Growing out over 100 tomato varieties means that I'm going to have some pretty cool varieties growing in the garden. Today, I'm going to introduce you to the Furry Bumblebee variety, which is one of many fuzzy tomato varieties.
If you've never seen one of these unique plants, they have an overabundance oof hairs on them; so much so, that they look wooly. All tomato plants have these hairs, but the varieties within this family have much more.
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| Furry Bumblebee Tomato Fruiting |
About the Furry Bumblebee Tomato
This tomato plant almost looks frosted in color when compared to the neighboring plants. This is due to the overabundance of small hairs on its stem, leaves, buds, and fruits. When they reflect light, it gives the plant a silvery sheen.
It is a cherry tomato plant and has an indeterminate growth habit. This means it'll likely keep on trucking through the summer months, without a loss in harvest. Most cherry tomatoes perform just fine for me even through the heat of summer.
The plant has a more velvet like texture than the average tomato plant, which makes it quite unique when managing the plant through harvesting, pruning, or stabilizing on the trellis. I'm excited to see how this characteristic develops over the summer. Will the hairs become sparser? (They do seem to on older growth.) Will it maintain its appearance? (Overall, it still looks furry- but the new growth is most noticeable.) Will it become more dramatic in appearance? (Nope!) How will the tomatoes develop through the season? I guess we will find out!
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| See the difference between a regular tomato vine stem and a Furry Bumblebee tomato stem? |
Do Fuzzy Tomato Varieties Have Any Unique Advantages?
This is one characteristic I'm keeping a close eye on. Surely, all of those hairs must make it a less appetizing plant for most pests. While we see a very rare hornworm on occasion (the wasps take care of those) our most frequent pests are leaf footed bugs, some army worms, and stink bugs. Leaf footed bugs and stink bugs love to poke the tomatoes with their mouthparts, causing disease and imperfect fruits. Army worms love to eat small holes into the green tomatoes, exposing them to rot. Slugs will attack from the ground, but they are not an issue for trellised plants. I'm hoping to see whether or not these fuzzy tomato plants host fewer pests; if so, I'd love to venture into hybridizing between this variety, and a much larger variety.
(I'll update this once I know more)
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| The youngest growth seems to have the highest density of hairs; it gives the tomato a frosted, fuzzy appearance. |
Furry Bumblebee Tomato: Taste Test and Review
So far, the plant seems very healthy. Unfortunately, it may be prone to blossom end rot. The first tomato developed blossom end rot, and I've not had any other plants develop BER so far. That's not a great sign as it shows that this plant is very sensitive to soil moisture fluctuations (even though it's planted in a ditch, and we've had plenty of rainfall consistently), but we will see how the plant performs over the course of the season.
It seems like it may be a pretty productive variety. It is not the first to develop disease, we have had a few begin showing some early blight. So far, this one has not had it. We have a rainy week ahead (from roughly the 13th of June until around the 18th of June) and I'm sure that's going to change for many plants.
(This section is under construction)
Why I'm Growing Such a Strange Tomato Variety
I am a collector of rare and unique seeds. I have a goal of exceeding 500 different tomato varieties this year, while growing out at least 150. I want to refresh some seeds in my collection as some are getting older or are limited in number, while also building the foundation for a small seed shop. I love sharing and collecting seeds, and I would love to take this one step further and build another business that I am passionate about.
I also plan to incorporate some of these rare seeds as perks for some of my viewers and community members. For us gardeners, we could likely all agree that seed collecting is an entirely different hobby from gardening. Especially since seed trading and seed purchases are usually made during fall and winter, long after our past gardens have faded, and quite a while before our next gardens are planned out. It gives us something to do while we struggle with the shorter, colder days.
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| Sunlight makes the hairs even more obvious. This variety is really unique, and I've enjoyed growing it so far! |