Midnight Roma Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum) Live Plant

Days to maturity: 80 days
Plant spacing: 2 square feet per plant
Sunlight requirement: 8 - 14 hours
Look out for: Hornworms - if you you see branches without any leaves or half eaten fruits look carefully for green caterpillars.
Harvest notes: Pick tomatoes when they are as ripe as possible. They should be fully colored and firm and picked regularly to avoid overloading plants.
Lifecycle: Annual

If you’re an intense foodie or interested in the small farm scene at all then you may be familiar with the new seed company “Row 7”, started by Dan Barber at Blue Hill restaurant at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. They have been breeding new resilient varieties with the focus being flavor, and some of their new crops like a garlic flavored leek and a deeply flavored butternut squash can be bought at the grocery store already. Most other varieties you’ll need to grow yourself or get from a local small farm. Last year “midnight Roma” was our wild card variety; which means we had never tried growing it before! All other varieties we sell at our sales we have some experience with. We grew a small patch at our farm and while its yield wasn't super impressive the beautiful fruit was exceptionally flavored. Purple food doesn't love intense heat so we weren't surprised that it wasn't a big producer but we still liked growing it and will do so again this year. This beautifully colored paste tomato is high in phytonutrients and anti-oxidants because of its purple tinge. Paste tomatoes are known for having less watery flesh and more deep umami flavor than salad tomatoes. 

INDETERMINATE plants have a vining growth pattern, requiring regular pruning and trellising. They don’t stop growing until something removes them, so with proper care they can reach 15-20 feet long. They produce new fruit on their new growth constantly and are great fun to grow but require significant space and attention.