Black Tomato Seeds

Black Tomato is the variety to reach for when you want flavour and colour that ordinary red tomatoes simply cannot match. The fruit ripens to a deep mahogany shade that shades into smoky purple-black around the shoulders, with greenish-brown flesh inside. The taste is famously rich and complex: sweet, slightly salty and savoury, with a smoky, almost wine-like depth that has made dark tomatoes a chef favourite. Sliced raw, they turn a simple salad or bruschetta into a striking dish, and their bold colour makes them just as ornamental on the plant as they are delicious on the table.

Planting

Tomato is a warm-season, frost-tender crop, so timing matters. Start the seed indoors roughly five to eight weeks before your last spring frost and before you intend to transplant outside; only move seedlings out once the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed. Sow each seed about 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Kept warm at around 24-29 C, the seeds usually sprout in about 7-10 days; a minimum of roughly 18 C is needed for germination, so a little bottom heat helps. Choose a full-sun position offering at least 6 hours of direct light, ideally 8-10 hours, in a warm and sheltered spot. When you set plants out, space them about 45-90 cm apart along the row with roughly 90-150 cm between rows; vigorous vining types want the wider end of that range, while bushy types can go closer (around 45-60 cm between plants is fine).

Fertilizing

Feed for fruit, not just foliage. At transplanting, use a starter fertilizer with an NPK ratio under 10 and steer clear of excess nitrogen, which encourages leafy plants that are slow to set fruit. Once the first fruits begin to enlarge, side-dress with nitrogen to carry the plants through their cropping; a nitrogen-and-calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0) applied about 3-4 weeks after planting works well. For tomatoes grown in containers, switch to a high-potassium liquid feed every 10-14 days once the first fruits start to swell.

Care

Steady moisture is the single most important habit: aim for about 2.5 cm of water per week from rain plus irrigation, and avoid swinging between wet and dry, which causes fruit splitting and blossom-end rot. Container plants may need watering every day in hot weather. When you first transplant, thin or move seedlings to about 5 cm apart once true leaves appear, then plant them deep so only the top two or three sets of leaves sit above the soil; the buried stem grows extra roots. Harden young plants off over about a week before they go outside. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms and whitefly, and for diseases including early blight, late blight, Septoria leaf spot and grey mould. Harvest when the fruit reaches full size and the colour starts to change for the variety, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; first ripe fruit usually appears about 52-90 days after transplanting, and any green fruit can be finished indoors at around 21 C.