Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-6 Experience)
Mid-season variety, climbing over 6 ft (1.8 m) tall.
The fruit are large, two-toned bicolors, very meaty and sweet. This was my top pleasant surprise of the 2015 season! A truly wonderful variety that held up like a champ through a cold, soggy summer.
Edited September 11, 2015 by Drosera
Really enjoyed this variety. Eye-catching, heavy-yielding, and thoroughly delicious, just like the vast majority of good bicolors.
Big fan of this one. Ran it along the sunny side bed of the greenhouse. High-yielding, juicy, and very tasty.
The only issue was cracking when a relentless week of heavy rains battered us and the soil flooded along that side of the foundation.
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Full Summary: Plant Vigor, Fruit Profile & Weather Tolerance
- 🌿 Growth Habit: Indeterminate vine easily exceeding 6 ft (1.8 m). Features standard regular foliage and stout stems that benefit from 1-to-2 leader training and sturdy trellising to support large beefsteaks.
- 🍅 Fruit & Striping: Large, oblate beefsteaks ranging from 10 to 18 oz (280-500 g). The base color is a golden yellow-orange with delicate ruby-crimson stripes radiating across the shoulders and blossom end. The interior is marbled with swirls of red and gold.
- 👅 Flavor Profile: Low-acid, remarkably sweet, and fruity. Delivers the classic sweet, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth flavor characteristic of vintage American bicolors.
- 🌧️ Cool-Season Resilience & Cracking: Sets and ripens reliably even during cool, overcast, and rainy northern summers. However, like many tender-skinned beefsteaks, prolonged soil flooding can lead to shoulder skin splits.
- 🌎 Proven Climates: Successfully harvested in cold-winter, short-season European continental zones (USDA Zones 4 and 6b).
Minnie’s Pin Striped is a traditional American heirloom belonging to the celebrated family of yellow-and-red bicolor beefsteaks (alongside historic varieties like Pineapple, Old German, and Big Rainbow). It is named for the fine, crimson pencil-stripes (pinstripes) that bleed upward through the golden skin as it ripens.
The grower note about fruit cracking during heavy rain highlights a classic challenge when growing large bicolors. These varieties have thin, tender skins that make for exquisite eating quality, but have lower elasticity. If heavy outdoor rainwater seeps under high-tunnel sideboards, the sudden surge in root hydrostatic pressure forces water into ripening cells faster than the skin can expand, causing radial cracking. Digging exterior drainage trenches around high tunnels or mulching deeply helps moderate root moisture spikes.
