Off The Vine, Volume 2, Number 1. "C & Cs Corner" by Carolyn

Cherry tomatoes from July 2019 harvest - our last garden in Raleigh

Wow - somehow we are one third of the way through this mini project. Now that all of Volume 1 has been posted in weekly blogs, let’s dive in to Volume 2. This is the typical Carolyn opening post, laying out her , thoughts, details on subscriptions, articles, our newsletter aims, and our seasons. These types of columns are certainly the most “Carolyn” of the articles she wrote for Off The Vine - and they are such fun to read.

________________

C and C’s Column

by Carolyn

It’s time to renew your subscription if your mailing label has 21 written next to your name (21 means Volume 2, #1). If we’ve educated and entertained you we hope you’ll stay with us. Separate renewal notices will not be sent out so please send your renewal after you’ve read this issue. I would deeply appreciate it if you would write renewal on your check or on a short note; I sent second copies of Vol1, #3 to several folks who didn’t write renewal and I thought they were new subscribers. Until last December I could remember the names of most of our subscribers but I no longer can do that. Also please mention your favorite large red and pink tomatoes; I’ll have enough data to do that article for the fall issue of Off the Vine.

Subscription renewal prices for SU residents are $5 for one year and $12 for year years, for Canadian readers renewal rates are $6(US) for one year and $14(US) for two years and the renewal rate for other foreign addresses is $7(US) for one year and $16(US) for two years. The two-year rates reflect the increase in rates, starting with Vol. 3, that we announced in our last issue. Please check your address labels to be sure they are accurate and let me know if there is a problem with the expiration date given. Also, please remember to notify me of any address changes.

First, I’d like to apologize to those Off the Vine subscribers who received copies of 13 which were not of good quality. New subscribers received good copies. I had hired two students to help with the stapling and stamping and when I went to pick up the copies from the copy place, a national chain, they were bad. The manager agreed, but they didn’t know when their machine would be fixed and so I made an instant decision to take them because I had already hired the students to work at a specific time period. While the copies were a bit smeared and some of the print was wavy they were still perfectly readable. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

The months of February, March and April challenged me as those months have never challenged me in the past. Between trying to meet my academic obligations and process SSE seed requests, new subscriptions to Off the Vine, F2 seed requests, back issue requests and renewal return I was totally snowed under! Craig also was very busy with SSE seed requests, planting seeds, work and taxiing two daughters to all their various activities. All seed requests went out within one week and all new Off the Vine’s within two weeks but it was difficult. Craig and I were pleased and surprised to find so many of you interested in the F2 seeds we offered, so we definitely will do it again next year, but we’ll have someone help me and you can send your requests for F2’s directly to that person (details in our fall issue). Many of you asked specific questions which I simply didn’t have the time to answer and I asked you to please call me at home before 9PM; I hope you still will because I love to help folks if I can and I hope you can appreciate the time constraints that I have at that time of the year. Summer is better!

 I’d like to acknowledge the help of two very important people in getting your Off the Vine’s to you. Starting with the last issue, Jeff Fleming of Michigan is generating by computer the mailing labels, for which we are ever so grateful. Jeff is an SSE member and also a long time friend of Craig’s. Jeff works for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and his computer skills are deeply appreciated. The layout is now being done by a colleague of mine in computer sciences. His name is Mike Kuhrt and I don't’ know if he even eats tomatoes! Mike and I need to tinker with the format to get what we want, so be prepared to see changes in the future. Starting with this issue we’ll try to do articles more sequentially so you won’t have to flip so many pages, and you won’t have to flip so many pages because we want to get the format back to what we promised in issue one, which was 4-5 (or so) pages double sided. That will mean reducing the font size back to what we started with. At least I’m learning!

 We have a mix of interesting articles for this issue. Amy Goldman of Rhineback, NY has contributed an article about Desert Sweet tomatoes, which are a group of tomatoes developed in Israel that are grown using brackish or saline water for irrigation. With lowered water tables and increased salinity being seen in many places in the US and elsewhere, the research that went into developing these tomatoes is of major importance.

Amy is an SSE member, a psychologist currently on “sabbatical,” a wife to Larry and a mother to young Sara, Executive Director of the Sol Goldman Charitable Trust and gentlewoman farmer who is determined to take the top prize in the Dutchess County Fair! This year she’s growing about 95 different varieties of tomatoes, 50 kinds of peppers, 26 varieties of winter squash and anything else that might garner her a blue ribbon. She “doesn’t do corn” like I don’t ”do windows or pump gas.” Amy and I met about a year ago after I got a phone call from her the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend when she explained that her tomatoes had been “frosted” and she was seeking replacements . We untangled about 200 plants from my seed pans, which I keep until the transplants are out in the field and flourishing, and she happily drove home with her new varieties. Typical of Amy, she insisted that I must taste some Desert Sweet tomatoes. They were flown in from Israel and she had them delivered from Rhineback to Loudonville where my mother and gerdens both reside because I was teaching. I expected to find medium size or beefsteak type fruit and was very surprised to find cherry tomatoes on the vine! The gorgeous deep red fruit were still attached to the vine, in clusters, but the leaves had been removed. What can I say, they were delicious: they kind of “popped” in my mouth, were sweet and full flavored. I was very very impressed! Amy states in her article that seed is not available, but naturally I had to save some. While they are probably hybrids, there’s only one way to find out: they’re on the list for next year.

Our second guest author is William Woys Weaver of Paoli, PA. Will is a well known food historian who has specialized in Pennsylvania Dutch cookery and has authored several books and articles on that subject. His most recent book, entitled Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking (ISBN 1-55859-568-6, Abbeville Press), won a prestigious Julia Child award. I was fascinated by the food history and the color illustrations are exquisite. I’m even more excited by the book Will is currently working on which is about heirloom vegetables. It will be called Epicure with Hoe, and is expected to be published by Henry Holt, Publishers, in the fall of 1996. We’ll keep you updated. This summer is a special challenge for Will because he’s growing all the vegetables that will be photographed for the book. Will grows a tremendous variety of flowers, fruit and vegetables at Roughwood, his restored 1805 farmhouse. He also develops and tests recipes for inclusion in his books and articles. Would that I lived closer! I first got to know him last year when he sent me an SSE request for a particular tomato that I thought had no redeeming virtues and had said so in the SSE Annual. I wrote him a little note telling him that I didn’t think it was a good tomato and that I was sending him some extras to make up for its deficiencies. Back came a letter explaining that he was researching the introduction of tomatoes from Haiti to Philadelphia and thus his interest in the tomato he had requested, Plate de Haiti. We had further chances to chat about what heirloom tomatoes he might include in that chapter of his new book. And yes, as he points out in his article, I did challenge him to make Riesentraube wine after he told me about the recipe he’d found. To be honest, I really didn’t think he’d do it, but I’ve since discovered that Will thrives on challenges! He recently sent me a sample of the Riesentraube wine and I think it is fantastic. It tastes, to me, like a medium sweet sherry and if, as he says, it will get better with age, I’ll be happy to sip from time to time to judge its progress! I’m delighted he’s written the Riesentraube article for us and hope that he’ll contribute more in the future … after the copy for his new book is completed!

A third article is the result of Craig’s interview with George Gleckler. Many of you, I’m sure, have ordered heirloom tomato seed from Gleckler’s and most of you should be interested in the insights George shared with Craig concerning the seed business. As usual, I write this column to update you on this and that, introduce our guest authors and outline the articles being presented. Finally, Craig and I have each written articles which share with you the mental processes we go through when deciding what to grow out each year.

Recently I had an opportunity to taste a very special tomato. I got a call from Rolf Boessmann, who lives her Rochester, NY, who said that the Wegman’s food chain in the area had been chosen as the initial world test market for a genetically engineered tomato called Endless Summer. He made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Rolf packed them well and one week later I received two 10-12 oz. deep pink (red?) fruit which were not soft. I took them to work and we had a taste testing at the start of a committee meeting. We were not impressed. Visually they were prettier than the standard picked green and gassed with ethylene winter types, but if there was an improvement in taste it was in the range of perhaps 5-10% over the standard winter rocks called tomatoes. At $2/lb. I’ll wait for summer. They were developed by researchers at DNA Plant Technology Corp. in Oakland, CA who identified a ripening gene and “switched it off”. Presumably they can be picked later than the winter rock type, thus improving the natural flavor. While the shelf life of standard tomatoes is 7-10 days the shelf life of Endless Summer tomatoes is stated to be 30 days. I believe it! A few weeks later George Losoncy, an Off the Vine reader, sent me an article which appeared in the NY Times on 4/11/95 about Calgene’s genetically altered tomato called Flavr Savr. I knew about these two years ago, but have never seen them offered. The NY Times article explained that the genetic changes made to the tomato resulted in fruit that bruised easily and Calgene is having major problems with adequate packing and shipping. I’m not sure what I expected from genetically engineered tomatoes: probably some taste in a winter tomato, but I know I haven’t seen it yet!

As of May 17th, Craig has already planted outside his 120 or so tomato varieties while mine are still in the greenhouse of a commercial farmer friend who grows them for me after I seed and transplant them. It’s been cold and windy here in upstate NY; I’m probably not even going to start hardening them off until this weekend. I’m growing about 160 varieties this year and that means 500-600 plants in the tomato patch! Germination was excellent save for two varieties received from others, which didn’t germinate at all: they’ll be candidates for potassium nitrate treatment next year. Since we have both received inquiries about germination problems we will write an article for the call Off the Vine issue telling you how we germinate seeds. It’s very distressing to me, for instance, to have someone tell me only one seed out of 10 came up while I get close to 100% germination with the same seed. We promised ourselves that Off the Vine would not publish articles about tomato culture, that’s not what our mission is about, but we think the germination situation requires some comment.

Once again we encourage you to consider writing an article about some aspect of heirloom tomatoes. Please check with us first, and if we can use it, we will. We’ve repeatedly stated that we want Off the Vine to be interactive with our readers, and that can’t happen unless some of you participate with contributions.

Have a wonderful summer growing season, without late blight, and we look forward to sharing with you again in our fall issue.

_________________

Wow, this is a pretty interesting and packed issue - Some big time names for sure - Amy Goldman and William Woys Weaver, as well as Gleckler - and GE tomatoes. Lots to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Some eggplants and tomatoes from July 2019 from our last Raleigh garden

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "Nothing in Moderation - an interview of Thane Earle" by Carolyn

Polish tomato plant, set into a straw bale a few days ago. The 2022 season begins!

Here it is - the last article in Issue number 3, which wraps up Volume 1.

Any SSE tomato collector who got going in the mid 1980s or earlier know of the code “WI EA T” - as in Thane Earle of Wisconsin. He wasn’t much on descriptions, but listed loads of interesting tomatoes. Carolyn had a great chat with Thane, and she captured the essence, below.

________________

Nothing in Moderation! An Interview with Thane Earle

by Carolyn

Whether it’s having 1200 varieties of tomato seed, 120 kinds of bantam chickens, 450 kinds of beans or going on photography safaris to Kenya, Africa twice, Thane Earle does very little in a modest way! His love of gardening began as a child when he helped his grandfather and mother in their one-acre vegetable garden. His father and grandmother tended to other chores on their general farm. Thane remembers leading the horse that cultivated the garden and remembers picking the tomatoes (Bonny Best, Marglobe, etc.) that the family would can and use for juice. Born in 1921 just a few miles from his present home in Whitewater, WI, Thane and his younger brother had an incredibly rich childhood in terms of family and memories. His grandfather was a great storyteller and every night thane listened to marvelous tales of hunting and fishing and ultimately, the discussions about Africa which culminated in two trips to Kenya. He and his grandfather had a book written by Teddy Roosevelt in 1909which described his trips to Africa to obtain animals for the New York and Chicago museums and this furthered Thane’s determination to visit that continent.

Following Thane’s graduation from high school he went into the carpentry/construction business for 25 years. During this time he and his wife raised two boys. The boys had a private zoo with lions, bears, snakes, monkeys and heaven knows what else! Thane says he was bitten only once, by a semi-tame fox to which he was giving a bowl of food. After leaving carpentry he gardened and raised fowl … in no small way. He had about 600 fowl he would load into a truck and do a “show string,” going to State and County fairs to compete for prize money. At the peak of this enterprise he had 140 different kinds of large fowl, 120 kinds of banties and about 30 kinds of pigeons!!! He and his wife, a teacher, also traveled extensively. Their first trip was to Guatemala, then to England (twice), France and the Continent, Africa (Kenya) and Egypt. Naturally I had to ask him how much local tomato seed he picked up on those trips but he said just a few, from England. Tragically, his wife was killed in an auto accident about five years ago. He has since remarried, to an old high school “sweetheart”, whose husband died many years ago. Their recent travels have been to Kenya and Tanzania, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (Thane says he’s 95% English with a touch of Scottish and Norwegian), and most recently to Costa Rica.

Thane joined SSE one year before Diane and Kent moved to Iowa and has attended every one of the Campouts at Decorah since 1984. Although he grows many different kinds of vegetables, those of us in SSE know him mainly for his tomato offerings although he says he’s currently checking out the germination on about 200 kind s of corn, 450 kinds of beans and “lots” of peas. I told him about a 14’ high corn I grew this year for an historical garden I did for the local Shaker Heritage Society and how impressed I was with the height. He countered that he remembered a variety of Central American corn that he once grew that was so tall he had to use a ladder to accomplish pollination. Over the years he built up a huge tomato collection. He did a lot of trading with Gary Staley, Fax Stinnett (Off the Vine Vol. I, #1) and Don Branscomb and had contacts in France, Australia and Germany. When I asked him why he settled on tomatoes he said it was because of the low rate of cross-pollination. He used to grow out about 300 varieties each year but now does about 100, and grows one plant of each kind in cages made from concrete reinforcing wire; the plants are spaced 4’ in all directions. I was a bit taken aback when he said he didn’t fertilize, but then he said he does add aged chicken manure to his already rich, black topsoil which was once a lake bed in prehistoric times. He sprayed one year, once, for early blight and that was it for the chemicals. He says he’s never grown a variety that he didn’t get seed from the fruit. Knowing the possible “critter” damage and disease that inevitably appears, that’s a good track record.

His transplants for the field are grown in 14 oz. Styrofoam cups and he plants with a bulb planter … works great. If his transplants get leggy he always digs a deeper hole because he feels that layering them on their sides in a trench doesn’t give you a vigorous plant. He does have a greenhouse and cold frames where he gardens them off. Favorites that he mentioned included Amish Paste, Persimmon, Nepal, Cabot, Green Grape and Georgia Streak. Noticing that he hadn’t included any pinks, I asked him, but we got off on another subject before completing the list. He gives away a lot of his tomatoes but only if he picks them first; it seems like folks don’t want to do their own picking. He chuckled when I asked him why he didn’t write more about his tomatoes in the SSE Annual and he answered that he didn’t have the time. I protested that I got frustrated seeing only 4” listed after one of his tomatoes to which he responded that at lest I knew how big it was. He says he doesn’t list days to maturity because it can vary from year to year and with this I will agree with him completely. He and his wife will continue staying on the farm. When he’s not growing vegetables he continues with his woodworking by making toys and clocks and he raises various kinds of chickens. For the past 8 years he has been a Horticultural Aide with the Cooperative Extension in the summer, working two days per week, where he says he gets the questions no one else can handle. He completed the Master Gardener Program several years ago. I could tell that he really enjoys this part time position.

Next time you read a WIEAT listing in the SSE Annual perhaps you’ll now think of Thane as the complex, interesting person who does very little in moderation. And we hope Thane and his wife will continue their travels and that he will continue to participate in the activities of SSE, an organization he thinks has done a fine job in fostering the preservation of heirloom varieties.

__________________

Sadly, Thane Harley Earle died on June 15, 2010 in Wisconsin. His obituary is here. I recall getting to meet Thane on my first visit to Decorah for the SSE campout in the late 1980s. To me, he is a seed saving legend, right up there with Fax Stinnett and Ben Quisenberry - folks who played such a significant role in getting the SSE off the ground and helping its incredible relevance.

The next post will begin the posting of the entirety of Volume 2. Things are moving right along - I hope you are enjoying these articles.

Our amazing true red rhododendron just started to open!

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "1994 Harvest Report. Assessing the USDA Accessions" by Craig

It’s azalea time in Hendersonville

I was really so into digging into old seed catalogs and searching for old varieties on the USDA GRIN database. It was so much fun that I requested many old tomatoes that I never even found in the old catalogs. Here is the first major report out of how they performed.

__________________

1994 Tomato Harvest Report - Assessing the USDA Accessions

by Craig 

When I look into my garden, I see a typical January sight for North Carolina.  There is no snow, of course, and there are the frost-bitten, blackened remains of pepper plants, adorned with the brightly colored, dried ghosts of their fruits.  There are piles of grass clippings and leaves, and even a couple of stakes where vigorous tomato plants used to stand.  If I look really hard, I can visualize what things may look like this summer.  Even more distinctly, I can recall all of the activity that occurred there in the summer of 1994, including over 100 varieties of tomatoes.  Among all of those tomatoes were a large number of varieties that were obtained from the USDA germ plasm collection, many of which are historically significant, and presumed to be extinct.

This article describes the results from this fascinating growout.  As a person who was attracted to the Seed Saver's Exchange in large part due to the possibility of finding and growing old commercially produced tomatoes, I was humbled by the experience, and consider last year's garden to be the most memorable of my summer's efforts to date.  It was remarkable to be able to look at old seed catalogs, such as the 1900 Livingston that I have in my collection, then to step into my garden and see many of these historic varieties "in the fruit"!  We haven't found them all, and not all of them appear to have made their trek through the years unchanged, but it was rewarding nonetheless.

Just a note regarding the condition of the seed we received from the USDA.  In general, we were delighted to find that most of the varieties germinated quickly.  As Murphy would predict, it seemed as though the varieties that we most wanted to grow out were the most stubborn to germinate.  But, when all was said and done, we had at least one plant of each of the varieties that we wanted to grow.

What follows are one by one listings of the varieties, along with the history, if known, and descriptions as observed in my garden.  Carolyn grew these in her New York gardens also, and any differences that we observed will be mentioned, as well as discrepancies from the old tomato literature.  All varieties are indeterminate unless otherwise stated.

Livingston Introductions:

Beauty:  Introduced in 1886, and considered by Livingston to be one of his finest releases.  It appears that the original selection was from a field of Paragon.  This was used most commonly as a shipping variety, as when picked green it traveled in good condition and shelf ripened well.  This was one of the stubborn germinators, and I had the lone success in my garden.  Despite an awful start (the plant was on its deathbed for quite awhile), it recovered gamely and was quite vigorous and productive.  The fruits were medium sized (6-8 ounces), slightly oblate and smooth, with no green shoulders or preference to crack.  The ripe color was medium pink, and the flavor was very good - juicy, with a good balance of sweetness and tartness.  In terms of matching the catalog description, this was pretty much right on the money.

Livingston's Main Crop Pink:  We don't have any historical information on this variety, but have assumed from its name that it belongs in this section.  With very vigorous growth, this was one of the more productive types, and is a fine tomato.  The slightly oblate fruits were smooth and pink, perhaps a bit larger and more crack prone than Beauty, but otherwise similar, in flavor as well.

Golden Queen:  This was touted as the best yellow tomato in the early 1900's, having been introduced in 1882.  According to Livingston, this was derived from selections of plants that he grew from seeds obtained from a tomato that was displayed at a county fair.  The plant is vigorous and moderately productive, and the fruits variable in size, from 4 ounces to over 1 pound.  It is one of the most beautiful tomatoes I've seen, being bright yellow with a pale pink blush at the blossom end.  The flavor was very nice, again with a good balance of sweet and tart, and not having the blandness or unusual flavors occasionally associated with many of the yellow or orange tomatoes.  Once again, this tomato seemed to perform up to the descriptions in the old seed catalogs.

Magnus:  This was the most difficult variety to germinate, but Carolyn struck it rich with 2 plants (she sent me one via mail!).  This was the cover variety for the 1900 Livingston seed catalog, and it seemed to grow true to type.  It is unusual in being a potato leaf variety that does not afford huge fruits.  The vigor is good, and the tomatoes are nearly globe shaped, very smooth, 4-8 ounces and medium pink, with a good flavor.  This one will get another chance next year, as its position in the garden was not the best.

Favorite:  This tomato, developed in 1883 from a selection of a plant growing in a field of the variety Paragon, was another star performer in the garden.  It was originally bred for canners at that time.  Vigorous, prolific and delicious, the fruits were 6-8 ounces, very smooth oblate, and rich scarlet, and the tomato had a real old fashioned, tart flavor.  It's performance seemed to match that of the catalog description.

Paragon:  One of the true hall of fame varieties, this was released in 1870 as the first smooth red tomato.  It was with this variety that Livingston started the, at the time, new and radical method for developing new tomato varieties.  Rather than select particular fruits from plants to save seed from, he studied large fields of plants and selected tomatoes from a particular superior plant in that field.  Livingston surveyed his tomato gardens, and found one plant that had very smooth, though relatively small, tomatoes.  From seed saved from tomatoes from that plant, he grew a large number of plants each succeeding year, selecting for smoothness and larger size.  By 1870, he had Paragon, which at that time was the first smooth, large, scarlet tomato.  The weather was not kind to it this year, as it was the variety most likely to get blossom end rot.  It was vigorous and productive, and those fruits that I did get were in the 8 ounce range, oblate and scarlet, but the jury is out on this one.

Acme:  This is one of the varieties that obviously has been crossed over the years.  It was released in 1875 as the first smooth, large, early pink tomato (though in the early literature, this color was often referred to as purple).  Livingston used the same method to "breed" Acme as he did Paragon; namely, selection of outstanding plants from fields of roughly shaped pink tomatoes.  The accession that we grew out was vigorous, productive and gave medium to large oblate to flat scarlet fruit of good flavor.  It is a good tomato, but not what we hoped for.

Dwarf Stone:  Carolyn grew this one out, and it is her description that follows.  This tomato was introduced in 1902 as a Stone-type tomato on a dwarf plant.  What Carolyn found was true to the description, being an attractive,  stocky, short plant with dark green, rugose foliage, bearing medium sized scarlet tomatoes of good flavor but mushy consistency.

Lutescent:  I am making an assumption with this variety, based upon information gleaned in the conversation with Dr. Charlie Rick.  In 1897 Livingston released an unusual tomato named Honor Bright.  It appeared as a mutant or sport growing in a field of the variety Stone, which is a medium sized scarlet tomato released in 1891, and still widely grown today.  Honor Bright was described as distinct for its pale green (almost yellow) foliage and tomatoes that went through several color changes on their way to scarlet.  This is exactly what we see with Lutescent, as it is one of the weirder tomatoes that can be grown.  As a seedling, the foliage seems to want to turn yellow.  In the garden, it is actually yellow toward the bottom of the plant.  The flowers are nearly white, and the small to medium, globe shaped, firm fruits turn from pale green to snow white, to yellow orange, finally to deep scarlet as they ripen.  The variety is very productive, and the taste is surprisingly good for such a firm tomato.

Other Heirloom Commercial Varieties:

Alpha:  A relatively short growing potato leaf type that has small to medium sized, crack prone, green shouldered scarlet fruit of good, but not outstanding, flavor.  It was introduced in 1882, and is considered to be similar to Earliana.

Essex Wonder:  This is obviously not the Essex listed in the Michigan State Bulletin of 1938, as it produced small to medium scarlet, not pink, tomatoes.  It is an average tomato in all respects, and is most probably an old English commercial variety.

Early Ruby:  Described in the Livingston 1900 catalog as a new, scarlet early type, and probably a synonym for Atlantic Prize, released by Ferry in 1891.  It is a rather non-descript, medium sized scarlet tomato of no outstanding characteristics.

Excelsior:  This is probably a synonym for Earliana, which was released in 1900.  Again, nothing special here, as it is another medium sized average tasting scarlet tomato.

Landreth:  Listed as a synonym for Bonny Best, which was released in 1908, and resulted from a selection from Chalk's Early Jewel.  It is a medium sized scarlet tomato, but has a nice tart full flavor.

Early Large Red:  From the name, you can tell that this is an old one, and first showed up in seed catalogs in the 1860's.  We found the variety to be a typically non-descript, medium sized, oblate scarlet tomato that had good flavor.

Triumph:  Released in 1879,  this tomato is another of the small to medium sized, slightly oblate scarlet slicers of average attributes.

Optimus:  This variety was released by Ferry in 1885, and was derived from a tomato sent to them by a customer.  It is similar to Favorite and Stone, and we found it to be a vigorous, productive plant giving medium sized, oblate, scarlet fruit of very good flavor.

Green Gage:  First listed in U. S. seed catalogs in 1879, but probably much older, this variety yielded nice tasting small yellow plum shaped tomatoes.

Redfield Beauty:  This variety grew very similarly to Beauty, described above, and is likely a different seed company's strain of the same.  It performed very well for us.

Buckbee's Beefsteak:  Released in the early 1900's by Buckbee, this was a typical scarlet beefsteak type; large, vigorous plant, medium to huge, irregularly shaped fruit with some cat facing and cracking, and good rich flavor.

Dixie Golden Giant:  Reputedly an old southern variety, this one has been on the "missing" list for some time.  Growing on a very vigorous plant, the tomatoes, though not numerous, were very large, slightly oblate, and of a golden color, and the flavor was quite rich and sweet.

Alpha Pink:  Supposedly similar to June Pink, this variety, released in 1915 by Isbell, produced delicious, medium sized pink tomatoes on a relatively small plant.  The yield was quite early, and relatively heavy, and it is in all quite a good tomato.

Trophy:  This is considered to be the first smooth, large tomato.  It was developed by Dr. Hand in Baltimore by crossing an old large crumpled red tomato with a variety called Early Smooth Red.  When introduced in 1870, the seeds were sold for $5.00 for a packet of 20 seeds!   Our experience with the variety was of a vigorous, productive plant yielding medium to large, flat to oblate scarlet fruit of a rich, full, acid flavor.

Mikado:  Also known as Turner's Hybrid, this variety was developed and released by Henderson in 1889.  It is described as a large, smooth pink tomato on a potato leaf foliaged plant.  From the USDA seed samples, we obtained both potato leaf and regular leaf plants, but all gave large, irregularly shaped scarlet fruit, indicating that crossing has occurred through the years in this variety.

Abraham Lincoln:  An important release of Buckbee in 1923,  there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this tomato of late.  The Shumway catalog description is of a late, large (1 pound plus) tomato growing on a bronze foliaged plant.  This accession from the USDA is the first that I have grown that at least gets the fruit correct; the plant does not have bronze foliage, however.  The fruits were nearly globe shaped, large, scarlet and delicious.

King Humbert:  A very old European variety listed in Fearing Burr, this is reportedly similar to San Marzano.  Carolyn found it to be a vigorous scarlet paste tomato that matches the description in Burr's book.

Alice Roosevelt:  Reportedly a synonym for Earliana, Carolyn found this variety to produce medium sized scarlet fruit of little excitement.

Mikado Scarlet:  Not much is known about this one,  except that it is a scarlet, smaller version of Mikado released by an Italian seed company.  The seed we obtained produced a very vigorous, productive plant yielding medium to large, oblate to flat scarlet fruit with a rich acid taste.

Winsall:  Henderson released this variety in 1925 as an improvement on Ponderosa.  From a vigorous productive plant was obtained large, pink beefsteak type tomatoes of excellent, full flavor.

Other Varieties Obtained From the USDA:

Beauty of Loraine:  An unusual tomato, the scarlet fruit were lobed and partially hollow on the inside, with the seeds in a fleshy mass at the center of the fruit.  The flavor was not very palatable, being bland, with dry texture.

Banana Leaf:  Distinctly different from other potato leaf varieties in that the leaves were more narrow and smooth, this variety yielded very firm, small, scarlet fruit of little redeeming qualities.

Queen Mary:  A very prolific and healthy variety, we found this tomato to produce small to medium, globe shaped scarlet fruit in clusters of 4 to 6.  The flavor was quite good.

King George:  Very similar in all respects to Queen Mary,  the fruits of this one were a tad smaller.

White Flowered Marge:  Aside from the color of the blossoms, which were a yellow tinged white, this was an ordinary, productive, globe shaped, medium sized scarlet tomato of good flavor, but prone to cracking.

White Flowered Marglobe:  This variety was very similar, if not identical, to White Flowered Marge.

White Queen:  This was a pleasant surprise.  Of the many "white" tomatoes that I have grown, this may be the largest and whitest, as well as the best flavored.  Very productive and vigorous, the slightly ridged, oblate tomatoes were ivory to white colored, and several grew to over 1 pound. 

Queen of the Purples:  Obviously a victim of cross pollination,  the seed produced an ordinary, medium sized scarlet, globe shaped tomato of fair taste.

Royal Purple:  This variety looked very much like Beauty.  The fruits were medium sized, smooth, slightly oblate, pink and delicious.

Geswein's Purple Bonny Best:  This may have been the best flavored and most attractive of the pink varieties we obtained from the USDA.  The uniform, medium sized, smooth pink fruits had a nice sweet flavor.

For those who are interested in obtaining seeds of these varieties, all of them will be offered by Carolyn and me in the 1995 SSE Annual, which should be mailed out in a month or so.  We also hope to stimulate the interest of some seed companies with regard to carrying some of the better or more historically significant varieties in their seed catalogs.  By the way, the historical background information for this article was primarily obtained from three sources:  the book "Livingston and the Tomato", by A. W. Livingston, published 1893; the 1900 Seed Annual of the Livingston Seed Company, and Michigan State College Special Bulletin #290, "Tomato Varieties" by Gordon Morrison, published in April, 1938.

_______________

What fun it was to grow these out and get a sense of what tomato growers in the 1870 to 1920 period experienced in their gardens. Rather than the big, colorful heirlooms of today, the goal back then was smooth, medium sized scarlet red tomatoes for the most part - with a few pinks and yellows and a white mixed in. While most were not exciting, it felt important to grow varieties that my grandparents may have had in their garden.

Waiting for some treats - Marlin, Betts (looking very casual) and Koda

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "Seed Sources" by Carolyn

Sweet Betsy trillium and Virginia Bluebells on April 19 at Botanical Gardens of Asheville

Here is an article that I’ve not read in a long, long time. It is very characteristically “Carolyn” for sure.

_________________

Seed Sources

by Carolyn

There are two types of seed sources that I want to discuss. First, there are several commercial firms that carry a good variety of heirlooms and I’ll list them. Second, we have available for you some interesting F2 seeds you might wish to consider growing out.

Before listing the commercial firms I would again encourage you to consider becoming a member of Seed Savers Exchange (SSE). SSE is not a commercial firm and is not a seed company. It is an organization dedicated to the preservation of heirloom vegetables, fruits and grains. If preserving our genetic heritage is important to you, you might wish to consider membership. Additionally, membership will give you access to about 3000 heirloom tomato varieties; almost all of the varieties mentioned in Off the Vine are available to sSE members. Hoepfully you’ve read the material concerning SSE in our first issue and would, if you join, offer seed to others through the Annual Yearbook although that is most certainlyNOT a requirement for membership. Send $1 for information/brochure to Seed Savers Exchange, 3076 North Winn Road, Decorah, IA 52101.

The following list of commercial sources is not inclusive; they are companies Craig and I hand others we know have dealth with and have been pleased with both the seeds and the service. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, P.O. Box 170, Earlysville, VA 22936 (catalog $2) is a treasure trove of heirloom histories and excellent open-pollinated varieties; there is a large selection of heirloom tomatoes including several that have been mentioned in Off the Vine. Jeff McCormack added German Red Strawberry, Druzba, Manyel and Marizol Gold to his catalog this year and also has Riesentraube, Cherokee Purple, Eva Purple Ball and Green Grape along with many other excellent varieties. Gleckler’s Seedmen, Metamora, Ohio 43540 (catalog free) has a long list of heirloom varieties. Rob Johnston of Johnny’s Selected Seeds is enlarging his offerings of heirloom tomatoes and has several whose names you’ve read here such as Cherokee Purple, Cuostralee, Yellow Brandywine, Anna Russian and Tiger Tom. Craig and I have been sending seeds for trial to both Jeff McCormack and Rob Johnston for several years and are pleased that they have chosen to offer some of them to the public. Heirloom Seeds, PO.. Box 245, West Elizabeth PA 15088(catalog $1) is a small firm with an excellent selection of heirloom tomatoes. The following two companies carry both hybrids and heirloom tomatoes in their catalogs, which are free. Tomato Growers Supply Co. .O. Box 2237, Fort Meyers, FL 33902 and totally Tomatoes, P.O. Box 1626, Augusta, GA 30903. Linda Sapp at Tomato Growers Supply has greatly enlarged her offerings of heirloom tomatoes in the current 1995 catalog; craig and I are now sending seeds to Linda for trial and we hope that some of them will perform well enough to be offered through her catalog.

I think you could have a lot of fun with the F2 seeds we are making available to you. Stanley Zubrowski is an amateur Canadian hybridizer who has been trying to breed some taste (Brandywine) into some early varieties. We have F2 seeds of Brandywine X Kotlas, Brandywine X Stupice and Brandywine X Polish (red). The F1 plants of all three varieties gave fruit which was early, red or pink (should all be red; see discussion below) and with excellent taste; the Stupice, Polish and Kotlas F1 plants were potato-leafed. The foliage type will vary, as I’ll explain below, when you grow the F2 plants. Tad Smith, whose article about late blight is in this issue, gave us F1 seed from two crosses. Yellow Oxheart X Polish gave us huge pink hearts and Purple Perfect X Purple Price gave lovely dusky pink fruit with superb taste on a potato-leafed plant. The two parents of the “purple” cross have the same coloration as Cherokee Purple as do the F1 fruit. At the risk of incurring Craig’s wrath (Cherokee Purple is his “kid”), I must confess that I like Purple Perfect better than Cherokee Purple. If you send me a SASE (32 cents) I’ll send you 10 seeds of however many crosses of the five mentioned that you think you can handle. if you find a good one after stabilizing it for 20 years (I’m joking!) it would be a nice gesture to send me some seeds of your selection so I can forward them to Stanley and/or Tad. After all, they did the hybridizing and would like to know what the good offspring look like.

Now a few worlds about genetics so you’ll have some idea of what might happen when you plant the F2 seeds. The fruit which result from the initial hybridization of the two parents gives seeds which are referred to as F1 seeds. When planted, all the F1 plants and fruit of a particular cross will be identical. (In the Brandywine crosses mentioned above the F1 fruit should have been red because red is dominant to pink and Kotlas and Stupice and Polish are all red. The fact that Craig had pink fruit with the Kotlas and Stupice crosses suggests that some unplanned crossing occurred. Carolyn’s plants of the F1 Brandywine crosses gave all red fruit). It’s F1 seeds that you buy and plant if hybrid tomatoes are your preference. The fruit from the F1 plants gives seed referred to as F2 seed. When this seed is planted you’ll get a variety of different plants which might differ with respect to foliage type, fruit shape and color, earliness, etc. so if the F1 plants were potato-leafed, for instance the F2 plants may be regular or potato-leafed. If you find an F2 plant/fruit that you like, save the seeds and plant again the next year. These F3 seeds will also segregate out different characteristics so you’ll have to select again and re-plant. So how long does it take to genetically stabilize a variety? Well, how does 3-10 years sound? But it really is fun. As an example, let me tell you about an orange/red Brandywine that Craig and I are trying to stabilize. Three years ago Craig sent out some seeds of Yellow Brandywine. That fall he got back seeds from one person with a picture showing huge orange red fruit; clearly the seeds sent out by Craig had crossed with something else in his garden. Look, I’ve sent out crossed seeds too. You don’t like it to happen but it’s inevitable unless you grow varieties many feet apart (see article in first issue on isolation distances). So, the next Spring we planted the seeds. Craig got all regular leaf types with large so-so yellow tomatoes (not Yellow Brandywine type) and I got two potato-leafed plants (that’s what we’re after) that gave huge, delicious red/orange fruit and two-plants like Craig’s. I saved the seed from the potato-leafed/orange-red ones and planted them this past Spring. Well, the plants were all potato-leafed, so I was encouraged, but I got fruit which were pink, yellow and orange red. I saved the seeds from all three variants and will probably plant all o them this Spring even though I should only be planting the orange/red seeds. Craig grew out just one plant and it was potato-leafed with orange/red fruit. Some of the “rejects” are darn good and this stabilizing game really does start to grow on you. so if you have the room and the inclination, send me that SASE.

Lastly, I’ve received several requests and inquiries about my selling seed to the general public. Sorry, but I can’t, and I speak for Craig also. Our sole focus is to publish a newsletter which both educates and entertains with respect to heirloom tomatoes. Both of us are listed members of SSE and participate in related seed activities. When SSE requests start rolling in it is not unusual for us to spend 10-20 hours per week filling requests because we both list several hundred varieties with SSE. In addition, I deal with all the Off the Vine subscriptions and related matters which takes even more time. We aren’t retirees; both of us have demanding full time jobs. Craig is a chemist with Glaxo Pharmaceuticals and I am a college biology teacher. We both have other responsibilities; Craig has a lovely wife and two active daughters and I have an invalid mother who needs attention. I hope that also explains why we aren’t on a rigorous publishing schedule for Off the Vine; we’ll publish 3 issues per year but not necessarily on a rigid schedule. We have tried to enlarge the availability of some of our heirlooms to the general public by sending seeds for trial to Southern Exposure, Johnny’s, Tomato Growers Supply and now Pinetree Seeds; perhaps others will follow. After many years of friendship and a common passion for heirloom tomatoes Craig and I decided we wanted to share our enthusiasm and knowledge with others who have a similar interest, thus Off the Vine was “born”. And who knows, some day Craig and I might actually meet each other! Until then we “internet” it every few days unless a verbal exchange is necessary. And believe me, as those of you who know us personally already know, we are verbal!

__________________

This issue really speaks for itself - homey, interesting, informative. And in some cases, a bit dated - addresses, people, companies, varieties - a testament that time passes, and things move on. Change is inevitable.

Sue near a native flame azalea in the Botanical Gardens in Asheville on April 19

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "Adaptation of Tomatoes" by John Rahart

I love growing Pansies from seeds - these were started in the fall of 2021 indoors, and are finally in bloom!

Here is another guest article, by Dr. John Rahart of Bosque, New Mexico, by invitation by Carolyn.

_______________

Adaptation of Tomatoes

by John Rahart

Let me start by telling you about the tomato known as Myona. Brought to this country by an Italian immigrant shortly after the turn of the century, it was grown continuously in his garden. In the early 1980’s the man parted with some of his plants and a few of them made their way to my dad who lived nearby (Suffern, NY/Mahwah, NJ). People had always brought their favorites to dad and he had in his collection some impressive varieties, but Myona was equal to or better than the varieties he had previously grown. When I heard his glowing accounts I implored him to send me some spare seed, which arrived without a name. After checking back with the elderly man who had grown it those many years it was confirmed that I was called Myona and that it was the correct spelling. As the elderly man said in a heavily accented voice, “itza myona, itza gotta no nama, itza myona tomato! Ima already tolda you, watza damadda wid you annawayah!” Indeed, it was his tomato.

My greedy little fingers slipped the seeds out of their packet. I pressed my little trophies into the soil, watered, loved and bragged about them even before they flowered. Were these going to dazzle the neighbors or what? I could feel the fame and glory already. To shorten a lengthy narrative … they fizzled! The fruit were small, irregular and atypical compared to what they should have been. However, I had never seen “the real thing”.  So I saved seed and planted the next year. Ditto the next year. I wasn’t quite sure what my dad saw in them; they were OK but nothing to marvel about.

An amazing thing happened when the third generation plants matured their fruit. The tomatoes were very large 5 ½” by 4” wide oxhearts, uniform, solid, marvelous, stupendous tomatoes … nothing like the previous two years fruit. Elated at fostering a miracle I was still patting myself on the back when my dad back in New York laughed and said, “that’s the way they’re supposed to look”. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had just stumbled onto a coincidence. I lived in Wyoming: cool, arid, high ultraviolet (7000’ elevation), they lived in NY: hotter, humid, low UV at sea level.

Several years later I moved to New Mexico. After doing the traditional rave and brag dance about your most stupendous tomato I gave some seeds of Myona to a new friend who lived down the street. She carefully planted and grew them, and was NOT impressed! New Mexico: hot, very arid and high UV … it sounded familiar. In convinced her to do the three generation waltz with Myona.

Upon birth and delivery of the third generation of Myonas I was reestablished as a gardening star. How could I be so certain that the Wyoming experience was not just a fluke? The truth is that by then I had acclimated several other highly touted but low performing tomatoes and many of them responded in the same way that the Myonas had in Wyoming. I was not dealing with a cross-pollination problem but with plants which could not immediately respond to such drastic changes in growing conditions. By saving the seed each year and regrowing for several years (usually 3) I was able to get the plant acclimated to the new growing conditions and only then was the plant able to perform “as advertised”.

For people not satisfied with a new tomato which they feel has more potential than they observe, I’d suggest saving seed and growing out several generations before pronouncing it inferior, especially if the seed came to you from a non-similar climate or latitude. Why and/or how does this work? I don’t know; several theories are possible. First, all organisms carry dormant (non-expressed) genes in their chromosomes. It’s possible that stress activates these genes which are then passed active to the offspring enabling the offspring to better accommodate new situations. Second, climate, UV, elevation, photo-period and other stress agents probably affect gene expression as well as affecting the growing plant directly. Third, the presence of mycorrhizae might facilitate adaptation. Mycorrhizae are fungi which form a mutualistic relationship with over 80% of vascular plants. The endomycorrhizae (as opposed to the “ecto” type) are found, for example, in corn, wheat, tomatoes, beans and apples. The fungal hyphae actually penetrate into the plant tissue. In wet environments they can increase the amount of plant nutrients, especially phosphorus, and in arid environments they aid in water uptake. Perhaps adaptation is related to specific species of these fungi infecting the roots. If you absolutely must adapt a particular variety why don’t you ask the seed donor for some soil and mix that soil with your potting mix for that variety. It’s worth a try. Fourth, gnomes, devas and nature spirits … they probably hold back the growth of the plants until they thoroughly test everyone to see who really loves their tomatoes. Why not?

_______________

This is really a fascinating article. It touches on a subject that I have lots of opinions on - whether a tomato can “adapt” to an area (as described above), or whether the particular variety is mixed - a hybrid - or early generation - and different results are from various genetic combinations showing themselves in small, random growing of seeds. So I republish this to share it with all of you - it is an opinion, an experience, and approach. Who can argue with that! Enjoy!

me and my pal Marlin, running errands this morning…waiting for Sue to be done with her shopping.

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "Tomatoes to Die For", by Craig

Reflections in a creek, WNC Arboretum, April 4 hike.

I will re-read this once I copy and paste it in, below. It will be interesting to see how my tastes and preferences from back then match my perceptions today.

___________________

Tomatoes to Die For

by Craig

I’ve been gardening for about 14 years, but it has only been since around 1986 or so that the unusual, old and unique has graced my gardens each year.  If one were to ask what my favorite tomato was, it would be a long conversation because I have many favorites!  But, since Carolyn answered this question for you all (I should say “y’all” now that I reside in the South), it is time for me to reveal the varieties that I would not want to be without!

One thing that I have noticed is that many of my favorites are among the first heirlooms that I tried.  Either I was lucky in my first choices, or there is a romantic attachment to the varieties that got me hooked on growing them!  In order to make this easier to go through, I will adopt Carolyn’s method of listing and describing by color. 

Among the great red tomatoes that I have grown are Believe it or Not, Big Sandy, Bisignano #2, German Red Strawberry, Lillian’s Red Kansas, Nepal, Opalka, and Reif’s Italian Red Heart.  Believe it or Not is the largest tomato I have grown, yet was quite uniform, didn’t crack much, but had an old fashioned, full flavor.  Big Sandy, which I received from Charlotte Mullens, a West Virginia tomato enthusiast, grew red, not pink for me; it was also quite large, but unlike the creased typical irregular beefsteak, was quite smooth.  The flavor was outstanding.  Two heart shaped, large tomatoes come next - German Red Strawberry, which is very meaty and sweet, and Reif’s Italian Red Heart, which though similar in shape and size is much juicier and seedier.  Lillian’s Red Kansas and Bisignano #2 are elongated (nearly deep globe) types that have very full flavor, and would be great for either slicing or sauce.  Nepal was the first OP tomato I grew, and the best flavored of my 1986 garden, which contained popular hybrids such as Better Boy, Gurney Girl, Whopper, and Big Girl and Boy.  It is medium to large, nearly globe shaped, smooth and richly flavored.  Rounding out the reds is Opalka, my favorite example of the long, pepper shaped sauce tomatoes that are also so delicious eaten fresh, unlike the Roma types that are so bland.

Now comes my favorite category - the pink colored varieties.  Actually, the only difference between the red, or scarlet tomatoes described above and the pinks is the skin color.  In the red tomatoes, the skin is yellow; in the pink tomatoes, the skin is clear.  There is no difference in the acidity of tomatoes with respect to color, either (that is just folklore).  Anyway, the list of excellent pinks that I have grown would include Belgian Beauty, Brandywine, Burcham New Generation, Eva Purple Ball, Fritsche, Goliath, Gregori’s Altai, Mortgage Lifter, Nicky Crain, Anna Russian, Pink Sweet, Polish, Prudence Purple, Stump of the World, Tappy’s Finest, Ukrainian Heart, and Wins All.  To simplify things, I will lump them into general categories of similar types.  First, Belgian Beauty, Burcham New Generation, Goliath, Gregori’s Altai, Pink Sweet, Tappy’s Finest, Wins All and Mortgage Lifter are examples of regular leaf large smooth slightly oblate beefsteak types that may run from eight ounces (Gregori’s) to over two pounds (Mortgage Lifter and Burcham).  They are all firm, juicy, and very sweet, with a very full and rich flavor.  Next come the potato leaf versions of the oblate beefsteak, such as Brandywine, Polish, Prudens Purple and Stump of the World.  These are my flavor favorites, having some tartness to go along with the outstanding sweetness and fullness.  Brandywine has become a tomato legend, as many seed savers call it their favorite tomato; if forced to come up with one favorite, I would have to agree.  Two tomatoes that are distinct for their regular roundness are Eva Purple Ball and Fritsche, being perfect, 6-8 ounce globes, with great juiciness and flavor.  Finally come some outstanding heart shaped varieties, the relatively early Anna Russian, and the much larger Ukrainian Heart and Nicky Crain.  All are productive, delicious and attractive.  One common problem is the lack of vigor in the young seedlings (they are very spindly and fragile looking); even the mature plants have relatively small foliage and poorer leaf cover than other varieties.

Two tomatoes that are unique for their unusual color are Cherokee Purple and Price’s Purple.  Each are very dark pink, nearing brownish purple.  The interiors are brick red, with green gel surrounding the seeds.  Cherokee Purple is a regular leaf, large oblate variety, while Price’s Purple is a large potato leaf type.  Both have intensely rich flavors, and tend to be controversial, probably due to the color, which some find rather unappetizing!  Not me or my family, though!

Now we move on to shades of yellow and orange.  In this family are Golden Oxheart, Hugh’s, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Lillian’s Yellow, Madara, Persimmon, Potato Leaf Yellow, Sun Gold, Spark’s Yellow, Yellow Bell, Yellow Brandywine, and Yellow Oxheart.  Hugh’s (regular leaf) and Lillian’s Yellow (potato leaf) are pale lemon yellow, very large and late, and deliciously sweet.  Golden Oxheart (round, not heart shaped, actually!) and Dr. Wyche are medium to large, golden orange varieties with rich taste.  Persimmon can grow to 2 pounds, and is a unique pale orange tomato that is so meaty it is nearly seedless.  Potato Leaf Yellow, Spark’s Yellow, and Yellow Brandywine are similar in that they are vigorous, potato leaf varieties yielding large, oblate fruit of over a pound, and with very rich flavor that has more tartness than most tomatoes in this color family.  Finally, Yellow Oxheart is a beautiful, large deep yellow heart shaped tomato with nice flavor, although the plant is quite spindly looking early in the season.  Madara (yellow) and Sun Gold (orange, and the only hybrid that I routinely grow) are prolific, sweet cherry tomatoes.  Yellow Bell is a canary yellow tomato of the Roma shape, yet very juicy and delicious, not like typical paste tomatoes.

The most beautiful of tomatoes are the red/gold bicolors, which are streaked inside and out.  Though numerous, I have found the best flavor and color in Georgia Streak, Ruby Gold, and Robinson’s German.  Typically, these varieties grow very large on vigorous deep green leafed plants.  The globe to oblate fruit are yellow to golden yellow with a red blush or splash on the blossom end, and the extent of red varies from fruit to fruit.  When cut, the red coloration bleeds through to the flesh, giving a marbled effect.  They are very sweet and juicy, and in my mind are the perfect cheeseburger tomato!

Now come the real oddities... Green tomatoes inside and out, of which I like Dorothy’s Green the best; red/gold striped Tiger Tom, the ivory colored White Queen and Yellow White, also known as Viva Lindsey’s Kentucky Heirloom.  Dorothy’s Green is a medium to quite large oblate variety that is the smoothest of the green types in my experience.  When ripe, the exterior color is an amber green color; the real surprise is seeing the emerald green interior when cut!  And the flavor is rich and delicious, and among the best I have grown, no matter what the size or color.  I love to use these in salsa recipes, as people are unprepared for the sweet flavors!  Tiger Tom is the size, shape and smoothness of a large ping pong ball.  The tomatoes have skin that is scarlet with jagged gold stripes, and the interior seeds are often surrounded by green gel.  The flavor is snappy, tart, and full, and it is one of the best flavored early tomatoes that you can grow.  Finally, White Queen is a large, ribbed, slightly irregular tomato that is creamy white in color, and surprisingly full in flavor.  Yellow White is even more beautiful, being smoother in contour, and with a gorgeous pearly pink blush on the blossom end. 

It is encouraging to see seed companies developing an interest in unusual tomatoes.  Among the ones we highly recommend are Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.  Carolyn and I have been sending these companies samples of our favorites for a few years now, and they are now carrying  a number of these in their seed catalogs.  I hope that this, and Carolyn’s, listing of some of our favorite tomatoes will encourage to do some exploring in your own gardens! 

______________________

It is quite remarkable to see how little has changed over the many years. Tomatoes that I cherish now for the most part are found in the list above. I included some varieties in this article that I think I overrated a bit. Some varieties are not lost to me - my saved seed no longer germinates. I really need to find some of these to grow again, such as Big Sandy, Reif’s Italian Red Heart, Belgian Beauty, Fritsche, Pink Sweet, Ukrainian Heart, Price’s Purple, Potato Leaf Yellow and Dorothy’s Green. Among those I now feel were overrated are Eva Purple Ball, Pruden’s Purple, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Persimmon, the three bicolored beefsteaks, and White Queen. They are fine tomatoes, but not in the top tier of flavor for my palate.

Sue about to pass the very first native azalea to bloom in the WNC Arboretum

Off The Vine, Volume 1, number 3. "Late Blight: New Strain Threatens Tomatoes and Potatoes" by Dr. Tad Smith

Straw bales set up and ready to be prepared - watched by Marlin

Reading this article reminds us all of the serious nature of Late Blight (though it is certain that things have moved on beyond this in the years since - diseases find ways to survive through mutations, of course). It also reminds me of my friendship with Tad, from whom I received from really interesting tomatoes, including Pale Perfect Purple, and the variety that I believe the bees crossed with Brandywine in my garden, leading eventually to Lucky Cross and Little Lucky (the variety was Tad, which was work in progress by Tad, and itself not stable when I grew it).

______________

Late Blight: New Strain Threatens Tomatoes and Potatoes

by Dr. Tad Smith (Senior Plant Pathologist, Rohm and Haas Co.)

A very troublesome disease known as late blight of potato and tomato is once again causing problems for the home vegetable gardener and commercial grower. The fungus responsible for this blight is known to scientists as Phytophthrora infestans. This is an appropriate name for this plant pathogen, as its name is derived from the Greek language (phyto = plant, phthrora= destroyer, and infestans refers to the infestation). It is the same fungus that caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840’s, which resulted in the starvation of approximately 1 million Irish and the immigration of millions of Europeans to North America.

For many years, commercial potato growers in the United States were able to control the well-established strain of late blight known as A1. By planting healthy potato tuber pieces and applying fungicides when weather conditions were favorable for the fungus, growers were able to maintain the upper hand against late blight. In the early part of 1994, it was obvious to plant pathologists that something had changed in the dynamics of the disease. A new strain was identified in Florida, and reports of severe outbreaks of late blight were surfacing in Georgia and the Carolinas. Soon the disease was reported in cooler areas of the Appalachian Mountains. Not only were commercial growers reporting tremendous damage in their potato and tomato fields, but home gardeners watched with horror as the foliage on their lush tomato plants died literally overnight. As the year progressed, reports of disease spread up the east coast to Maine, with scattered reports from the Midwest and western states.

What had happened? From a scientific viewpoint, all three parts of the plant-disease triangle had fallen into place during 1994; in other words, a virulent fungus had combined with cool and wet weather to destroy crops of susceptible potatoes and tomatoes. The virulent fungus was a strain of late blight not previously found in the United States. It was designated as strain A2, and was probably introduced into the United States from Mexico in the 1990’s. Free trade may be good for the economy, but it is a biological disaster. During this century, the United States has been invaded by numerous foreign plant diseases. Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, and dogwood anthracnose are just a few recognizable examples.

During 1993, the disease became established in some potato fields, in the spring of 1994, diseased potato tubers were inadvertently transported and planted all over the United States, and the first part of the disease triangle was in place. As soon as the crop of tomatoes and potatoes began to grow, another part of the triangle was complete. The third part of the triangle was completed by the unusually cool and wet summer throughout much of the country.

The development of a late blight epidemic depends on weather conditions, particularly high humidity and cool temperature. The fungus produces spores most abundantly at 100% humidity and temperatures between 60 and 70 F. Plant leaves must be wet for spores to germinate and infect leaves. This process can occur as quickly as 4 hours. Within 5 days, one infected leaf can produce millions of new spores. Unless the air temperature rises quickly and the plant remains dry, the potato or tomato plant will become severely diseased, and an entire field can turn into a fetid mass of dead plant tissue.

The introduction of strain A2 into vast areas of the United States presents several problems. First, this strain is much more virulent than the old A1 strain. Strain A2 can kill plants much quicker, before a grower can react to the fungus. By the time a grower can apply fungicide to protect the crop, it may be already severely diseased. Second, even if the fungicides are applied in time, some isolates of A2 may be less sensitive to fungicides than strain A1. Finally, some isolates of A2 may be able to survive the winter in the soil by forming a survival spore through sexual reproduction with strain A1. These specialized spores, known as oospores, could infest thousands of acres of farmland. In the past, strain A1 would die during the winter as it could not survive without living plant material to serve as host and did not form oospores.

Symptoms of the disease appear at first as water-soaked spots, often seem at the edge of leaves. Initial damage caused by the fungus resembles frost injury. If the lesions dry out, the areas turn a grayish-brown color. Under moist conditions, a thin layer of white fungus can be seen on the underside of the leaves. Later the infected leaves die and hang from the plant in a rotten mass of dead tissue. If the weather turns dry, the affected leaves look as if they were hit by a blowtorch. If cool and wet conditions return, the disease will resume its activity and can kill the plants in a few days.

What can a home gardener do to protect his crop of tomatoes and potatoes? First, make sure that you purchase healthy potato tuber pieces and tomato transplants. Probably the best way to guarantee healthy plants is to raise your own. Tomato transplants are easy to raise from seed. True potato seeds are now available from Park Seed Co. and are no more difficult to grow than tomatoes. Probably the worst thing to do is to plant potatoes from the grocery store. In addition to late blight, they may contain other disease organisms. Second, prevent the growth of any volunteer potatoes and tomatoes, particularly if the disease was present last year. Infected potatoes can function as a reservoir for late blight.

Proper selection of the garden site can reduce the risk for disease. Select an area not previously planted to a vegetable garden that receives early morning sun. The early sunlight will quickly dry off dew and limit the length of a potential infection period. Do not water foliage late in the day so that leaves are wet during the night. When planting tomatoes and potatoes, leave sufficient room between plants to allow for good air circulation. This will also prevent the foliage from remaining wet longer than necessary.

At the end of the growing season, tomato and potato foliage and vines should be removed from the garden. This will eliminate some overwintering oospores that may have formed and also spores of other plant pathogens from the garden area.

As a last resort, fungicides may be useful for some home gardeners. Years ago, there were numerous fungicides available to the home gardener for control of various blights. Most of these chemicals have been removed from retail sale due to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency. One of the few fungicides still available to the home gardener that is effective against late blight is chlorothalonil, sold under several trade names including Daconil. It is a broad-spectrum fungicide, with activity against most foliar fungal diseases of potato and tomato. This fungicide can prevent the disease, but once the disease is established, treatments cannot cure it. Hence the home gardener is faced with the task of spraying fungicides to protect the plants against a disease that may or may not appear. For many people, it is not worth the inconvenience to apply fungicides. If fungicides are used, the home gardener must follow all directions on the fungicide label. Please contact your local county extension office for current information pertaining to proper fungicide use for your area.

It is likely that home gardeners and commercial growers will have to adapt to more frequent and severe outbreaks of late blight. Use of disease-tolerant potatoes may help commercial potato growers, but there are no tolerant tomato varieties for the home gardener. The agrichemical industry is working hard to provide effective and safe fungicides for control of this and other plant diseases. Unfortunately, the registration process for a new fungicide is time-consuming and extremely expensive. It will be many years before a new generation of fungicides is available. In the meantime, sanitation, proper plant location, and plant spacing are the best tools to combat late blight and other plant diseases.

_____________________

Craig’s comments

I never experienced Late Blight when gardening in Raleigh, but believe it hit my plants here in Hendersonville later in the season - late August into September - ending things quickly. I hope you found something of interest in this article. It would be well worth perusing the latest info on Late Blight (this is 30 years old) - diseases can mutate quickly and adapt. As Jeff Goldblum says in Jurrasic Park - “Life finds a way”

The rare wild flower Oconee Bells, seen at Pearson’s Falls, Saluda NC, on a late March ramble

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 3. "C and C's Corner" - by Carolyn

We didn’t do well with tulips in Raleigh - but LOVE growing them here in Hendersonville! From today!

In rereading these articles, all I can say is….it’s so much fun! They are quaint, they are of a particular time, and a particular point in a particular growing friendship. Here we are, the first article from the third and last newsletter from the first volume. There are some meaty articles that will follow - there were 8 articles in all in this issue. That will take us into May! Here we go…

____________________

C&C’s Corner

by Carolyn

IT’S TIME TO RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO Off The Vine if you started with Volume 1, #1. We hope you’ll stay with us. We’re keeping the subscription price at $5/3 issues for Volume 2 ($6 (US) Canadian $7(US) other foreign countries) but feel it’s not unreasonable to raise it to $7/3 issues for Volume 3. Volume 3 rates will be $8 (US) Canadian and $9(US) other foreign countries. We think that price is still very reasonable and wanted to let you know up front. Since we can’t send out separate notices for renewals, please send your money to me after you’ve read this issue. Your mailing label states the last issue you’ll receive; 13 means Vol. 1, #3 is your last issue, 32 means Vol. 3, #2 is your last issue, etc. the expiration dates are current as of 1/22/95. If you feel there is an error please call me or drop me a postcard. If I were perfect I wouldn’t be on earth! Upcoming articles will include home hybridization, documentation of Riesentraube’s existence in Philadelphia in the mid-1800’s including the wine recipe (yes, tomato wine), along with a larger discussion of the interesting and important field of food history, and article on Desert Sweet, a tomato which can grow in brackish (saline) waters, germination tricks, tomato folklore and how to determine seed purity as well as our usual reports, musings and suggestions.

Last issue we asked for folks to share with us their favorite large pink and red tomatoes. Well, the response was lousy! Only three people responded. We will not give in, or up … as the case may be! So, please let us know what your FAVORITE LARGE RED AND LARGE PINK TOMATOES are, why you like them and where seed can be obtained. Let’s define large as being roughly over 8 oz. in size. If you’re renewing, just slip in a piece of paper with your favorites or drop me a postcard. Unless you state otherwise we’ll feel free to publish your name and any comments. You’ve heard about our current favorites … let’s hear about YOURS!

Apparently there really is a large interest in heirloom tomatoes throughout the country. We continue be pleased with the number of new subscriptions we are receiving. Organic Gardening mentioned Off The Vine as a resource; the article was a surprise to us! Both Jeff McCormack at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Linda Sapp at Tomato Growers Supply have mentioned Off The Vine in their new catalogs. And our names are mentioned as the donors of certain varieties in both the Southern Exposure and Johnny’s new seed catalogs. More about this will be found in the article on Seed Sources in this issue. I am writing an article about the USDA varieties for the Spring issue of the Historical Gardener. This is a newsletter I think many of you might enjoy because it deals with various aspects of heirloom/historic vegetables, fruits, flowers, gardens, people, etc. (The Historical Gardener, 1910 North 35th Place, Mt. Vernon, WA 98273-8981; $12 for four issues/year). Finally, I have accepted an invitation from the Rodale Institute to present a workshop on heirloom tomatoes which will be given on August 23, 1995 at the Institute in Kutztown, PA.

In our last issue we mentioned that The Tomato Club newsletter had temporarily ceased publication. It had, but Bob Ambrose has decided ot resume publication with the first “new issue” being January/February 1995. Subscribers’ original subscriptions will be honored. The new subscription rate is $12.95 for six issues per year. The address is: The Tomato Club,  114 E Main Street, Bogota, NJ 07603.

Our featured “tomato” person in this issue is Thane Earle. Thane is a long time member of Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) and I know many of you will be surprised at what he has done and what he does now when he isn’t growing tomatoes. Dr. John Rahart of Bosque, New Mexico has written an article about adaptation of tomato varieties to local conditions, an article we promised you in our last issue. John is currently on a “sabbatical” from the practice of dentistry. And yes, for those of you who recognize the last name, John’s father was Andrew Rahart as in Andrew Rahart’s Jumbo Red , Pink Ping Pong and Myone. Dr. Tad Smith has written a timely article on the new threat posed by the appearance of a new strain of late blight, which is the same fungus that caused the great Irish Potato famine. Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in plant pathology from Virginia Tech in 1990. While in graduate school he maintained his interests in tomatoes and gardening. He obtained seed for Yellow Oxhart tomato from a family in southwestern Virginia and encouraged Southern Exposure Seed Exchange to introduce it. He also developed several unusual tomato varieties through hybridizing, including Purple Perfect and Snowstorm. He worked for the USDA Forest Service on control of dogwood anthracnose for 2 years in western North Carolina. Later he researched peanut diseases for 1 year at the University of Georgia, Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton. He is currently employed by Rohm and Haas Co. in Spring House, PA as a plant pathologist in the Agricultural Products Research Group. We are offering some of his F2 seeds for growout as discussed in the article on Seed Sources. I mentioned a few of my favorite tomatoes in the last issue and Craig is sharing with you some of his “winners” in this issue. Craig has also written an article describing our fascinating experience with the USDA varieties we grew this past summer; the second half of the article will be published at a later date. Finally, I’ve written an article about seed sources for heirloom tomatoes which I hope you find useful. I also describe in that article some interesting F2 seeds we are making available to you.

My garden had not revealed all of its secrets by the time we published our last issue, so here are the highlights. The most satisfying accomplishment was getting a few seeds from Magnus! Magnus is one of the previously thought extinct varieties released by the Livingston Seed Co. in 1900. It’s supposed to be a pink potato leaf variety. Craig got one regular leaf seedling out of 50 seeds and after TWO MONTHS of germination I got two seedlings up, both of which were potato leaf. I breathed on them, to increase the carbon dioxide concentration, I conducted ceremonies over them to ensure rapid growth … and was successful! I Fed-Exed one plant to Craig and planted the other one. Craig’s plant arrived in find shape but took an unspecified nosedive in his garden, leaving me as the nervous tomato mom with the only growing plant. Fast forwarding to frost time, there was great concern but several fruit made it to maturity or were on the turn. Remember, seed saved from fruit with any color will be viable. The USDA varieties with the best taste, for me, were Optimus, Redfield Beauty, Landreth, Essex Wonder, Golden Queen, Green Gage, White Queen and  Paragon. Magnus couldn’t be easily rated because of the cool Fall weather which makes all late tomatoes a bit watery and acid in my zone 5 growing area. Golden Queen was a real winner as was Aunt Ginny, which is not just another pink potato leaf. It is GREAT with respect to taste, yield and vine! Green Gage was a surprise. It’s a very old (probably pre-1800) yellow plum which has green gel around the seeds until ripe and when picked unripe it is bitter but when the green gel changes to yellow it is delicious. White Queen, a USDA variety, is the best white I’ve grown in terms of taste and color and Bulgarian Triumph, a non-spectacular 4 oz. red was an outstanding new taste favorite. German Red Strawberry was again terrific and I discovered I know have a pink mutant of Cuostralee; same tomato but probably a single mutation from yellow skin (red) to colorless skin (pink). The new Latvian varieties Ilze’s Yellow Latvian and Velican were very good but not outstanding and the same was true of the new Ukrainian varieties, Olga’s Red and Bely Naliv Ukrainian. The tow new Yugoslavian varieties from my colleague in Computer Science were outstanding: Yasha Yugoslavian is a big pink heart with wispy foliage and Crnkovic Yogoslavian is a big pink beefsteak with regular foliage, terrific taste and yields. The last one I want to mention is Orange Strawberry. The two are not related. Marjorie said that Orange Strawberry was a chance seedling that appeared in a pack of seeds of Pineapple (bicolor) obtained commercially. She’s grown all the orange tomatoes offered by that company and says it resembles none of them. It appeared in her 1993 garden, grew pure for both of us in 1994 and I’m listing it in the SSE Annual with the hopes that it really is pure. Perhaps I should have grown it out one more year before offering it, so don’t get mad if it isn’t pure; it was so good I took a chance!

This is a very sad story. One day I noticed tomatoes on a plant at the end of a row but the label had disappeared. It was a replacement plant for one that got hooked out by the cultivator tines and then I remembered I hadn’t labeled it because there was no way I was going to forget it. Wrong! It was a potato leaved variety so it didn’t take too much time to establish the fact that it was one of the many plants I was growing out of an alleged orange-red Brandywine (more about this in the seed source article). So why the interest? Well, it had the biggest tomato I’ve ever seen in my life, bar none. Gordon Graham, I was thinking of YOU! Gordon is the current World’s record holder with a 7 lb. 12 oz. giant (and an Off the vine subscriber). To be honest this huge tomato was a bit rotten on one side when I discovered it, so taste tests were out of the question. Its sister fruit, although much smaller, had superb taste. I processed the seeds, carefully spread them out of the paper plate, checked them at one week and found that a mouse had eaten the seeds. End of sad story.

In our last issue I mentioned that Red Brandywine was possibly a variant of Brandywine (pink). It is not. Red Brandywine is Amish and no doubt was named Brandywine after the river of that name in Pennsylvania, but it is a regular leaf plant, not potato-leaf, and the fruit are red and round, quite unlike its pink namesake. Actually there are some folks who think Brandywine (pink) is from Ohio, but that’s another story.

We would love to have articles submitted by our readers. We stated in the first issue that we wanted Off the Vine to be interactive and that can’t happen without your participation. So if you have something you want to say, write it. If we can use it we will! Are any of you selling/trading heirlooms with restaurants? We’d love to hear about what they like and how you do it because others are interested. Do you have weird and/or wonderful recipes for heirloom tomatoes? Do you have an amusing story about tomatoes you’ve known, loved or hated? Do people make fun of you because you don’t grow the latest hybrids? Let us know about it.

_______________

Even the intros into each issue, typically penned by Carolyn, are crammed with information. One more amusing note - Carolyn was a Word Perfect user, me a MS Word user - formatting was always a bit of fun back in the day! There is simply a lot of information to process in this wonderful piece of writing by Carolyn.

Yellow!

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 2. Craig's Interview with Dr. Charles Rick. "A 57 Year (and Counting!) Affair with Tomatoes"

Spring appearing in Hendersonville in our back yard forsythia

I didn’t fully realize at the time what an awesome opportunity this was - the chance to interview a true tomato legend, who died in 2002, about 8 years after our phone chat. This will be the first time in many years I’ve read this article. What a treat - I hope you enjoy reading it.

______________

Conversations with Dr. Charles Rick:  A 57 Year (and Counting!) Affair with Tomatoes

by Craig

It is always a  pleasure to chat with someone about a topic that is a mutual passion.  I recently had the great fortune of spending about 2 hours on the phone with Dr. Charles Rick, and felt that it would be interesting to share what I learned with the readers of Off The Vine.  Dr. Rick is perhaps the leading expert in tomato genetics, and his work has made a great impact on commercial tomato growing in the United States.  I asked many questions, and was humbled by his knowledge, of which a mere fraction appears below, and his warmth and wit, which were infectious.  It is always humbling to find out how much more there is to learn about something that you are quite familiar with, and that was certainly the case in our conversations.  What was reassuring was the interest that Dr. Rick showed as I described some of the wonderful and unusual tomatoes in the SSE collection.  It reinforced the notion that there will always be something new to grow, and something new to learn!

Dr. Charles Rick has been working with tomatoes since 1937, when he began carrying out research in graduate school.  Though no thesis resulted from this early work, he returned to tomatoes for good in 1942, after spending two years studying asparagus at the University of California at Davis.  His growing interest in tomatoes led to an odyssey that continues to this day, spanning over 50 years.  One of the advantages to doing research at Davis is that 90% of the tomatoes that are processed in the U. S. A.  come from California, mostly in the Central Valley.  These vast plantings provide an immediate and captive audience for field research.  Over the next 20-25 years he worked on analyzing the tomato genome.  This work is not complete, and will not be completed until all of the genes located on the chromosomes of the tomato have been identified.  The information located in these genes is responsible for all of the characteristics of a particular tomato variety, such as color, flavor, and leaf shape.  Actually, we know an awful lot about tomato genetics due to the research of Dr. Rick and others.  It is from this work that we can now begin to predict what will result when different varieties of tomatoes are crossed.  For example, red (yellow skin over red interior) is dominant over pink (clear skin).  So, if a cross is made between a pink and red tomato, seed saved from that cross, which is the first generation or F1 hybrid, will produce red tomatoes.  One extremely useful outcome of this work is the ability to breed various disease resistances into tomato varieties, the best source of which are the wild species from the Andes region of South America.  There are nine species of Lycopersicon, including L. esculentum (which includes most of the varieties that we grow in our gardens), L. pimpinellifolium (currant tomato), and other wild species, such as L. peruvianum and L. cheesmanii.  The amount of genetic variation in the wild species is vast;  in fact, according to Miller and Tanksley, more genetic variation exists in a single wild population of L. peruvianum than among all accessions of L. esculentum.  Dr. Rick has made 13 major collecting trips to the Andean region.  In the wild species, all sorts of variation is noted, such as many different growth habits, leaf shapes, colors, and hairiness of the stems, leaves, or fruit.  All the wild type fruits are cherry sized or smaller, and most are green or colorless in the ripe state.  Although not toxic, their foul taste renders them inedible.  So, the collecting trips were obviously not culinary adventures!  As a consequence, the natives consider the plants to be useless weeds.  Dr. Rick, on the other hand, considers them to be useful treasures.  Some of the obstacles that are now being studied by Dr. Rick and others are using the genetic material from these wild tomato varieties to produce edible varieties that will have insect resistance, drought tolerance, ability to set fruit and flourish under different temperature extremes, and ability to tolerate salt water conditions.

Dr. Rick, when asked to comment on the SSE, has a favorable attitude, and commented on some of the interesting accessions in the collection.  I felt that he is not aware of the remarkable and amazing variety in the SSE collection, as he seemed to feel that most, if not all, of the heirlooms are in the immense USDA collection.  On the contrary, Carolyn and I feel that there is very little overlap between the SSE and USDA collections.  In his opinion, native outcrossed crops like maize might be best for the SSE to concentrate upon.  Because they are highly variable, heirloom collections from different areas should be sought for their potential value.  Dr. Rick stated that the Davis collection contains 3,000 accessions, which overlap to a limited extent with the much larger (10,000) collection of the USDA.  The Davis collection consists mostly of wild types and genetic mutants, which are accessible for interested investigators.  What seems obvious is the remarkable resource that is now available when considering all three collections coexisting together!  In other words, a tomato researcher has at their choosing somewhere around 16,000 varieties to choose from!  He also noted the problems with the possibility of different names for the same varieties in the various collections; even with the help of analysis of the genetic material, it would be difficult to determine which varieties are distinct.  One would think that after spending over 50 years studying one particular crop, there would reach a point when you had seen it all.  Amazingly, a few years ago, David Cavagnaro sent Dr. Rick seeds of one of the SSE collection bicolor tomatoes, such as Georgia Streak.  Well, it was the first time that Charles had ever seen a bicolor tomato!  I was discussing some of the other observations that I have noted over the years, such as tomatoes with wispy, carrot-like foliage, or purplish-pink coloration.  Again, these were new to him, and he was quite interested in receiving seed from those who had something truly different and unusual.  He loves tomatoes, and plants in his own garden Caligrande and Celebrity, which are F1 hybrids that carry the needed resistance to TMV and other diseases.  Such resistances are generally unexplored in the older types introduced before 1940.

When asked about the frequency of spontaneous mutations or sports, he said that they do indeed occur, but at low frequency.  If they interfere with fruiting, their unfruitfulness leads to easy detection.  Such “bull” plants, not being held to the ground by fruit load, become large, vigorous, erect plants that are conspicuous, even at a distance.  He mentioned Honor Bright (now known as Lutescent) as most likely being a spontaneous mutation.  This variety, listed by Livingston in the late 1890’s, is currently in the SSE collection.  The foliage is a light green color that gradually fades to bright yellow as the season wears on.  The fruits also go through an interesting color change on their way to ripening (green to white to orange to red).  Regarding crossing, he feels that it is up to the regional bee population.  He observes that it is rare for bumblebees to visit L. esculentum in the fields at Davis, but they love the wild species.  Plantings are done in short rows close together, and about 1% crossing is typically observed.  The crossing, of course, is spotted by growing out the next generation.

Finally, I asked Dr. Rick about germination enhancement of dormant or stubborn tomato seed.  This is a topic that has interested Carolyn and I for a few years, as we have each had old samples of seed from this one and that one that have resisted all attempts at germination.  Dr. Rick has had good luck with using half strength chlorox for 30 minutes for stubborn seeds.  Generally, the wild types have more problems with dormancy, and some types need to go through the digestive tract to grow.  This is not to suggest that readers of Off The Vine should try this rather exotic method.  Actually, we have been experimenting with, and have had limited success with, combinations of soaking seed in dilute potassium nitrate, and/or gibberellic acid, and/or brief exposure in the microwave oven!  We will talk about this topic in more detail in a future newsletter.

Dr. Rick has been retired officially for 12 years, but continues as Director of the Davis tomato collection and conducts a limited amount of research.  He is currently studying the behavior and linkage of traits derived from crosses with wild Lycopersicon and other Solanum species. 

___________________

The information in the article really stands on its own. I am now off to try getting some of my older seeds to germinate using half strength bleach!

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 2. Craig's article "Early Observations from a North Carolina Tomato Jungle"

2022 garden shaping up - seedlings getting some sun

My gardens back in the early 1990s were packed with tomato plants as I gleefully worked in as many varieties that I could fit. This article describes such a garden, from 1994, just our second garden in Raleigh, when the trees hadn’t yet blocked the sun, and disease hadn’t begun to become an issue - and the deer were yet to discover what we were doing!

___________________________

Early Observations from a North Carolina Tomato Jungle

by Craig

The theme for gardening in 1994 in Raleigh is tropical!  Nearly every day since June has edged into the 90’s, with oppressive humidity and frequent evening thunderstorms.  The rain is certainly a refreshing change from last summer’s bone dry conditions.  Somehow, I managed to squeeze 110 tomato plants into my ever-too-small garden, and the dense growth has made it hard to visit some of the plants.  My family now refuses to pick any varieties that would require them to delve into this tomato vine jungle (due, in part, to the amazing numbers and varieties of spiders that have chosen to stretch their webs between the plants).  This year’s sultry temperatures have led to massive vine growth, but the sometimes excessive moisture, when combined with his poorly draining red clay, means a lot of blossom end rot, especially on certain varieties.  I have also noted that a few types seem reluctant to produce flower clusters at all!  Blossom drop has not been a problem, however, and most of the vines are loaded.

An additional theme of my garden this year is one of surprise, in that there are about 10 varieties that are not turning out the way that they were advertised.  But, the presence of many old commercial varieties obtained from the USDA (see Lost Tomatoes  article for details) and a generous selection of old favorites are leading to a very interesting year in the tomato patch.  Just about all the varieties have ripened, and our next newsletter will contain detailed highlights, low lights, and other observations from both Carolyn's and my gardens.

Among the early standouts in my plot are Wins All (from a man in North Carolina; this is his way of spelling it, which makes more sense than the one word method used in the SSE Annual), which is providing smooth, large pink beefsteak fruit with a rich, sweet taste; Lutescent, primarily for the weirdness of seeing a bright yellow foliaged plant in the middle of the patch that has fruit going from light green to snow white to pale orange yellow to scarlet; Golden Queen, giving beautiful tomatoes that are lemon yellow on the shoulders, shading to pearly pink at the blossom end (but no pink bleeds through to the flesh), and Nicky Crain, a huge pink oxheart of delicious flavor that was sent to me by Carl Aker, Pennsylvania.  Among the many varieties obtained from the USDA collection, early standouts have been Favorite, a Livingston introduction, which produces smooth, medium sized oblate scarlet fruit, Abraham Lincoln, which, although lacking the bronzy foliaged plant, has provided large (over 1 pound) delicious fruit more in line with the catalog descriptions, and Dixie Golden Giant,  one of the largest fruited varieties seen so far this year, and very similar looking to the Gleckler  variety Goldie.

One of my all time favorite tomatoes for eating, and the only commercially produced hybrid that I allow in my garden, is Sun Gold, an orange cherry tomato that has a phenomenally rich and luscious flavor.  One of my ongoing projects continues to be growing out F2 seed saved from the fruit in effort to stabilize an open pollinated version of Sun Gold that maintains the color and, especially, flavor.  This year, I have 4 of the plants growing in his garden (I grew 3 last year), and the results have been quite interesting.  One plant yields small orange cherry tomatoes (a bit smaller than the hybrid) that are very similar in flavor to its parent; another gives large yellow orange cherry tomatoes (lighter in color and larger than the hybrid) that are a bit milder, but still delicious.  A third plant gave me large scarlet cherry tomatoes with a point on the bottom that were very mild in flavor, and finally one plant looked like an ordinary small red cherry tomato, but with a more delicious flavor.  The plants all had different looking foliage, vigor, and yield, so clearly there is a lot of interesting genetic information in the parents of Sun Gold hybrid. 

Among the crosses or mixups that are not what they are supposed to be are Yellow Beefsteak (small red rather than bicolor), Hunt Family Favorite (small red instead of large pink), Marizol Purple (medium red globes instead of large pink), Cherokee Purple (round medium pink globe instead of large oblate purple), and Acme, Queen of the Purples, and Mikado (the last three all red instead of pink).  Carolyn and I are disappointed that some of the USDA collection varieties seem to be crossed, but it may be that when things start to ripen in Carolyn’s garden, she will find that she has the “real thing”.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

____________________________

Sue with Betts and Koda on a March walk at DuPont