Solanum lycopersicum
Banana Legs Tomato: its bright yellow fruits, long and tapered like small bananas, grow in clusters at the ends of the stems. 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 colour and surprisingly mild flavour.
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 flavour, very different from red tomatoes.
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Firm, low-juice flesh: ideal for sauces or drying, without 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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Position: 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 it is determinate, 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. Mulch thickly.
- As its light foliage provides little protection for the fruits, watch for sunscald on fruits exposed to the midday sun in the hottest regions.
- Do not remove the side shoots: in 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. Note: in a yellow variety, a pale fruit is still green, not ripe.
- Store at room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
Beneficial companion plants:
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, it broadens the diversity of colours and shapes in the vegetable garden. See our rare and unusual seeds.
Uses:
- In yellow sauces, dried, or raw in salads, where its elongated shape looks attractive when cut into slices. Its low acidity is well suited to palates that find red tomatoes too sharp.
Saving your own seeds:
Scoop out the pulp from a fully ripe fruit and leave it to ferment for two to three days in a little water—this step destroys 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 all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Volcanoes of Auvergne, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our belief is to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
A mild, easy-to-manage yellow sauce tomato.
