PlantFiles: Tomato
Lycopersicon lycopersicum 'Aunt Ruby's German Green'

First time growing this tomato. It's outgrowing every other tomato in my yard. Thick, healthy green branches are growing wild. The picture of my plant shows it at 45 days. Never eaten one before so I'm dying to try it.

A bit of history on this tomato, from the SSE catalog: "A great heirloom from Ruby Arnold of Greenville, TN. Introduced to SSE by Bill Minkey in 1993."

Boy, am I glad I grew Aunt Ruby's German Green this year for the first time! These tomatoes are suculant, sweet, and tasted different from any other red tomatoes I have ever tasted. People seem to say "spicy", but I don't know what that means. To me they have a really really good flavor. And pretty too!

I only grew one plant of Aunt Ruby's German Green, but I had tons of tomatoes off of it. I think I will plant two plants of this next season. It is definitely a "must grow" on my list for next year.

tmm

This plant was easy to grow, though not a TERRIBLY heavy bearer, and did take a fairly? long time to mature. The fruits are an interesting green color when fully ripe. And a really pretty green inside. ;) Like the inside of a kiwi. :) The flavor is okay. It isn't very spicey but is not all that mild. It is SLIGHTLY but not very sweet. It has some of that sourness of other green tomatos but not VERY sour. It is honestly? the least sour green tomato variety I have tried. Like a mix of sweet and sour. Nice flavor all the same. Not my FAVORITE tomato flavor but nice none the less. It is meaty (not the meatiest but meaty none the less). Not a ton of jelly and seeds. Fruits were large but not HUGE. Minorly? troubled by a bit of blossom end rot on some and some ripened unevenly (bottom ripened VERY fast, top ripened much slower) but none the less fairly easy to grow. I don't particularly love green tomatos so I wouldn't rave about this one, and I'm not sure if I'd take up space in my garden with it again.

Wonderful spicy green tomato flavor. Produces well here and ripens with an amber flush, which is only skin-deep. One of my favorites.

This plant's producing very large, light green beefsteak tomatoes in abundance this year. Judging when they're ripe can be a bit tricky; they get a faint yellow blush on the stem end and soften a bit. The flavor's spicy-sweet. The plant's vigorous and I've had no trouble with foliage diseases and only minimal blossom end rot. The fruits are prone to concentric cracking and the stem end and are occasionally misshapen, but neither of these traits have been real problems for me.

i grew this variety for 2 years in zone 7 of south carolina. one year it died just as the first fruit ripened. the next year it yielded large tomatoes of excellent taste that got smaller as the season progressed. it died from disease sooner than most varieties. both years had higher than normal rainfall. this area is hard on tomatoes and few make it the entire season. i will try it again hoping for a drier year

I planted a couple dozen seeds, and although I think every single seed sprouted, only five have so far not keeled over dead to some sort of wilt. This happened mid-April in Tucson, Arizona. They hadn't dried out or gotted sun-scorched, they were started in full sun and were accustomed to it.

Very good tasting, spicy sweet taste. Nice slicer, but fruits tended to get smaller for me as the season progressed.

Vigorous growing plant some what stingy with fruit but good size and the taste is wonderful.

This is a favorite for a former market gardener friend of mine for it's taste and texture.

Great color contrast when added with yellow orange and red tomatoes in salids and coarse cut salsas. I have grown this for two years and will continue to have this as a novelity plant.

Grown under plastic cover in my zone to get enough heat to mature.

I haven't grown ARGG personally, but we did try it at Tomatopalooza 04 in Raleigh. my wife and I both agreed that it was one of the best tasting tomatoes there, never mind about the color. I believe it was grown in Raleigh.

Michael

This tomato has enough vigor to actully produce tomatoes in this area of Georgia, although several people to whom I furnished plants could not grow them to maturity. The tomatoes resembled an old time beefsteak, i.e., knotty and convoluted. I didn't care for the taste, but I wouldn't consider that unusual except that I could not find anyone else who liked them either. I know northern gardeners who rave about them so maybe they taste better up north. Sixty years ago I grew 'Evergreen', and although I don't have a side by side comparison, I don't find 'Aunt Ruby's' to be a significant improvement.

Aunt Ruby's German Green has become a "must grow" for me. The flavor is simply outstanding. The plants are always very vigorous growing and hardy in my MA garden and yield is very acceptable.

Thank you Ruby Arnold, may you rest in peace knowing your tomatoes live on:)

I had mixed (actually fairly negative) results with this plant this year. But that may have been due to our very strange (hot, cold, wet, hot, cold, wet) spring that delayed getting my plants out. The seedlings of Aunt Ruby didn't hold up nearly as well as some other varieties, and many (all?) of them wimped out and died before they set fruit (if there are any survivors, I haven't seen fruit from them yet.)

I will try them again, though - they're too interesting to permanently shelve.

I agree with everything Melody wrote. This has become my wife's favorite tomato. Even if you only grow a few plants, I would suggest you give this one a try.

These tomatoes are about 1 pound or a little less.They ripen a true green on the outside with the flesh a chartruse shade,sometimes with a pink blush.

They have a wonderful spicy taste and are best when used fresh.Use another tomato if you are planning on cooking or processing them.These have the texture and feel of a conventionally colored tomato and should never be used for fried green tomatoes.Only unripe tomatoes will work with this recipe.

The tomato is ripe when the green skin gets an amber blush as seen in the photo.It may take some practice to determine ripeness,but they are well worth it.

This Regular Leafed plant is not overly productive,but the unique taste and coloration make up for it.