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Favorite heirloom tomatoes

FITN

FITN

So in the past I have grown Oxhearts, Roma's and Black Sea Man tomatoes. I would like to expand our tomato horizons and try new varietys. This is also because I forgot to save seeds last year and now I only have seeds for the Oxhearts.

I would love to hear what types of tomatoes are your favorites to grow. Suggestions of types of tomatoes and where to source seeds would be great! I'm also very open to trading for seeds if anyone feels so inclined. As far as tomatoes are concerned, I've only got Oxhearts but I've got multiple types of squash, tons of pepper seeds and your other basic garden veggies.

Cheers!
 
Baker Creek has good heirloom seeds. I bought two varieties that were supposed to be 25 seeds to the pack. They were both around 100 seeds and they were ready to rock & roll. They started shooting plants 48 hours after hitting the dirt. A month after planting, the most enthusiastic of these things were already standing 6" above the dirt..
 
Good tasting - this is relative. What is good tasting for one, is not for other. For example I am not so much in those sour tomatoes, as a friend of mine is. My precious are some cherry tomato, they so sweet you can eat as candies. A coworker from China sent me the seeds some more than 10 years ago. She told me they are hybrid, and probably will not be able to grow next year. But well, they grew so well next year, and all the years since. One year almost lost the seeds, lucky me I have shared with somebody, and years later he returned me the seeds :)
Can't remember other right now.
 
DWB said:
Baker Creek has good heirloom seeds. I bought two varieties that were supposed to be 25 seeds to the pack. They were both around 100 seeds and they were ready to rock & roll. They started shooting plants 48 hours after hitting the dirt. A month after planting, the most enthusiastic of these things were already standing 6" above the dirt..
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I just checked out Baker Creek. They have a great selection and decent prices! Thanks for the heads up. Now to decide what to order.
 
Favorite heirloom tomatoes we grow every year:
 
Cherokee Purple
Brandywine
Lahmans Pink
Big Rainbow
Paul Robeson
Mortgage Lifter
Aunt Rubys German Green
Black Krim
Hillbilly
Romeo (paste)
Amish (paste)
San Marzano (paste)
Margherita (paste)
 
Have also grown and liked:
 
Green Zebra
Pineapple
Sophie's Choice
Gold Medal
Abraham Lincoln
Kellogs Breakfast
 
I have ordered seeds from and would order again from:
 
Baker Creek
Seed Savers Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Johnnys
Territorial
Seeds of Change
 
Best of luck.  :)
 
Thanks to all who posted! On the advice of SmokenFire and DWB, I ordered seeds from Baker Creek.

I ordered-

Sub Artic Plenty
Black Beauty
Long Barred Boar
Chadwick Cherry
Brad's Atomic Grape
Pink Ponderosa
Mushroom Basket
Emerald Evergreen- Thanks Sinensis

We also ordered Romanesco seeds and Kandahar Oakra seeds.

Thanks again everyone.
 
those are some nice looking varieties you got picked out there.
 
even though FITN ordered seeds already, i'd love to hear more suggestions if anyone still wants to chime in  :P
 
might make an order myself next week.
 
also, i'll take this opportunity to whine about tomatoville. everyone likes whining, right? especially offtopic whining.
:drunk:  :violin:
i've been trying for over a year to get onto that damn forum. they really must not give a shit about getting new users, because i've never experienced this level of signup friction on a forum before. seems to me they've got that thing locked up tighter than fort knox. do they think they're a repository of gold bullion or tomato discourse?
i emailed all the email addresses i could find for them today and also used their contact form, so maybe i'll finally get up in there.
 
also, this guy's a little creepy:
9HxTsag.png

 
and, does anyone® know™ what's up with all the trademarks™ on everything®?
is it a long running inside joke or something? lol
 
sinensis said:
those are some nice looking varieties you got picked out there.
 
even though FITN ordered seeds already, i'd love to hear more suggestions if anyone still wants to chime in  :P
 
might make an order myself next week.
 
also, i'll take this opportunity to whine about tomatoville. everyone likes whining, right? especially offtopic whining.
:drunk:  :violin:
i've been trying for over a year to get onto that damn forum. they really must not give a shit about getting new users, because i've never experienced this level of signup friction on a forum before. seems to me they've got that thing locked up tighter than fort knox. do they think they're a repository of gold bullion or tomato discourse?
i emailed all the email addresses i could find for them today and also used their contact form, so maybe i'll finally get up in there.
 
also, this guy's a little creepy:
9HxTsag.png

 
and, does anyone® know what's up with all the trademarks on everything®?
is it a long running inside joke or something? lol
Click to expand...
Well, as I said before, I've grown Romas, Oxhearts and Black Sea Man tomatoes is the past. Romas are so so, just your basic tomato in my opinion. Their better then store bought but nothing special. I will however recommend the Oxhearts and the Black Sea Man tomatoes to anyone. Both are very productive, large fruits and very tasty.

As far as Tomatoville.... I've never heard of it so I can't help you there. Although I will say the little tomato man is kinda weird and creepy.
 
sinensis said:
those are some nice looking varieties you got picked out there.
 
even though FITN ordered seeds already, i'd love to hear more suggestions if anyone still wants to chime in  :P
 
might make an order myself next week.
 
also, i'll take this opportunity to whine about tomatoville. everyone likes whining, right? especially offtopic whining.
:drunk:  :violin:
i've been trying for over a year to get onto that damn forum. they really must not give a shit about getting new users, because i've never experienced this level of signup friction on a forum before. seems to me they've got that thing locked up tighter than fort knox. do they think they're a repository of gold bullion or tomato discourse?
i emailed all the email addresses i could find for them today and also used their contact form, so maybe i'll finally get up in there.
 
also, this guy's a little creepy:
9HxTsag.png

 
and, does anyone® know™ what's up with all the trademarks™ on everything®?
is it a long running inside joke or something? lol
Click to expand...
if you are trying to sign up with your smartphone it will not work. i dealt with the same problem. you need to sign up with a wired connection such as cable internet. strange but true. i read and re-read their terms and conditions and figured this out. from my laptop over xfinity internet signup was a breeze. 
 
as far as heirlooms go i have grown them in the past and found them not very productive. hybrids are crossed to be more productive and they are for me. others may have different results but for me getting six tomatoes from a branywine plant last year was not worth the garden space. i find that hybrids put out way more fruit. YMMV
 
I just got an awesome trade from a fellow kansan. A bunch of stuff I had never even heard of.

I also have the emerald evergreen, and true black Brandywine I grabbed from baker creek. I got them half priced in Kansas city at this place called Planters.
 
Tomatoes can be inconsistent from year to year in the same garden. The main variable is the weather each year. For example, my 2015 Cherokee Purple tomatoes were exceptional, but every year since, they have just been average. I've read reviews of people that rave about this tomato and some that say it is horrible. Soil and weather conditions vary from garden to garden as well as each person's taste buds.
 
For my grow list each year, I pick varieties  that have had at least one great year as well as always chasing after new to me great tasters. If interested, I have my grow list on my profile.
 
Currently my favorites are:
Purple: Cherokee Purple
Pink: Brandywine
Orange: Sweet Ozark Orange
Green when ripe: Ananas Noire
Cherry yellow: Esternia F1
Cherry Pink: Pink Princess
 
The Hotpepper and Tomatoville are awesome forums!
 
Cutting way back this year from the 80 or so varieties we normally grow so we can grow more peppers.  This year's grow list will be limited to:
  • Amazon Chocolate
  • Bolseno F1
  • Cherry Bomb F1
  • Dora
  • Druzba (Our all time favorite)
  • Esterina F1
  • Fabulous Dark Cherry V (Our all time favorite cherry)
  • Grandma Oliver's Chocolate
  • McMurray #10
  • Moravsky Div
  • 4th of July
  • Sunpeach F1
  • Spudakee
  • Purple Dog Creek
  • Northern Lights
  • Matina
  • Lithuanian
  • Forest Fire
 
 
Eva Purple Ball for its taste, yes, but also for its ability to resist cracking and disease in humidity.
 
Goldman's Italian also does well at disease resistance and is multi-purpose. Big, pleated, meaty.
 
ako1974 said:
Eva Purple Ball for its taste, yes, but also for its ability to resist cracking and disease in humidity.
 
Goldman's Italian also does well at disease resistance and is multi-purpose. Big, pleated, meaty.
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EPB is a good one.  We've grown it several times.  It does well here in KS.
Never grown Goldman's.  
 
Rockandrollin said:
Tomatoes can be inconsistent from year to year in the same garden. The main variable is the weather each year. For example, my 2015 Cherokee Purple tomatoes were exceptional, but every year since, they have just been average. I've read reviews of people that rave about this tomato and some that say it is horrible. Soil and weather conditions vary from garden to garden as well as each person's taste buds.
 
For my grow list each year, I pick varieties  that have had at least one great year as well as always chasing after new to me great tasters. If interested, I have my grow list on my profile.
 
Currently my favorites are:
Purple: Cherokee Purple
Pink: Brandywine
Orange: Sweet Ozark Orange
Green when ripe: Ananas Noire
Cherry yellow: Esternia F1
Cherry Pink: Pink Princess
 
The Hotpepper and Tomatoville are awesome forums!
Click to expand...
RaR:  This is sage advice.  
I have grown all on your favorites list as recently as last year.  These are nice selections.  Last year was the first year we grew Sweet Ozark Orange .... it was awesome.  In Kansas, CP and the Brandywines are hit-n-miss depending on the year/WX.  We typically grow variants like Spudakee and the crosses Liz Birt or Dora.  Esterina F1 is on our annual list.  We've grown Ananas Noire many times and like it.  
 
FITN said:
Thanks to all who posted! On the advice of SmokenFire and DWB, I ordered seeds from Baker Creek.

I ordered-

Sub Artic Plenty
Black Beauty
Long Barred Boar
Chadwick Cherry
Brad's Atomic Grape
Pink Ponderosa
Mushroom Basket
Emerald Evergreen- Thanks Sinensis

We also ordered Romanesco seeds and Kandahar Oakra seeds.

Thanks again everyone.
Click to expand...
 
Large barred Boar I think you meant, which is a fantastic tomato by the way. Brads Atomic Grape and Black beauty are some serious eye candy as well, gorgeous fruits. Green When ripe tomatoes such as Emerald evergreen are some of my favorites. Nice little list there man. Good luck.
 
My list this year will consist of the following heirloom and open pollinated grafted onto hybrid rootstock:
 
Chapman
Earl's Faux
Green Giant
Eva Purple Ball
Bear Creek
Orange Minsk Heart
Kodiak Brown
Coyote
Green Zebra Cherry
Rons Carbon Copy
 
And a few "must grows" that will always be in my garden year after year:
Rebel Yell
Pink Berkley Tie Dye
Verde Claro
Wes
Anna Russian
Speckled/Striped Roman
 
 
 
 
NorCaliente916 said:
 
Large barred Boar I think you meant, which is a fantastic tomato by the way. Brads Atomic Grape and Black beauty are some serious eye candy as well, gorgeous fruits. Green When ripe tomatoes such as Emerald evergreen are some of my favorites. Nice little list there man. Good luck.
Click to expand...
You are correct, I did mean large barred boar. My wife and I sat down and went though Baker Creeks list and picked out the ones we wanted to try. Last night I set them up to germinate. I'm looking forward to trying new tomatoes. I make a ton of salsa and we roast and can lots of tomatoes as well. Gonna be a busy summer!
 
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