Mid season variety that takes about 85 days to ripen, growing on indeterminate vines.
The Flathead Monster tomato was first seen in the 2005 Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook, and was donated by Dorothy Beiswenger of Crookston, Minnesota. According to Dorothy, she got the seeds from a gardener who surprisingly found large yellow fruit on a Pruden’s Purple vine. The story gets a bit mucky because several people who grew seeds from Dorothy state that it is a potato leaf descendant of the iconic Black Krim. This story claims the Flat Head Monster showed up in a patch of Black Krim tomato vines, but produced orange fruit with green shoulders and flavor very similar to the Black Krim. It is believed that it is a mutation of the Black Krim line. Yet, Bill Malin from New Mexico says that Dorothy named the tomato after the Flathead River in Montana which was where her grandparents farmed in the early turn of the century. If that isn’t enough confusion, some of the plants grown out by Bill’s friends reported black, pink, and orange fruits, leaving a lot of variation suggesting potentially several crosses on the market.
Whatever story you subscribe to of its origin, the Flat Head Monster is a very unique tomato variety and for fanatic tomato growers it is not to be missed.
The fruits are average size beefsteaks like the Black Krim and range from 5 ounces to 17 ounces, but are bright orange with green shoulders. The flavor is a rich tomato flavor with salt and smoky overtones.
