Solanum lycopersicum
Banana Legs Tomato: its bright yellow fruits, long and tapered like small bananas, grow in clusters at the ends of the branches. This is a yellow sauce tomato—a rare thing—with flesh that is not very juicy and very low in acidity, producing sauces with an unexpected color and surprisingly mild flavor.
Characteristics:
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Elongated shape: bright yellow fruits measuring 8 to 10 cm, tapered, with smooth skin.
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Low acidity: mild, slightly sweet flavor, very different from red tomatoes.
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Firm, low-juice flesh: ideal for sauces or drying, with little excess water to evaporate.
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Determinate variety: it stops growing on its own at around 1.20 m, making it easier to manage.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: full sun and warmth.
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Soil: rich, loose and well-drained, enriched with well-rotted compost.
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Method: sow from February to April under cover or indoors, at a minimum of 20 °C—below this temperature, the seeds will not germinate. Cover with 5 mm of soil. Transplant into pots at the two-true-leaf stage. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant outdoors after the last frosts, spacing plants 60 cm apart. Bury the stem up to the first leaves: the tomato produces roots along the entire buried section, resulting in a more vigorous plant.
- As a determinate variety, it only needs light support. Its foliage is naturally sparse: this is a characteristic of the variety, not a sign of deficiency.
Care advice:
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Always water at the base, never over the foliage, preferably in the morning: water on the leaves provides an entry point for blight. Apply a thick mulch.
- Because its light foliage provides little protection for the fruit, watch for sunscald on fruits exposed to the midday sun in the hottest regions.
- Do not remove the suckers: on a determinate variety, they bear a significant part of the harvest.
- Rotate crops every three to four years.
Harvesting advice:
- Harvest when the yellow is clear and the fruit is slightly soft. Warning: with a yellow variety, a pale fruit is still green, not ripe.
- Store at room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
Beneficial companions:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its flowers are pollinated by vibration: only bumblebees make full use of them. Welcoming bumblebees directly improves your harvest.
- As an uncommon, seed-saving variety, its cultivation expands the diversity of colors and shapes in the vegetable garden. See our rare and unusual seeds.
Uses:
- In yellow sauces and coulis, dried, or raw in salads, where its elongated shape looks attractive cut into rounds. Its low acidity is well suited to palates that find red tomatoes too sharp.
Saving your own seeds:
Take the pulp from a fully ripe fruit and let it ferment for two to three days in a little water—this step breaks down the gelatinous coating that inhibits germination—then rinse: the healthy seeds sink to the bottom. Dry them flat. See how to save your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for living organisms as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
A mild, easy-to-manage yellow sauce tomato.
