Solanum lycopersicum
Merveille des Marchés Tomato: its name says everything about its origins. First appearing around 1880, it was the tomato grown by market gardeners on the green belt around cities, who supplied the market halls early each morning. It was chosen for three qualities rarely found together: flavor, yield, and flesh that does not split.
Characteristics:
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Historic variety: cultivated since the 1880s, it has endured for a century and a half without losing its reputation.
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Beautiful fruits: round and slightly flattened, large in size, with bright red skin and pink flesh containing few seeds.
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Resistant to splitting: more tolerant than average of irregular watering.
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Highly productive: this is what made it the variety of professional growers in the past.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: full sun and warmth.
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Soil: deep, rich, loose, and well-drained, enriched with well-rotted compost.
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Method: sow from February to April under cover, at 20 °C minimum — 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 after the last frosts, spacing plants 70 cm apart. Bury the stem up to the first leaves: tomatoes produce roots along the entire buried section, resulting in a more vigorous plant.
- This is an indeterminate variety: install a sturdy stake as soon as you plant it.
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, which is especially prevalent in mild, humid weather. Apply a thick mulch.
- Give the plants plenty of air and avoid crowding them: good air circulation is the best prevention against fungal diseases.
- Water regularly and evenly to prevent blossom-end rot, the black mark beneath the fruit caused by impaired calcium uptake.
- Remove suckers. Rotate crops every three to four years.
Harvesting advice:
- Harvest when fully red, when the fruit yields slightly to finger pressure. Store at room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
Beneficial companions:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its flowers are pollinated by vibration: only bumblebees can fully exploit them. Welcoming bumblebees directly improves your harvest.
- As an heirloom, open-pollinated variety, growing it helps preserve cultivated diversity. See our heirloom tomatoes to sow.
Uses:
- Raw in salads for summer meals, stuffed, or cooked in soups and slow-cooked dishes. Its low seed content makes it pleasant to eat in slices.
Saving your own seeds:
Take the pulp from a beautiful, 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 it: the healthy seeds will sink to the bottom. Dry them flat. See how to store 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 Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, test them for germination rates, and carefully sort and package them without any chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
One hundred and forty years of service in the vegetable garden, and still as relevant as ever.
