I love ‘Sun Gold’ tomatoes, the tangerine-colored cherry, and wouldn’t be without one plant each year, but I’m always wishing there was a red cherry-sized fruit that was a little different—not your predictable ‘Sweet 100’ or ‘Sweet Million’ kind of character. The larger ‘Chadwick’s Cherry’ is someone special, but an indeterminate grower and later to yield. Perhaps in ‘Riesentraube’ I have finally found my dreamboat?
‘Riesentraube’ (which means giant grape, probably for the way the fruits are bunched) is various said to have good flavor—beefsteak-like, says Southern Exposure—in a highly prolific plant that produces several hundred flowers and then giant clusters of 20 or even 40-plus fruits apiece. I can hardly wait, but I must, as it’s not time to start tomato seeds here yet by a longshot. Though some sources say ‘Riesentraube’ is a compact plant, I suspect that those claims are relative to other indeterminate small-fruited tomato plants, which can get very, very large. We shall see.
Each fruit of this East German heirloom, perhaps grown by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century, has a distinctive pointed end—heirloom tomato expert Amy Goldman calls that “beaked”—and is about an inch and a quarter long. In her book “The Heirloom Tomato,” Goldman says ‘Riesentraube’ is actually a miniature
Read more on awaytogarden.com