Movie buffdom is not my realm; I watch, am entertained (or not), but a week later couldn’t relate the plot if you paid me. With one exception: the closing scene of ‘The Godfather’. The entire movie is iconic, I get it, but that final scene gripped me because of the size of the tomato plants and the tenting beneath which they sheltered. I was intrigued and curious in equal degrees; why tent tomatoes? Bugs? Hail? It never occurred to me that it was to shade the plants! Tomatoes thrive on warmth and sun, right? So….huh? Admittedly, I was living in England and grew tomatoes the foolproof ‘Moneymaker’ variety… in my greenhouse, and my consternation can be forgiven, imho.
But this year, in this particularly scorching summer, the sun belting down and the tomato foliage curling up in an attempt to save themselves, I discovered that, yes, Ethne, they do need shading to do their best; there’s always something new to learn in gardening. Out came the shade cloth and clothes pins to shroud my precious plants of ‘Costoluco di Firenze’, raised from seed I brought back from my most recent trip to Italy.
The fruit is oxheart in shape, meaty and sweet. The first year I grew them, 6 or 7 years ago, each tomato was at least 8oz, if not more. Astounding. But back then, before the climate started punishing us for not taking better care of it, it rained most afternoons, the breeze was soft and the clouds fleeting. And each year since, the crop is thinner, the plants less sturdy, the sun hotter and grasshoppers bigger. In short, despite the best hort practice to feed the soil, it’s enough to make me take up crocheting potholders.
However…this year will be different. Because for the first time I am also growing ‘patio tomatoes’, primarily for my 6-year-old grandson, Donovan, who eats these marble size fruits like he does grapes — by the handful. The sturdy plants grouped in a large urn make a pretty show (largely because the grasshoppers can’t get at the leaves), and I hope that they’ll be as prolific as the so-called “currant” tomatoes I read about in Uncommon Vegetables, by the English garden historian, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde. Published in 1943, this little volume – 94 pages only – is a A-Z of what was then weird and wonderful for the edible garden maker.
The final entry on page 93 is for Tomatoes and covers just two varieties: Yellow Tomatoes and Currant Tomatoes. In closing, Rohde refers to “Weathers’ book” of 1901. This would be A Practical Guide to Garden Plants, a doorstop of a book coming in at 1200 + pages, with 163 illustrations. Weathers’ detailed entry for tomatoes describes his seeing a currant tomato plant that had been “allowed to grow wild”. I actually knew a plant in an east coast garden’s greenhouse that had been grown like a perennial climber, reaching up into the rafters. Spectacular.
Weathers wrote of his plant that the branches covered 21 square yards with the main stem thick as a man’s wrist, and that “thousands of fruits were borne on the plant.” While it’s fun to know that such a thing can be achieved, I’ll be happy with few fistfuls! Or even just one ginormous Costoluco di Firenze.
©Ethne Clarke 2026
Secondhand copies of Eleanour Sinclair Rohde’s book and John Weather’s book and his many others are available from on online book dealers. His book mentioned here is also available on the Internet Archive.
Seeds of Italy markets Italian Franchi seeds in the USA; their listing for Tomato Red Pear looks as close to my choice ‘Costoluco di Firenze’ as one could wish. https://www.growitalian.com/products/products-tomato2c-red-pear-html