GWR Tomatoes

[AlittleSalt]

I didn't know there where green when ripe tomatoes before joining Tomatoville. I am growing several varieties this year. I'm not having the best of luck with them. I've grown Green Zebra in Fall last year and have one plant growing now. Last fall's Green Zebra was a complete failure. Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is another variety growing here.

Both varieties looked great while growing during the spring rains, but now that it has started getting hot (92F) they are losing leafs and limbs quickly. Both have tomatoes growing on them. I'm hoping they ripen before the plant dies.

I'm wondering if GWR tomatoes are meant to be grown in cooler climates? It is supposed to get hotter today and tomorrow. I'll be watching to see what happens with them. I put them in the ground and am growing them like all the other hundred or so tomato plants I planted this year. Maybe I needed to do something different for the GWRs?

[pauldavid]

Hey Salt, I haven't grown them yet but people say that Grub's Mystery Green, Cherokee Green, and Aunt Ruby's German Green, do good in our zone in that order.

[Gardeneer]

I am for tomatoes of different colors. Last year I grew couple of Green Zebra. I was not impressed.
The taste was not good to me and the color of ripe was difficult to tell. Then I said to myself :
Why bother with it just because it is green ??!! Green tomatoes are all over the garden. I can always pick a couple of nice looking green tomatoes and blend them into a basketful of different colors to create a nice contrast.
SO no more green tomatoes for me.

Gardeneer

[Cole_Robbie]

I liked Cherokee Green. It's among the few tomatoes I have tried that I wanted to grow again, instead of using the space for new varieties. It's like a yellow tomato with zing. And it turns almost entirely yellow when ripe, solving the 'when do I pick it?' problem.

Esmerelda Golosina is one plant I have that is looking nice, and I am looking forward to trying, as well as Emerald and Sun Green. I really liked Fred Hempel's Green Tiger & Lucky Tiger, and I'm growing them again.

From what I read, the GWR varieties have some of the highest brix measurements. That's not exactly the same as tasting the sweetest, but they do have a lot of sugar in them, which is the difference between them and an unripe tomato.

[Worth1]

Salt,
I cannot express to you how much you need to grow Lime Green Salad for a green when ripe.
No it isn't the king of larger GWR tomatoes but it will open the door to you for GWR's like no other GWR will.
Ted here was skeptical and I helped talk him into them and from last report he was sold on Lime Green Salad.
It is a small plant that is a determinate that puts out a profusion of small green tomatoes that pair well with cucumbers lettuce and other tomatoes in a salad.

The taste is out of this world, nothing like the ((nasty green zebra)).
As for the larger ones mentioned above they are fantastic too.
One in particular is the absolute bomb, Aunt Ruby's German Green.
But lets get back to LGS this tomato will play out soon and give you room for something else to grow.
This way you dont have to wait half the summer to get them.
You also dont need to have much of a support and maybe three of thos small tee posts will work or a small tomato cage.
They are a bushy plant.
Start picking them just as the skins start to turn a little yellow.

I cannot express enough good about Lime Green Salad for any garden any where, from the cold Arctic north to the hot humid south.
It is just that good.
If I had the ability to be at home all of the time I would grow a 100 foot row of them.
The smallish size of the plant would allow me to grow around 50 in that 100 foot row.
One year I made one of the best green salsas out of it and green peppers you have ever had.
If I were to enter a fresh green salsa contest this would be the (secret) tomato I would use in the salsa and I bet I would at least place if not win.

Worth

[NarnianGarden]

Growing Green Zebra & Grub's Mystery Green again this year, tasted them last year and loved them
The amazing thing was, GZ was supposed to be very susceptible to BER, but ours did great - the green balls of flavor kept on ripening well after they were picked (unripe) and the taste was excellent.
GMG was a introductory gift from someone, a nice addition to the collection. I collected seeds, and am very proud to grow a plant this year from my own saved seeds.
It's interesting to have a PL GWR and RL GWR side by side, and compare their growth habits, maturity etc. Maybe even have them on my plate a the same meal

[NarnianGarden]

Ah Worth, I was determined to contain myself. Now you have added another tomato to my wish list
Looking forward to the next swap

[BigVanVader]

Im convinced Worth, on next years list 😀

Salt I'm growing Malachite box and Absinthe this year and so far they have done great. I haven't noticed M.Box to have any heat related issues. It has been 80s/90s here with humidity above 50% for several weeks and the plant looks great. Here are 2 pics from today.

[carolyn137]

Until a few years ago the big fad was the so called black ones, but a couple of us, let's say Craig L and myself, had predicted that the GWR ( green when Ripes) would be the next fad, and so it has come to pass.

Most of them have a spicy/sweet flaovr that I and many others find absolutely delicious. I started growing them back in the 80's when there were only two places you could get them, one was Gleckler's and the other was Seeds Blum, both now out of business, the former b'c Adam had to change what he had been doing with tomatoes to something else but hopes he can come back to tomatoes and all the other wonderful seeds he offered, and Seeds Blum b'c they couldn't convert to the computer age and it wasn't uncommon to wait for a year until you got your seeds.

All to say that if you want me to try and list what I've grown, which won't be easy, I can try to do that, not my faves since I've yet to me a GWR I didn't like, well, with a couple of exceptions.

But right now I'm wheeling and dealing with a nice man from Romania who is looking for some ones from Turkey and Bulgaria, and also someone originally from Russia who is looking for certain varieties and it's taking a lot of my time, aside from watching the French TennisOpen,to go through my seeds to see what I have to offer to them, and of course, also getting some brand new ones from them in return.

If you haven't tried the GWR I think it's a great loss for at least not trying to do so, I really do. Don't do well in the south? I know many who garden there who love them. All I have to do is to look in my SSE YEarbooks to see who in the south grew which varieties.

I hope this list of GWR from Tania will convince you and there are quite a few not on that list that will be coming up in my now late 2015 seed offer, and more for my 2016 offer.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/C...Green_Tomatoes


Are all of them equally great, well no, there are just a couple that given the chance I wouldn't grow again, as I said above.

Carolyn

[AlittleSalt]

I just added it to my wish list Worth.

I think I know what has happened to my M-Box plant. A gopher or whatever is tunneling in our garden. I found a tunnel in a different part of the garden while digging up some new potatoes to go with the green beans I'm about to go pick. The M-Box plant went from big and full to having very few leaves in 2 days. I'll bet there's a tunnel under it.

[Tracydr]

Beryl Beauty is a great produce. Good flavor,too.
Growing a bunch of GWRs this year. Can hardly wait to try Cherokee green! Next year,Malachite Box and GMG are on the list.
LGS will probably be started for fall and a greenhouse winter plant. It's quite good and I need to compare with BB side by side.

[Stvrob]

Malachite Box (cannot spell or pronounce its proper russian name) grows fine in the South. Good flavor, but maybe I should try the Lime Green Salad next season since Im hearing so much about it.

[travis]

I've grown many green-when-ripe varieties including Cherokee Green, Cherokee Lime, WildThyme GWR, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Lime Green Salad, Ananas Noir, Captain Lucky, Green Giant, and a few crosses of one or another green-when-ripes.

've never grown Malachite Box straight up. However, I am now concentrating on growing out several crosses that include Malachite Box. I began the project with Malachite Box x NC1-CELBR (F2), a cross made originally by Dr. Randy Gardner, and seeds sent to me by Suze Anderson several years ago.

I then outcrossed the F2 and F3s to other varieties, most of which were purple or striped purple or striped GWR types. Every single outcross has produced excellent fruit setters, as well as have the various filials from the basic Malachite Box x NC1-CELBR.

Can't say whether Dr. Gardner chose Malachite Box for its fruit setting abilities, or whether the cross to NC1-CELBR is what imparts the hotset abilities and the tolerance of heat and humidity ... but whatever it is, these survive hot humid days while continuing to set fruit and maintaining good foliage cover.

Among the others I named in the first paragraph, Ananas Noir was the worst performer in hot spells, Cherokee Green and Cherokee Lime were the better ones for heat tolerance. Green Giant and Capt. Lucky were the largest fruits and among the most tasty, but did not set fruit as well as the Cherokees. WildThyme GWR was excellent in all regards, but was not fully stable when I cut it loose on the public

Most promising of the new working lines of GWR types currently appear to be:

(Malachite Box x NC1-CELBR) Rusty F3 x (Cherokee Purple x Summerpink) Purple F5, and (Cherokee Purple x Summerpink) Purple F5 x (Michael Pollan x Kozula #139) F2 Green Plum Striped. They are busting out fruit set like no tomorrow.

I will record fruit set when the daytime heat exceeds 92*F, as up to now it has only been 88 - 90F or so here, and a unseasonably cool spring, especially at night.

[walt456]

My favorite GWR so far is Humph. It's one I don't see mentioned much though. Out of my 75+ varieties I grew last year it was in top 3 over all.

[Starlight]

I'm growing my first green and it is Bosque Green Cherry. So far it is doing real good in the heat and humidity.