An old indeterminate Cherokee Indigenous heirloom, pre-1890 variety; beautiful, deep, dusky purple-pink color, superb sweet flavor, and very-large-sized fruit. The vines have relatively dense, regular leaf foliage that have a tendency to curl upwards. Plants can grow anywhere from 4–10 ft. tall but typically grow 4–6 ft. They are ripe when the tops look deep green and the bottoms are purplish. Try this beauty for a real old-time tomato flavor. It is a perfect slicer for tomato sandwiches or chunked in salads. Our favorite dark tomato, the Cherokee Purple!
Modern production of this cultivar traces back to John Green in Sevierville, Tennessee. In 1990, John Green shipped off a packet of tomato seeds from his home in Seveirville to prolific seed-saver and tomato connoisseur, Craig Lahoullier, with a note. In the handwritten note, Green explains that he received the seeds from a nearby woman who had gotten them from her neighbors. The neighbors had been allegedly been growing the tomatoes in their garden for about 100 years after they had initially been shared with them by Indigenous Cherokee Peoples. Lahoullier thus named the tomatoes ‘Cherokee Purple,’ honoring the story as well as their unusual dark red, almost purple coloring. Lahoullier planted the seeds and enjoyed the tomatoes so much that he passed them along to friends at seed companies, marking the beginning of their commercial availability in the United States.