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Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-6 Experience)
Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume (USA). Indeterminate. Heart-shaped fruits, pink, very tasty, weighing up to 10.5 oz (300 g). For gourmet salads.
Edited February 2, 2015 by Drosera
Elena, how productive is this variety? It looks very impressive!
This line completely sold me:
Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume (USA).
…For gourmet salads.
Now I’m gonna agonize over wanting it… 😳😳😳
Elena, what’s its maturity date like?
The yield wasn’t very high for me, they didn’t all manage to ripen because of late blight 😢, hoping for better luck next year. But you really can’t expect massive yields from oxhearts anyway 🤐. The flavor is top notch 👍👍👍!
Outdoors it started ripening in mid-July.
Elena, why “for gourmet salads” in the description? What’s so gourmet about it?
Elena, why “for gourmet salads” in the description? What’s so gourmet about it?
Nelli, I don’t really know much about culinary stuff 😃, the flavor was sweet, the tomato was buttery on the cut, nothing but meat! 😋
Elena, another tomato grown from your seeds 😘 The largest and most productive tomato of my 2014 season. Grown outdoors. Definitely making the planting list for 2015!
Oh, what a beauty. Glad I planted it this year. I’ll be waiting for mine to look just like that.
The variety is frankly mealy, well actually almost all oxhearts taste like cotton… which is exactly why I don’t like them… but this one beat them all out 😃
Lots of tomatoes on the plant, but completely inedible 😉
A variety very much for a specific acquired taste.
Do not recommend planting it.
I actually really like it – meaty, sweet. For 3 years it never tasted like cotton to me.
Productive, delicious variety 😋 just like all oxhearts 😋😋😋 meaty, moderately juicy and aromatic 🥳
Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume in the greenhouse turned out to be a tall vine (6.5 feet / 2 meters), highly productive, mid-season maturity. The fruits were very large and tasty, pink, sweet, and heart-shaped.
The most tireless variety of 2017. Grew over 6.5 feet (2 meters) in the high tunnel and just kept setting and producing until the very end of the season. All fruits were large and beautiful. Drawbacks – during the heat it developed green/hard shoulders and white veins inside; the trusses also kinked under the weight. But if you feed it and support it – excellent variety!
Very productive variety, a true workhorse. Sweet, but there are definitely tastier ones out there. Gets a solid A for yield, B for flavor.
Good productive variety, beautiful uniform hearts. By September almost all the little blunt nubs on the bottom developed into proper heart shapes. Grew in the moderately lit section of the greenhouse.
Excellent productive variety. Pink heart-shaped fruits. Weight is around 10.5 oz (300 g). Pink flesh. Repeated it just to refresh my seed stock and for the harvest.
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Challenges
- 🌿 Plant: Indeterminate vine that regularly tops 6.5 feet (2 m) in a greenhouse setting. Needs good support, as the heavy fruits can kink the trusses.
- 📈 Yield: Widely considered a “workhorse” that produces a heavy set of large, 10.5 oz (300 g) pink oxheart fruits. It performs well both outdoors and in high tunnels.
- 👅 Taste: A point of minor debate. Most growers rate it as a superb, sweet, and meaty classic oxheart (“buttery on the cut”). However, one grower found it unbearably mealy and cottony—a trait oxhearts can exhibit if watered unevenly.
- ⚠️ Challenges: Can be susceptible to late blight if left unprotected outdoors. In high heat, it is prone to developing hard green/yellow shoulders and white internal veins.
- 🌎 Who Reviewed It: Extensively grown and reviewed by gardeners across USDA Zones 3 through 6.
