Yes. They're good. Here's a thread that mentions them:

Here is a link that might be useful: good winter tomatoes

Thanks Christine!

I've been buying Tom-Blaka Tomatoes. A brown tomato. Great flavour. Probably similar to Kumato. The name Tom-Blaka, like Kumato is a trade marked name.

Thanks Ann - they look delicious.

I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't try growing tomatoes indoors like Dcarch does. I brought a portion of my ginger plant indoors for the winter. I have full southern sun exposure in the living room and dining room. The ginger is thriving. I've been using gingerroot in just about everything.

Yes, I like the kumatos if I have to buy tomatoes in the winter. They're only available in our stores for approx. six weeks each year though.

Ruthanna, I can't live without tomatoes all winter. But I only buy "field" tomatoes. Lately the Field tomatoes in our grocery stores are from Mexico. Left on the counter they ripen and are actually quite good. I don't like the hot house or vine tomatoes.

~Ann

The package says the Kumatoes I bought are field grown in Mexico. I hope they are good!

I grew the Kumato tomatoes in some previous season, I like the flavor. I always grow an assortment of different colors for me and the community garden that I volunteer. This is my time to start the seedlings for the spring season and I grow over a hundred varieties. In my experience most man love the dark color tomatoes, black, brown, I guess because they have a smoky and earthy undertones. Most women like cherries, bi-color and yellows because they tend to be sweeter and fruity. That is the reason that I grow a big variety, to make everyone happy. This season I made tomato sauce for the freezer, a yellow one, a black one and a red. When I had them sampled at my house the favorite was the yellow, after the black and then the red. Even tho the red was done with excellent tomatoes like the hearts and Neves Azorean Reds...

Have fun with the tomato season Teresa and I have some windowsill varieties that I can send you if you decide to start them indoors

Silvia

This thread is very interesting and I'm going to look for some of these tomato varieties, although I don't recall ever seeing them locally. I'm a very visual person and don't know if I would like a brown tomato, however. In peppers, I like the taste of yellow/orange best but the color of red so I almost always buy red peppers.
In the winter, I usually buy grape tomatoes as I think they have the best out of season flavor, at least from the tomatoes widely available here. Yes, it takes a bunch for blt's but I make caprese salad w/mini pearls instead of sliced layers.

Kumato tomatoes are available here in the Northern CA supermarkets all year long. One of the better commercial varieties available. My DH loves them, this way he gets caprese salad year-round, LOL.

Love them! It's a hit or miss item in our grocery stores all during the year. When I need tomatoes those are the ones I'll get.

They are the best packaged tomatoes, in my opinion. Not as good as summer tomatoes, but the only tomatoes worth buying when tomatoes are out of season. Black/brown tomatoes are my favorite in general.

I've never tried Kumatos, but Trader Joe's has brown tomatoes that look like the ones Ann posted. Will have to try them. We get mixed heirloom tomatoes or cherry toms at TJ's in the winter and there are brown ones, but they aren't identified. They are always good, though.

I grew some brown cherry tomatoes last year and wasn't impressed. They were Chocolate Cherry or maybe Black Cherry. Flavor was just OK and they were really large, more like a small salad tomato. Cherry tomatoes shouldn't be more than a mouthful or they squirt, lol.

Experimenting with Indigo Rose this year, but they're supposed to be more purple, and red inside. Our favorite dark tomato is Black Krim. Makes the salsa a little muddy-colored...but oh, the flavor.

"----They were Chocolate Cherry or maybe Black Cherry. Flavor was just OK and they were really large, more like a small salad tomato. ----"

Don't give up. Sometimes suppliers can mess up in their seed source. Couple of years ago,for instance, Baker Creek had the wrong kind of Black Cherry, They were huge.

dcarch

I have tomatoes in my back yard right now, but I am not sure what kind, although they are fairly large. Tomatoes do better for me in the winter than summer, and I swore today that I was not going to plant any more of them, although I might just start planting them in the ground instead of pots and see what happens.

We had drastically cold weather last week with temps dipping down to 37 degrees and high temps in the upper 50s for three days in a row - making this the coldest January I have experienced here. It was so cold that the tops of my banana trees froze, although nothing near the ground or next to the house was damaged, and I have a lot of very sensitive plants. I had brought in all of my Phalaenopsis orchids, as they are the most cold sensitive, but I had built protected areas on both sides of the house for other orchids, and they experienced no damage whatsoever. The last three days temps have been back closer to normal with highs in the mid 70s and lows in the low 50s, and so I put the Phalaenopsis back outside, although I did put up a new shelf in the art studio to store orchids that need to be protected from temps below 45-50 degrees. Most of the orchids I have are a bit hardier than that, and they might be what I end up with.

I was shocked that the banana trees got damaged, and I think that the reason it happened is that we are now on high ground, but at least we are not in a tsunami zone any more. I think this has been a very destructive winter so far, and so I am happy that I have the few tomatoes that I do. I will look for Kutmato tomatoes to plant.

Lars

Lars, "----I will look for Kutmato tomatoes to plant. "

I am not sure you can, but a lot of people have fun doing it, growing seeds they saved.

Kumato F1 seeds are not for sale, and they are a hybrid from Spain.

BTW, thanks for the link sometime ago, I bought my Yuzu tree.

dcarch

I was giving the seeds of the Kumato one year and had some tomatoes that were brown and others that were more different colors, one was dark with green and they were big so it must been one the parents of the hybrid, I like them but didn't grow them again.
The first purple tomatoes that I grew when the line was not stable were some of them purple and others were red. I grew this season the Indigo purple tomatoes that someone send me the seeds and this time they are stable and all the plants were purple, when they ripen they turn red at a bottom, they take longer than other varieties to ripen, it does not have a knockout flavor but it is good in salads, cooked or roasted.
I grew the brown cherry and the black cherry together one time to compare flavors and I did like the black cherry better, this season I am growing black pearl.

Smarty F1 cherry tomato, the first to ripen and the first to go, next to a plant of Indigo tomato.

Lars, sorry about your cold weather, we are having such a mild weather that I had 2 banana bunches ripen at the same time and I have 4 more to ripen now in the trees. I have been busy making banana jams, breads and dehydrating them. This time I made so many breads back to back to compare the flavor and we really like the best the monkey bread recipe.

Silvia

Silvia, I noticed your banana trees have blossoms.

Have you tried to eat them?

Banana blossom salad for instance?

dcarch

Dcarch, I don't eat the blossoms. My friend who is an excellent Asian chef does. Everything that I ever ate at her house is it so delicious! She said she uses the blossoms like a cooked veggie. She also uses hot pepper leaves, moringa leaves, sweet potato leaves and green papaya. I am not just familiar with that kind of cooking, the secret of anything tasting good is in the recipe.:) Her recipes are sometimes very elaborate and were taught by her mother so she grew up eating them. Have you heard about Echo?, that will be a place you might like to visit one day, it is very interesting. I went there and I gave them some black jungle butterbeans that another forum member shared with me and they are not for sale. I got a lot of the same plants that they have because I usually get them as gifts from the gardeners that come to the party. Last time I got a chaya, moringa, Buddah's hand, miracle fruit and lot of others.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: echo

Silvia - apologies that I did not notice until now your kind offer to send me some seeds. I do not think I am up for starting anything indoors this season. I am starting to rip apart the kitchen. Boxes of stuff are piling up in the sun room. I think it's best I manage one project at a time because I am doing much of the work myself.

But thank you! I do intend to try some new tomatoes this year. That indigo tomato looks very interesting! I emailed my favorite vendor from the Farmer's Market. I asked if she would have that plant this year or perhaps another purple variety.

The field grown Kumato tomatoes from Mexico were pretty good in a BLT. I was not disappointed as I have been with other tomatoes purchased in winter months.

Teresa

Teresa - I wish you the best of luck with your remodeling the kitchen. You must be very handy to do most of the work yourself. Good for you! Please post pictures to see when the work is done.

I am glad that you liked the Kumato tomatoes, the local stores don't carry them around here.

Silvia

I have seen these tomatoes in my local Mexican market will try them.

Ann- I tire of the vine ripened hot house tomatoes as well. A couple of years ago, I planted some determinate tomatoes and they had such a flavor impact!

Dcarch/ Silvia - the banana flower is nice to cook with. It a bit laborious to separate and remove the stamen but works wonderfully in saut�ed dishes. Cannot be eaten raw. If I find a good one in the Asian market, I will occasionally make a lentil banana flower dry saut�ed curry and serve it with a flavored yogurt sauce and rice.

I found Kumato tomatoes at TJ's last week-end and bought a package of five. They are more purple than brown, as in Silvia's picture. They have a very good flavor and texture - not mealy, and so I will buy them again. I should have bought basil at TJ's as well because there is not much left on my plants.

My ice cream banana tree has put out a new leaf from the stalk, and so it did not completely freeze and appears to be doing okay now. I just hope we don't have any more freakishly cold weather. I am noticing that it does get two or three degrees colder at my house in Westchester than it did in Venice (but warmer during the day), but then there are warm and cold pockets around the house, and the orchids are in the warm pockets. If it gets down to 40 degrees again, I will bring more orchids in, however. In Venice, it never got below 42 or 43 degrees and rarely below 45. In Westchester, it frequently gets down to 42 or 43 degrees. I'm on a sort of hill, and so that might be why my yard is colder than others. In Venice I was in a tsunami zone (three blocks from Marina Beach), and we had signs instructing us which direction to go in case of tsunami. I was also three blocks from the canals, and they would flood during bad rain storms.

Lars

Lars, when you were in Venice the temps were moderated by the large body of water (Pacific). Once you get a mile inland you'll notice temp differences. Here, we are basically with our feet in the water and it rarely snows. I grow plants a full zone higher than AHS recommends. Water is a good insulator.

/tricia

I am having major tomato cravings. Thanks for bumping this up Lars! :-)

I've been making myself crazy looking at the Burpee catalog. In addition, a friend owns Shady Acres Herb Farm and her catalog has been online since January 1. And another friend from the Farmer's Market emailed me a list of the new varieties she and her husband will add this year. I grew Sun Sugar about 10 years ago. After that year all I could find were Sun Gold plants. Pang will have both varieties this year and I will have several of both plants. The Sun Sugar were tiny - about the size of a dime.

I usually get some of my plants really early - like early April. Then they sit on shelves in my sunroom. As the days get warmer I drag them out to the deck and back in at night. One year Spring came really early and some of the plants were out in huge planters on my deck by May 1st. I had a ripe Sun Gold tomato on May 23rd.

I don't think I will be doing that this year. I have doubts I will ever beat that record for the first tomato.

Tomato craziness!