A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

HeirloomGal , you waited a long time for a response to that list of tomato varieties (and received a well-placed compliment ).

At one time, I had a patch with 60 tomato plants and about 20 varieties. No More - this year, 15 plants went out and there are two in the backyard at the foot of the backsteps (I might sneak one more in there .)

A gardener can really be caught up in all the varieties. I mean, even some small seed outfits sell seed for over 250 varieties! It's a very reasonable hobby if a gardener is at all capable of making use of and have room for more than 4 or 5 plants.

Of all those heirlooms that you have listed, I have only tried Flamme - which I am just assuming is "Jaune Flamme" - Good Heavens, could there be more types of those Flamme available now! Anyway, I was very much attracted to the color of those listed on websites. The smaller size sounded like I could finish one in the garden with about 2 bites, turned out to be quite true . I finally grew it after several years of looking at the pictures and was pleased with it. It is very pretty and I appreciated that it didn't split in my garden. It also didn't have any problem with the climate in maturing a crop.

Steve

Flamme! Thank you for the info!

I am indeed quite guilty of getting tomato collecting mania. I started with a sort of bean fascination, moved on to tomatoes and got stuck there for a bit. I keep wanting to stop adding to that seed group, but it is dang hard with all the incredible new ones that come out. At this point I think I'm over 550 varieties in seed storage, and it must stop somewhere, especially because I want to keep seed viable. Not super easy at that number, not with the current bean interest. Argh, why did they have to come out with Sart Roloise?

Of your 15 plants, are they a single variety or is a mix?

 

[baymule]

And I thought chicken math was bad! Hahaha! You are afflicted with tomato math!

 

[AMKuska]

That's a pretty impressive amount of varieties! I keep trying new ones hoping I'll find something that works well for my area, but I think I might just need to save seeds from every tomato plant that does well and breed my own variety.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

FINALLY got all the cucumbers planted, less one package of Borneo Jungle cucumber seed (as this is the first year I have had to direct seed the cucumbers, I thought it prudent to hold back a pack of seed against animals eating all of what I have planted before it came up or matured.)

Also got the herbs in, along with the sweet peas (I just have to hope they can still make flowers this late).

Tomorrow, if we have time, we will dig up the Circle Garden, which will allow me to put in the long beans and the watermelons. We will also clean out and re-plant the chive pot.

And when all of THAT is done, I guess it's time to face the vegetable garden and the corn.

The fancy flowers I will do as soon as I can get some sterile potting medium (with the seeds no bigger than dust, I'll have to surface sow them, and it will be important for me to use weed free medium in order to know what is an intended plant and what is not.)

 

[digitS']

are they a single variety or is a mix?

They are a mix and, this year, oriented towards preserving seed. I am probably a much too casual seed-saver. A semi-arid climate allows me to start off with just a paper towel in the sunshine approach and it doesn't go to any more complicated than that.

I find that they are at good viability for no more than 5 years. I should say that orientation is also a compromise between me and DW. There are hybrids. I thought that the cherries that came on the market, primarily from Japan, about 30 years ago were a good deal superior to what we had previously. Another orientation is climate-driven and towards early maturity.

Steve

 

[Blue-Jay]

am indeed quite guilty of getting tomato collecting mania. I started with a sort of bean fascination, moved on to tomatoes and got stuck there for a bit. I keep wanting to stop adding to that seed group, but it is dang hard with all the incredible new ones that come out. At this point I think I'm over 550 varieties in seed storage, and it must stop somewhere, especially because I want to keep seed viable. Not super easy at that number, not with the current bean interest. Argh, why did they have to come out with Sart Roloise?

Hey @heirloomgal, If you get a freezer you can keep way more seeds of tomato varieties viable for several decades to come. Then you can be like Tomato Jim Wyant of Galveston, Indiana who has tomato seeds at the bottom of his freezer he's collected and never grown. LOL He's probably got over 1,500 varieties and he's still collecting them. I've actually seen him collect tomatoes new to him at seed swaps.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Hey @heirloomgal, If you get a freezer you can keep way more seeds of tomato varieties viable for several decades to come. Then you can be like Tomato Jim Wyant of Galveston, Indiana who has tomato seeds at the bottom of his freezer he's collected and never grown. LOL He's probably got over 1,500 varieties and he's still collecting them. I've actually seen him collect tomatoes new to him at seed swaps.

I also am guilty of overdoing it with tomato seed acquisition and saving, going FAR beyond what I can plant, and, as a result wasting VAST amounts of seed due to holding it too long. It is a road paved with much guilt, for both tomatoes and other things (i.e. the guilt one feels when one HAD something one had a feeling was rare and revolutionary, only to squander it by waiting too long) When I think of the Eyeball Tomato (a tomato so sweet you HAD to treat it like a fruit, it and a salad just wouldn't WORK) Fuzzy Cherokee (a peach skinned version of Purple Cherokee I got from Wild Boar farms when they were just starting out and still relying on eBay to do all their selling, and which I THINK they decided not to preserve, on the grounds they didn't think anyone would want a brown fuzzed tomato.) Valisiev Green (one of a group of obscure Russian tomatoes I saw once on eBay, and never again) and so many others. And then there are the Hairy Babylonian Wild Cucumbers, ALL the exotic cukes Joe found (DID get them to grow, but planted them too early and they all froze.) Xiao Pangze (the name I gave to that interesting lima from Chinatown I tried to grow last year), all of the Armenian Runner beans (although, as none of them came up even when I planted them fresh, I suspect the problem here was with Richter's, not me) and so many more.

 

[heirloomgal]

And I thought chicken math was bad! Hahaha! You are afflicted with tomato math!

I should probably seek treatment.

 

[heirloomgal]

That's a pretty impressive amount of varieties! I keep trying new ones hoping I'll find something that works well for my area, but I think I might just need to save seeds from every tomato plant that does well and breed my own variety.

Sounds like a fun project @AMKuska . I had a seed request through the exchange this year from a young fellow concerned about food security, who wanted a lot of varieties of canning tomatoes, so that he could begin selecting from the whole lot of them growing together. He was out on the prairies with quite a short season, I think a zone 3 or 2b.

Have you tried Moskvich? Moskvich is a super early, but super great red beefsteak tomato, remarkably early maturity and fabulous flavour against any of the early maturing ones I've tried. Might be some good genetics to consider bringing into selecting efforts. There are a few other great Russian ones that are early reds with great flavour, 'Marmeladnye Krasnye' (english, Red Marmalade) comes to mind too.

 

[heirloomgal]

Hey @heirloomgal, If you get a freezer you can keep way more seeds of tomato varieties viable for several decades to come. Then you can be like Tomato Jim Wyant of Galveston, Indiana who has tomato seeds at the bottom of his freezer he's collected and never grown. LOL He's probably got over 1,500 varieties and he's still collecting them. I've actually seen him collect tomatoes new to him at seed swaps.

1,500...wow!