Last edited on 9 Oct 2019. View history

Cherokee Purple Tomato

A variety of tomato

How to sow Cherokee purple tomato: Direct seed indoors and transplant seedlings outside after hardening off

Sun requirement for Cherokee purple tomato: Plant in Full Sun

Cherokee Purple is an heirloom tomato variety that produces flattened globe-shaped fruits that are dusky pink with dark green shoulders. Fruits are medium to large sized with a deep, rich flavor. Best eaten raw. For larger yield and improved plant health, prune and stake tomatoes.

2: plantings
0: harvests
1: seed packet

Growstuff is a free, community-run site for people who grow food. Keep track of what you plant and harvest, find seeds to swap, and see what is growing near you. Join to record your own Cherokee purple tomatoes.

Cherokee purple tomato facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less

24 weeks median lifespan

Height × spread

200cm × 45cm

Row Spacing

90cm

What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For Cherokee purple tomato, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 7°C and a shortest growing cycle of 70 days at its best temperature, about 1155 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your Cherokee purple tomato will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.