Wickenburg Tomato is a smallish, plum-type heirloom from Arizona's low desert that has been grown and treasured for generations. These productive plants mature quickly in just 75 days and handle arid conditions with impressive resilience, making them a natural choice for gardeners in hot, dry climates. The tomatoes are excellent fresh and also produce a dense, mellow sauce with a fulsome, delicious character that professional chefs appreciate. This is a genuine landrace variety with deep roots in the Prescott area at 5,300 feet elevation, shared for years by former State Senator John Upton Hays.
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These small plum tomatoes combine exceptional productivity with remarkable heat and drought tolerance, thriving at both low desert and high elevation conditions. The flavor is distinctive: mellow and balanced rather than aggressively acidic, with enough body to make a rich sauce despite the fruit's modest size. This is a variety with genuine provenance, rescued and preserved by someone who knew it personally, making it more than just another heirloom on the seed rack.
Fresh eating is where these tomatoes shine, offering a balanced, mellow flavor that works beautifully in salads and as table tomatoes. The dense flesh and sauce-making quality also make them excellent for cooking down into tomato sauce or paste, where the fulsome flavor concentrates beautifully. Home cooks and professionals alike value the productivity of the plants, which means you get substantial harvests for both fresh use and kitchen projects.
No timeline data available yet for this variety.
Sow seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last spring frost date. Keep soil at 68 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit for reliable germination. Transplant to larger containers once seedlings develop their first true leaves and continue growing under bright light.
Harden off seedlings by gradually exposing them to outdoor conditions over 7 to 10 days. Transplant outdoors after all danger of frost has passed and soil temperature reaches at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Space plants 24 inches apart in rows 36 inches apart, burying the stem deeper than it was in the pot to encourage additional root development.
Pick fruit when it reaches full color and yields slightly to gentle pressure, typically around 75 days from transplanting. Wickenburg Tomatoes can be harvested at the breaker stage (when color just begins to show) and ripened indoors, or left on the vine for full flavor development. If early frosts threaten, pick all remaining fruit and ripen them indoors on a sunny windowsill or paper bag. Twist and lift ripe tomatoes gently from the vine, or use pruners to avoid damaging the plant.
As an indeterminate variety, Wickenburg Tomatoes will grow continuously throughout the season and benefit from some pruning to manage vigor and improve air circulation. Prune off the lower leaves as the plant grows to reduce disease pressure and direct energy toward fruit production. Pinch or remove suckers (shoots that grow between the main stem and branches) to keep the plant more manageable, especially if you're trellising. However, avoid aggressive pruning that removes too much foliage, as the plants need sufficient leaf area to protect fruit from sunscald in hot, arid climates.
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“The Wickenburg Tomato traces its journey through a single human connection: former State Senator John Upton Hays, who grew this variety in Prescott, Arizona for years and shared the seed with others. Chef Molly Beverly, a partner farmer, uncovered this history while growing the tomatoes in 2021 and working with Native Seeds/SEARCH to preserve and document the variety. The plant's origins lie in the low desert at roughly 2,000 feet elevation, but its ability to thrive at Prescott's much higher altitude of 5,300 feet speaks to its adaptability and suggests it may have been selected and refined over decades by farmers navigating Arizona's diverse growing zones. This is a tomato that was kept alive through the simple act of sharing seed, a story that reflects how many heirlooms survive: through the hands of people who believed they were worth growing.”