The mid August tomato attack, which led to a scramble to find canning supplies!

Has there ever been a year as unusual as 2020?

I am sure each one of us will have our own take on that question. As I sit here on this long, long overdue blog, my next birthday being age 65, I certainly can’t think of one quite like this in my lifetime. What makes this year particularly unique is that it began with our big move from Raleigh to Hendersonville in mid-January. Soon after - and with only two of my scheduled garden-related trips checked off (Oregon and Connecticut, in February), COVID swooped in and completely changed my plans for the year (as well as everyone else’s, of course). All of my speaking trips were cancelled, I started to get requests to do Zoom webinars, and my Friday Instagram Live sessions were launched to provide a way to share my gardening activities more widely and answer questions posed on the spot.

Though on one level I feel like I’ve communicated quite a bit about what went on in my fledgling Hendersonville garden, my blogging frequency completely fell off the radar, and for that I apologize. With so many modes of communication these days, I feel the need to make an effort to be more disciplined in my newsletters and blogs. And so, for those who don’t do the Instagram thing, many apologies. Now that the active gardening effort is significantly reduced (the tomato plants vanished in late August), I will be spending more time on writing - be it the blogs, newsletters, or my long delayed future books. I also want to get my own webinar series off the ground at last. Stay tuned - it will all happen in good time!

With that off my chest, this will be the first in a series of blogs that go into depth on my 2020 garden - the varieties and rationale for planting, and the results. With over 130 plants this year, I will break the garden review into digestible pieces…otherwise, each blog could end up being a small book!

First comes a bit about my overall rationale for my 2020 tomato choices. First and foremost, I grow tomatoes to provide Sue and I with outstanding specimens to eat and cook with. A selection of our flavor favorites is a top priority. Beyond that, new gardening friends shared some special varieties with me - either recent unexpected discoveries, or family heirlooms that they were so generous to share with me. The dwarf tomato project has held a prominent place in my gardens since its inception, in 2006. I wanted to grow out some of my favorite releases, some recent releases I’d yet to try, and plenty of research and development varieties.

Late June pic of tomato alley - a look down the center of my 12 straw bales, which held 24 indeterminate tomato plants

As to how the tomatoes would be grown, the presence of our septic leech field in our back yard meant that a mixture of containers and straw bales would provide a garden that meant no need to dig a garden bed. The exception was an area near our deck where a selection of our favorite cherry tomatoes were planted. I took a guess as to the best sun exposure when placing the bales and containers (this turned out to be a bit off the mark, as some of the grow bag dwarf tomatoes suffered from a less than optimal location).

With all of the above setting the stage for an in-depth discussion of the varieties I grew and how they performed, let’s begin! What follows is part 1 of my 2020 Indeterminate tomato variety review. All of the tomatoes described below were grown in prepared straw bales, two plants per bale. Each plant was tied to an 8 foot stake. The initial goal of removing all but 3 or 4 suckers was abandoned, and the plants were allowed to do what they would do. (this led to the need for multiple staking, use of chairs, ladders and saw horses to keep some of them reasonably upright, and eventual breakage of many of the stakes!).

Don’s Double Delight - I chose to grow this tomato because it is beautiful, has wonderful flavor and it has been far too long between grow outs. I planted seed lot T13-109 on March 13, and germination occurred 4 days later, on March 17. T13-109 came from T12-24, which came from T11-176. Seeds T11-176 were saved from a tomato given to me by Lee Newman of Raleigh - he discovered and named the variety as a selection from some still segregating material from my Lucky Cross work (Brandywine X a neighboring, unstable striped variety growing next to it in my 1993 garden). Lee named the tomato for his dad, Don. The aim is for a potato leaf, indeterminate plant producing large, smooth oblate tomatoes that were prominently striped scarlet and gold, in the 12-16 ounce range.

This was one of the stars of my 2020 garden, producing numerous tomatoes with the target appearance and weight. My guess is that the plant produced over 30 lbs of tomatoes. This variety is best used as soon as it is 75% colored up, with some green remaining. It has very soft, tender flesh and is one of the more perishable tomatoes I’ve grown. The flesh is on the pale side of pink, and the flavor is balanced and outstanding. Seeds of Don’s Double Delight were saved as T20-1, which is 3 generations removed from the fruit Lee provided to me for seed saving back in 2011. I highly recommend this variety, which is a solid 8 minimum out of 10 for flavor, for its taste, yield and appearance. It is really too recent to be called an heirloom - it is an open pollinated, colorful, delicious variety that should be far more widely grown and enjoyed. I will ensure that Mike Dunton at Victory Seeds receives a sample in hopes of him offering it in his catalog.

I’ve grown Don’s Double Delight only 4 times since the tomato that Lee gave me back in 2011. Based on this year’s yield, flavor and beauty, that needs to be remedied.

Roman Figun - I chose to grow this variety this year because of its excellence in my 2019 garden, excelling despite being grown in a small container with only 2 gallons of planting mix; I wanted to see what it would do if given half of a straw bale. Seed lot T19-121 was planted on March 2, and germinated 3 days later, on March 5. I first grew this family heirloom last year from seed sent to me by Roman Figun - which I logged as lot 6633. Last year it was one of the stars of my garden, producing tomatoes of up to 24 ounces, oblate in shape, quite smooth, pink in color and will a wonderful full flavor.

For whatever reason, it was one of the few varieties that underwhelmed me when my expectations were considered. The plant was always battling a foliage disease that wasn’t quite what I’ve observed for Alternaria (Early Blight). Despite deep and frequent watering and regular feeding, it was one of the few varieties that experienced a good amount of blossom end rot. Better shaped tomatoes came along later in the season, and they were in the 12-16 ounce range, pink, and very flavorful. The best tomatoes ripened along with many other varieties and I suspect that I didn’t end up paying enough attention to its specific attributes. I did send a sample to Mike at Victory last year, and await his opinion and the chance of it appearing in future catalogs. To me, this variety is very much like the old tomato Ponderosa, from the late 1800s. There are a lot of regular leaf, large pink oblate delicious tomatoes, and it would take significant DNA testing to determine how genetically alike or dissimilar they are from each other. Seeds from this year were saved as T20-2. My overall opinion on Roman Figun is that it is a fine flavored, worthwhile tomato to grow for those that like them large and pink and with a nicely balanced flavor. It deserves another chance in my garden at some point in the future. It may not end up being a variety that graces every year’s garden, but I will return to it soon to give it another chance to shine in Hendersonville.

Dester, showing the ideal interior structure of a great tomato

Dester - Dester has become a regular in my gardens since first acquiring it, so including it in my 2020 garden for a prime eating tomato was an easy decision. Seeds of T18-2 were planted on March 2, and germinated 4 days later, on March 6. T18-2 came from T16-172, which came from T15-70, which came from T13-134, which came from T12-19, which came from 3506, sent to me in 2012 by the Seed Savers Exchange. I was fortunate to have attended the SSE tomato tasting in 2011, and Dester to me was the best tasting tomato there. It originated with the Dester family in Germany, a family that moved to the US, and seed was sent by housekeeper Anna to Larry Pierce, a grower for Baker Creek. It is a variety that has yet to fail to be outstanding.

Dester in my 2012 garden was saved as T20-3. The plant was absolutely knock out prolific, pumping out at least 25 lbs of 16 ounce average fairly smooth, regular, oblate pink tomatoes. The flavor was superb, with the tomatoes varying between 8 and 9 out of 10 on my flavor scale. The interior structure showed my ideal for a slicing tomato, meaty with small seed cavities spread throughout the slices. Dester is a tomato that has perfect flavor balance between sweet and tart, along with intensity - it is a tomato for those who love the flavor of tomatoes. It also shows a good ability to tolerate the common tomato afflictions.

Though Dester is only a fairly recent addition to my tomato collection, I’ve now grown it 6 times since obtaining it in 2012. I can certainly see this being a regular in my gardens.

Lucky Cross - From the beginning of my heirloom tomato obsession, the large bicolor beefsteak types (Old German, Pineapple, Ruby Gold and so many others) frustrated me. They were beautiful to look at, impressive in size, but, alas, didn’t “do it” for my taste buds, being too mild, too sweet - in essence, too bland.

In 1997, in growing out a cell of Brandywine saved from my 1993 garden (T93-58), I noted a few regular leaf seedlings among the potato leaf plants. This was my first foray into “growing out the unexpected”, and did I get lucky. The regular leaf plant produced medium large, oblate pink tomatoes with golden stripes, the appearance unique in my experiences. Looking at my 1993 growing log, Brandywine was sitting next to a striped variety called Tad. Tad was a work in progress of a tomato friend at the time, Tad Smith, working to get tomatoes with striped exteriors and bicolored interiors. This explained the unusual Brandywine hybrid, so the bees are responsible for creating the Brandywine X Tad cross.

The seed from the striped hybrid was saved as T97-21. I grew out various seedlings from seed saved from that 1993 inadvertent cross, finding the expected mixture of regular and potato leaf seedlings. One of the potato leaf plants completely blew me away, producing smooth medium sized, yellow tomatoes with red swirls and the delicious, complete flavor of Brandywine. Seeds were saved as T98-66, and thus began the work to create both Lucy Cross and Little Lucky. At that same time, a local professor at Duke, Larry Bohs, learned of my work on this new promising tomato line and offered to help grow out seeds and do selections. I noted quite early on that there were two distinct types of tomatoes emerging. One tended to be round, with medium sized tomatoes, which I ended up naming Little Lucky (another favorite - see my next blog for details from my grow out this year).

The star of this work, however, was a tomato that was like Brandywine in every way - vigorous potato leaf plant, smooth shouldered oblate fruit in the 12-16 ounce plus range, intense, delicious flavor with a nice edge of sharpness or tartness - except it was a yellow/red bicolor, with each fruit showing varying amounts of intense red in and out. This selection was named Lucky Cross, and we felt it reached genetic stability in 2002. It is the only large fruited yellow/red bicolor I crave as an eating tomato, and the combination of beauty and flavor make it quite special and unique.

Lucky Cross in my 2020 garden did not disappoint, and in fact, produced an overwhelming number of 16 ounce plus tomatoes with the lovely red/yellow swirling and superb flavor. Seed has been saved as T20-4. I grew it from T19-10, which was grown from either T11-14, 11-19 or 11-21 (record keeping error), all F9 generation.

T11-14 came from T02-55, which came from a sample selected by Larry, reference number 1185. Tomato 1185 came from 1141, which came from 1118, which came from T99-46, which came from T98-66 - the original lead from growing out the hybrid.

T11-19 came from T02-62, which came from T01-30, which came from T00-24, which came from 1118, which came from T99-46, which came from T98-66.

T11-21 came from T02-57, which came from T01-59, which came from T00-24 - from 1118 - from 99-46 - from 98-66. So, my confusion in record keeping notwithstanding, there is a common ancestry, a testament that we were seeing pretty good genetic stability by the time we were at Tomato 1118, an F5 selection from the year 2000.

Since naming Lucky Cross in 2000, it is amazing to consider how many plants have graced my gardens - at least 40. It is now considered a can’t-do-without variety in my garden.

Ferris Wheel - It’s hard to believe that Ferris Wheel is in my collection - indeed, is known to anyone these days - because it had a curious, kind of funny name. I remember sifting through the GRIN database on a laptop, using a number search and seeing which tomato varieties were among the oldest in the collection. There was really no description, just a note that it originated from the Salzer Seed Company and was collected from that company in the 1940s. I later found out that Ferris Wheel was released in 1894, so is a truly historic variety that grew in many gardens over the years.

I requested a sample, USDA designation NSL 27341, in 1999, which ended up in vial 1107 using my numbering system. I first grew it in 2001 in a large container in my driveway and was enchanted with the sweet, full flavored large pink tomatoes, seeds saved as T01-50. For my garden this year, I used seed lot T18-5, a spectacular year for the variety, grown in a straw bale in my driveway. T18-5 originated from T14-24, and that from T13-9 (I grew it for photography for my book, Epic Tomatoes, those two years). T13-9 came from the seed from the very first time I grew it, T01-50.

Ferris Wheel performed splendidly this year, the healthy, vigorous plant producing loads of 16 ounce average slightly oblate pink tomatoes with a very special, full, balanced flavor. Seed was saved as T20-5, and that seed is 6 grow outs removed from the original USDA seed sample from 1999.

I’ve grown Ferris Wheel 11 times since obtaining it in 1999, and I now consider it a foundational variety in my annual tomato garden.

Striped Sweetheart from 2019 - correct color, not sufficiently heart shaped

Striped Sweetheart - The Brandywine X Tad tomato cluster produces another winner, Striped Sweetheart. Another find of Lee Newman (see Don’s Double Delight, above), this added a nice, good sized heart shaped variety into the mix. The presence of heart shape in the family is a bit of a mystery, but occasionally shows itself in some selections of Little Lucky. Anna Russian was growing near Brandywine in 1993, and it could be that the bees mixed pollen from two types into the Brandywine flower that led to such diversity in these lines.

Sadly, I didn’t take a picture of Striped Sweetheart this year, but found a pic from 2019, above. My version this year wasn’t as large as I expected or as heart shaped. It also looked to be a pink tomato with gold, whereas my expectations were for a scarlet red tomato with gold stripes. It looked very much like a slightly heart shaped Caitlin’s Lucky Stripe.

I used T19-110 for my source seed for this year’s plant. That originated from T12-185, which itself was from T11-175. That came from a fruit given to me by Lee Newman. I have several vials of seed from Lee and others to return to if I want to do a reselection to confirm the heart shape and color.

I enjoyed the tomatoes harvested from my Striped Sweetheart this year. As with essentially all offspring from the Lucky Cross line/family, the flavor is balanced, yet intense with a jolt of sweetness. Seeds were saved as T20-6. The plant got off to a rocky start, suffering from foliage disease early on. It fought valiantly, and with leaf pruning, ended up growing and yielding just as well as all of my other bale-grown indeterminate varieties.

I’ve only grown Striped Sweetheart 4 times, with varying success. It may grace my garden on occasion, but at this point is not a must-grow variety for me.

Another perfect interior structure - Polish

Polish - This is my first favorite heirloom tomato obtained via a Seed Savers Exchange trade. Back in 1988, from just my second SSE yearbook, I was enticed by the description of the variety as offered by Bill Ellis of Pennsylvania. I requested a seed sample, and it is tomato #89 in my collection (which now is beyond #7000). Prior to growing Polish, it was Nepal, acquired from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in 1986, that started me on my love affair with open pollinated varieties (prior to that I was a Better Boy or Whopper grower, two hybrids).

Polish was a star of my 1989 garden, with very high productivity and absolutely supreme flavor. The vigorous potato leaf plant was very distinct even as a very young seedling, with leaves that were more broad than other potato leaf varieties of my experience. The plant shows significant early vigor as well. The one pound average tomatoes are clear pink in color, the slices meaty, with small seed cavities, and the flavor complex, full and aggressive, yet very well balanced.

Polish did not disappoint in my garden this year, providing a very heavy yield of lovely, delicious tomatoes. I planted seed lot T18-14, and saved seed from this year is in vial T20-7. T18-14 came from T12-21, which came from T01-45, which was from T90-8, originating with the SSE sample #89. This was the 14th year that I’ve grown the variety, and it has now reestablished itself as a must-grow type every year.

Somewhat irregular (but delicious) Cherokee Green showing off its amber colored skin

Cherokee Green - Oh, how I love this tomato, and feel particularly lucky that it showed up in a planting of Cherokee Chocolate in my 1997 Raleigh, NC garden. Cherokee Green has slightly lighter green foliage and the plant “stretches” upward and outward more than Cherokee Purple. For a large tomato, it sets and ripens tomatoes quite early. The variety resists common foliage diseases very well and yields very heavily. It really enjoyed growing in my Hendersonville garden.

The origin of Cherokee Green was one plant of Cherokee Chocolate. An early seed sample of Cherokee Chocolate (from 1995 or 1996) was sent to Darrell Merrill, and he returned saved seed to me in 1997 as #1039. I grew several plants from 1039 in 1997 and one plant produced green fleshed (when ripe), yellow skinned, large delicious tomatoes - equal in quality to Cherokee Purple and Cherokee Chocolate. Seeds were saved as T97-10. Subsequent grow outs indicated that the variety was essentially already stable (if it was indeed a cross, or lingering instability from Cherokee Chocolate).

Seed from my wonderful 2020 result is saved as T20-8. That originated as T19-17, which came from T18-7. I grew that plant from a packet of seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, the first company to carry the variety commercially. I’ve grown Cherokee Green many times, am never disappointed, and it is a fixture in my garden. I’ve grown it more than 25 times since it popped up in my 1997 garden, and is a must grow, annual star.

Ho hum….just another superb big pink tomato, Peak of Perfection. So many great tomatoes seem to be pink!

Peak of Perfection - Yet another wonderful find in the USDA GRIN seed collection, identified when matching my old seed catalog collection with some of their rare accessions. It turns out that Peak of Perfection is a Salzer variety released in 1927 - the birth date of my parents. I requested a seed sample in 1995 and it ended up as tomato #963 in my collection. I grew it that year and saved seed is T95-38.

This year, it was an incredibly vigorous plant that took over its strawbale, produced heavily, yielding consistently large (12-16 ounce) slightly oblate delicious pink tomatoes, with seed saved as T20-9. For this year’s seedlings I planted T13-24. That came from T02-58, which originated with T95-38, the first year I grew the variety from the USDA seed sample.

I find it interesting to ponder the big pink Salzer tomatoes, Ferris Wheel (1894) and Peak of Perfection (1927). Often, older seed companies released their “version” of well known tomatoes of the time. Ferris Wheel was very likely Salzer’s selection of the Henderson variety Ponderosa. Peak of Perfection could be Salzer’s selection of Henderson’s Winsall, or perhaps, their reselection of their own variety Ferris Wheel. DNA testing would help answer these types of questions.

Though this is only the 8th time I’ve grown it, the variety did so well here in Hendersonville that it will become a reasonably regular part of my garden. The competition for large pink varieties is pretty intense.

Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, on the right - next to an experimental dwarf from the Fancy family

Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom - I’ve been growing this variety for 30 years and no yellow tomato has yet to touch it in sheer excellence of flavor. It is late, it is temperamental, but is essential. Still unique in being a large fruited pale yellow variety, Lillian’s holds a most special place in my tomato collection. Just after Epic Tomatoes came out, during an episode of The Splendid Table, Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s last question for me was the “Desert Island” query; if I were to be stranded on a desert island, which three tomato varieties would I bring with me? My choices were Sungold, Cherokee Purple - and Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom.

Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom was sent to me as “Lillian’s Yellow Tomato #1” by Robert Richardson of New York, a Seed Savers Exchange member, back in 1989 - it is cataloged as tomato #163. Robert received it from Lillian Bruce of Manchester, Tennessee. Her sons often attended local fairs or markets and brought Lillian interesting specimens of tomatoes to save seeds from and grow. They really hit the jack pot with this unique beauty.

What is most special about Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom (my name for it, given in 1990) is that the bright yellow flesh is intensely flavored but so well balanced. The texture is perfection, having very small seed cavities with very few seeds. Though it can be late, be stubborn to set fruit, and grow into a monster of a plant, it is worth any trouble to include it in your garden.

For my 2020 grow out I used my sample T19-1. That came from T12-15, which originated with T07-9. That came from T96-60, which was from T90-14, which came from my sample #212, a second packet of seeds sent to me by Robert Richardson. Seed from this year’s crop is saved as T20-10.

All in all, more than 25 plants of Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom have graced my gardens, and it is a centerpiece of every year’s garden. My wife and I can identify it with just one bite, and it is a true tomato treasure, one of the very greatest tomatoes that I am aware of.

Cherokee Purple, right, next to Cherokee Green. Dynamic Duo!

Cherokee Purple - In a way, I owe my current career as a writer/educator/tomato researcher to John D Green and his decision to share seeds of this tomato with me in 1990. There really isn’t much more to say about this fine variety. One thing that showed clearly this year is the relatively compact growth habit when compared to all of my other indeterminate varieties.

The state of Cherokee Purple “out there in the seed world” is a good case study of the growth of heirloom gardening, seed saving and sharing, and proliferation of smaller seed companies. Looking at various postings of pictures of the variety growing in gardens shows the impact of inadvertent crossings, mix ups, or mislabeling. Often, when seeing the tomatoes sold at Farmers Markets, it is clear something is amiss - sometimes the variety is Black Krim, but clearly not Cherokee Purple.

Seed from my 2020, Hendersonville-grown Cherokee Purple is designated T20-11. It was grown from T19-3, which originated with T17-6 or T17-7 (poor record keeping!). Each came from T16-104, which was grown from a really old sample, T02-3 (thankfully, it germinated). T02-3 came from another old sample, T91-27, which came from the seed sent to me unnamed by J. D. Green in 1990 and is vial #287. This means that the Cherokee Purple I grew this year was only 6 grow outs removed from the original seed. To my eyes, it is unchanged - the performance this year (color, size, flavor) match my memory of what the tomato that gave seed T91-27 resulted in.

I’ve grown Cherokee Purple many, many times since first receiving the seed from Mr. Green in 1990, nearly 60 plants having graced my gardens over the years. Of course it is a mainstay in my garden, showing up each and every year and providing delight to Sue and I.

A magnificent specimen of Stump of the World

Stump of the World - Certainly one of the oddest names for a tomato, this is also simply one of the finest flavored varieties of my decades of tomato growing and tasting. Comparing this with Polish and Brandywine (the other two large fruited pink potato leaf varieties in this year’s garden), Stump of the World was the most oblate and the shoulders were more prominently ribbed or ridged (Polish was a bit less oblate and had less prominent ribbing, and Brandywine was the smoothest shouldered). All three are superb in flavor.

My seed start for my 2020 effort, which is saved as T20-12, was T19-4. That originated with T14-28, which I grew from T11-15. Tracing back, that came from T02-27, which came from T95-101, which was grown from T91-87 - the first year I grew the variety, from #135, which was from a Seed Savers Exchange with James Donovan in California in 1989. All told, I’ve grown - and been delighted with - Stump of the World 13 times.

The history of Stump of the World dates back to Ben Quisenberry, and the history is quite fuzzy, with associations with Brandywine and Big Ben. Though I’ve always known Stump of the World as potato leaf, a relative of Ben claims that it was originally regular leaf, and that he didn’t care for the name so changed it to Big Ben (which has also always been potato leaf for me). Ben used to correspond with Ken Ettlinger of Long Island Seed and Plant, and another piece of this puzzle is that seeds of all of these were included in the same packet, with instructions to separate them by leaf type.

We will likely never be able to untangle this bit of tomato history. By any name, the tomato I received as Stump of the World in 1989, a large fruited, oblate, pink potato leaf variety, is simply one of the best, more reliable in productivity year to year than Brandywine, a bit more oblate, shoulders more ridged, but simply wonderful to eat. It may not be a resident in every garden I grow, but will show up often enough to make our palates happy.

I love these old seed catalog images - here is the debut of Peak of Perfection!

Well, there it is - the first of a series of 2020 garden reports, starting with tomatoes. Within a week, I hope to do indeterminate tomatoes part 2, then part 3. I will probably then split the dwarf varieties in half, posting them in two parts. I hope you enjoy this first part of the walk through my 2020 tomato garden. There is something for everyone in these updates - from the aesthetic to the truly nerdy!