Karen Olivier is an independent tomato breeder here in the PNW based near Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island. We are very excited to have been introduced to her work on the recommendation of a farmer friend and had the opportunity trial some of her varieties at the home farm this year. Midnight Sun (and its sibling Taiga) are part of her "True North" series of ox-heart tomatoes bred for a combination of cool season production, beautiful and unusual bi-color appearance, and, most importantly, flavor. Midnight Sun is a stunner: a long slender yellow oxheart streaked with red often from the blossom end upwards. Vertically sliced cross sections are works of art. Its a bit slenderer and a shier producer than its sibling 'Taiga', but its sweetness is off the charts and its flavor a bit brighter (neither superior, just different). The flesh is meaty with few seeds and excellent texture. The potato leaf plants showed very little fruit cracking in a season where many of our tomatoes struggled with this. Oxheart types grow a little differently than many our our favorite tomatoes and require a different strategy to maximize harvests. Rather than a strong central stem and abundant foliage that lends itself to more common two leader pruning and "florida weave" style trellising, most oxhearts display slender willowy leaders, sparse leaf coverage, and many suckers that we only very minimally prune in order to prevent sun scald and maximize fruit yield. 80 days, Indeterminate. UO
