It is January 2, about 10 PM - Happy New Year, all! I just deleted my Facebook page (I noted that this was going to happen recently). At this time, I will keep Instagram up and running. I have to say….that felt really good. My life is immediately simplified!

I just read through comments on my two part blog where my concerns about the destiny of my seed, catalog, letter and garden log info were laid out. What wonderful ideas, questions, and comments were posted - thanks so much (and please keep them coming). Considering what was raised will form the basis of the next installment - part 3, of what will likely be a fairly long, deep discussion of a topic I think is extremely relevant.

An idea came to me that it is timely to take you all on a walk through my tomato collection. We will need to go back in my garden history, back to 1986, the first garden that I grew from seedlings started myself. This journey will show my start with big name seed catalogs and hybrids, and a gradual transition to smaller companies, Seed Savers Exchange seed acquisitions, seed swaps, mining the USDA collection - the big move toward heirlooms/open pollinated varieties.

The numbering used below is my reference number in my Excel spreadsheet. It all started in 1986 with Tomato #1. As of today, I am on Tomato #7640. This is for tomatoes purchased, traded for, sent to me - saved seeds are a totally different kettle of fish (I suspect I will get to those eventually!).

just part of the entire set of SSE yearbooks (all the way back to 1975!). They also make great elevation devices for the laptop for Zooms!

Let’s start the journey - I think taking these 10 per blog will be a digestible dose!

Tomato 1 - Sweet 100 hybrid, purchased from Stokes seeds in 1986. I admit it - I fell for the hype (and to tell the truth, it was quite deserved). I only grew Sweet 100 once - in 1986, in my Berwyn PA garden. It produced a ton, was a very sweet (as advertised) scarlet red cherry tomato, was a bit crack prone (if I recall correctly), but certainly a fine variety that was a perfect right off the vine snacking type. I didn’t save seeds from it, and never grew it again!

Tomato 2 - Lady Luck hybrid, the feature tomato of Burpee Seed Company in 1986. This is another case of falling for the catalog hype, going for the “cover” tomato. Reaching back into my tomato memory, I recall it being an indeterminate variety with medium sized smooth scarlet colored tomatoes that tasted “good” - back then I really had no tomato flavor yardstick, no real expectations. Everything grown prior to 1986 was from garden center six packs - Better Boy hybrid, Whopper hybrid, and Roma are the varieties I grew in my gardens in 1981 and 1982 (in West Lebanon NH), and 1984 and 1985 (in Villanova, Pennsylvania). I remembered the tomatoes my grandfather grew, and the ones we purchased from farm stands. I don’t think Lady Luck was any better than Better Boy or Whopper - perhaps not even quite as good. But it did fine, and slices ended up on our sandwiches. I never grew it again and did not save seeds from it.

Tomato 3 - Sun Cherry hybrid, purchased from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in 1991! I’ve no idea why this tomato ended up out of date sequence; I have a feeling I just started recording varieties into my spreadsheet without paying strict attention to purchase date. I purchased this variety because it was described as a scarlet red “version” of Sun Gold hybrid (a tomato I was already avidly in love with). My records indicate that I grew it in my West Chester PA garden in 1991. It was super prolific, but the flavor was just OK to our palate. Seed wasn’t saved and I never grew it again.

Tomato 4 - Moreton hybrid, a legendary variety created by Harris Seeds, purchased in 1987. I actually have data on this one (and all others from 1987 onward), as this was grown during my three years of doing a hybrid vs heirloom contest in my gardens. Moreton may have blown lots of gardeners away, but not this one. I ended up picking 14 lbs of fruit from the plant, average weight about 6 ounces. It was a smooth, slightly oblate scarlet variety. My notes graded the flavor as “B”. I didn’t save seeds, and didn’t return to it for many years (at which time I did save seeds just to see what I got from growing some out). I remember selecting this variety (along with Jet Star and Supersonic hybrids) because of a general positive vibe about these three popular Harris varieties.

Tomato 5 - Basket King hybrid, purchased from Burpee in 1987. I have notes that I grew it in 1987 and 1988. I’ve no flavor, size or yield notes on it, however. My guess (confirmed with a Google search) is that it was bred to be a container variety that cascaded over (for hanging baskets), producing smallish scarlet tomatoes. Clearly it made no impression on me at all, no seeds were saved, and it wasn’t regrown by me. I suspect this was a compact determinate variety, not a microdwarf or dwarf type. I really have no idea why I decided to purchase and grow this one.

Tomato 6 - Ultra Boy hybrid, purchased from Stokes in 1987. Wow - not just Big Boy, but….ULTRA Boy! Stokes seemed to be in competition with Burpee in terms of Boy/Girl named tomatoes with various size superlatives. I grew it in 1987, and really liked it very much (though I didn’t save seeds or regrow it). I ended up picking 21 lbs of tomatoes at an average size of 10 ounces. I rated the flavor as “A-”, and the fruits were nearly round and scarlet red. This was certainly on a par with Better Boy and Whopper, though probably not deserving of the “Ultra” part of its name. I am sure I chose to try this due to that “Ultra” label, to see if it was indeed better than Better Boy, and as a good candidate to include in my heirloom vs hybrid trials.

Tomato 7 - Veeroma, an improved Roma type (open pollinated) from Stokes in 1987. This was quite the tomato machine. I selected it because of the description noting it as a super productive paste tomato. From one plant grown in 1987 (the only time I grew it) I harvested 220 tomatoes - classic 2-3 ounce scarlet plum shape - 34 pounds of tomatoes from that single determinate plant. Of course, few gardeners take a bite out of the plum type varieties and swoon with pleasure. It was a bit dry and mealy and bland. But as a roasting or sauce or paste tomato, it really shone brightly - and it wasn’t a hybrid!

Tomato 8 - Mammoth German Gold, purchased from the obscure and long gone Tomato Seed Company of New Jersey in 1987. I had never grown one of the large yellow/red swirled bicolor beefsteak heirlooms before, and the description certainly grabbed me. I am embarrassed to say that I never did grow a single plant from that seed. My tomato seed collection grew so fast that interesting candidates already became passed by in the rush to grow others that grabbed more of my interest at the time. I have grown many named varieties of this general type over the years - we will get to some soon. I selected it for purchase because I’d not grown a tomato of that color before.

Tomato 9 - Yellow Cherry, purchased from the Tomato Seed Company in 1987. This tomato has such an unassuming name, and there are quite a few tomatoes with such a name that are actually quite different. The monstrous indeterminate plant that graced my garden in 1987 produced quite small nearly translucent pale yellow cherry tomatoes with a really fine flavor - I rated it an A-, which is quite good for a cherry tomato. I did save seeds and my notes indicate that I grew it again in 1998. The tomatoes were about 0.2 ounces each, and I picked over 700 from the plant - which works out to a little over 9 lbs of fruit from the plant. I am not sure that this tomato is available any longer and must remember to search about. I’ve not really grown anything quite like it since. Once again, this choice was made to give me a new experience - a yellow colored cherry tomato.

Tomato 10 - Brandywine, purchased from the Tomato Seed Company in 1987. I grew one plant, saved seeds grew this particular one again in 1998. It was potato leaf and had pink fruit (this is the very first pink tomato of my experience). I ended up with 16 lbs of tomatoes from the plant, average size of 8 ounces. The flavor was very good - but not the supreme flavor of a Brandywine I obtained a bit later on from seed saver Roger Wentling of PA (he got the variety from Ben Quisenberry, who received it from the Sudduth family - this is the legendary strain). I chose this one because of all of the hype around the variety from the various tomato books I read at the time. This one didn’t quite live up to the hype - but the one I acquired the following year certainly did.

I hope you enjoyed the start of the walk through my tomato seed collection. It was really fun to go through memory lane and recall the excitement of those early gardens, and the discovery of the joy of growing tomatoes out of the ordinary.