Margaret Curtain a Cherokee Purple/Indian variety?

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I just got my first Margaret Curtain tomato. It is an orphan variety that appeared in New Zealand apparently as an heirloom, but very recently.

For me, it's a zebra variety:

"When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras."

"A zebra can't change his stripes." (tiger can't either, nor a leopard his spots)

- same membrane soft skin
- same skin splitting pattern
- same green gel pack
- same locule/pulp size & distribution
- same taste
- same growth behavior/habit
- same fruiting profile
- same leaf structure
- same color and ripening pattern
- same red highlights in flesh
- same oval proportions
- same blossom end stitching
- somewhat smaller than CP on average
- similar to Indian Stripe or Maybe Burson's Indian Zebra in size
- absense of strong stem end fluting

Maybe I'm missing something, but does Margaret Curtain have relatives in Arkansas, Tennessee, or the Cherokee Nation ;-)!

If I said this were Cherokee Purple, you would say?

I can hear the Native Americans hooting about their "Redskins" fruit in the land of the kiwis.

I ate this a day or two too early, but I often do that when I can't wait to try tomatoes, especially CP after a break without it:

Down the hatch as usual ;-)

It was yummy and I'm so glad I grew it. But I think I prefer the Cherokee Purple plant. This was not any earlier, and the early fruits seem smaller AND split.

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Comments (5)

Seysonn_ 8a-NC/HZ-7
8 years ago
PC, the 1st picture looks like IS, with some green.
But at the end, what difference does it make ?
Margaret got chopped up..hehe
Enjoy it.

Sey
PupillaCharites
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Hi Sey, Too funny, chopped up and ended up in the same place as all the maters!

But what a big difference it really makes when making out a plan for varieties to grow and spending the time and effort to get them and culture them!

A couple more comments,
- the first tomato from the plant was pretty good, but the second tomato was not as flavorful though that might be typical of earliness as I've been reminded. I'd have preferred CP at any point though!
- I checked Margaret Curtain's beautiful skin ... she is looking great, there's no denying. She has a crystal clear epidermis! Just like some Cherokee Purples I know LOL!

Cheers!
PC
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Thanks for that timeline. Isn't it interesting how a variety can remain true for so long while in its native environs and then within ten years of introduction to the rest of the world, evolve so suddenly into other expressions? ***** Yes, I do think it's interesting and I'm trying to think of other comparable examples, but this is not the time of day that I do my best thinking. LOL I know Keith has said somewhere that that the CP and I think it was CG that Craig sent him have not been stable for him. But other than some wrong CP being sold all three have been genetically stable for me and quite a few other folks. And Craig also sent me CP right after he got the seeds from John Green and I've grown it many times since 1991 or so and it's still fine. However, I'm sure that Craig is more likley to see any changes b'c of the large number of plants that he grows to sell at the Farmer's Market and possibly feedback from those. But the CP to CC change occurred in his own toamto patch. Randomness at work? Why not. And the CC to CG change occurred in Darrell Merrell's patch and until recently Darrell was growing huge numbers of plants for retail sale. Aha, I did think of one other more recent example and that's all the variations of some of Brand Gates varieties. I keep telling him he's growing on top of a nuclear pile, LOL, but seldom have I see so many different varieties arise in such a short time. And since those are recent ones, I don't know how they'll stand up to time as well. All the color change ones I've known and experienced that were probably epidermis mutations have remained stable for me. I think I still have a pink Cuostralee and a pink Great Divide, and both should be red as in the original. But I don't send out seed that's not what the original should be. And flipping thru the Yearbook pages I see other color change ones, such as Amana Orange to I can't remember what. The question that usually comes to mind for me when instability is discussed is whether a variety was never stable in the first place and it's just continueing to segregate or whether a change was due to DNA mutation and that mutation was permanesntly expressed afterwards. Carolyn
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"So my CP went semi determinate on me." Liz, I'm not sure what you mean by "semi-determinate." Does that mean it grew like an indeterminate for a while, but ended up with blossom sets at the terminus end of the main stem and lateral shoots? Or does that mean it's an indeterminate but with a short stature like 5 feet tall or something? I've had Cherokee Purple do some weird stuff with regard to growth habit, too. What did yours do exactly? I mean to qualify as a "semi-determinate." "I got 2 tomatoes and none grew until those started to ripen." Sounds like you had some problems with blossom set. Like not continuous blossom set, rather you got 2 fruit sets and then no further blossom sets until those first 2 started to ripen. Sounds like a weather related issue (a streak of hot weather) or a lack of sufficient fertilizer. You should always fertilize your tomatoes with some balanced formula plant food (10-10-10 or 9-12-12, whatever) just after first fruit set, in my opinion. "Now I have around 15 on the vine - many babies. Wondering how it does in cooler weather and if I have a shot to get these tomatoes to maturity by the frost which is usually around November ..." No tomato variety can survive a killing frost, therefore no tomato variety is "hardy" in Zone 6. Whether small green tomatoes will grow to maturity and then color up on the vine is dependent on length of daylight hours and amount of the foliage's exposure to undiffused sunlight ... as in nice, clear days without cloud cover. Since daylight hours diminish steadily in the fall, particularly after September 22, and since September and October can be wet, cloudy months in the Midwest, what can I say? Where are you located, by the way? Where I live, we should have a killing frost say by November 10 or so. If the weather is normal for our fall, most all the tomatoes currently on my vines, whether little marbles or full size greenies, should ripen at least to breaker stage. To hasten development and ripening of what you have set on the vines, top your vines now at a point where the last little green tomatoes are hanging. Top off the remaining flowers and shoots without flowers or little tomatoes. Next year plant Indian Stripe instead of Cherokee Purple because Indian Stripe will set and ripen tomatoes earlier and more continuously through foul weather than Cherokee Purple. That's been my experience since 2006 through drought and flood, cool weather and hot. Year after year, Indian Stripe outperforms Cherokee Purple and yields the same quality in terms of color, flavor and fruit quality.
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PupillaCharites
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
This is apparently the "original" source of all the known information of Margaret Curtain on the Internet:
Margaret Curtain (Koanga Institute, a seed-saving organization in NZ)

The Koanga Institute identifies itself as a charity-seed saving organization in New Zealand, active in consulting in organic and permaculture type growing strategies, and that they have collected NZ seeds from gardeners and others over the past 30 years, which would suggest they might have some records of from whom and on what date they got this seed or more explanation on its "well known" fame. They say:

"NZ Heritage An outstanding large black tomato that is a well known
old cultivar around the East Coast where it has been grown for 100 years
or so.

It is a low acid beefsteak with outstanding flavour!"

It says grown around 100 years on New Zealand's East Coast. Reminds me of Cherokee Purple, that "100 years" seems to pop up when nobody knows anything, or it could be the history of CP erroneously transcribed which makes sense to me. I don't think Auckland is on NZ's East Coast in a political sense. The East Coast zone is horticulturally important in the country. Sorry, but to me this whole description sounds too fantastic at this point, until something substantiating could be found. I don't get the well-known old cultivar part. If it were well-kown, how did it hide all these years from the tomato world. That doesn't seem likely to me. If true, that might make it a like parent of other black tomatoes in the world, but for such a claim, the website reference is unsatisfactory as it stands.

One possibility on the name: Margaret Curtain was one of the ~30,000 women in New Zealand over 100 years ago that signed the petition (link, Margaret's original signature is the 27th row up from the bottom row) that year which resulted in New Zealand being the first country in the world granting women's right to vote the same year. Many of female NZ's population signed it and she was just a signatory deep in the document, not a leader in appearance. On the bright side, it is a reasonable census of NZ woman at the time. But this was over 100 years ago. It reminds me of the Paul Robeson black tomato in the commemorative sense somewhat. But the Paul Robeson tomato has a yellow epidermis, and Robeson was a Stalinist and civil rights' activist who took strong leadership and conscientious roles, so the similarities end there unless there is more info available elsewhere.

Auckland/East Coast is on the Philippines' side of NZ, but that's a story for another day ...

PC
goodground
8 years ago
Hey PC, thanks for the kind words in your other post. I love Cherokee Purple. Great flavor & productive in my garden. This one easily maxed out my 180z scale...lol :-)

Growing Black Krim for the first time.
lindalana 5b Chicago
8 years ago
Am growing Margaret this year as well and so few of my friends. I think it will be impossible to completely be sure to say, yes, it is same plant. I suppose one can grow them side by side...

Margaret Curtain a Cherokee Purple/Indian variety?

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Seysonn_ 8a-NC/HZ-7

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Margaret Curtain a Cherokee Purple/Indian variety?

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Seysonn_ 8a-NC/HZ-7

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goodground

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