📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Velue Strieé
- 🌍 Origin: A stunning French heirloom novelty tomato. The name roughly translates to “Striped Velvet”, perfectly describing its unique appearance.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: A semi-determinate to indeterminate plant with the classic “angora” trait—the foliage and stems are covered in dense, soft fuzz, making it look silvery or frosted. Pro Tip: Grow it in full sun; if planted in the shade, it tends to get leggy and stretch for the light.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Small to medium-sized striped fruits that also have a fuzzy, peach-like skin. A true ornamental showstopper. Note that under certain conditions, fruits can develop hard white cores.
- 👅 Flavor & Utility: As is common with many fuzzy/novelty varieties, the flavor is highly debated. Most growers find it leans heavy on the acidic/tart side, and some find it completely bland for fresh eating. It is best used as a visual centerpiece in the garden or processed for canning.
Want to surprise your friends and get some real aesthetic pleasure? Grow Velue Strieé. Its fuzziness is amazing even at the cotyledon stage. You literally just want to pet it.
It didn’t really behave like a true indet for me. The fruits are on the small side, completely tasteless, with white cores inside. Haven’t tried canning them yet. The ones I had planted outdoors didn’t even have time to color up before the season ended. But hey, it’s beautiful.
Grew mine in the greenhouse. Definitely better to plant this one in full sun—mine was in the shade, so it got leggy and stretched way up. The entire yield ended up at the very top of the plant. The fruits are fuzzy, and the foliage is this beautiful fluffy velvet… Just pure beauty.
Svetlana, how was the flavor on it?
azure: Svetlana, how was the flavor on it?
Honestly don’t remember the taste off the top of my head, I’d have to dig through my notes. My husband and I were tasting them together and writing everything down in a notebook. But we didn’t have any spitters.
Here’s how my Velue Strieé turned out. Grew it outdoors. This is the first fruit (it somehow survived a massive hail storm when it was just the size of a pea). It grows beautifully both as a seedling and when planted out in the garden bed.
Flavor-wise, it was definitely on the tart side—a sweet and sour mix, but heavier on the acid. As for height, keeping in mind it had to bounce back from hail damage, it topped out as a semi-determinate around 3.6 ft (110 cm). If it weren’t for the hail, it probably would’ve stayed shorter and put that energy into fruit production. I think it would make a good canning tomato.
