Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-6 Experience)
Another new release from Karen Olivier!
ONE TRICK PONY, a variety with quite an original name. Trying to translate it into Russian literally makes no sense, since “one trick pony” is an English expression for someone known for only a single talent or skill.
I actually reached out and asked Karen directly: “What should we do about translating this into Russian? Our gardeners will inevitably try to run it through a translator like always…”
Here is what Karen told me herself:
“Don’t think it will translate into Russian well. One Trick Pony is an expression which means essentially someone who is only good at one thing. Someone had said to me, and not in a flattering way, that I only breed potato leaf tomatoes. Which is not the case, and so in a sort of sarcastic way, I named that tomato One Trick Pony to show that in fact, I am not a one trick pony. So I don’t think it will translate well at all, I would just call it One Trick Pony in English. Most likely, your customers will go ahead and try to translate it themselves I suppose.
If I see a tomato next year called ‘small horse with one talent’, I will blame Google Translate! 😂”
– Karen Olivier
The variety turned out to be absolutely stellar! Plants were grown in the greenhouse, given prime real estate.
Fruits are a striking smoky purple-violet color, averaging around 12.5 oz (350 g), with the early fruits easily hitting 14 to 17.5 oz (400-500 g). Flattened-round beefsteaks with dense, buttery flesh.
Vigorous, tall vines with regular foliage, climbing 6 to 6.5 feet (1.8-2 m) under cover. Trained strictly to two stems. Sets fruit evenly and keeps producing right up until hard frost. Gardeners are going to fall in love with this one!
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Pure perfection!
I’ve been trying to grow black tomatoes for years now, but none of them ever hit the mark. Sure, they cranked out fruit and weren’t fussy, but the flavor was always off. Whether Kaliningrad lacks enough sunshine or my soil just isn’t right, dark varieties always came out bland, watery, and completely lacking sweetness.
One Trick Pony completely blew me away. It is so delicious! Incredibly juicy, with a texture that is out of this world, not rubbery-dense, but truly melting in your mouth. Usually my dark tomatoes turn into mealy mush, but this one is in a totally different league.
Only got one photo unfortunately while seed-saving, but look at that mouthwatering cross-section! The lighting made the top look washed out like it has green shoulders, but in reality it’s just a faint olive cap on the skin; inside, the flesh is deep, tender, and completely free of hard green cores.
On top of that, the tomatoes keep remarkably well on the counter: they don’t split, don’t spoil, and don’t lose their flavor. Size is right on the money, neither tiny nor monstrous, right around 10.5 to 14 oz (300-400 g). That’s a massive dinner plate in the photo, so you can see they pack serious heft!
One Trick Pony. Local vendors are already listing it literally as “Pony with One Trick” on their seed lists!
Wonderful variety. Grew in the greenhouse trained to two leaders, heavy producer, set fruit all the way up to the greenhouse roof. Tomatoes were uniform, round, firm, and delicious. Deep brown skin with lighter shoulders, weighing 7 to 10.5 oz (200-300 g), topping out around 14 oz (400 g).
Full Summary: Plant, Breeder Lore, Yield and Flavor
- 🌿 Plant & Breeding Background: Bred by Karen Olivier (Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada). Famous for her potato-leaf lines like Taiga and Midnight Sun, Karen created this regular-leaf (RL) variety as a playful, sarcastic reply to a critic claiming she was a “one trick pony” who could only breed potato-leaf lines. The plant is a vigorous indeterminate reaching 6 to 6.5 ft (1.8-2 m) under glass.
- 📈 Yield & Setting: Exceptionally heavy producer. Sets continuously from bottom trusses right up to the greenhouse roof. Fruit weights range from 7 to 17.5 oz (200-500 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Silky, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth flesh without turning mealy or mushy. Rich, complex sweetness that develops fully even in low-sun, overcast maritime zones (like the Baltic coast) where other dark heirlooms turn bland.
- 📦 Storage: Surprisingly durable skin for an heirloom dark slicer; does not crack or split in damp weather and stores exceptionally well off the vine.
- 🌎 Who Reviewed It: Three experienced northern growers across USDA Zones 4-6: Natalya (Yaroslavl), wilena (Kaliningrad), and Svetlana/Svetikk (Moscow Region).
The dialogue between Natalya and Canadian breeder Karen Olivier in this thread captures one of the funniest linguistic moments in modern heirloom breeding. When Karen joked that automated tools would inevitably translate “One Trick Pony” into something absurd like “small horse with one talent,” she was dead on. Russian seed sellers promptly began listing the variety in catalogs as Pony s odnim tryukom (literally “A Pony with One Stunt”), completely oblivious to the sarcastic regular-leaf vs. potato-leaf backstory behind the name!
