a friend today who had been to a tomato festival in Carmel several years back. She is trying to remember the name of a tomato she tasted and described it...

"are any of your heirlooms small sweet orange tomatoes? I got some of the best little tomatoes I ever tasted at an heirloom tomato festival in California a few years ago and I’ve been looking for them ever since..."


Would any of you offer suggestions as to the variety she vaguely described?

Thanks!

Don

[pooklette]

Is that all you have to go on? I'm wondering what she considers small. Are we talking cherry-small, golf ball sized-small?

I bet if you could get a few more details, we'd be able to narrow down the list of possibilities a little bit. Can you find out if she remembers anything else?

Dark orange, yellow-orange...fruit shape...gel color...anything that stands out as unique in her memory?

Megan

[Suze]

Hi there, Don -- as pooklette indicated, we might need a little more info to point your friend in the right direction.

If you can, get the specifics on size. Was it dime sized, nickel sized, quarter sized, larger than that, etc.

Color? Deep orange, light orange, any blushing or was it a soild color, and so on.

Location? What town was the fest in and if she can recall, what year?

[TomatoDon]

I'll email her again and ask for more details. She just casually mentioned that in an email and I just copied and pasted it. I'll see what else I can find out.

Thanks!

Don

[Lee]

Not an heirloom, but probably she had Sungold. Small, sweet,
orange, and memorable pretty much fits the bill.

Not too many tomatoes out there that would be remembered
for "years" of searching!

Lee

[bcday]

She probably went to Gary Ibsen's Tomatofest in Carmel, and I don't know if Sungold would be found there. I know Gary sells Orange Cherry / Sweet Orange Cherry.

[TomatoDon]

Thanks! I emailed her again and will post what other clues she remembers about the long lost tomato.

Don

[patty_b]

bcday......have you grown Orange Cherry??
I rec'd some in trade and growing them for the first time.
My two are both potato leaf. Couldn't find any mention of leaf type at Tomatofest. Patty

[TomatoDon]

I sent here some excerpts of your questons and got an email back from her. It said:

"Wow!! <the> tomato forum is impressive.

The little tomato and pepper festival was in a small town (I believe it was Windsor, CA) north of San Francisco in wine country. I think it was August of 2005.

...it was about quarter-sized, round and it was a solid orange color. More to the yellow-orange side. I never have like the tartness of tomatoes and this one was sweet. I couldn’t stop popping them in my mouth."

I think she suspects it may have been Sungold. I sent her to link to Laurel's web site, thinking it would be a good source of the main ones they have out there.

If you have any other suggestions I will pass them along.

Thanks again!

Don

[Tomstrees]

I'm trying SunGold which is an orange cherry for my first time this season.
Def. not an heirloom or OP -

~ Tom

[barkeater]

Quarter size is way too big for Sungold. Sounds like Jaunne Flammee, although personally,I don't like it, nor my coworkers I tried to pawn them off on.

The best small orange tomato I've ever had wasn't that small, it was about 4-5 ounces. I got it from Carolyn called Orange-1. It was so good I got about 10% of them; the stink bugs got the rest. Luckily, they liked Orange-1 so much they didn't touch any one of the other 32 tomatoes I grew in 2005.

[Ruth_10]

Still sounds like Sungold to me.