My tomato collection tour - part 4. Tomatoes 31-40

Inside back cover of 1987 SSE yearbook, spotlighting and extraordinary person

We are just finishing up a truly picturesque snowstorm. Shoveling done, gas logs lit, seems a perfect time to keep pushing ahead on my seed tour blogs - so I am moving faster than my weekly target (for the moment - taking advantage of a nice slow day listening to WNCW and watching snow drifting down)

I’ve started using tags and categories so it is easier to find the two series of blogs I am working through. The seed collection tour blogs are tagged with the term “seed collection” so you can view them as a group if you wish - find the tag list to the right of the blog. The Off The Vine reposts are tagged with “Off The Vine”.

Strap in, and let’s continue the journey.

Tomato 31 - Nepal - this unassuming medium sized red tomato is THE tomato hero in my collection. Purchased from Johnny’s in 1987 (lured by the description mentioning superb flavor), it pretty much single-handedly converted me from dabbling in hybrids to focusing on heirlooms. It excelled in my 1987 garden and excelled last year in my 2021 garden….as well as many of my gardens in between. It began to bear ripe tomatoes in 82 days, and I picked 60 tomatoes at an average weight of 7 ounces, for a plant yield of 26.5 pounds. I rated it an A in flavor; it was the best tomato in my garden that year.

Tomato 32 - Sugar Lump (aka Gardener’s Delight) - I purchased this from Johnny’s in 1987, seduced by the description of excellent flavor. Alas, it was pretty ordinary to my palate. It started to bear fruit in 72 days, so was an early/midseason variety. I picked 580 tomatoes with an average weight of half an ounce, giving the plant a yield of 18 pounds, quite good for a cherry tomato. I rated the flavor B+, so clearly didn’t dislike it and I may have graded it a bit softly, as I never did grow it again.

Tomato 33 - Jet Star F1 hybrid - this is the second of the renown Harris tomato hybrid trio, and it was purchased from them in 1988 (along with Moreton and Supersonic). Oddly, I never did end up growing it until many years later, in 2004. It didn’t particularly distinguish itself, but we will get to that eventually - I had to repurchase seeds, and we’ll revisit it when I make it to tomato number 1468!

Tomato 34 - Supersonic F1 hybrid - this is the third, and last, of the Harris tomato hybrid superstar trio, also purchased from their catalog in 1988. This was the Harris answer to Better Boy and Ultra Boy and Whopper, a large fruited scarlet hybrid. As with Jet Star, I didn’t grow it in 1988 - and in fact didn’t revisit it until 2004, when it grew along side Moreton and Jet Star. I do believe that I grew it from a nursery purchased plant in 1986 and it was indeed very much like Better Boy and Whopper - a fine large scarlet tomato.

Tomato 35 - Ultra Sweet F1 hybrid - the Stokes catalog really raved about this relatively new hybrid variety and I purchased and grew it in 1988. They noted that it ripened internally quite early, which gave it a better, sweeter flavor. I didn’t find anything particular noteworthy about it, however. It did come in relatively early, starting to yield tomatoes in 67 days. I picked 44 tomatoes from the plant at an average size of 6.7 ounces. The total plant yield was 18 pounds. I found the tomatoes too firm, and lacking intensity, and it earned a B grade. I never grew it again.

Tomato 36 - Calypso - I was sent this variety as a bonus pack from the Tomato Seed Company in 1988. From a Google search, it appears to be a medium sized scarlet variety that does well in heat and humidity. Alas, I never did grow it, so have no opinion of the variety.

1987 SSE yearbook page for the variety Sabre, below

Tomato 37 - Sabre - SSE member Charles Estep sent this variety to me upon request in 1988. It was described as being particularly attractive and having a “sharp” flavor. It grew a regular leaf plant for me, but a search about indicates there are potato leaf “versions” out there as well (not an uncommon circumstance for many heirloom varieties). The variety seemed to originate with SSE member Don Branscomb, a collector of many varieties, particularly from the USDA germplasm collection. I grew Sabre in my 1988 garden. I was relatively late, coming in at 82 days. I harvested 34 tomatoes of an average weight of 10 ounces; the plant yield was 21 pounds. The oblate pink tomatoes were not wonderful, with a bit of the unusual “musky” overtones that quite a few pink heirlooms seem to possess (the most notorious, for me, being the NC heirloom German Johnson, a locally popular tomato that is simply not one I enjoy eating). It achieved a B rating. I did save seeds, but didn’t grow it again.

Tomato 38 - Wayahead Improved - selected from the Jung seed catalog in 1988, and grown in that year’s garden, this was described as one of their most popular tomatoes, with high quality despite being quite early. The “Wayahead” name graced various early tomatoes from this or that seed company for decades. Market gardeners found profit in getting high quality tomatoes as early as possible in the season, which made tomatoes with early-indicating types of names very popular. Sadly, this tomato was a pretty big let down, seemingly diseased. I grew it in my 1988 garden and it was situated in the front row. The growth habit was determinate. It was quite early, starting to bear ripe fruit in 66 days. I picked 35 scarlet tomatoes that averaged but 2.5 ounces in weight, and possibly due to disease issues (I speculated Tomato Mosaic Virus at the time), only 5.6 pounds of fruit came from the plant. It also ranked low in flavor, with a B-, at the bottom of my 1988 tomato efforts. I never gave it another chance. Seeds were not saved.

Tomato 39 - Gurney Girl F1 hybrid - I received a lot of seed catalogs each year starting in 1986, and became familiar with all sorts of companies that were new to me, such as Jung, Field and Gurney. When selecting varieties for my three year heirloom vs hybrid contest, I chose this variety, lauded in the Gurney catalog, to include, purchasing the seed from them, and growing it, in 1988. First harvest occurred in 67 days from transplant, and the 34 harvested fruit averaged 6.5 ounces, giving a plant yield of 14 pounds. I rated the flavor a solid A, clearly one of the best tasting scarlet red, medium sized hybrids. I never did grow it again.

Tomato 40 - Czech’s Excellent Yellow - this is another tomato variety included in a request by SSE member Jim Halladay from Pennsylvania in 1987. Jim noted that it was developed by a Czech tomato breeder and initially collected in the US by Ben Quisenberry in the mid 1970s. It was just a lovely experience to grow, earning a place in my 1987 garden, and so was one of the varieties instrumental in converting me to heirloom varieties. The foliage was a particularly deep shape of bluish green. The tomatoes began to come in at 71 days from transplant. I harvested 140 tomatoes of an average weight of 3 ounces - perfectly smooth, round bright yellow globes. The plant yield was an impressive 26.5 pounds. I found the flavor sweet and mild, a solid B+, lacking a bit of a tart snap for me to provide balance. I haven’t grown it often and suspect that saved seeds are too old to germinate. I would love to have it in my garden again some day.

There you have it - that was a pretty mixed set of varieties, mostly red, with one superstar (Nepal) that I still enjoy in recent gardens. Have a good week - I’ll be back with #41-50 soon, with a few historically important ones and another long time favorite heirloom.

1987 SSE yearbook - you can read the Czech’s Excellent Yellow entry

Let's Continue. "Off The Vine" Volume 1, Issue 1. Carolyn and Craig Introduce Themselves

Off The Vine Volume 1, Issue 1 front cover

First, Carolyn Male

After talking about this newsletter for a couple of years I’m delighted we’re able to send you the first issue.  Craig and I are each writing a short description of where we’re coming from and where we’re going.

I’m writing this as I sit on the porch of the farmhouse where I was raised.  As I look out over the fields I remember when I was a kid knocking Colorado Potato Beetles off the tomatoes into a can of kerosene.  My father would get mad at me because I couldn’t bring myself to squash the orange eggs on the leaves; I still won’t do it unless I have gloves on.  Valiant, Rutgers, Marglobe and Fireball are some of the tomato varieties I remember from childhood and we picked them in 3.4 bushel baskets (HEAVY!).  My grandfather had purchased our farm in 1921 from the Shakers, a religious sect founded by Mother Ann Lee in Watervliet, NY, which is a few miles from our home.  My family has lived here since the 1880’s and my widowed mother, age 80, still lives here but I live in an apartment a few miles away.  Trust me, it works better than way.  We raised all sorts of vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, peas, beans, etc., and huge peach orchards kept us busy in the Fall.  My grandparents raised a lot of fruit, of which only a few clumps of renegade red raspberries survive.  My grandmother had beautiful perennial flower gardens and I still have her single hollyhocks and various kinds of old fashioned peonies.

I have most of the summer to tend my gardens full time because I’m a college teacher.  After graduating from Cornell I received my PhD in Microbiology from the U. of Rochester Medical School.  For many years I taught medical students in Denver but in 1982 I moved back East to care for my elderly parents; my father died in 1985.  I currently teach at a private college and teach anything and everything related to biology, although my own special expertise is in the area of human infectious disease.

Flowers will always be a prime love with me.  I have extensive perennial and herb gardens and I fool around at hybridizing miniature roses and daylilies.  I’m a charter member of the new American Dianthus Society; the Dianthus group includes pinks, carnations, and sweet Williams.  And I also belong to the American Hemerocallis and Rose Societies.

The Creator/Creatress did not make me perfect.  I’m organized but messy, and I file by pile.  I’ve inherited arthritis from my mother and the extra 60 lbs on my 5’10” frame doesn’t help.  On the other hand I don’t easily fade into the background.  I’m 54 and single.  I had two cat “kids” but both of them, age 16, died last year, one from heart disease and the other of kidney failure.  I see an Irish Wolfhound in my future, along with more cats, but not until I retire to my anticipated log cabin in the woods.  Of course, there will be gardens of all types, fruit orchards, and a swimming hole!

In the meantime I grow almost every kind of vegetable you can imagine, but I concentrate on heirloom tomatoes and to a lesser extent peppers.  Although I haven’t counted lately, I must now have seed for about 600-800 varieties of tomatoes, of which I grow out about 100-130 (300-400 plants) each summer.  I feel quite strongly about genetic biodiversity and preserving the genetic material of heirloom vegetables.  With respect to tomatoes I am, quite frankly, fascinated by the diversity of shape, size, color and taste of the fruit and the various patterns of foliage.  I’m absolutely shameless in pursuit of new heirloom varieties, especially from foreign students and faculty at the college where I teach.

I want to do everything I can to help preserve heirloom vegetables an educate the public about their virtues.  I give talks and workshops locally but I see our “Off The Vine” as an important vehicle to teach a larger audience with respect to accomplishing these goals.

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Here’s Craig’s intro

Most of you that have been reading the blurbs under my name in the address section of the SSE Winter Yearbook have probably noticed that I always have some sort of “project” that I am planning.  Those will all be updated in this introductory column;  this newsletter is the first of my “project wish list“ that has made it off the ground!  I must thank Carolyn for helping to motivate me in this regard, as I am quite good at procrastination...but, here we are, and this is a good time to give a little information about what I hope for this newsletter, why we are doing it, and some information that will tell you all a little about how I became involved with the SSE, and, especially, heirloom tomatoes.

 First, I suppose I should provide a little background about myself (mostly because Carolyn asked me to!).  I am 38 years old, married with two girls (Caitlin, 8, and Sara, 12), and am constantly having to reassure my family that I have not “lost it” when they see me planting 97 varieties of tomatoes in my garden, or appear excited about numerous cups of foul smelling, fermenting, fruit fly infested tomato pulp.  My roots are in New England, as I grew up and did my undergraduate education in Rhode Island, and received my PhD.in chemistry from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. We then spent a year in Seattle, which must be the best place to live anywhere...then reality set in, it was time to go to work, and that is how we got to Pennsylvania, and now North Carolina.  When I am not gardening, I am a chemist, first at SmithKline, now at Glaxo pharmaceuticals.  It certainly pays the bills, but chemistry is not the first thing that passes through my mind when I think of relaxation and happiness...

 My love for gardening was “planted” (forgive the pun...) as a young child, maybe 6 years old or so, during the hours I spent with my grandfather in his huge garden.  I recall seeing amazing dahlias, strawberries, sweet peas, squash, and, of course, tomatoes.  In fact, I hated tomatoes until I had eaten the ones that he grew for us.  My interest in gardening became dormant for many years as school took its toll on my time and attention.  It was not until graduate school and marriage to Sue that we decided that it would be fun to grow our own vegetables, and we had several beautiful gardens in a community plot in the early 1980’s.

 Being a scientist, I am naturally curious, and was always interested in trying lots of varieties of everything. Trips to the local nursery were frustrating, however, as all one finds there are plants of the “top ten” or so, and growing Better Boy hybrid or Roma was becoming boring. Ordering seeds from catalogs and starting everything ourselves was an improvement, but there was still a certain sameness about the experience.  Then, my gardening life changed when I learned of the Seed Saver’s Exchange in 1986 from a gardening magazine.  Everything has mushroomed from there, and now I find myself introducing many people and organizations each year to the joy of growing heirloom vegetables.  I am sure that this story is very familiar to many of you, and you may have experienced similar things.

 So, enough background.  Oh, yes, I wanted to update you on my projects.  First there is this newsletter, and here we are with that.  I may write occasional articles for Bob Ambrose’s “Tomato Club” newsletter, which some of you may be familiar with.  I continue to grow out new (to me) heirloom tomatoes each year, as well as some of my favorites which have held their own against new competition in the trials. And, I was asked to write a tomato book by a publisher, and am about to get started on that rather daunting but exciting project (I may be asking some of you for input for the book).  There are other projects that are on the horizon, such as examining germination enhancement procedures, sorting out the tomato section of the SSE winter yearbook (looking for errors, synonymous varieties, etc.).  Finally, my trip to the SSE campout this year was truly inspiring, and my efforts for genetic preservation are newly focused, and energized.

 For my part, I will try to express my goals for this newsletter.  First and foremost, I would like it to be a forum for all tomato enthusiasts in the SSE to share information and concerns with each other, whether it is a special growing technique, search for a lost variety, sharing of historical information, alert for a particularly delectable variety, or even concerns regarding the SSE in general.  We will try to provide our own expertise and experience each time, but we will require more than just the input of two tomato gardeners.  There may be some proposed projects that many of you would like to take part in.  Who knows...this is the starting line, and it’s a race that goes on infinitely, so lets get started!

 Welcome to all of you, and thanks for your interest.  I hope that it will be informative, and fun!

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It was really nice to revisit Carolyn’s words about herself. It is as hard to read what I wrote there as it is to listen to myself on podcasts, or watch myself on video (cringe!!!!). But, for better or worse, there it is!

Collage of Off The Vine newsletter hardcopies

My tomato collection tour - part 3. Tomatoes 21-30

1987 SSE Yearbook, from which I ordered some of the tomatoes below. Yes, I did have a phone chat with Kent Whealy way back then (hence the phone number, which was the general SSE phone number)

I’m finding some nice momentum on my blogging, aided by having two running series - this one, and posting of all articles from “Off The Vine”. These will post on Sundays, the other on Tuesdays.

Let’s resume the tour!

Tomato 21 - Bellstar, seed obtained in 1986 from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. The description - a super productive determinate paste with larger fruit - is what enticed me, and I am still in my pre-heirloom, mostly red tomato phase. I only grew Bellstar this one time. It was certainly prolific and the paste tomatoes were larger than Roma. But….fresh eating a determinate paste tomato was, and still isn’t, a very memorable thing to do. I am glad I grew it, made lots of sauce from it, and put it in my rear view mirror.

Tomato 22 - saved seed from Bellstar (Tomato 21) which I never did grow further. At age 36, it is very doubtful this seed would germinate.

Tomato 23 - Better Bush F1 hybrid, obtained from Parks Seeds in 1986. It is interesting to realize that I actually grew a dwarf tomato this early on. It didn’t impress, however. The compact plant was a shy yielder, if I remember correctly, with medium sized tomatoes of no flavor distinction. I didn’t save seeds and never did grow it again. Why did I choose to grow it? I suppose that the catalog description of having a more compact growth habit provide a high yield was of interest, and clearly I was just picking a bit of this and that to try out.

Tomato 24 - Burpee VF F1 hybrid - The Fred DuBose tomato book raved about this older, less fancy, certainly more ordinarily named hybrid. I purchased the seed from Burpee in 1986, and grew it in my 1986 garden as one more scarlet red tomato. The Burpee seed catalog had a very glowing description (I think the wording was a variation of “a favorite of Burpee employees”). It was a good tomato, not a great tomato, producing a decent yield of medium sized scarlet tomatoes. I didn’t think that they were as good as my go-to hybrids of those days, Better Boy or Whopper. I didn’t save seeds and didn’t grow it again. By the way, the “VF” designation was for bred-in tolerance to Verticillium and Fusarium wilts.

1987 SSE Yearbook page showing Persimmon and the various members that made it available

Tomato 25 - Persimmon - now we’re talking; a return to colorful heirlooms and resumption of the varieties that I grew in my 1987-1989 heirloom vs hybrid “contest”. Though I first read about the variety in the Seeds Blum seed catalog, I ended up acquiring it from SSE member NY ET J in 1987 (the SSE code means that the SSE member, a New York gardener, had a first name that started with “J”, and a last name with the first two letters “Et”. - her name is Josephine Ettlinger of Deer Park). When I was a Pennsylvania SSE member, my code was PA LE C - here in NC, my code is NC LE C. You can see the listing in the 1987 SSE Yearbook, above. Persimmon was one of the stars of my 1987 garden. The indeterminate plant was quite enormous. A relatively late ripener, coming in at 86 days, the total plant yield was 33 lbs, with average fruit weight of 13.5 ounces. Many fruits were well over one pound. The pale orange tomatoes were very meaty and solid with a relatively low quantity of seeds. The flavor was on the mild and sweet side but very pleasant. I saved seeds, and Persimmon has graced my gardens several times, being grown, in addition to 1987, in 1991, 1994 and 2001. It’s pretty shocking to me that I’ve not grown it in 21 years, and probably should find a place in my garden soon. I chose to acquire and grow Persimmon to add an orange tomato to my early heirloom explorations, and can still recall the excitement of watching this, and other differently colored, tomatoes ripen in my garden. As far as its history, one reference lists it as dating to the 1880s, but orange tomatoes were not present in seed catalogs in that date range. It is most likely a variety that emerged in someone’s garden through a mutation or cross, and was traded locally, eventually finding its way into an heirloom seed catalog and a SSE listing. A Russian variety that was collected by the SSE in the early 1990s, Russian Persimmon, is not related to Persimmon. Russian Persimmon is determinate and a smaller, smoother deeper orange tomato.

Tomato 26 - Mortgage Lifter - acquired from SSE member Jim Halladay of Pennsylvania (see the pic below with the very interesting historical hint - a tomato grown by the Halladay family, when living in Kentucky, for three generations. How does this link to the two known Mortgage Lifters, Ester’s from Barboursville WV in the late 1920s, and the Radiator Charlie/M C Byles version from Logan WV in the early 1940s?). I didn’t grow this tomato until 1991, my last in Pennsylvania - and I really enjoyed the sweet full flavor of the very large pink fruit. Aside from 1992, Halladay’s Mortgage Lifter was also in my 1996, 2002, 2013 and 2014 gardens. It seems like a perfect time to return to it. I didn’t actually request this particular Mortgage Lifter; it was included in my request for Pineapple and Tiger Tom, 2 varieties not yet discussed. The plants for this variety are truly monstrous and challenging to keep pruned and under control. Quite a few locally named Mortgage Lifters showed up in the 1987 SSE yearbook, as shown below.

1987 SSE Yearbook listing for various Mortgage Lifters

Tomato 27 - Mortgage Lifter, Pesta Strain - I was sent this variety by Missouri SSE tomato collector Edmund Brown in 1987 and 1988. He received it from West Virginia gardener George Pesta. I grew it in 1989, and again in 1993. I really can’t believe that it has been nearly 30 years since I hast grew it. I know nothing of its history, and wonder if it was a color sport from Mortgage Lifter as grown by Mr. Pesta. It was included in the third and final year of my heirloom X hybrid contest. I was surprised to read that first fruit ripened in 75 days; it must have been a warm summer, since this type of tomato is typically a later ripening variety. I harvested 17 tomatoes from the very tall, vigorous indeterminate plant, but they averaged 22 ounces each, so the plant yield was a bit over 23 lbs. The fruits were oblate, smooth, and colored varying swirls of yellow and red - just like Ruby Gold, and ones I will discuss below, Yellow Brimmer and Pineapple. My feeling is that this is a general “type” of tomato that popped up in gardens throughout the country over the years. I would love to know the genetics of these types to see how many actually distinct varieties there are.

Tomato 28 - Yellow Brimmer - I acquired this tomato from SSE member Charles Estep in 1987. He acquired it from a North Carolina gardener, and I would have to do a bit of digging to see if I can find out who it was (the code, NC DE F, is not in the 1987 yearbook). I first grew it in 1988, then again in 1991 and 1998. Since there is a large pink tomato variety called Brimmer that was introduced by the Woods Company of Virginia in 1907, one possibility is that Yellow Brimmer is a bicolored mutation of Brimmer. In my 1988 garden it was very late, with first fruit at 101 days. I harvested only 8 tomatoes which averaged 16 ounces, giving a plant yield of 8 lbs. Everything written about Ruby Gold and Mortgage Lifter, Pesta Strain holds true for Yellow Brimmer. The size, color and flavor are essentially the same - meaty, juicy, mild, and sweet with a flavor and texture reminiscent of peaches. I really went pretty big for the big yellow red bicolors early on in my heirloom adventures, that’s for sure!

Tomato 29-1 - Sun Gold F1 hybrid (this number was later reassigned once the Sun Gold seed ran out) - My record keeping fails me, as it lists my first purchase as Johnny’s Selected Seeds in 1993. My memory tells me that I purchased this the same year as sister tomato Sun Cherry F1 (already described as tomato #3 in my collection). So, I was tempted to grow Sun Gold in 1991, and it made an amazing impression, finding a place in pretty much every garden I’ve grown since. Johnny’s called the flavor “unique, tropical in nature”. Sue and I call it remarkable. The one thing to keep in mind is to pick them as soon as they reach a medium orange color, as watering or rain will make them quickly crack. I won’t write much more about it, because I suspect most tomato lovers have tried it. Sadly, being a hybrid, we don’t know which parents were used to breed it. Saved seeds are fun to play with, but as far as I know, no one has achieved an open pollinated selection with the unique excellence of the hybrid.

Tomato 29-2 - Brandywine - This is it - this is the one! Obtained from SSE member Roger Wentling of PA in 1987, this tomato, grown often throughout my gardening endeavors, is at the very pinnacle of tomato flavor. I’ve grown at least 50 plants in my gardens that lead back to this acquisition. Oddly, the first year I grew it, 1988, the plant struggled with disease. With the first ripe fruit coming in at 89 days, I picked 16 tomatoes at an average weight of 11 ounces, but the flavor was excellent. Future grow outs met much more success, and Brandywine (from this seed source) is often the best flavored tomato in my garden. It is far superior to the “strain” purchased from The Tomato Seed Company (described as Tomato #10). The potato leaf plants are tall and vigorous, and fruit typically range from 12-16 ounces with a complete flavor - intense, perfectly balanced, and memorable. Roger Wentling got the seeds directly from Ben Quisenberry; Ben got it from Dorris Sudduth. Every gardener, every tomato lover, needs to try this tomato at least once.

Tomato 30 - Pineapple - This variety was also sent to me by SSE member Jim Halladay of Pennsylvania in 1987. History indicates that it was offered by the Gleckler Seed Company in the 1950s. I’ve grown it off and on over the years. I grew it in 1987, the same garden that was my first real dip into heirlooms, alongside another bicolor, Ruby Gold. A late tomato, coming in at 85 days, I harvested 23 tomatoes that averaged 14.6 ounces each, giving a plant yield of 22.3 pounds. Ruby Gold was a bit larger and a bit heavier yielding. It was big, oblate, and swirled yellow and red, with that characteristic mild, sweet peachy flavor. I can’t way I will ever love this type of tomato, but it is gorgeous and does find its uses in the kitchen. You can see a picture showing the listing of Pineapple in the 1987 SSE Yearbook, below.

1987 SSE listing for Pineapple

Here We Go! "Off The Vine" Volume #1, Issue #1. Carolyn and Craig's "Welcome" articles

Finally meeting Carolyn when Sue and I brought her plants on a swing by her home in New York while visiting family - May 20, 2011.

NOTE - I am pasting in our original articles exactly as written. There will be some awkward grammar, some misspellings - and I cringe a bit when I see some of what we wrote.

How this will go: Each week I will paste in an article from our newsletter. At the end, I will share some thoughts after reading the article for the first time in decades! I hope you enjoy reading some material written in the middle of the heirloom gardening boom stimulated by formation of the Seed Savers Exchange.

Carolyn Male’s Welcome -

Welcome to Off The Vine

We’re delighted to finally publish our first issue of “Off The Vine”!  In future issues we expect to present articles about home hybridization, history of tomatoes in the Americas, use of heirlooms in commercial breeding programs, feature articles on selected growers, tomato folklore, and “favorite” heirloom tomatoes.  We want “Off The Vine” to be interactive with our readers so in each issue we will pose a question or two and ask for your responses.  Please include your phone number in your letter so we can obtain your permission should we publish what you write.

We are both enthusiastic members of the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) and since the original announcement for this newsletter appeared in the SSE 1993 Yearbook, our first question relates to the SSE.  Both of us are concerned that the yearbook has become, or is becoming, a seed catalog rather than primarily a mechanism for the preservation of heirlooms.  In our experience the majority of seed requests we receive are from unlisted members, most of whom are not reoffering seeds in subsequent yearbooks.  To us, this is a troublesome situation.  At most, seed from about 5% of the varieties sent out is being reoffered.  So, our first question is:  What ways can you think of that might increase the rate at which members reoffer seed?  Please send your responses to Carolyn at the address below; she will be handling most of the “paper work”.

We also welcome your ideas and suggestions for future articles and questions to the readers.  If you’ve liked this first issue, and the future goals and plans we’ve outlined, we welcome your subscriptions.  We are low budget, low key, and amateurs! 

We expect most issues to be 4 to 5 pages double sided. 

Finally, there are several people who have been supportive of our efforts to publish an heirloom tomato newsletter and we’d like to mention a few names.  Jeff McCormack of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange graciously offered to mention “Off The Vine” in his current catalog.  Kent Whealy of SSE voiced his support to Craig at the 1993 Campout and Steve Demuth of the SSE staff did our first layout.  Andy Smith, whose fascinating book on the history of tomatoes in the Americas up to 1840 will soon be published, has also been very encouraging to us.

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Craig’s welcome

The Birth of “Off the Vine” 

After two or three years in the incubation period, Carolyn Male and I are about to publish the first issue of a newsletter entirely devoted to heirloom tomatoes.  We have decided to call this newsletter “Off the Vine”, an idea that Carolyn came up with.  (We won’t discuss the options that I was able to concoct!).  In case some of you are wondering who we are and what we have in mind for the newsletter, here is some information for you.

First of all, we are members of the Seed Saver’s Exchange.  I joined in 1986, and Carolyn got bitten by the heirloom bug in 1989.  Actually, we have never met!  I can recall that one of my first seed request letters of 1989 was from Carolyn, and I was immediately taken by her friendly tone, sense of humor, and dedication to the cause.  We shared many varieties of heirloom veggies over the following years, and talked frequently on the phone.  Some of this talk led to the eventual direction that our hobbies were taking us.  And, one of our ideas was to fill the huge gap in gardening literature, regarding the lack of any tomato newsletters. 

Now for a bit of background on each of us.  Carolyn tends her gardens at the farm she was raised, near Albany, New York.  She grew up with farming and gardens as an integral part of her life; some things do not change!  When she is not watering, weeding or picking, she teaches biology-related courses at the college of St. Rose.  Carolyn enjoys growing everything, apparently, though she confesses that flowers are a special passion.  Somehow, she has found herself the proud owner of somewhere around 800 varieties of tomatoes, and each year must make the difficult yet delightful decision of what to grow! 

As for me, I have taken a roundabout route toward landing in North Carolina.  Originating in Rhode Island, where I gardened with my grandfather, I have spent time in New Hampshire, where I received my degree in chemistry, Washington (Seattle must surely be what heaven is like), and Pennsylvania.  Now, as a pharmaceutical chemist for Glaxo, I need to ensure that my gardening time does not get in the way of the many other interests that I pursue, not the least of which is my family!  After joining the SSE, my gardening experience became a real part of my life.  And, each year I also must decide between about 800 varieties of tomatoes. 

As for our newsletter, we envision a forum for gardeners that have a particular interest in heirloom tomatoes.  Among the topics we hope to address are gardening concerns, such as isolation distances, particular varieties, including their various merits or detriments, history, or apparent demise, and interviews with notable heirloom tomato collectors.  It should be a lot of fun, and we hope that some of you give it a try.

If you would like to subscribe, please send $5.00 (US) to “Off the Vine”, c/o Carolyn Male, 21-2 Latham Village Lane, Latham, NY  12110.  This fee will get you three issues per year (if all goes well...), each issue being 5-7 double sided pages.  Please remember that this is a very grassroots-style effort.  It won’t be glossy, but it will always be interesting!  We look forward to hearing from you.

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Well, reading that took me back. The world lost Carolyn on June 14. 2019. Our gardening friendship lasted 30 years, complete with many ups and a few downs (certainly expected for two opinionated people!).

Obviously, the addresses and subscription info listed above is long obsolete. It is included for completeness. It is remarkable to ponder how far each of us had already embedded into growing heirloom tomatoes. This newsletter came out about 7 years after I joined the SSE, and for Carolyn, about 5 years.

Carolyn, listening to Sue during our visit on May 20, 2011

My tomato collection tour - part 2. Tomatoes 11-20

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

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

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

Who doesn’t love Sun Gold!

Here we go!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marlin watching me as I blog. He sure knows how to pick his spots.

More time traveling, this time to the debut of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project

Early July view - the driveway garden is in full swing in 2006!

Looking through old gardening pictures is great fun, and daunting (particularly with the ease of digital, and the way that they can really pile up!). It helps to have a focus. Last blog I covered my debut with a digital camera, 2002, and showed some of my first “tomato glamour” shots.

Here in 2022, I am embarking upon the 16th year of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project. That is hard for me to fathom - time does fly when one is having fun (and eating well from the garden). The project had to start somewhere, and this blog is where it begins. The driveway in 2006 was where the initial set of indeterminate X dwarf hybrids made by Patrina in Australia were grown out for seed saving (it is with the saved seeds that dwarf hunting began, in 2007). I will stick to pictures to keep this blog of manageable length - the captions on the pictures will describe the variety and its lineage.

Pay no attention to the septoria and early blight attacking the foliage. These are the hybrid tomatoes on Bashful - the hybrid resulting from crossing Orange Strawberry with Golden Dwarf Champion. Patrina noted that she thinks it was not a clean cross, which subsequent offspring proved. This is why an orange X a yellow gave a red hybrid. Nothing of excellence emerged from this cross, probably due messy genetics because of rogue pollen. The tomatoes were in the 3 ounce range, round, red and very average in flavor, which really is of no consequence….the whole point is in moving forward to see what the flavors show in the dwarfs to be found.

If Doc looks a lot like Bashful, it is because there was a strong resemblance - medium sized round scarlet tomatoes of no great distinction flavor-wise. Doc was created by crossing Kellogg’s Breakfast with Budai Torpe (a small red fruited dwarf). The problem was that Kellogg had already apparently been crossed with Aker’s West Virginia - another dirty cross, so another mini project that didn’t work out as hoped. All dwarf plants resulting from growing out seed from these tomatoes was scarlet and ordinary in size and flavor.

Here is Dopey F1 hybrid, which represents a cross between the bicolored heart Orange Russian #117 with Golden Dwarf Champion. The hybrid fruit is medium sized, slightly oblate and a medium orange in color. Though quite a bit of work went in to exploring the dwarfs that resulted, only one was deemed good enough to stabilize, name and release - Dwarf Russian Swirl, a very nice medium to large oblate red/yellow swirled bicolor. For some reason, the heart shape from the indeterminate parent never made an appearance.

Here is Grumpy F1 - do you notice a trend? Many of our hybrids ended up giving medium sized scarlet fruit. Grumpy originated with Patrina’s cross between Black from Tula (a really nice Russian indeterminate purple tomato, similar in many respects to Cherokee Purple in outward appearance) and Budai Torpe. The scarlet color was as expected (red flesh and yellow skin being the dominant traits). The tomatoes were plentiful, nearly round, scarlet in color and fair to good in flavor. Grumpy ended up being a bit of a gold mine for early compact dwarfs, with the following as named, released varieties - Sleeping Lady, Dwarf Arctic Rose, Yukon Quest, Bundaberg Rumball, Iditarod Red, Clare Valley Red and Clare Valley Pink - releases out of one cross. Fruit size tends to be medium small to medium, maturity date is among the earliest of our dwarfs, they are quite prolific and flavor is just fine - not among the best, but very nice indeed.

Happy was one of the larger fruited of our new indeterminate X dwarf hybrids, which is not surprising. The parents are Paul Robeson (a good sized chocolate colored beauty) and New Big Dwarf (the largest fruited of the dwarfs to date, and pink in color, as well as delicious. I first read about it from a 1915 Isbell seed catalog from my collection, but a garden friend, Dave, noted it is from 1909 - see the link in his comment after this post). The scarlet color is actually not a surprise - the yellow skin of Paul Robeson over the red flesh of New Big Dwarf. Both parents tend to be irregular and oblate, and that is what the hybrid showed. The real surprise is in the flavor - this was one of the worst tasting of our starting hybrids, but led to some really delicious releases. An important lesson was therefore learned with this family. Releases from the Happy family are Tasmanian Chocolate (oblate medium sized early chocolate), Perth Pride (mid season medium small very tart purple), Boronia (medium sized tasty oblate purple), and Sweet Adelaide (medium to medium large smooth delicious pink). A few others never were completed, such as Tasmanian Red and Tasmanian Pink. My guess is that there are still nice things to be found from this cross.

Ripening Sleazy A on the plant

Sleazy A sliced - I had to show both, because this was one big tomato, as well as one delicious hybrid! The hybrid was created by Bruce Bradshaw (a California gardener) by crossing the purple indeterminate Carbon with New Big Dwarf (he actually messed up on one pollination, which resulted in Sleazy B - a smaller pink hybrid that used Dwarf Champion as the dwarf parent). The hybrid, as shown, came in at one pound or more, with delicious oblate pink tomatoes. Only one named variety made it to the finish line, but what a tomato it is - Dwarf Wild Fred, a truly delicious medium large purple with flavor very similar to Cherokee Purple. No releases emerged from Sleazy B.

Here’s Sleepy hybrid, another unimpressive medium sized red tomato that ended up being a real bonanza for some of our favorite dwarf releases. It also provided a color mystery. Sleepy came from Patrina’s cross between Stump of the World (a big potato leaf pink beauty with superb flavor) and the red dwarf Budai Torpe. Despite the boring scarlet hybrid, the joy emerged once we started dwarf hunting. Sleepy ended up leading to Rosella Purple (many people’s favorite tasting dwarf, a Cherokee Purple dead ringer), Rosella Crimson (whose flavor can often approach Brandywine), and Wilpena (a large red potato leaf variety that isn’t as well known as it should be). We have some named types that never did get finished up. The mystery - crossing a pink with a red….where did the purple come from! This represents the magic of tomato breeding and the chance of unlocking the genetics and having a recessive trait show itself when least expected!

Here is a pic of Sneezy F1 hybrid on the vine

And this is Sneezy cut open. The bright yellow tomatoes (with a bit of outer pink blush when very ripe) were in the 6-8 ounce range, smooth, nearly round, and just absolutely delicious. Sneezy came about when Patrina made the lucky decision to cross the spectacular potato leaf green slicer Green Giant with historic Golden Dwarf Champion. Out of this emerged a most remarkable set of some of our best flavored dwarf releases - the green fruited Dwarf Kelly Green, Dwarf Beryl Beauty, Dwarf Jade Beauty, Summertime Green and Dwarf Emerald Giant; the yellow fruited Dwarf Sweet Sue, Summer Sunrise, Summertime Gold, Barossa Fest and Summer Sweet Gold, and white Dwarf Mr. Snow - all in all, 11 of our creations came from this cross, and all are a joy to grow and eat.

Last comes Witty hybrid, bred by Patrina by crossing Cherokee Green with Budai Torpe - a yellow skinned, green fleshed indeterminate slicer with a small fruited red dwarf. The hybrid actually was one of the better tasting, with smaller, round scarlet tomatoes. Several of our underappreciated but really worthwhile releases came from Witty - the smaller, round fruited Kangaroo Paw Yellow, Kangaroo Paw Green and Kangaroo Paw Brown (Kangaroo Paw Red remains elusive - it keeps changing colors on us after we think it is stabilized), and the lovely slicing tomato Sean’s Yellow Dwarf, which I often suggest to people new to the dwarfs, for its reliability, earliness, flavor and beauty.

I hope you enjoyed going down Dwarf Tomato Project memory lane with me. The picture quality isn’t great and I didn’t have nearly as many prime shots as I hoped for. But they did serve the purpose in laying out how this all began.

Time traveling a bit - some garden pics from 2002, using my first digital camera

late June 2002 view of my garden - this was our 10th garden in Raleigh, prior to moving most of the tomatoes to the driveway.

I’ve never been a particularly good photo-documenter of my gardens. Prior to digital photography, there simply isn’t much at all that was captured. It really is a shame, particularly for the 1987-1990 stretch when I really took the deep dive into heirloom varieties.

2002 saw the very beginnings of growing in the driveway - this shows mostly peppers and eggplants.

The Nikon Coolpix purchased in 2002 meant more pictures, but not always the most timely and best organized. I didn’t always use the best size (meaning lower resolution), but in taking a tour through my 2002 pics, there are a few worthwhile things to share.

The real Red Brandywine - regular leaf, scarlet fruit, medium sized, nice smooth form

In 2002, my garden held 78 different varieties. Looking through the varieties, it is clear that many grown then continue to be my favorites - Cherokee Purple and Cherokee Chocolate, Ferris Wheel, Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Red Brandywine, Aker’s West Virginia, Halladay’s Mortgage Lifter, Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, Speckled Roman, Stump of the World, Lucky Cross, Nepal, Black from Tula, the Livingston varieties Favorite, Magnus and Golden Queen, Peak of Perfection, Burpee’s Matchless, and Anna Russian. Seeds saved that year are now 20 years old and I will likely try my hand at germinating some, though they are 4 years older than the oldest seeds I’ve managed to germinate.

Black from Tula

My first good picture of Cherokee Purple showing all of its characteristics

Druzba, a highly underrated, fine medium sized red tomato from Bulgaria

Livingston’s Favorite, from the 1890s, a very popular medium sized historic red variety rescued from the USDA germplasm collection

Ferris Wheel, from 1894, a Salzer variety I also rescued from oblivion, hiding in the USDA germplasm, now one of my favorite tomatoes.

The spectacular Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, potato leaf, late, showing its characteristic pink blush - core variety in my gardens since 1990.

Livingston’s Magnus - from 1900, showing exactly as shown in the old seed catalog - potato leaf, pink, medium sized, sweet and delicious. I grew it this year and loved it just as much.

Mexico Midget showing its tiny, pea sized fruit

Halladay’s Mortgage Lifter - this one was around 2 lbs, very characteristic.

Yellow Brandywine (which is actually orange) - big, oblate, and delightfully tart

That was fun to do - going down tomato memory lane, 20 years ago. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Starting a new series - a walk through my tomato seed collection. Part 1. Tomatoes 1-10

just one seed storage area

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

more recent seeds on my office shelves

"Seed Legacy and seed security" - my concerns, part 2

Sue, Koda and Marlin on our Flat Laurel Creek trail hike from this oddly warm week

In part 1 of this two part blog entry I set the stage for laying out a major concern that has been on my mind the past few years. I left off in part 1 talking about some famous Seed Savers Exchange member names that held large single crop selections. I also noted that we “seem” to be in good hands, with heirloom varieties being maintained by the SSE themselves, the USDA, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

I joined the SSE in 1986, developed my passion for heirloom tomatoes, helped launch a major tomato breeding project, and sit here as the calendar is about to flip to 2022 with literally thousands of seed samples (not just tomatoes, but also big pepper and eggplant collections). I also have a big collection of old seed catalogs (hundreds, collected over the years from antique shops and ebay). There are also boxes of letters; personal communications from just about everyone who ever sent me seeds.

I am not ready to stop gardening yet, of course, though I am certainly about to enter the “simplifying and downsizing” approach. This means less plants, which means longer times between growing particular varieties. I plan to use some of the more important seed catalogs for research for future books. These catalogs document the evolution of gardening in America, particularly those between 1870 and 1950 (the pre-hybrid focused years).

Marlin with his Christmas present

Here is the main question that I have, and the whole point of this two part blog. What is the landing point for all of my material? At some point I will decide that I am finished with the catalogs, need a safe place for the letters, the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project is essentially completed, and my massive seed collection needs to find an appropriate home. What is that home?

A few years ago my tomato growing friend and fellow author Carolyn Male died. I can only imagine the amount of heirloom gardening related material in her home. Through communications with her brother, I know that some of the seed did make it into the hands of fellow gardeners, but much was lost. I have no knowledge of what happened to the large collections of important seed saving gardeners who died decades ago - Fax Stinnett, Gary Staley and Thane Earl, for example, those who were the main tomato people of the first decades of the SSE.

I noted in part 1 that things at one point seemed to be in good hands, with the maintained and documented collections of the SSE, USDA and Svalbard Seed Vault. But the keyword is “seemed”. SSE had to make some tough calls on which varieties could reasonably be maintained, and there was significant culling of the collection (remember that they maintain far more than tomatoes!). The USDA started to consolidate their collections as well and far less material is maintained and available than previously. Svalbard is international, and I am not aware of their criteria for presence in their collections.

The reason that I see this as a problem reaching criticality now is that it follows logically from when the SSE created the buzz about growing heirlooms and saving seeds. Let’s say that it was 1985 when this really became “a thing” - we are now nearly 40 years beyond then. The loss of many of those original seed savers, as well as aging out due to health and reduced capability, means that the time is now (if not already starting to pass) to address the lack of clear destination for large collections of seeds and supporting materials (letters, catalogs, seed and garden logs) so that there is access and an effective set of processes to ensure that the seeds live on, and materials can be viewed.

So my question to all who read this blog - what sorts of ideas do you have? To personalize this - let’s say that I am looking at a destination for my seed collection, seed catalog collection, set of garden logs and seed and garden-related correspondences. What is that destination?

Then take my situation and replicate it around the country - around the world - as others who caught the seed saving addiction back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s - how do we prevent loss of possibly valuable germplasm? How do we preserve the information that accompanied those seeds? I’d love to hear what seed companies have to say about this also, as it is something that they themselves may face some day. I don’t think that any of what we have in place - SSE, USDA or Svalbard - is appropriate (for differing reasons). I think we are going to need something new - something that doesn’t yet exist.

Looking out into the Blue Ridge mountains from the Flat Laurel Creek trail in the Black Balsam area off of route 215

Digging a little deeper on the topic I raised about "seed legacy and security" in my last blog - part 1

Koda, Marlin and Betts with Sue taking a Christmas Eve day walk at DuPont Forst

In my last blog (and for those who read it/posted comments, thanks so much), I waited until the end to raise a potential issue that has been nagging at me for some time. I want to take my time describing the situation that has been on my mind for some years. I will split it into two parts, since it is a pretty meaty topic.

Here’s a really quick history primer on gardening in the USA. The very first seed catalogs arose in the early 1800s, mainly carrying varieties introduced in Europe. There were no hybrids being sold - everything was open pollinated (genetically stable and reproducible from saved seeds). American seedsmen, with breeding programs, really took off starting in the mid 1800s, and the proliferation of named varieties was rapid. This continued unabated until hybrid varieties began to appear in catalogs (for example, Burpee’s Big Boy, a major tomato introduction, in 1949). From that point on, the number of varieties of most things began to decrease, and the focus on creating new hybrids significantly increased.

By the mid 1970s, non-hybrid (open pollinated) varieties were in serious decline. Kent Whealy noted this and, in 1975, launched the Seed Savers Exchange to provide a mechanism for sharing rare, local open pollinated varieties more widely. The best way to ensure a variety doesn’t vanish is to grow it, save seeds from it and share it. All of a sudden, tomatoes could be grown well beyond red, and the diversity of beans, watermelons, muskmelon, lettuce (just to mention a few species) exploded, thanks not only to the success of the SSE, but the many smaller seed companies that it stimulated, focusing on non-hybrids. All seemed to be going in the right direction, as older varieties were being preserved, and new varieties continued to be created.

During this time, preservation of open pollinated varieties appeared to be in excellent hands. The Seed Savers Exchange, the USDA, and since 2008, the Svalsbad Global Seed Vault all focused on maintaining viable seeds of the explosion of varieties being saved (and even created). All seemed to be well for preserving our genetic horticultural heritage. In addition, the goal of Kent and Diane Whealy and the benefits of the SSE became a reality. The number of varieties available for gardeners to grow exploded. Those who gardened between the mid 1980s, right through to today, are the most fortunate in history with regard to the diversity of choices. Smaller seed companies, offering regional specialties or diving deep into particular crops, sit alongside the older and larger hybrid-focused companies. Choosing what to grow can be fun - and daunting!

Lake Julia in DuPont Forest on Christmas Eve day

We find ourselves at a rather unique time in horticultural history. The SSE was very successful in attracting some avid gardeners that ended up becoming obsessed with building large collections of varieties. My friend Jeff amassed a significant lettuce collection. I focused on tomatoes, as did many others such as Calvin Wait and Bill Minkey, and before them, Edmund Brown, Thane Earle and Faxon Stinnett. There was apple specialists, bean collectors, and essentially a few avid seed savers for each crop type.

This ends part 1 of this important topic. Within a week I will complete the story and pose the challenge, as it has come to me over the past few years.

Koda and Betts chilling out