This is another stellar Glecklers seed company introduction from the 1950s. Laketa is a beautiful large pink paste tomato. The elongated fruits mainly range in size from 80g to 140g. Laketa grows to about 3 feet tall; the leaves have a beautiful wispy look to them (described as ‘saw-toothed’ in the paragraph below). But don’t mistake the wispiness for fragility, Laketa is a hardy plant.
Laketa has great production mid-season through to the first frost.
We first became aware of Laketa when looking through old Glecklers seed catalogues. We came across a picture and description of Laketa from 1957 that piqued our interest. Glecklers writes:
The most unusual paste tomato discovered to date. Fruit averages somewhat larger than San Marzano, but has a distinct pointed fruit characteristic … LAKETA has the highest degree of fruit solids of any other tomato even when dead ripe has the solid feel like a lemon. Skin is a purplish pink and the almost completely solid flesh is a blood red color. Flavor is mild and extremely delicious. Vines are indeterminate, flat sprawling nature. Elongated leaves when young have long queer sawtoothed edges. Fruits of LAKETA was sent to two experimental stations for identification, neither of them and including ourselves, were able to classify this strain. However, it is apparently of the San Marzano type. LAKETA’s extremely solid fruit characteristic lends value for breeding purposes in other tomato strains, say nothing of its present use with high quality fruit.
After reading this description, we knew we had to grow Laketa. But it then became a two year hunt to find seeds. No seed exchange sites or commercial seed vendors listed Laketa; we even contacted seed savers who had offered Laketa in the past, but no luck. Finally, we were able to acquire seedstock from the USDA genebank.
Note: Although we didn’t have a problem with blossom-end rot, elongated tomatoes like Laketa can be more prone to it. To mitigate against blossom-end rot, we recommend planting Laketa in the ground/garden rather than in a pot. Pots can dry out quicker and lead to blossom-end rot.
How to Plant: Start seeds indoors 6 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Transplant after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
