What you show is a very unripe Aunt Ruby's German Green which when ripe does have a pink blush at the blossom end and the rest of the fruit has an amber blush to it.

In the link below the best picture is on page four, third one in from the left that shows the amber color of the fruit and the pink blush at the blossom end.

Have you grown any other green when ripe varieties before? I've grown lots of them and love the spicy sweet flavor. But while ARGG was one of the first of the large ones, for there are some cherries as well, there are others I like better that ARGG.

An interesting side note.

When I was at SSE in Decorah, IA doing a dog and pony show about heirloom tomatoes, Aunt Ruby's niece was there and asked me to autograph a copy of my book on the page where I had pictures of this variety. I did and she started crying and crying and folks were clustering around wondering what to do.

It turned out her Aunt Ruby had died just a few weeks before. And it was Bill Minkey, a long time SSE friend of mine, to whom she had sent the seeds initially and AR and Bill named it together and Bill had brought her niece to the SSE event.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Aunt Ruby's German Green

Thank you! I swear though I have never seen anything remotely pink on this tomato, as I have seen in other pictures. That's what made me wonder if his ID was accurate.

In any case, I appreciate the help! And the story as well. It's wonderful when you can put a personal touch on something that otherwise might seem far away. That's half of why I love the idea of seed saving -- that I could be growing something that a farmer grew 100 years ago is a special thing.

In any case, no, this is actually the first tomato plant I've ever tried to grow in my life much less a green variety. I suppose I tend to jump in with both feet when I decide to jump. I hadn't even planned on trying to grow any tomatoes at all this year because this was our first spring in our first house and all we had set up was a 4x4 square foot garden. We hadn't devised any method by which anything could climb up anything in the raised bed so I hadn't planned on tomatoes at all.

But I happened to go to a local seed and plant swap at the beginning of spring, and a gentleman had brought several small tomato plants that he'd grown from seed, including this one which he had tagged "German Green." The name sounded intriguing because I'd never heard of such a thing, plus it was the only one of that kind that he had brought, so I grabbed it on a whim and transplanted it into a mound of extra compost that had collected right next to my raised bed because we'd had extra soil mix. It's done quite well, other than a terrible hailstorm we had that left probably half of the leaves in tatters and that shredded probably 4-5 little tomatoes.

Thank you again for the note! You mentioned that you like other green varieties better. Could you tell me which? I would appreciate your expertise.

Next year I think I am going to try growing Tiny Tim cherries in my raised bed, since it's determinate, and will place an indeterminate plant in the spot where my German green is now -- I have Taxi, Sprite, Gardener's Delight, Brandywine, Grushovka, Taxi and Black From Krim waiting to be sown for next year. If you have suggestions for which of these to prioritize I'd love to hear it, since my seed swapping/buying for tomatoes this year will far exceed my likely capacity to actually grow them unless we build another raised bed or figure out another solution.

kw

Black from Tula, I meant.

Just picked this one tonight -- riper and gives you an idea of just how yellow these things turn.