Garden to kitchen : Tomato 'Indigo Rose'

Harvested my next vegetable - tomatoes! Orange-purple tomatoes known as Indigo Rose.

I don't usually eat colourful tomatoes. I am familiar with red tomatoes only. So, it was fun and exciting to plant other colours. These tomatoes took longer than my red cherry tomatoes to mature and be soft enough to be plucked. This plant grew very tall and because of that, it took longer for the tomatoes to mature as the energy and nutriets goes to the leaves at the bottom of the plants and the shoots. So, I had to pluck some of the bottom leaves and the shoots.

We got a tomato support as the plant grew longer. According to the seed packet, the plant can grow to a height of 2meter. The plant was not stable and it swayed easily when there is a strong wind. The tomatoes grew oddly when we placed the plant indoors as we were away for the weekend and did not want the plant to dry out and wither. I think the tomatoes turned out odd due to the lack of sunlight indoors. I read too that a plant grows gangly or leggy due to lack of light as the plant tries to stretch out as much as possible for light. So, that is another reason why the plant grew longer.

The part of the tomatoes that were exposed to the sun turned purple but the hidden parts were still green. It was funny when I saw that there were green streaks as I checked the tomato. I adjusted the tomato and the green streaks eventually turn purple after a week. It was still not soft. Then, the tomato turned orange for some of the small green spots. Now, the tomato is soft as it turned orange. Amazing, huh!