Purple Prince has excellent tasting, sweet and juicy “chocolate” tomatoes. The colours of the tomatoes are stunning.
The saladette size tomatoes range from 60 g to 80 g (3 oz to 4 oz). The plant itself is hardy and easy to grow and you will get a lot of tomatoes from just one plant. Plants are about 4 ft tall.
A bit more:
Purple Prince has “chocolate heirloom genetics” (a term coined by seed breeder Steve Peters) which it shares with other “chocolate” tomatoes such as Black Cherry tomato and Purple Calabash. Which puts it in flavourful company.
All three tomatoes (Purple Prince, Black Cherry and Purple Calabash) share a specific gf gene (‘green flesh’ gene) that suggests common ancestry. Barry and Pandey (2009) explain how the gf gene aka “chocolate heirloom genetics” influences tomato colour:
“The green-flesh gene of [this] tomato possesses a stay-green phenotype resulting in fruits that ripen to a red-brown color, due to the retention of chlorophyll and the simultaneous accumulation of lycopene.”
In other words, the gf gene causes tomatoes to retain both their green chlorophyll and red lycopene – which causes the tomatoes to turn brown/black/purple rather than red.
The green flesh gene is responsible for the brown/black/purple colouration of other famous — and very good tasting — varieties of tomatoes such as Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, and Black Zebra.
Dare we say you might start craving Purple Prince tomatoes as much as an actual chocolate bar!
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Note: There is another tomato out there called Black Prince, which is a different tomato than Purple Prince. We know they are different varieties based on the study cited above (Barry and Pandey 2008); the gf gene found in Black Prince is different that the gf gene found in Purple Prince (the seeds we are offering). (The gf gene found in Black Prince is the same as found in the tomato varieties Purple Russian and Nyagous.)
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How to Plant: Start seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Keep moist. When true leaves appear, transplant to a larger container if needed. Transplant outside after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
