Solanum lycopersicum Seeds | Banana Legs Tomato
LATIN NAME: Solanum lycopersicum
COMMON NAME: Banana Legs Tomato
Plant Profile
Banana Legs is a yellow paste tomato with long, tapered fruit up to 10 cm, pale gold at maturity and mild, almost fruity in flavour. Plants are determinate, 90-120 cm high, and carry heavy clusters that ripen over three or four weeks.
The fruit is meaty with few seeds, which makes it a paste type in practice, but the colour and the sweetness push it toward fresh use. Sliced lengthways it looks like a small yellow pepper, and it holds its shape when roasted or grilled.
The variety comes from a family of yellow and orange paste tomatoes developed in North America in the late twentieth century, and it has remained popular with growers who want something other than red sauce.
Science & Biotechnology
The yellow colour comes from a shift in the carotenoid pathway: instead of accumulating lycopene, the fruit builds up beta-carotene and other yellow pigments, controlled by the r and y genes that breeders have moved between tomato lines for decades. Yellow tomatoes are therefore not unripe red ones; they are a different chemical end point.
Banana Legs also carries the elongated-fruit genes of the paste group, which is why the fruit has a high pericarp-to-jelly ratio and dries well. The combination of low seed gel and firm flesh makes it a good candidate for oven-drying, where a juicier tomato would collapse.
Flavour in yellow types is often described as milder, and there is a reason: they tend to have lower acidity and a different volatile profile, with fewer of the green, grassy notes that come from the red-fruited lines. That makes them a poor substitute in a sauce that needs acidity, and a good one in a salad.
Uses & Benefits
Roasted with oil and thyme, halved lengthways, the fruit keeps its shape and caramelises at the edges. It also dries well, and a tray of halved Banana Legs in a low oven will give sweet, leathery pieces for winter use. Fresh, the mild flavour suits salads and salsas where a red tomato would dominate.
In the garden the determinate habit and the bright fruit make it a good patio plant, and the colour is a useful change from the usual red. Children tend to eat yellow tomatoes that they would refuse in red. Commercially the variety is a seed-catalogue item rather than a market crop, grown by gardeners who want something specific.
Growing from Seed
Sow at 20-24°C, 5 mm deep, six weeks before the last frost, and germinate in seven to ten days. Grow the seedlings on cool and bright, and pot on once before planting out.
Set out at 50 cm apart in full sun and fertile soil, and stake at planting: even a determinate plant will fall over under a heavy crop. Water steadily, mulch to hold moisture, and feed with potassium once the first fruit sets. Because the plants are determinate, leave the terminal cluster alone. Pick when the fruit is evenly gold and gives slightly at the tip; overripe fruit goes soft quickly.
Our Take
A paste tomato for people who are bored of red sauce, and a good one for roasting and drying when the main crop is already in jars.
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