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.

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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! 

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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

Three New Items and a quick garden update

26 Straw bales - these, and some grow bags and containers will be the 2022 garden

First news item - The Joe Lamp’l (joegardener)/Craig LeHoullier (me! nctomatoman) collaborative, self paced, all video course, Growing Epic Tomatoes, has been reopened throughout the month of April for new students. Just click this link to register.

Second - Patrina (my Dwarf Tomato Project co-lead and co-creator) and I will be presenting on our project via Zoom in an event hosted by the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) on April 13 at 7 PM Eastern. All who are interested can join - the Zoom link for you to attend is here.

Finally, I’ve decided it is a good time to restart my regular (weekly, unless indicated otherwise, typically a conflict on my end) Instagram Live sessions - 30-45 minutes of me discussing whatever is going on in my garden, including plenty of time for your questions. These will begin on Thursday April 14, at 3 PM Eastern. If all goes well, I should be able to do a video demo of spotting dwarf tomato plants in the F2 generation of an indeterminate X dwarf cross.

As far as what’s happening in the garden: All of the straw bales (26 of them) have been purchased and situated in my yard, and treatment has started. By April 15, all will be ready for planting. I will probably go for direct seeding of squash, cukes and beans around that date, and wait until May 1 for planting tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Updates on all of this will be part of my weekly IG live sessions.

All of my seedlings are up, and I’ve started to transplant into individual pots. Aside from tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, I have spinach, lettuce (several types), petunia, zinnia, snapdragon, lunaria, basil (several types), and salvia in various stages of growth. For the most part, seedlings are hardened off and spending most of the time outdoors, being brought in only when frost is likely.

There is no formal seedlings sale this year in the Hendersonville area. I do overplant, and there will be some extras for folks that are interested, but the variety list is far smaller than prior years. Plants will be available for a donation of the plant recipients’ choosing. Availability will be late April to mid May. In future blogs, I will outline exactly what will be in my garden. Any folks living near me who are interested can drop me an email - nctomatoman@gmail.com - and I will send further seedling details. Those in the Raleigh area have two good seedling options, listed in my March 26 blog entry.

That’s it for now - keep reading my Off The Vine and my Seed Collection blogs. The next in each series will post soon.

The rare and beautiful Oconee Bells, spotted during an April 4 walk in the WNC Arboretum, Carolina Mountains trail.

My Tomato Collection Tour - Part 12. Tomatoes #131-140

Waterfall at Pearson’s Falls in Saluda NC, taken on a late March wildflower ramble

The journey continues. The last 10 was not particularly stellar. This set has a few notable varieties.

Tomato #131 - Una Hartsock’s Beefsteak - Obtained from Iowa SSE member IA EA S in 1989, I grew it in 1990. I recall it being a large oblate pink tomato that was a bit too firm and dry for my liking - it was also one of those pink beefsteak type tomatoes that were not only too mild, but had a bit of an off putting flavor characteristic I think of as “musky”.

Tomato #132 - German Johnson - from SSE member OH CA L in 1989, I never grew this particular batch, though did get around to trying it several times much later on. It is actually thought to be one of the very few authentic North Carolina heirlooms. I will provide a full report when I reach the seed of this variety that I did grow out.

Tomato #133 - Magellan Burgess Purple - I got this variety from Ben Beloit, Maryland, 1989, and grew it in both 1990 and 1991. I recall little about it except that the plant was particularly prone to “crud” as a young seedling. The fruit were large pink beefsteak types that shared the someone unpleasant texture and flavor of Una Hartsock, described above.

Tomato #134 - Sochulak - obtained from ME LA L in 1989, I finally tried it in 1994. It produced medium sized long, rounded plum type pink tomatoes that were mid-late season, on a plant with wispy foliage. I rated the flavor B+, and it was on the sweet side. It is quite unusual in being a pink plum type tomato.

Tomato #135 - Stump of the World - this interestingly named tomato came to me from SSE member Jim Donovan of California in 1989. It has become a real favorite. There is some confusion of whether this is the same as “Big Ben”, and whether it should be potato or regular leaf. All I know is that it is superb, providing lots of large oblate pink tomatoes on a potato leaf plant. It is very similar in flavor to Brandywine. It yields a bit more consistently season to season, and the fruit shape is a bit more oblate. I just love this tomato!

Tomato #136 - Orange Beefsteak - I was sent this by SSE member WV CO B in 1989. I grew it in 1990 and found that it has crossed. It ended up producing a red saladette tomato with a nice sweet flavor. I named it Caitlin’s Favorite, but if it was indeed a hybrid, it would have been very variable. I clearly wasn’t as disciplined or knowledgeable at this stage of my gardening endeavors.

Tomato #137 - Yellow Beefsteak - This also was from WV CO B, in 1989, and I grew it in 1991. It produced pale yellow oblate beefsteak fruit, some with a pale pink blush, that were very bland.

Tomato #138 - Brown’s Yellow Giant - This came from SSE member Don Sparks of Kentucky, in 1989, and I never did get to try it. I assume it to be a large, oblate, golden yellow beefsteak type.

Tomato #139 - Ester Hess Yellow Cherry - received from SSE member Glenn Drowns, also owner of Sandhill Seeds, in 1989, and grew it in 1989. What a tomato machine this was. Starting at 67 days after transplant, I harvested 739 tomatoes at an average weight of .6 ounces - the plant produced over 27 pounds of cherry tomatoes! The fruit were bright yellow - alas, I rated the flavor a B - very mild, not unpleasant, but nothing to write home about. I’ve not grown it since. There is little historical info available aside from it being an Iowa heirloom.

Tomato #140 - Magellan Burgess Yellow - This was also sent to me by Ben Beloit of Maryland, SSE member, in 1989, and grown in 1990. The plant produced large gold colored tomatoes that were very mild in flavor.

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This was a curious set of tomatoes. I was obviously moving into different colored varieties, focusing on listings in the SSE yearbook. German Johnson is probably the most famous, and for me, Stump of the World is the most beloved, a tomato that I grow often in my garden. It is a special variety.

Spring in the back yard - early April

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).

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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.

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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

For those looking for tomato plants in the Raleigh/Triangle NC area - two sources

This will be a really short blog - I want to inform those who used to purchase plants from me when we lived in Raleigh that you have two excellent sdhendrysplaources. You can contact each and find out location and availability and timing.

Chris Kafer - you can email him at stonehousebreeding@gmail.com

Gerald Adams has a website- and his email is geraldadams9941@gmail.com

There were a few road trips out to Hendersonville to get plants last year, but with my decision to stop selling plants, please give Chris and/or Gerald your business! Both are good friends of mine, excellent gardeners and will have some nice varieties for you to choose from.

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…

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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.

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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!

My Tomato Collection Tour - Part 11. Tomatoes #121-130

Trout lilies seen on a recent hike in the Pisgah Forest

On a roll here, and entering some of the less interesting members of my tomato collection. At the start I was wrapped up in discovery, the kid in a candy shop feeling of receiving those first SSE yearbooks. I was aiming for interesting colors and interesting stories, and trying some of the heirloom (and even hybrid) tomato “all stars”. Over time, I started to include some historically relevant varieties. Let’s see what the next 10 are.

Tomato #121 - Dinner Plate - obtained from SSE member Jim Donovan in 1989, I didn’t grow the variety until 1994. Not very much is known about this variety, and it also has proven to be highly variable. My result was of a large pink heart, and the flavor was not particularly impressive. I don’t see seeking the variety in the future for a spot in my garden - there are too many other great ones to grow.

Tomato #122 - Firesteel - Obtained from SSE member Ron Thuma of Kansas in 1989, I grew this in my garden that same year. The variety dates to the DeGiorgi Family Seed Company, appearing in their 1939 catalog as a featured introduction. It was created by Clare Barber of Firesteel Gardens in South Dakota when she crossed Marglobe with Bison. In my 1989 garden, the variety first ripened in 73 days. I harvested 34 tomatoes of an average weight of 7 ounces, giving a bit over 15 pounds for the plant - and I rated the flavor as B+. I don’t remember much about it, probably because I was so focused on the colorful, large, big reputation heirlooms. It is likely a very serviceable canning variety, or for those who like a tomato with a bit of tartness.

Tomato #123 - Greater Baltimore - Obtained from SSE member Fax Stinnett in 1989, I never got around to growing this. Selected from a wilt-resistant plant in a field of Stone in 1900., it was released by Bolgiano in 1906. Victory describes it as a slightly oblate scarlet tomato in the 6 ounce range with a touch of acidity to the flavor. I really should give it a try, to get a sense of what the important Livingston variety Stone is like.

Tomato #124 - Holy Land - Obtained from Edmund Brown in 1989 and grown in 1989, this was a mystery. Supposedly a good sized red tomato, my sample was clearly crossed, as it produced medium sized oblate yellow tomatoes with red swirls, with not particularly good flavor. The variety was passed to SSE Lloyd Duggins of Indiana from a women who brought seeds wrapped up in a napkin from Palestine. The proper variety should be a large red oblate beefsteak type. The oddball yellow I got first ripened in 71 days. I picked 32 fruits with a nice 10 ounce average, so 20 pounds were harvested from the plant. My flavor rating was an uninspiring B. It was just too mild/bland for my taste.

Tomato #125 - Italian Giant - Received from SSE member IL BA R in 1989, I didn’t grow the seed; some years later, when trying, I found the seed to be dead. The variety was reportedly brought to the US from Italy in the 1920-1940 span by SSE member Jerome Nykiel. There is a lot of mixed info about this variety - fruit shape, size and color.

Tomato #126 - Livingston Globe - This historically important tomato was obtained from SSE member Louise Bastable in 1989, but I never did grow it. Released by the Livingston Seed Company in 1897, it originated from a cross between Stone (another Livingston variety) and Ponderosa. The defining characteristic of this pink variety is its relative round-ness. It was used to breed the important variety Marglobe (from a cross between Marvel and Globe).

Tomato #127 - Long Tom - This is one of the original Ben Quisenberry tomatoes, and I received it from Fax Stinnett in 1989 - I never did grow it, however. It is likely one of the long, elongated indeterminate paste types such as Opalka. It made it into the SSE yearbook via Ben Q in the early 1980s.

Tomato #128 - Rockingham - this is a variety that SSE member Jim Donovan sent to me in 1989, and I grew it that year as well. It is fairly unusual in being a potato leaf commercial variety, bred by the NH Ag Experimental Station. The inclusion of Mikado in the breeding (Rutgers as well) explains the presence of potato leaf foliage - the color is red. In 1989, the first ripe tomatoes were picked in 67 days. I picked 28 tomatoes at an average of 6.5 ounces, giving a somewhat paltry 11.3 pounds of fruit from the plant. I did enjoy the flavor, giving it an A-.

Tomato #129 - Rocky - obtained from SSE member IL NI M in 1989, this is another variety that I did not get to try. History on this is hazy, but it seems to have found its way into the SSE via George McLaughlin in 1985 - and is described as a large red, elongated heart. Some now report it as pink. As to why I requested it - that information is long gone!

Tomato #130 - York - obtained by IA EA S in 1989, alas, I never did grow this variety before it lost its germination ability. Info from Tatiana’s Tomatobase indicates it is a large fruited, oblate pink tomato. Its history indicates that it originated in Greece and was brought to Pennsylvania, after which it made its way into the SSE yearbook. It is certainly one of those obscure varieties - why I requested it is unsure, unless it was included in my request for Una Hartsock’s Beefsteak.

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This is one of the first sets of 10 from my collection where I was just poking around in the SSE yearbook, with no real plan in mind. There are quite a few above that I never did get around to growing. None of them were particularly memorable, and I can’t see repeating (or even growing) any from the list, with the exceptions of the historically important Livingston’s Globe, and Greater Baltimore. Perhaps some day, in some garden!

Spring! Tulips planted last fall, on March 23

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.

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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. 

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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!

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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.

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Sue with Betts and Koda on a March walk at DuPont

Off The Vine, Volume 1, Number 2. "Carolyn's Current Favorites"

Very first forsythia blossom seen March 7

On to an article written by Carolyn where she lays out some of her favorite heirlooms. This is a fun read. She talks about quite a few varieties she got from me, as well as some real gems that she received from the mysterious Joe Bratka. Fun read awaits!

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Carolyn’s Current Favorites

by Carolyn

In our first issue of Off the Vine I said that the three most common questions asked when folks requested seeds from me through SSE had to do with isolation distances to maintain purity, methods of saving seed and my personal favorites. The first two questions were dealt with in Volume I, #1 of Off the Vine.  Now I’m going to try the “almost impossible”… describing my current favorites. By now I must have sampled 400-500 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and it has been difficult to settle on just a few favorites. But these are the varieties I grow every year … these are the varieties I head for, for myself, when I wade into the tomato field! Remember that I’m writing this in early August and somewhere in that field of 153 varieties there’s bound to be a new favorite or two. I’ll discuss them in the following order: reds, pinks, bicolors, cherries (all colors), greens, yellows and oranges.

First, let’s talk about red tomatoes, the standard accepted color of most tomato growers. Russian #117 is a large, wedge-shaped (wide oxheart) tomato which is quite prolific and has a wonderful rich flavor. It’s one of the heaviest, not largest, tomatoes that I grow and not much is known about its background other than the fact that the seeds came from a Russian sailor. Cuostralee is another favorite: three years ago a French seed collector traded seeds with several SSE members and this variety is from him; I don’t know its true country of origin. Again, it's a large, superb-tasting tomato which is slightly oval in shape. A close runner-up to Cuostralee is Druzba, a medium sized, perfect globe-shaped tomato from Bulgaria. To be honest, I’ve never met a Bulgarian tomato that I didn’t like! I’ve always liked Red Brandywine, a deep red globe-shaped variant of Brandywine. German Red Strawberry I grew for the first time last summer and I was impressed both with taste and yield of this large pseudo-oxheart-shaped tomato. Opalka is one of my best paste tomatoes … it has long sausage-shaped fruit with very few seeds and excellent taste.

There are so many excellent pink tomatoes that I had a hard time selecting my favorites. One of them had to be Eva Purple Ball; purple in tomato language means pink, except for Purple Calabash, which really is purple and is a contorted mass of tasteless flesh! Eva is from the Black Forest region of Germany and arrived in America in the late 1800’s with the Bratka family. Many of our best heirlooms arrived here in a similar manner; they were treasured family heirlooms that were brought to America by immigrant families. Eva gives you perfect pink 6-8 oz. globes all season long. The taste is outstanding and the vines are very disease resistant. The skin has a faint mottling of white: when the fruit are completely ripe they tend to drop from the vine. Another favorite is Soldacki, a large pink beefsteak type with potato-leafed foliage. I happen to be partial to potato-leafed types because they are so beautiful and are also quite resistant to both early and late blights. Soldacki is Polish and arrived here in the early 1900’s. I obtained the seed from a colleague at work. Sandul Moldovan I obtained from a family who immigrated to Albany three years ago. It is slightly flattened, about one pound, very prolific and has a lovely sweet taste. Anna Russian, an oxheart, is another good one, in addition to Jeff Davis, a potato-leafed variety, Large Pink Bulgarian, beefsteak-shaped and Fritz,  a large very deep pink beefsteak tomato from Germany. Tad Smith, an SSE member and a gifted tomato hybridizer, hybridized Purple Perfect from two heirlooms. It has roughly the same coloration as Cherokee Purple, which is a dusky rose, and I like the taste better than the latter. Grosse Cotelee and Marizol Purple are two other pinks I regard highly. Finally I’d like to mention Ukrainian Heart (TNMUJ Strain) which is near the top of my list of favorite pinks. The problem is that it crosses easily and I’ve had a hard time keeping this variety pure … but I will grow it every year because it is so outstanding.

The most common bicolored tomatoes are gold/red, but other combinations such as gold/green and white/pink, for instance, also are known, my tow selections are gold with red radiating from the blossom end; sliced fruit show the beautiful marbling of red throughout the interior of the fruit. The first one is Marizol Gold which was also brought by the Bratka family from the Black Forest region of Germany. There currently is a town there called Maria’s Zell (place), and it would seem reasonable to suppose that Marizol might be a contraction of that name. Marizol Gold is very prolific with slightly ribbed fruit in excess of one pound. The foliage is bluish green and the main stem is like a miniature tree trunk in size. Like most bicolors is a very sweet and the reason I like it so much is because there is very little rotting at the stem end which is a problem I’ve encountered with varieties such as Pineapple, Georgia Streak, Big Rainbow and other bicolors. Regina’s Yellow is another bicolor choice. Yes, there is a Regina and she’s from Ohio. While Marizol Gold is a slightly flattened, ribbed tomato, Regina’s Yellow is in the 1-3# class and is beefsteak-shaped. Like Marizol Gold it is luscious, visually beautiful both on the vine and on the plate and is also quite resistant to cracking and rotting at the stem end.

 Yes, I know, cherry tomatoes are a dime a dozen, to coin a phrase, pun intended! Reisentraube is a very old German heirloom known to be in existence prior to 1850. The name means “large grape”, but a more apt description is “giant bunch of grapes”. Riesentraube is different from ALL OTHER tomatoes I’ve grown in that it has large sprays of blossoms which contain 200-300 flowers. You could pick the sprays as a cut flower if you wished but you’d be missing out on the 20-40 red, elongated fruit with a pointed end which subsequently develop. The taste is superb; I couldn’t rate it higher! Another choice is Galina, a potato-leafed yellow variety from Siberia. The second year I grew it I found it had crossed so I’ve been planting seed each year to see what I’d get. I have both ivory and red variants, with regular foliage, and each of them has had the same wonderful flavor. Green Grape, a cherry tomato hybridized from two heirlooms by Tom Wagner of Tater Mater Seed Co. is a third choice. This ripens to an amber yellow color and, like all other green tomatoes I’ve grown, the interior is a bright neon green. You’ll have to overcome your prejudices against green tomatoes because you’re really missing out on wonderful flavor! Amish Salad is my favorite pink oval cherry tomato, Galina (ivory mutant) my favorite white and Mini-Orange my favorite orange cherry even though it can be a bit bland, depending on growing conditions.

Live a little, try a green tomato! I must confess that being a life-long gardener of primarily red tomatoes I was hesitant to try green ones; the other colors didn’t bother me, but GREEN? It turns out that I was the loser all those years. Most folks in the “know” rate green tomatoes near the top of their list of taste favorites and I would agree. Most large green tomatoes that I’ve grown have been wonderful in taste, but severely distorted in shape. Last year I grew for the first time Aunt Ruby’s German Green, an heirloom from Tennessee. It is a normal beefsteak shape with a spicy, rich flavor that you won’t find in non-green tomatoes. Others like a green tomato called, cleverly, Green, which I will try next year; it’s also supposed to be smooth.

Next I’ll mention the yellows. Until I started growing heirlooms I found most yellow tomatoes to be bland and not worth growing. Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, from Tennessee is a potato-leafed variety with large beefsteak-shaped fruit of the most complex and delicious flavor; the consistency of the flesh is almost creamy. A few of the fruit may be misshapen, but who cares when wonderful flavor is the goal. Lillian’s ripens to a clear yellow, not a gold as do most yellow tomatoes. That’s also true of another selection called Manyel. Manyel is suggested to be of Native American origin, the name meaning “many moons”, and is a large globe shaped tomato. It too, has a terrific taste and I wouldn’t be without it. Paragon Yellow may be derived from the historical variety Paragon, and while the skin can sometimes be a bit rough Paragon Yellow is a prolific producer of large globe-shaped fruit with excellent taste. A new favorite from last summer is Dr. Wyche’s Yellow. Again, it is prolific and bears large quantities of very large beefsteak fruit which ripen to a lovely gold. My last selection is a real treasure … Jaune Negib, one of the many varieties received three years ago from Norbert Parreira of France. He requested seed trades with several SSE members and many excellent varieties from his collection have become available as the SSE members reoffer seed in the SSE Annual each year. Jaune Negib is early and bears small oblate (flattened) fruit which are often scalloped. Being early, pretty, and tasty makes it rate high in my tomato book!

I’ve grown many orange tomatoes and have found only two, so far, that I like. One is Kellogg’s Breakfast which is a very large, pale orange/gold beefsteak type. Unlike Amana Orange, which it resembles, Kellogg’s Breakfast has excellent taste; the former is too bland for me. My second choice is Flamme, another variety from France. It’s a small globe, early and tasty. For some reason I find orange tomatoes to be either too bland for me or too “strong”, and I don't’ know what I mean by the latter, but Persimmmon and Verna Orange would be examples.

These are my favorites as of August, 1994. I’m sure a new favorite(s) will appear this summer, they always do. Some of you are probably saying, “where’s Brandywine or Winsall or this one or that one”. Speaking only of Brandywine, I’ve tried four different strains and have been underwhelmed with all of them. What performs well for me may not perform well for you. If someone praises a certain tomato highly and it doesn’t perform for me the fist year, I save seed and plant it the next year. Often the tomato will adapt. One of our subscribers has been very successful doing this, especially in the arid southwest, and his article describing this adaptation will appear in an upcoming issue of Off the Vine.  The search goes on each year to find that super tomato and that’s what makes growing out new varieties so exciting. So many tomatoes … so little time!

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This is a really fascinating read. It reminds me that in some cases, Carolyn and I agreed on a tomato’s attributes. In other cases, we were miles apart. Some tomatoes that we both really loved are Opalka, Sandul Moldovan, Anna Russian, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom. Some that neither of us were particularly enamored with are Amana Orange and Verman Orange.

There are also cases when Carolyn loves varieties that I find a bit lacking. Some of these would be Cuostralee, Eva Purple Ball, Marizol Gold, Regina’s Yellow, Manyel, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow - all of which I find on the bland side. And she didn’t care for Brandywine - but I find it one of the best tomatoes I’ve tasted. Different palates, different expectations, different growing zones, different soil are among possible reasons for diverging opinions.

First time to see this Spirea bloom - we purchased it last spring when it was done blooming. Foliage will be bright yellow green