Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Fruit & Vegetable Seeds

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Robert Pavlis

It’s almost time to start buying seeds and it’s easy to find all sorts of unusual seeds. The rainbow tomatoes shown below are very popular, but what kind of tomatoes do they produce?

What about blue strawberries and purple pumpkins – they sound delicious. The one I am really interested in is the new vegan burger tree seed.

Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Vegetable Seeds
Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Vegetable Seeds, photo source: Family Resale Store

Rainbow Tomatoes

Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Vegetable Seeds
Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Vegetable Seeds
Grown from rainbow tomato seed
Grown from rainbow tomato seed

It’s hard to believe people fall for these. How many plants produce fruits of different colors on the same plant? None that I know of.

But these seeds look like fun and some gardeners have tried them. The ones I talked to, all got red tomatoes, as shown in the picture.

Rainbow Blends

There are some rainbow blends which are are mixture of different cultivars. The Heirloom Rainbow Blend Tomato includes black, pink, red or yellow Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, White Wonder and Orange Nebraska Wedding. These are not fakes, but each plant will only have one color of fruit.

Heirloom Rainbow Blend Tomato
Heirloom Rainbow Blend Tomato are not fakes, photo source: Home Depot

Blue Strawberries

In 1998, some research produced a GMO strawberry, when the antifreeze gene from an Arctic flounder was introduced into the strawberry. This resulted in blue strawberries.

Growing Great Tomaotes, by Robert Pavlis
Blue strawberries - fakes
Blue strawberries – fakes, photo source: Ebay
Fake rainbow strawberry
Fake rainbow strawberry, photo source: Banggood

Many myths are based on some truth and in this case the GMO strawberry was actually produced. But it was not blue which is the result of an imaginative graphic artist with some cool software – actually almost anyone can do this coloring these days.

Blue strawberries do not exist, and before you ask, neither do the black ones, or the spectacular rainbow ones.

If you are looking for fake seeds of any kind – Ebay is a great place to loose some money.

Fake Pumpkins

Fall can be kind of boring – all those reds and oranges. Why not spice things up with blue, purple and yellow.

I really like this picture. They included a real pumpkin just to give the ad some credibility, but if you look closely at the picture the other ones all look like they have fake backgrounds or no backgrounds which are even easier to photoshop.

Fake pumpkins
Fake pumpkins, photo source: Fake Botanicals

Fake Wasabi Seeds

I have never thought of growing wasabi from seed but I guess there is interest in this or else people would not fake them. Actually that is not true. You can buy thousands of different rare seeds but all you get is junk.

These seeds are too small and the wrong color. “Wasabi seeds are normally in the region of 5-8mm in diameter, black or dark brown in colour and have slight wrinkling in the seed coating.”

This pack contained two types of seeds, probably mustard and weed seed.

Fake wasabi seed, photo source: World of Wasabi
Fake wasabi seed, photo source: World of Wasabi

Fake Giant Strawberries

Strawberries are getting bigger and bigger, but some of the seeds being sold are just ridiculous fakes.

The picture below is a bit over the top but there are many other exaggerated pictures on the internet. I like the title of this one: “Milk Strawberry bonsai Super Giant strawberries plant Fruit NON-GMO Very Sweet Juicy”. OK, so the translation from Chinese (AliExpress is a Chinese company) is not very good, but how can it be both a giant and a bonsai? At least it’s not a GMO.

Fake giant strawberries
Fake giant strawberries, photo source: AliExpress

A Pear of Buddhas

Sold as “Sapodilla Solanum, pear Buddha” seeds. A pear is neither sapodilla nor solanum (a tomato), but they are so cute people will buy them. And after waiting 8 years for the seed to produce fruit, they will be disappointed.

These were probably grown in a mold and based on the color, they might be Asian pears.

A fake pear of Buddhas, photo source:
A fake pear of Buddhas, photo source: Fake Botanicals

Fake Picture Giveaway

How can you tell a real picture from a fake? Have a close look at the color. If it is all one color it’s a fake. In nature fruits are never just one color. You see different shades of color in each fruit – but this is much harder to fake in software, although it can be done.

Fake Vegan Burger Tree

Fake Vegan Burger Tree
Fake Vegan Burger Tree, photo source: Test Out

Seeds are available from Garden Fundamentals for only $10 per package, enough to grow hundreds of fake burgers.

 

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Robert Pavlis

I have been gardening my whole life and have a science background. Besides writing and speaking about gardening, I own and operate a 6 acre private garden called Aspen Grove Gardens which now has over 3,000 perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees. Yes--I am a plantaholic!

19 thoughts on “Rainbow Tomatoes and Other Fake Fruit & Vegetable Seeds”

  1. I love they way the various “rainbow-colored” tomatoes growing on the same stalk all magically ripened to their various perfect rainbow hues at exactly the same time.
    🙃

    Reply
  2. I’ve eaten a blue strawberry before, someweres I seen that 1 in a million strawberries are blue but I can’t fi d anything about blue strawberry anywhere online. But yes I eaten a blue strawberry that was 1 in a pack of regular strawberries from the store.

    Reply
  3. I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for the fake colored tomato seeds con. I paid by credit card and never received the seeds.

    Reply

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