A favorite bicolored portulaca on our deck as August comes to a close

I was excited to interview Calvin Wait, a fellow SSE member with a very large collection of varieties. He and I are still somewhat in touch (especially when I was on Facebook), and he gardens still.

By the way - this article brings Volume 2 to a close. The next post will bring us into Volume 3 - those three issues, then an abbreviated Volume 4 Number 1, should take us to the end of the year, and all of Off The Vine will have seen the light of day at last!

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Growing 600 Types of Tomatoes in Ethel, Missouri; Population 100 - about tomato enthusiast Calvin Wait

by Craig

We tomato enthusiasts who are avid Seed Saver Exchange members sometimes use our name codes as a kind of shorthand when referring to each other. It is easiest when the letter code is pronounceable, such as when I lived in Pennsylvania and was “PALEC”, or the co-editor of OTV, who is “NYMAC”. While there are many, many members of the SSE who offer a variety of tomato seeds each year, “MOWAC” is one of the most ambitious, with over 600 listings in the 1995 Yearbook. Carolyn and I felt it was high time to find out more about him. Oh, yes, his name is Calvin Wait, and he lives in the “city” of Ethel, Missouri, population about 100 according to the sign in town!

Calvin, like many gardeners, has to squeeze his passion for growing tomatoes and many other crops around a job. He runs a two color press for a publishing company, often working the midnight shift. I am always reminded of this when trying to telephone him, only to find that he is either asleep, or about to go to work. By the way, I did find out a little bit about Ethel. It is in the north central part of the state. The nearest place with lots of people is Columbia, which is about 90 miles away. Calvin is not much of a traveler, and has never ventured further east than Illinois. His main hobby is indeed gardening, and he also likes to listen to music, particularly rock and roll. I did not ask him if this kind of music is good for his tomato plants, however.

Last year was a gardening disaster in Ethel because of the nearly constant rain from June on. When it is not raining, Ethel seems like a good place to raise tomatoes. Calvin plants them out in nice sandy loam soil in mid-April, typically. He likes to use Wall-O’-Water devices on a few early varieties to get a jump on things, getting those in the ground in mid March. Calvin has gardened all of his life. He probably caught the gardening bug from his mother, who raised “the usual things” and canned the fruits of her labor. He recalls seeing red, orange, and yellow tomatoes as a boy, and remembers his mother growing Rutgers in her garden. Rutgers was introduced in the 1930’s and is still commonly grown. As you can imagine, tomatoes are his favorite vegetable. He became interested in growing heirloom vegetables in the mid-1980’s. This interest started from an ad in the local newspaper for the first edition of the Seed Savers Exchange Garden Seed Inventory book. After obtaining a copy of the book, Calvin joined the SSE and decided to switch to mainly heirlooms. His first experience with really out of the ordinary seeds was with those of Glecklers seed company. They have always specialized in the unusual and unique. He bought from them tomatoes such as Giant Belgium, a large pink fruited variety. After joining the SSE and starting to acquire varieties from other seed savers, his participation in offering seeds grew with each passing year. Calvin claims that he is very open minded about the hybrid versus heirloom dilemma, and has successfully grown both in his garden. He did say that he focuses on open-pollinated tomatoes because the hybrids he has tried, except for Sun Gold orange cherry, have been very disappointing in performance and flavor. They are easily surpassed by the heirloom varieties he grows.

Calvin maintains 5 small garden plots that together total about half an acre. He plants and maintains the gardens himself. He practices as much crop rotation as he can manage. He claims that things grow with little disease problems except in summers like last year, when the excessive rain really made a mess of things. He does not own or use a greenhouse, but starts his seeds in his house on a light stand. He aims for about 80-100 different varieties of tomatoes each year. He grows more than one plant of his favorites, so that he cares for about 150 plants each summer. Calvin uses a rototiller to add granular fertilizer in the fall, and mulches with straw during the growing season. He once had a hog farm, and observes that the tomatoes grow best in the area where the hogs were kept. He uses 5 feet tall home made tomato cages, constructed from concrete reinforcing wire, to support his plants. He does not prune suckers, but sometimes thins the fruit clusters if too many tomatoes have set. This seems to keep the size of the fruit larger than if he lets all of the tomatoes on a cluster develop. Sometimes he uses a copper spray to lessen the foliage diseases if the weather is wet. Aside from tomatoes, he grows many other crops on a more limited basis. He does grow a fair number of heirloom Sweet Potatoes as well.

Of course I asked him what his favorite and not-so-favorite tomatoes were. He really did not have many on his “never grow again” list, except for some hybrids such as Supersteak (I agree!). His favorites were another matter, and we discussed them by color starting with pink tomatoes. Calvin really likes a tomato that he named Pink Italian Beefsteak. It is a selection from the hybrid Beefmaster, and he has been growing it for the past 5 years. He also really loves Honey, Stump of the World, Rose, Louisiana Pink and Purple Potato Leaf. When I asked him about many seed savers’ favorite tomato, Brandywine, he said that he likes it fine, but he does not find it better than the pink varieties described above. He also likes some of the pink heart shaped tomatoes, such as Anna Russian, but finds them tricky to grow. They are slow to get going and are weak seedlings, though they really grow and produce well once they are established. As far as the red tomatoes, Calvin mentioned Red Italian Beefsteak, which he also selected from the hybrid Beefmaster, Berwick German, Egyptian, Reisentraube, Healani, and Costoluto Genovese. Of the true bright yellow tomatoes, Calvin really enjoys growing and eating Hugh’s, Mirabell, and Transparent. He likes the orange varieties Mandarin Cross (though listed as a hybrid he finds that it grows true from saved seed) and Sunray. He is not a great fan of the flavor of the large red/yellow bicolored tomatoes, describing them as too mild or bland. He thinks that Northern Lights and Pink & Lemon are the best of that type he has grown. The only white tomato that got his vote is Great White, and the greens are represented by Garden Lime and Green Zebra. He also said that as soon as we hung up the phone he would probably either think of other favorites, or change the ones he told me about. Carolyn and I can sympathize with this! It really depends upon the day if someone asks any tomato enthusiast about their favorite tomato. Their lists change from year to year.

Calvin does not believe that he has experienced much crossing, either in seed he has saved or seed he has received from others. He does think that mix ups have occurred, and told me about the mice that often scatter seed he is drying in his house. He wondered if similar things happen when someone sends him a yellow tomato, and it comes out red. When I asked where his heirloom tomato passion is heading, he mentioned starting his own seed company. The intentions are there, but it hasn’t happened yet! As he said, ”I won’t quit my day job! If I can get to it, and it works out, great. But if it does not, it won’t be the end of the world”. Sounds like a good philosophy to me!

Carolyn and I have been getting tomato seeds from “MOWAC” for many years now. He writes great descriptions in the SSE yearbook. The tomato enthusiasts in the SSE should order seeds from Calvin. They will receive seeds that germinate well, grow true to the description, and taste great! We wish him many, many years of seed saving and sharing.

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I enjoyed my various phone calls with Calvin, and am pleased that he continues to garden and enjoy growing tomatoes. No longer being connected with him on Facebook, it seems a good time for a phone call - it is long overdue. Reading what I wrote above reinforces how many of us who caught the heirloom tomato bug have parallel stories. We also end up with way too many varieties on our hands!