Heritage tomato suggestions, please.

[Carol Dee]

DH would like to plant Heritage tomatoes next summer.
What do you plant? Why? Flavor? Size? Ease?
We like a tomato that is pretty all purpose (if there is such a thing!)
We love them raw in season, Freeze for winter use. Salsa, etc...
Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[retiredwith4acres]

I will try to get back to this post a little later in the season. I ordered a mixture of heritage tomato seeds from sampleseeds.com and hope to evaluate and save seeds. The first to ripen is a large yellow that i like but not sure of the name will have to research. The seeds were only about $1.25 for lots of seeds and thought this might be the best way of determining which I liked best. I have about 30 plants and waiting anxiously! I also gave away lots of plants. Go onto the website, she doesn't have lots of different varieties but really good price. Also, a one woman operation makes for someone I want to give my business to as I can.

 

[bluelacedredhead]

Carol,
I can give suggestions but unless you are growing plants from seed, some might be difficult to find in other areas.
Do you want determinate sized plants? Ones that don't get too large and fit in a standard tomato cage? Or are you able to plant indeterminate varieties that could grow as tall as say 7 feet and would require a much more substantial cage or 1x2 lumber to stake them?

Here's a few varieties to start with. Rutgers is a good all purpose tomato from the Northeast so should do well in your area as well. . In the deep south, I would say Arkansas Traveler which is a dark pink variety. Both of these varieties are mid sized round canner types with lots of flavour and easily multipurpose fruit. From the northern MidWest, there is Wisconsin 55 which I have grown every year since I was first given seed back in 2009.
There are countless others but those are three that come to mind off the top.


Hope this helps and yes, The Sample Seed Shop is a good place to start looking. Remy is very knowledgable and will gladly help you with seed selection.

 

[curly_kate]

KELLOGGS BREAKFAST!!! That's my favorite slicing tomato. Great big orange tomatoes, mmmmmm!! They are fairly easy to grow - I've never had any problems with them until last year, but that was an odd year for the inordinate amount of rain we had.

 

[so lucky]

I am growing Rutgers from seed this year. I will let you know how we like them. So far they are looking good!

 

[digitS']

Oh boy, a question about tomatoes! One of my favorite subjects !

Let's see . . . what am I excited about having in my garden this year? I'll just mention 3 that I've had before - - quick-maturing types because of my garden location .

Thessaloniki was my 1st heirloom of a larger size. The fruit isn't really very large but it was a good step up from the cherries. Apparently, it was introduced to the US as a commercial variety from Greece, during the 1950's. I think there's a good chance that I'm older than this heirloom . . . .

The fruit is very disinclined to crack and that's a big plus to me. The orange-red tomatoes show up fairly early and they don't go away quickly. Thessaloniki is known as a long-keeper tomato.

For a smaller tomato, I'm really looking forward to these 2: Tigerella & Woodle Orange. They are both nice early producers - no problem there. Smaller size plants. Tigerella is mostly a pretty tomato. Almost, it couldn't be prettier . Tastes just fine, too. Woodle Orange is pretty - in a persimmon orange sort of way. Good flavor. Very silly name for a woodle, uh, little tomato .

I don't have an heirloom cherry this year . . .

Steve

 

[skeeter9]

I will second both the Thessaloniki and Arkansas Traveler. Both have wonderful flavor and are pretty multi-purpose.

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

We really enjoyed the Brandywines that we grew a couple years ago. They were ENORMOUS plants, and would easily have gone 7-8 feet tall if we had staked them properly. Lots of nice big 'matoes, and they didn't crack or scald or anything. I got a packet of heirloom seeds that said they were about 90 days from transplant, but it was 100-110 days here in SE Washington, and it was a hot summer, too. Still, we picked a bunch of green ones when the first hard freeze was predicted, and they ripened inside on the counter over the course of a few weeks. They were delicious! I sent some of the seeds to my uncle in Indiana, and he grow them well there, too.

 

[SuperChemicalGirl]

I planted my first black krim last year, it was the tastiest tomato I've ever eaten although it looked a little weird. Easy to grow (in Maine).

Started a bunch more from seeds this year and plan to have them each year, weather willing.

I do plant yellow pear as well, they're a bit mealy but good in a salad. I'm only doing 1 plant of that this year due to the mealiness. They produced like mad last year.

This year I am also growing mortgage lifter and so far the plants are taking off nicely and have blooms. That's pretty early for a Maine tomato.

Most of the other tomatoes I plant are hybrid early season just due to my short growing season. Would be interested to hear from anyone growing a shorter season variety heirloom.

 

[bluelacedredhead]

SuperChemical Girl, Here's a few varieties that would suit the Maine season.

The French heirloom Marmande is a heavy producer of 6-ounce, red, slightly flattened fruits with excellent flavour. 67 Days to maturity. I've grown these in years gone by and they are a lovely tomato.

Siletz does well in cooler climates producing deep-red, good tasting 8 oz slicer. Determinate growth at 52 days is a short season.

And Scotia, which has a dwarf growth habit, medium sized fruit. Veseys Seeds recommends these as their Green Tomato Relish variety 60 DTM. I grew these for years. Not sure why I stopped? Probably because I was so caught up in trying different varieties that they fell by the wayside. Now that I'm back in the city and gardening on a small space, I should go back to growing these as a dependable and space saving tomato.