Saturday Spotlight – Yugoslav Tomatoes

Welcome to my second Saturday spotlight which highlights specific varieties of kitchen garden crops.  We are at the height of the Victorian tomato season at the moment and as such it seems only appropriate to look at a tomato variety.  I thought I would start with one of the less commonly grown ones – Yugoslav.  This is my first year growing the variety although my parents have grown it for a number of years.  I have to say I’ve been very pleased with it.

Yugoslav tomatoes are a pinky red – the sort of colour that when it comes to tomatoes is often called purple, while purple is often called black.  I have always found this weird definition of red spectrum colours rather odd, but entertaining nonetheless.  In the photo below they look a little redder than they do ‘in real life’.

Yugoslav are a large squat sweet flavoured tomato.  Individual fruits weigh about 200-300g  some even larger.  They are fleshy with some, but not too many, seeds and are well suited to both slicing for sandwiches and salads as well as cooking.   They make good sauce.

The plants are indeterminate, growing to the top of my 2 metre stakes with no sign of stopping.  Whilst it is hard to measure productivity in my garden this year as I have no idea how many fruits were taken by the rodents, my dad’s plants are loaded with fruits.

So far neither my parents nor I have had any real issues with disease so its difficult to say whether or not its likely to resist wilt and other common problems.  One issue that does effect it quite frequently though is split fruit – mine split after a downpour and occasionally they split if left on the vine until fully ripe.  Picking them while coloured but not quite fully ripe seems to resolve the issue with little loss in flavour.

I like this tomato variety very much, it combines good flavour with versatility and good yields.  The only negative is that they are slightly later than some of the other varieties.  I picked my first Yugoslav 3 weeks later than the first Rouge de Marmande and a fortnight after Black Krim, but I do think its worth the wait.

If you have written a Saturday Spotlight I will happily link to it – just leave me a comment and I’ll add the link to both this and next weeks post.

Dave at Our Happy Acres has a great post on Oakleaf lettuce – a variety I have had a lot of success with – check out his post here.

Michelle from Seed to Table has a great post on Golden Corn Salad which isn’t something I’ve grown before but sounds fab.  – check it out here.