Tomato Lemon Tree – Unusual shaped yellow fruit

A medium sized yellow tomato shaped a bit like a lemon with pointy end.

Description

We got this from the Lost Gardens of Heligan when we visited in June 2019. Obviously too late to try in 2019 so we grew this for the first time in 2020.

Looking around the web it seems a slightly strange tomato, not very sweet and lemon shaped. Not sure whether they’re worth growing again as they don’t have a terrific taste.

Late June 2020: having sown, transplanted and planted this at the same time as most of the rest of the tomatoes, Lemon Tree seems to be slow to produce fruit (in other words nothing yet). Its also growing slightly strangely. Its not a very strong plant (its next to Ildi but at the moment isn’t as tall), the trusses are quite close together (about nine inches) so I’m not expecting it to be a plant that dominates the space and it will probably be a “Compact Indeterminate” topping out at around 4ft or so. An issue is the way that the trusses form and grow. They come off the main stem, the truss forms but then continues to grow. I have chosen to cut the growth off otherwise I think the overall plant will become very straggly and difficult to control. The truss seems to have a reasonable number of flowers (10-20) but I’ve yet to see how many set fruit.

August 2020: The plants have continued to grow and the fruits are ripening (first ones picked 20th). As you can see they are definitely lemon shaped and there are quite a lot of fruit on a truss. Not a fantastic flavour though.

Lemon Tree
Lemon Tree in 2020
Slightly difficult to make it out but lots of medium sized fruit per truss

Quick Facts

  • Fruit Type: Standard
  • Fruit Shape: Lemon Shaped
  • Fruit Size: Medium
  • Fruit Colour: Yellow
  • Flesh Colour: Yellow
  • Plant Type: Indeterminate
  • Seed Type: Heritage
  • Leaf Type: Regular
  • Time to Ripe: Mid/Late – 91 days 2020
  • Taste: A bit “plain”
  • Fruit per Truss: 10-12
  • Truss Spacing: 8-15 inches
  • Alternatives: Nothing this shape but many yellow standard
  • Our Source: Lost Gardens of Heligan

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Prices given are for a packet of seeds (and may be wrong) different suppliers have different numbers of seeds in a packet.

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    Updated: 08/01/2024