Apparently, tomatoes in Japan are mainly ‘pink varieties’ whereas in Europe the main ones are ‘red varieties’. What is the different between those two? According to my quick research those two varieties have a very little difference in taste but I could not find what ‘the very little difference’ is.

Anyway, to experience the difference myself, I have decided to grow three pink, two red, three black and an orange varieties this year.

<Pink Varieties>
– Cherry Pink Grape New
– Mr Asano’s Kessaku (Mr浅野のけっさく) New
– Reika (麗夏) New

<Red Varieties>
– Principe Borghese (only the bush variety this year) New
– Irish Gardners Delight

<Black Varieties>
– Black Pear
– Japanese Black Trifele (Unlike the name suggests, this is not Japanese variety but Russian)
– Chocolate Cherry New

<Orange Variety>
– Honeybee

I have also noticed, while I am nursing those seedlings, the shape of the true leaves are quite different depending on the variety. Some are pointy, some are more round or narrow, etc. as well as some are more hairly than others.

One more thing I would like to observe this year about tomatoes is so-called ‘accumulated temperature’. As everybody knows, veggies need certain amount of heat to grow and fruit. The accumulated temperature suggests ‘how much heat the certain veggie needs to flower/fruit etc. in total’.

As for tomatoes, apparently, you start summing the average temperatures everyday from the point that the plant got a flower.

Tomatoes' accumulated temperature (average temperature of a day in Celsius x number of days) = between 1000 and 1100 for cherry variety, 1100 and 1200 for mid to large-sized variety

If it works correct, you can more or less figure out how long it takes for a tomato flower to become a reasonable fruit. For example, if the average temperature of a day is 20 degree every single day, it will takes 50 – 55 days (cherry variety) for a flower to turn a fruit ready to harvest. Interesting, isn’t it?

Apparently the same accumulated temperature applies to the duration between sowing seeds and flowering. So if you have temperature controlled green house for 20 degree every single moment, in theory, ‘seed to fruit’ will only takes 100 days plus in there.

I am well ready to count the temperature, very nerdiely.

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