Love the color, and flavor, of homegrown Cherokee Purple tomatoes. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

“….enjoy your columns. It was too late for me to get started growing tomatoes this year. Do you have a favorite?” — Emily

Favorite Tomato

Hi Emily, over the years homegrown tomatoes have been a personal favorite. This year, though, I have a new leading contender - Cherokee Purple tomatoes, an heirloom variety that traces its heritage to the US Native Cherokee Indians.

According to National Public Radio, a retired Raleigh, North Carolina chemist can take credit for introducing the Cherokee Purple tomato. Craig LeHoullier has one of the largest personal tomato collections in the country. In his small yard at his home in the Raleigh suburbs, he can grow only 200 plants, so each year he must pore over the collection to decide what makes the cut.

An avid gardener for much of his life, LeHoullier joined the Seed Savers Exchange in 1986 and began connecting with other gardeners and seed savers to trade tips and favorite varieties.

Soon, LeHoullier had built a reputation as a tomato connoisseur, joining a small group of other hard-core tomato seed savers committed to reviving heirlooms.

One day in 1990, a packet of tomato seeds arrived in LeHoullier's mail with a handwritten note. The sender was John Green of Sevierville, Tenn., who wrote that the seeds came from very good tomatoes he'd gotten from a woman who received them from her neighbors. The neighbors said that the varietal had been in their family for 100 years, and that the seeds were originally received from Cherokee Indians.

Sharing the seeds with seed companies and telling them how wonderful this tomato is, the seeds were tried and now are one of the all-time favorite US heirloom varieties.

So what’s so great about this tomato? It doesn’t look like much on the vine, it can look muddy and dark.

Once cut, though, you get a sense this is going to be delicious and it is. Cherokee tomatoes have a nice balance of sweet and savory.