We are out of stock of Ramallet Sant Llorenc for spring 2026. We will have more seeds in Fall 2026.
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That is snow in the background of our garden grown Ramallet Sant Llorenc tomatoes (harvested in Sept, the picture was taken Jan).
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Ramallet tomatoes are a type of longkeeper from the island of Majorca, Spain. They are listed on the ‘Slow Food Ark of Taste’, a world-catalogue of significant heritage varieties of vegetables and other food products. There are several varieties of Ramallet tomatoes, usually named after the village or region they are grown.
Ramallet Sant Llorenc was historically grown in the village of Sant Llorenc, Majorca. It is a small round tomato with thick skin and a wonderful peachy-red skin colour when ripe. And taste wise — this is a very good tasting tomato — it is sweet, with a balanced tang. It does not have a mild taste that some longkeepers can have. Plants are 3 to 4 feet tall.
At the end of summer pick your longkeepers (some will be ripe, some won’t) and store them in a cool place (see below ‘How to Store‘). We will also point out you don’t need to wait a few months to enjoy this tomato — you can also eat it as is when you pick it. It has a great sweet-tangy taste that rivals regular season tomatoes.
In Majorca, Ramallet tomatoes are hung in bunches to use over the winter. Traditionally they are used in a dish called ‘pa am oli’ — translated from Mallorquin as ‘bread and oil’.
The ‘Ark of Taste’ describes ‘pa am oli’ as: “a slice of toast with a drizzle of oil on which the tomato is crushed. Sometimes, it is also accompanied by Jamon Serrano, cheese, local olives and pickles.”
A bit more:
What makes a longkeeper a longkeeper? A paper by Bota & colleagues (2013) titled ‘Characterization of a landrace collection for Toma`tiga de Ramallet (Solanum lycopersicum L.) from the Balearic Islands’, found that Ramallet Sant Llorenc tomatoes have a naturally occurring genetic trait — the ‘alcobaca (alc)’ gene — which affects ripening and extends shelf life. They write:
“The alcobaca (alc) mutation appears to be the cause of the long shelf-life properties in Ramallet tomato based on segregation and sequence data (Vrebalov et al. 2004). Tomatoes with alc have less than 25 % of the ethylene production of wild type plants, increased fruit firmness and increased resistance to bacterial disease (Lobo et al. 1984; Mutschler 1984). The presence of alc has also been attributed to extended fruit shelf life in tomato cultivars, Penjar tomato, in eastern Spain (Casals et al. 2011).”
However, genes aren’t everything. Another paper on long shelf-life tomatoes – titled ‘The postharvest tomato fruit quality of long shelf-life Mediterranean landraces is substantially influenced by irrigation regimes’ — found that reduced watering of long shelf-life tomatoes during cultivation is a key factor in determining storage quality after harvest. The authors write:
“Here we show that the LSL [long shelf-life] trait in those landraces is both partially a defined genetic component, in the form of the alcobaca (alc) mutation, and is profoundly affected by the irrigation regime during cultivation.”
The authors planted the same Ramallet accessions in fields with different water availability and found that the shelf life of the tomatoes was negatively correlated with water availability during cultivation. In other words, less water equated to longer storage life.
They end their study by saying there is a lot more we need to learn about Ramallet tomatoes. Indeed! They are some of our favourites to grow for their hardiness, flavour and long shelf-life qualities.
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How to Store: In their classic how-to book, Root Cellaring, food storage experts Mike and Nancy Bubel suggest storing tomatoes at 13 to 18 C (55 to 65 F) to keep them on “hold” for a while. A spot in your basement would do or a colder room in your house. Place longkeepers in a single layer in a cardboard box or on a shelf out of direct sunlight. On the other hand, the Bubels also suggest you can store tomatoes at room temperature (15 to 21 C / 60 to 70 F) — on your kitchen counter, for instance, but it will speed up the ripening process. Keep it simple and do whatever works for you.
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.
