📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Cowboy
- 🌍 Origin: A highly sought-after release from Canadian tomato breeder Karen Olivier. It was named in honor of her father, Harold Borle (a lifelong passionate horseback rider and chuckwagon driver), and specifically named “Cowboy” to match the reddish-brown coat of his favorite horse.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Produces a sturdy, vigorous vine with large leaves. In a greenhouse, it easily reaches 6 to 6.5 feet (1.8-2 m). Known for its outstanding disease resistance and ability to handle unstable, unpredictable weather.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, oblate beefsteaks with a glossy dark chocolate/mahogany skin. They are hefty, typically weighing between 14 and 21 oz (400-600 g). The fruit set is so heavy you will need to support the trusses to prevent snapping!
- 👅 Flavor: An absolute masterpiece of a dark tomato. The flesh is dense, meaty, and juicy. It delivers a rich, deep, intense flavor with a perfect balance of sweetness and complex tangy/earthy notes that linger.
Next season a lot of folks will be growing new varieties bred by Karen Olivier from Canada. I was lucky enough to grow some of them in my garden, right in my own climate conditions.
The absolute highlight of the past season was undeniably this stunner, COWBOY.
I was really looking forward to this release, so here are my impressions 😊
Absolute favorite of the season!
A highly anticipated, joy of a variety, thanks to its beautiful, massive fruits with reddish-brown skin. The color is very similar to the coat of Karen’s father’s favorite horse, which this wonderful variety is actually named after.
Her father, Harold Borle, was a chuckwagon driver and a passionate horseback rider to the very end of his life.
Large, oblate beefsteaks weighing 14-21 oz (400-600 g) with a glossy dark chocolate skin. It ripened so many of them that I had to support not just the main stems, but tie up all the heavy fruit trusses too.
The plants themselves were quite sturdy, tall, with large leaves. Grew it in the greenhouse, stems reached 6-6.5 feet (1.8-2 m). It’s very telling that even in its first year growing in our climate, it managed to surprise me with an outstanding fruit set. I pruned the bushes strictly to 2 stems.
How do I even describe the taste of these fruits?… Rich, deep, outstanding dark tomato flavor, a taste that sticks with you for a long time! The flesh is dense, meaty, with an intense aroma and complex tangy notes.
Gorgeous variety! Extremely promising, beautiful, with a long, extended harvest window. I was still pulling the last fruits at the end of September.
Turned out to be very resilient to our unstable weather, with excellent disease resistance.
Every variety from Karen that I’ve grown has been flawless! But COWBOY is the true masterpiece of her breeding work! (just my personal opinion)
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My Cowboy seeds came from Olya Degtyareva. The plant is super healthy, sets fruit perfectly, delicious, a great balance of sweetness and acidity, which is surprising to me for a black tomato. Very juicy.
