Unusual Tomatoes

Hi all, last summer a couple who were staying with us mentioned that they had collected seed from tomato plants in France. They kindly sent me some seeds last autumn, but I have never heard of the varieties before, I have no idea what types of tomato they are or whether they are any good.
The varieties are:

Citron Russe (Yellow Russian?)
Calabash Poupre (maybe a large dark-skinned type?)
Tomate Des Andes (old variety?)
Jaune de Belgique (-from Belgium I assume!)

Anyone ever heard of them? Any info would be appreciated - thanks

 

The only French variety I know is the good old Marmande which I love. Not pretty but delicious. Have you tried Google for info? I suspect that growing is pretty much the same for all toms. I used to grow loads of different ones but treated them all pretty much the same. Pete may know these. He loves his tomatoes.

[ 04. February 2008, 06:41 AM: Message edited by: Sarraceniac ]

 

Hi Sarraceniac, I have tried googling the names but it comes up with a lot of sites in French - not much use to me. The only one I can find is about the calabash pourpre or 'calebasse pourpre'
http://www.toomanychefs.net/archives/001102.php

which says that the tomatoes are pumkin shaped, so I assume are of the beefstake type, and are tasty.
I plan to sow 4 seeds of each type and see what comes up.

 

Just found this site - looks an interesting tom!
http://www.seedfest.co.uk/seeds/tomatoes/pink/pink.html#calabash

 

Try some of these american sites blackthorn.
They seem to go in for the more unusual types, more than we do here.
The names are probably going to need to be translated into english though.
http://www.tomatobob.com/Black.htm

 

http://www.magicgardenseeds.com/LYC03

http://www.seedfest.co.uk/seeds/tomatoes/cold/cold.html

http://www.seedfest.co.uk/seeds/tomatoes/big/big.html

Are useful sites, The last one sells the Yellow Belgian and the Purple Calabash. The first one has the Andes tomato and the second one the Russian lemon which is very cold hardy.

Not a lot of details though I hope it helps.

 

Thanks Sarraceniac, and hi to you Pete. I will let you know how they get on and especially what they taste like later in the year - if I remember

 

Don't worry. This is GC. We'll remind you.