Plant Care Library

Group/Class:  Heirloom-Indeterminate

Description:

A beautiful heirloom variety with vigorous indeterminate growth, perfect for large containers and sunny gardens; produces high yields of dark indigo beefsteak tomatoes with red blush on the bottom; rich and earthy, great for salads, slicing and sandwiches

Edible Qualities

Black Beauty Tomato is an annual vegetable plant that is typically grown for its edible qualities. It produces indigo oblong tomatoes (which are technically 'berries') with a red blush and red flesh which are usually ready for picking from mid summer to early fall. This is an indeterminate variety, which means it produces fruit throughout the growing season. The tomatoes have an earthy taste and a juicy texture.

The tomatoes are most often used in the following ways:

• Fresh Eating
• Eating When Cooked/Prepared
• Cooking
• Baking

Planting & Growing

Black Beauty Tomato will grow to be about 6 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 24 inches. When planted in rows, individual plants should be spaced approximately 3 feet apart. Because of its vigorous growth habit, it may require staking or supplemental support. This fast-growing vegetable plant is an annual, which means that it will grow for one season in your garden and then die after producing a crop.

This plant can be difficult to integrate into a landscape or flower garden, and is best grown in a designated vegetable garden. It should only be grown in full sunlight. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone over the growing season to conserve soil moisture. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America, and it is considered by many to be an heirloom variety.

Black Beauty Tomato is a good choice for the vegetable garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. With its upright habit of growth, it is best suited for use as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.