Details

• AKA: Black Crimea
• Open-Pollinated: yes
• Type: indeterminate
• Shape: beefsteak, squat, sometimes lobed or mildly pleated
• Color: Dark, purple-red, almost brown; darker green/brown shoulders; turn almost black with sufficient sunlight & heat
• Maturity: 70-90 days from transplant
  • 2011: 98 days to 1st harvest
  • 2012: 70 days to 1st harvest
  • 2013: 126 days to 1st harvest
• Size:
  • 2011: 3-oz tomatoes on average
  • 2012: 5-oz tomatoes on average
  • 2013: 2.5-oz tomatoes on average
• Yield:
  • 2011: 10 tomatoes for 1.75 lbs per plant
  • 2012: 5 tomatoes for 1.6 lbs per plant
  • 2013: 7 tomatoes for 1 lb per plant
• Taste: “excellent full flavor”
• Disease Resistance:
  • susceptible to root-knot nematode
• Environmental Tolerance:
  • susceptible to cracking

Notes:

• Seed Savers’ Exchange: “Found in Krim, Russia, in 1990 by Lars Olov Rosenstrom
• Natural Gardening Co: “Reportedly Russian in origin”

Sources: (where to buy)

• Seed Savers’ Exchange (seeds)
• Natural Gardening Co (plants)

Results from My Garden:

2011: 2 plants started from seed (Seed Saver’s Exchange)

• Spacing:18″x21″
• Total Yield: 10 tomatoes for 1.75 lbs per plant; 3-oz tomatoes on average
• Timing:
  • Seeds Started: early March
  • Transplanted: early April
  • Planted Out: mid-April
  • 1st Harvest: late July
  • Last Harvest: early October

2012: started 4 plants from seed, but one died, probably from an injury to the stem at planting; some kind of wilt showed up in September…probably not verticillium or fusarium; lots of green tomatoes were on the vine when it was time to pull the plants, which didn’t get recorded, so the actual yield was much higher than below

• Spacing: 9-18″x24″
• Total Yield: 5 tomatoes for 1.6 lbs per plant; 5-oz tomatoes on average
• Timing:
  • Seeds Started: late February
  • Transplanted: 2 waves: mid-April & late April
  • Planted Out:
    • 1st wave: mid-May
    • 2nd wave: early June
  • 1st Harvest: late July
  • Last Harvest: early November

2013: purchased 2 seedlings from Natural Gardening Co., but one showed wilting before planting out. Thought it was a wilt disease, so I didn’t plant it. The one that survived only produced a small amount of tomatoes due to root-knot nematodes. Didn’t know I had these nematodes until I was pulling out the plants. Severe infestation. Symptoms were similar to one of the wilts, without the unilateral wilting of fusarium or verticillium. The seedling that died probably also had root-knot nematode. Bought 2 replacement seedlings from the nursery, but they were planted too late (7/13/13) to produce much. One of them was infected with something new to me. The stem turned dark and crackles formed. The top growth looked good, but the lower growth was all wilted. When I cut it back, just a few nodes above the ground, the stem looked hollow. The one I cut back almost to the ground in late August rallied and would have produced some tomatoes if the season were longer. New growth looked healthy and was flowering, but the stem had turned dark on one side, with some wilting on that side.

• 

  Black Krim seedlings

  Spacing: 24″x24″

• Total Yield: 7 tomatoes for about 1 lb per plant; 2.5 oz on average