Sue and Koda with our daughter Sara hiking in DuPont Forest, October 21.

Carolyn had some challenges in 1996, due to lots of rain. She also discussed her impressions on various tomatoes, as usual - read on and enjoy!

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The Deluge of Summer 1996

Carolyn Male

I almost had polliwogs in the tomato field ponds! While it’s true that this was the first summer I didn’t have to water, it is also undoubtedly the worse summer for growing tomatoes that I have ever experienced! I trialed about 60 varieties for other folks and with my new ones and ones planted to replenish seed stocks I had about 200 varieties this summer. Knowing that, I cut way back on peppers and eggplant. Yes, I did grow my 150 feet of various melons, and ate not a one! Looks like I’m on a roll…four years with nothing to eat off those melons. They all went down with various diseases! The best development was the effectiveness of a new pesticide called Admire, which is not generally available to the public. My farmer friend Charlie shared with me! With only one application I had no, I repeat, no Colorado Potato Beetles for the entire summer. Surely resistance will appear, it always does, but for one summer I was free of those orange and black devils! So I was bug free, but the summer was very overcast and it took forever for the tomatoes to ripen. I started back teaching around September 1, and at that time I had saved very little seed. This is also the first year that I did not save seed from all of my new varieties. I’ve decided to save seed from only those varieties which have some redeeming virtues, which leaves many of them out there to die peacefully, with no hopes of further propagation. Also, while I probably will have my gardens this summer (sale of my mom’s house/land is a factor), I am going to cut back drastically. I simply cannot take care of, and process seed, at the rate that I have been in the past. I hope younger members of the SSE will take up the slack.

Let me highlight the best of the new varieties that were trialed, starting with the pink types. Taps was the best of the lot. It’s a huge potato leaf beefsteak with great taste. Pink Ice is a very good salad tomato…early and grew in clusters…a bit larger than a cherry tomato. I also liked Fandango, a big pink beefsteak, Brianna, another large pink, and Orenberg Giant, which wasn’t, but had a great taste even though it had bad concentric cracking. There were a few notable new red varieties. Reisetomate was not doubt the weirdest tomato I’ve ever grown. It has 20-30 fleshy protuberances all over the surface, kind of like a balled up woodchuck, and can best be described as looking like a cauliflower with cancer. This one is not for eating! Aker’s West Virginia, from Craig, was huge, prolific and delicious. Velvet Red was a beautiful plant…angora (fuzzy) foliage which was finely dissected with small red cherry tomatoes. Forget the tomatoes, but this very large, spreading plant was visually gorgeous. I obtained seeds of Visitation Valley because the name amused me; I thought it might be a perfect place to put a cemetery. And that’s exactly what I’d do with the small fruit…bury them! Red Barn was from Joe Bratka and is in the same series as Box Car Willie, Mule Team and Great Divide. All are excellent producing, excellent tasting reds; I think my favorite is still Box Car Willie. Dix Doigts de Naples was rather unique. It had clusters of smallish, longish, bomb shaped fruit with very good taste, and it had one branch which gave yellow cherries. That’s right, yellow cherry tomatoes. I haven’t a clue as to what was going on other than a somatic mutation which might have occurred in the field.

A few yellow/orange varieties looked very good. The best and perhaps the best new on I grew is called Earl of Edgecombe. It is a medium orange, very meaty, no blemishes, quite prolific, and with a terrific flavor. It seems the sixth Earl died and the nearest relative was a sheep farmer living in New Zealand, who, when he went back to England to become the seventh Earl, brought these seeds with him. A winner! Others I liked were Herman’s Yellow, large orange hearts, Basinga, 12 ounce light yellow, Sunshine, a medium yellow, and Miam Nipa, a small yellow from Thailand. Other color types included Brin de Muguent, which was a medium amber green with green stripes and very sweet, Sutton White, which was almost as good as White Queen, and Peach Blow Sutton, which was notable for its peach shape and coloration, but I didn’t like the taste.

After several year of being without Marizol Purple, because it crosses so easily for me, I got new seed stock from Joe Bratka and was pleased to have it growing again. Lovely color and taste. The best performing tomato in the field was Zogola, a huge ribbed prolific red which I was growing for stock seed. Others that again performed well were Aunt Ginny’s Purple, Yellow Brandywine, German Red Strawberry (heart), Orange Strawberry (heart), Bulgarian Triumph (clusters of red 3-4 ounce fruit), Olena (pink beefsteak), and OTV Brandywine. I grew eight plants of the latter, primarily for seed, since I’m listing it with the SSE for the 1997 Yearbook and also plan to reoffer it to all of you. You’ll remember the description as being a large reddish orange beefsteak type with potato leaf foliage, and many folks said they loved the taste. I do too, but then I’m no doubt biased!

There are over 100 varieties I haven’t described to you (thank heavens!), but I think I’ve mentioned the best ones. I’m concerned that I may have overlooked some good ones because I have problems with water pooling at one end of the field and the plants growing there simply didn’t perform. Actually I lost several plants to water logging because water pooled on four separate occasions following torrential downpours. Although it was not the best growing year there were some real winners. And already I;m starting to think of what I’ll be planting next year. I really do want to concentrate more on making crosses and stabilizing some of the selections seen in growouts from F2 varieties. It’s not clear how long I’ll have my growing area because it is destined to become a new housing development, so I must plan carefully what I want to accomplish the most, and what my priorities really are.

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Of the varieties that Carolyn discussed, we have a difference of opinion on some of them. She loved Earl of Edgecomb, whereas I found it quite ordinary. Aunt Ginny’s Purple has a great reputation but never showed that high quality side to me. We aligned our opinions on a few - but there are many Carolyn described that I never did grow.