Carbon Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum 'Carbon'
- Annual
- Vegetable
- Heirloom
- Indeterminate
- Organic
A richly flavored black heirloom beefsteak with meaty texture and dark, olive-shouldered fruit that resists cracking.
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‘Carbon’ is a celebrated black heirloom beefsteak, producing big, blocky-round fruit that ripens from dark olive shoulders to a deep brick red. It is grown above all for flavor — rich, complex, and full, with the dense, meaty texture prized in dark tomatoes.
A better-behaved black
Large black tomatoes are notorious for cracking and cat-facing, but ‘Carbon’ resists both better than most, while keeping a well-balanced, productive plant. It is grown to USDA Organic standards.
Care tips
Grow in full sun with strong staking or caging for the indeterminate vines. Harvest when the fruit has fully colored and gives slightly to a gentle squeeze.
Fun Fact
'Carbon' gets its deep, almost-black shoulders from layered pigments: red lycopene inside and purple-black anthocyanins in the skin where sunlight hits. Studies suggest tomatoes with high anthocyanin levels may have greater antioxidant activity than ordinary red varieties.
Habitat & form
Where it's from and what to expect.
- Native range
- Western South America (the species); this heirloom was developed in the United States
- Plant type
- Vegetable
- Mature size
- Indeterminate, with a well-balanced habit.
- Bloom
- Blocky-round 10–14 oz. fruit, dark olive shoulders fading to dark brick red; about 76 days to harvest.
Care
How to keep it happy.
- Pruning
- Maintenance: pinch out the suckers in the leaf joints and remove lower leaves for airflow as the indeterminate vines climb their stakes; top the plant late in the season to ripen the last fruit.