Pink Berkeley Tie Dye Tomatoes
Inventory, lb : 0
Description/Taste
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes are beautiful 8-12 ounce beefsteak-type tomatoes with port wine skin and metallic green stripes. Their pink-red flesh can have streaks of green or yellow, and they offer a deep, very sweet and complex flavor. The relatively compact indeterminate tomato plants are vigorous and early to bear fruit, and will keep producing all season long up until frost.
Seasons/Availability
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes are available early summer.
Current Facts
Like all tomatoes, the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomato is a variety of Solanum lycopersicum, which is in the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family along with the potato and eggplant. It is an open-pollinated cultivar, which means that saved seed will reproduce the same variety when planted the following year unless natural cross-pollination or spontaneous mutation occurs.
Applications
Like other beefsteak-type tomatoes, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomato’s thick, meaty slices are wonderful on sandwiches or burgers, and their colorful appearance adds a unique flare to vegetable trays or fresh salads. Tomatoes pair well with both savory and sweet herbs, as well as soft cheeses. Store tomatoes at room temperature until ripe, after which refrigeration can be used to slow the process of decay and prevent further ripening.
Ethnic/Cultural Info
Brad Gates has bred several dozen new tomatoes, and the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomato is one of his biggest crowd-pleasers. It has an excellent, rich and sweet flavor that has been put to the test against Cherokee purple, an heirloom tomato and consistent taste test favorite around the United States. However, in several farmers markets taste tests with these two varieties, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomato was reportedly preferred every time.
Geography/History
The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomato is a related variety of the Berkeley tie-dye tomato. Its seed was selected and grown by Brad Gates, known in the California Bay Area as “the tomato guy”, and was first offered in the Seed Savers 2008. Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes are well adapted to almost all climates, including the Bay Area climate. Brad has said, “Even people in Berkeley can raise it because it can handle the Bay Area fog.”
Podcast