Here’s an oldie - me with a watering can age age 2 or so, from a digitized slide

It’s Friday night, and it seems a good time to create part 2 of this series of blogs in which I will take you on a trip though my seed collection. Sue and I just had a nice dinner at Sierra Nevada in Mills River (lucky us - a great, major brewery just 20 minutes from our house!) with gardening friends Charlie and Mary.

Before I dig into my seed log and memory and cover my next 10 tomatoes, let me update you all on what I’m up to (when not blogging , or hiking with Sue and the dogs). My main recent activity has been filling seed requests. The good news is that I am nearly done, and it is exciting to ponder gardens filled tomatoes from my saved seeds. I tend to do the “easy” ones first, and leave to the end the big and complex requests, many of which contain Dwarf Tomato Project seeds. The flip side is that I have to call an end to this work - any new requests will have to wait until late in 2022. After seed sending comes a restart to a new book on the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project, and reengagement with Joe Lamp’l in preparation for the relaunch of our on-line tomato course, Growing Epic Tomatoes. It is also time to get serious about planning what I will grow this coming year. So….we may have just flipped the calendar to 2022, and it may be 20 degrees outside (really!) - but things are now busy again. Holiday vacation is over!

Here we go!

Tomato 11 - Abraham Lincoln, seed obtained in 1987 from Shumway. Abraham Lincoln is a very important tomato variety, developed and released by the Buckbee Seed Company of Rockford, IL in 1923. A scan of the cover of that catalog, showing their new release, is here. I decided to give this one a try based on the entry in the book The Total Tomato by Fred DuBose. He ranked it highly and noted that it had a unique trait of having “distinctly bronze tinted foliage”, as well as large scarlet red delicious tomatoes. I grew Abraham Lincoln in my 1987 garden in Berwyn, Pennsylvania as part of my Heirloom vs Hybrid study. What a disappointment this was. The plant appeared to be determinate, topping out at 3 feet tall, The foliage was typically green, with no bronze tinge. It yielded quite heavily, producing 22 lbs of tomatoes of an average size of 5 ounces. The flavor was quite good, rating a B+. It was very early, coming in at 63 days from transplant. A few phone calls and letters indicated that the true Abraham Lincoln variety was lost, and this was offered as a replacement. Buckbee actually became Shumway over time, so it is sad that perhaps their most important tomato variety was no longer available in the form released in 1923. I did save seed, but never again returned to this “strain” of Abraham Lincoln.

Tomato 12 and Tomato 13 - Ruby Gold, acquired as one of my very first Seed Savers Exchange requests in 1987 from James Halladay of Indiana (who sent me two separate packets, hence the two numbers). Ruby Gold, it turns out, is quite a historic tomato, sold by Childs Seed Company in 1921. The descriptive listing is here, and color plate here. At some point, it acquired an alternate name, Gold Medal. Ruby Gold was one the tomatoes that were grown by Ben Quisenberry (a mid west seed seller best known for introducing Brandywine to the tomato growing world after acquiring it from Dorris Sudduth). I was so excited to grow this tomato because of it’s described large size, and unique coloration - yellow flesh swirled with red. I never did use the seeds that are Tomato 12 in my collection, but did grow Tomato 13 twice, in 1987 and 1991. The variety performed beautifully in my 1987 garden (and all years since). It was quite a late tomato, coming in at 83 days from transplanted seedling. I harvested 30 tomatoes from the plant for a total weight of 31 pounds, giving an average fruit size of 16.6 ounces. I can’t say that I loved the flavor, as it is quite sweet and fruit-like, resembling a peach in texture, color and flavor. The big slabs worked best, to my taste, on a cheeseburger, or for a grilled cheese and tomato. Few tomatoes are as impressive looking as the yellow/red bicolored beefsteaks, perfectly typified by Ruby Gold. I consider it one of my core varieties, due to its historical significance, beauty and as part of the early years of my heirloom tomato immersion.

Tomato 14 - Super Marmande - The Fred DuBose book influenced me to try this variety, raving about the yield and flavor of this French variety. It also provided a true determinate variety to add to my trials. The description in the seed vendor that I used, Thompson and Morgan, also swayed me, and I ordered the variety in 1987. I didn’t find the variety particularly distinctive or exemplary, except in yield. First ripe fruit were picked in 79 days from transplant. I harvested 81 tomatoes from the plant, the oblate scarlet fruit averaging 5.5 ounces, giving a total plant yield of an impressive 28 pounds. I rated the flavor as B+ - a nice tomato, but with all of the interesting colored heirlooms being explored at the same time, I was already leaving scarlet tomatoes behind even in 1987! Surprisingly, I decided to not save seeds, and never returned to it again. Super Marmande is open pollinated (not a hybrid).

Tomato 15 - Lemon Boy hybrid - I ordered this variety from Parks in 1987, enticed by the chance to add a yellow fruited tomato to the selection of hybrids in my heirloom vs hybrid contest. When asked which hybrid tomatoes I like to grow, Lemon Boy is a frequent suggestion for folks that have issues with open pollinated types. It was quite late in my 1997 Pennsylvania garden, starting to bear fruit at 89 days. The vigorous indeterminate plant really cranked them out, the 58 harvested tomatoes averaging 6.9 ounces, an impressive 25 lbs of fruit for the plant. I really enjoyed the well balanced flavor as well, and it rated a solid A. Now that I’ve tasted many more tomatoes in the years since, I would probably take it down just a bit in flavor, but still rate it as an excellent choice for gardeners seeking a nice smooth bright yellow slicing tomato. I really must grow it again, save seeds from it and explore the F2 array of possibilities as a way to guess what may be the parents of this variety. As a hybrid that has been available for 35 years or more, one wonders when its availability will come to an end.

Tomato 16 - Supersteak hybrid - Since I had Ultra Boy in my garden, how could I not add Supersteak. The clear trend in naming hybrids back in the 1980s shows so clearly. This variety was ordered from Burpee in 1987, and the catalog description for it was loaded with superlatives. Supersteak ended up being one of the more clear disappointments in my 1987 garden. A late tomato with a first ripe picking at 85 days from transplant, I harvested but 13 tomatoes from the vigorous indeterminate plant, with an average of 13.5 ounces per fruit, giving a total of 11 pounds. The oblate, scarlet tomato had quite good flavor, B+, inferior to the similar Ultra Boy hybrid in all respects, and far inferior in yield and interest to most of the heirloom types included in my 1987 garden. I didn’t save seeds and never did return to it.

Tomato 17 - Big Girl F1 hybrid - This was another 1987 Burpee purchase, and a balanced garden dictated having both boys and girls represented! This variety graced my 1988 garden, one of 7 hybrids grown that year. It really was nothing all that particularly special, being an indeterminate plant producing scarlet tomatoes averaging 6.6 ounces. It was a midseason ripener, starting to bear fruit at 73 days. The plant yielded quite heavily, with 57 tomatoes, giving a total plant weight of 23.5 pounds. I rated the flavor a B - relatively ordinary, a serviceable red slicing tomato of no particular outstanding merit. I didn’t save seeds and never did return to it.

Tomato 18 - This is actually the original designation for my very first saved tomato seed, in 1986 - tomato 18 is the same as T86-01 in my collection (it took until 1991 before I modified my numbering system). T86-01 is actually from a volunteer in my 1986 garden that I suspect was Roma. The determinate growing bush produced typical plum shaped scarlet tomatoes.

Tomato 19 - This is the original designation for my second saved variety in 1986, Baxter Bush Cherry - T86-02. See the next entry.

Tomato 20 - Baxter Bush Cherry - I didn’t purchase this tomato; it came as a free packet of seeds in my 1986 seed order from Burpee. I decided to include it in my 1986 garden (this is the year prior to the beginning of my heirloom vs hybrid contest). I remember planting it in the front left corner, at a place that wasn’t receiving much water when we went on a vacation; when we returned home the plant looked half dead. It made a comeback when care resumed and produced a very heavy yield of typical scarlet cherry tomatoes. It had determinate growth habit, thus quite a concentrated fruit set. Alas, we didn’t find it particularly flavorful. I am surprised to see that Burpee continues to sell the variety! It could be that flavor would be better in a climate different from the one I tested it in. I did save seeds but never did grow it again. The seeds were labeled Tomato 19 (see just above), but it has since been relabeled saved tomato T86-02.

Happy reading - I do enjoy doing these. The next installment - Tomatoes 21-30 - will have some real heavy hitters, a set of tomatoes that are important to me to this day.