Somebody gave me a plant this year and I am still waiting to try it for the first time (no ripe ones just yet)! Glad to hear from you that it is so worthwhile. And it looks gorgeous, too.

raisemybeds- it will be worth the wait!

Darn typos, I meant to say goodness.

Damon

Darnit damon

As soon as I decide which heart to grow you post again. Now I can't decide between this and anna russian.

Sorry Tammysf. You gonna have to find some more room and buy some more Texas Tomato Cage ;-). You won't regret it. Orange Strawberry was the most productive for me last year. The favor was definitely not as good as Aunt Gertie's Gold. But then I didn't have to water at all after the tap root reach my neighbor's daily watering ground, which leads me to think twice about letting the ground get too dry. There's gotta be a balance between SWC and dry ground. Sorry Damon, I am all over.

Here's a nice picture of my wife with a huge Orange Strawberry. Surprised you haven't grown it sooner. Definitely a keeper.

johnny-That is the very question I posted over on the container forum tonight. Thats the million dollar question, "can a swc tomato taste as good as an in ground tomato?". With my limited experience I would say no.

Nice looking Orange Strawberry's you got there! And my Orange Strawberry's are half the size of yours, btw I'm very stingy at watering, "just the minimum" (or borderline dry farming) is my slogan and I believe that helps with taste tremendously and hurts me in the size department.

Damon

Argh! All of you other Bay Area folks (Bay Areans? - I don't think I've ever heard to us referred to us as a whole, lol) have such gorgeous tomatoes, and all I have are a few measly Early Girls and a handful of cherries every few days!

Damon, the color inside that Orange Strawberry looks so amazing, and it looks like it has almost no seeds. It sort of resembles a peeled golden beet, to me, which then makes my mouth water looking at it - as if it being a juicy, wonderful tomato didn't do that enough.

You all are inspiring me to go bigger next year!

spaghetina or fellow bay arean (lol)- it really is an amazing tomato! Very meaty with few seeds. And yes it sounds like your gonna have to expand the garden next year and try a few heirlooms.

Damon

That is a profoundly beautiful tomato, that it is also delicious seems almost too good to be true. If you don't mind my asking, when you say "just the minimum" amount of water, have you an estimate of how much you actually give each plant per week and what type of soil do you have?

Clearly you are doing something right!

A bit of background on Orange Strawberry for those of you who might be interested.

Marjorie Morris of Indiana sent me the seeds for it and I listed it in the SSE Yearbook quite a few years ago and from there, as happens with many varieties so listed, it has been picked up and offered at several seed companies.

Marjorie found this variety as a stray seed in a pack of commercial Pineapple tomato seeds.

From the pictures I've seen it doesn't seem to be the same as what some are calling German Orange Strawberry, but I can't be sure. I think someone tacked the German onto the name b'c they knew of the variety German Red Strawberry.

Marjorie also had sent me seeds for German Red Strawberry which again I first listed in the SSE Yearbook many years ago but GRS is a family heirloom from Germany, so deserves the German in the variety name whereas Orange Strawberry does not.

Enjoy!

Carolyn, who suggests getting seeds for what's called Orange Strawberry as being the best way to go if you'd like to try this one.

Johnny,

Nice picture of nice wife with nice tomatoes.

Nice.

walkinggin- "Just the minimum" meaning basically I let them get to the point where they are looking like they are gonna croak or on the verge. I know its silly but thats what I do. So when they get to that point I water them very deeply with drip irrigation and they bounce back. I usually dont water in between unless we get a long heat wave. With this method I get small/undersized tomatoes and more BER than I would like, but the taste and brix is out of this world.

Damon

Hi- I bought a couple of tomato plants from a student school greenhouse project. They said the seeds all came from Baker's Creek, and this one was supposed to be Constoluto Genovese. It is certainly is not. What grew instead is in the photo. It is an orange stunner with big flawless tomatoes that look like smooth peaches, elongated and only slightly pointed. Not so strawberry looking as the first photo nor round as in johnny's photo (which I suspect is another labeling mistake). I looked through the Baker's Creek Catalog.and Strawberry Orange seems the most likely variety. What do you all think?

I think it would be impossible to ID this tomato, it could be cross pollination as well as mixed up labels. I am glad you resurfaced this thread as I am eyeing this variety as one of the options for next year Glad to hear it has rave reviews!

Hi Linda,
The seeds came from Baker's Creek which is a very reputable source. I think it was a labeling error by the student grower rather than a breeding error. My own labels fall out and get mixed up sometimes so I sympathize. I looked through the orange tomato varieties in the catalog and this is the one that sounded like the best match. I have attached the photo from the catalog. They don't show one in profile so it is hard to say. I guess the thing to do is order some from the catalog next year and see if they come out the same. I also intend to save seeds from this beautiful tomato. Blight or septoria set in mid season this year. I still got lots of tomatoes though the plants are mostly dead now. Some of the tomato varieties get blemishes on the fruit but this one came though spotlessly.