What's an 'Heirloom' Tomato?
An Heirloom tomato is essentially and open-pollinated (aka OP) variety. These are varieties that breed true and have been reproduced for decades. Many often debate how old a variety must be to be considered 'Heirloom", but many agree that if a variety has been cultivated for 3 decades, it may be considered an heirloom tomato. (reference here)
It's All About The Story
I personally love growing heirloom varieties over hybrids. There's nothing like a good story and heirlooms sure carry a story of their own! It is interesting to read the history behind each individual variety - and there are thousands. That is what really intrigues me about heirlooms.
There are so many out there in the world and more being created all the time. It is one seemingly endless book with so much history & mystery! I prefer to grow something with a rich history and I also appreciate carrying these varieties forward, so that future generations have the opportunity to enjoy them as well. Preserving history that has fed us and sustained our lives for generations; it is priceless.
The 'Great Debate' - Heirloom vs. Hybrid
Which is better, heirloom tomatoes or hybrid tomatoes? That depends on who you ask. Don't ask me, I'm bias! That is up to each gardener to figure out - which is better? What works for me might not work for everyone. There's been much heated discussion amongst gardeners and farmers, but it remains a personal preference. I grow 98% heirloom seed, but I also prefer several hybrid types that I know to be excellent. I'll share more on that below.
The consumer wins either way. They have choices - a plethora of them!
With tens of thousands of varieties of tomato out there, both heirloom and hybrids, we lack the universal metrics for identifying which is better. We have yet to define what "better" means! I found this site incredibly helpful in explaining The Difference Between Hybrid & Heirloom Tomatoes. I will be discussing this more in depth in the near future, so if you'd like to interject an opinion - feel free! My ears are on, I am open to discuss this below in the comments!
The Key to Great Plants Starts With Great Seed
It is all about the seed and the source. Regardless of being hybrid or heirloom - it is all about the source. Trustworthy sources are key to quality seed. I have people try to GIVE me seed all the time and I rarely accept. Most of the time they have no idea what the seeds are or any other information about it. I like a good mystery, but not in the garden. If I do not know what it is or where it came from, then I cannot possibly grow that seed to its full potential.
Knowing what you're growing is the only way to unlock the full potential of the plant you're growing (in my opinion). That is why I love heirlooms, the information is abundant for something that has been grown for decades and the internet is your chauffeur. The keys are basically in the ignition for you.
I order seeds from many different sources, but they all have one thing in common: they provide outstanding service to gardeners and farmers by also accompanying their product with an abundance of information. It's quite a bit different than growing an un-stabilized hybrid strain. (BUY SEEDS ONLINE @ SEEDSNOW.com)
What Heirlooms @Grow-Pro Has Growing This Year
Heirloom Tomatoes:
Abraham (Abe) Lincoln - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces extra
large 1 lb. heirloom tomatoes that turn dark red as they mature. Great
for tomato juice, eating off the vine, ketchup, or slicing for sandwiches.
Day to Maturity | 85 days
Atkinson - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces 8 to 16 oz. red
heirloom tomatoes. Great for salads, sandwiches and many culinary
creations. This plant has thick leaves and makes it a great variety to
plant if you live in a dry/humid environment.
Day to Maturity | 70 days
Black Krim - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces heavy yields of dark
reddish/ black beefsteak tomatoes. From the Black Sea region of
Russia. Very sweet & salty and rich in flavor. Used in salads and
sandwiches.
Day to Maturity | 70 days
Box Car Willie - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Regular-leaf, tall, vigorous,
tomato plants that yield abundant crops of 10 to 16-ounce, smooth,
bright-orange/red slicer tomatoes. Good choice for a canning tomato,
sauce tomato or salad tomato or perfect for tomato juice. A good all
season tomato that produces well until frost.
Day to Maturity | 80 days
Brandywine (Pink) - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Massive Beefsteak
variety that produces tomatoes 1 lb+. Excellent, well known flavor.
Soft texture, rough shoulders, with creamy smooth flesh.
Day to Maturity | 90 days
Calypso - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces 6-8 ox. tomatoes.
Classic heirloom flavor makes this a great variety for canning and
freezing. Grows well in humid climates.
Day to Maturity | 85 days
Caribe - Heirloom - Determinate - Compact plant that is great for tight
spaces & does well in containers (12”+). Grows in dry and/or humid
climates. Easy to grow.
Day to Maturity | 78 days
Cherokee Purple - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Grown for over 100
years by Cherokee tribe. Produces 6-12 oz. purplish/ pink colored
heirloom tomatoes. Sweet & smoky flavor. Easy to grow.
Day to Maturity | 82 - 90 days
Creole - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces smooth, glossy medium
red tomatoes, 6 -12 oz. fruit with excellent flavor. Grows well in hot
regions and tolerates heat extremely well. Early finisher.
Day to Maturity | 70 days
Delicious - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Guinness World Record holder.
Produces tomatoes with an average size of 2 - 3 lb. (Each!) Perfect
slicing variety with delicious flavor. Record size was 7 lb. 12 oz. - Try
growing a record breaker in your garden!
Day to Maturity | 85 days
Floradade - Heirloom - Determinate - Can withstand temps exceeding
95º F and adapts to humid or dry climates. Produces a heavy yield of
great tasting tomatoes in a spectrum of climates.
Day to Maturity | 85 days
Homestead - Heirloom - Determinate - Very popular variety with strong
& sturdy vines that produce medium sized tomatoes. Thrives in warm
climates and are wilt resistant. Developed in the 1950’s for growers in
southern states.
Day to Maturity | 80 - 83 days
Marion - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Rutgers-type, only better! Used
often by gourmet chefs in salads & sandwiches. Crack resistant,
medium sized tomatoes. Easy to grow.
Day to Maturity | 75 days
Money Maker - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Great yields of bright red
tomatoes that grow up to 8 oz. Very reliable heirloom variety from
Bristol, England.
Day to Maturity | 85 days
Mortgage Lifter - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Produces very large
beefsteak tomatoes up to 2 lbs! Rich flavored heirloom that originated
in West Virginia. Turns a deep dark pinkish color as they mature.
Day to Maturity | 70 days
Pineapple - Heirloom - Indeterminate - Pineapple tomato plant
produces abundant yields of extra large 2 lb. yellow tomatoes with red
streaks, both inside & out! Very flavorful variety that will require
staking/ support. Produces up until frost.
Day to Maturity | 80 - 90 days
Purple Tomatillo - Heirloom - Indeterminate - "A mainstay of Mexican cuisine, tomatillo can be eaten fresh, right off the plant, or roasted to bring out its sweet, tart, complex flavor. It's a nice addition to salsa and sauces, too. Purple earns its name with violet tones that go right through from the skin to the flesh of the fruit, which can reach the size of a baseball but is more commonly a bit smaller. Even the leaves on this plant sport purple veins and streaks!" via: Park Seed.
Day to Maturity | 70 days
We have a few more varieties about to go in the dirt, they include: Royal Hillbilly, Hungarian Heart, & Black Vernissage!
CALLING ALL GARDENERS - Please comment below and share a photo of your garden!
THANK YOU FOR READING! If you have enjoyed reading and would like more updates - feel free to follow along. Many updates to come!
HEIRLOOM, NON-GMO, ORGANIC SEED BELOW
I LOVE tomatoes! I eat them with some salt and pepper. There are so many varieties of tomatoes it's overwhelming. My favorite smelling plant is the tomato!!!!! I love when you can smell them on your hands after gardening, kind of like garlic after cooking. Great post!
Thanks @xtdnrymompreneur, there is nothing like the lasting smell of a healthy tomato plant on your hands - especially when growing all sorts of basils around them. Lime Basil and the smell of tomato plants in the morning... Glorious.
I'm curious though, how the hell did you manage 12 comment votes on a post with 3 votes and 6 views? 😂LOL I have no idea how this platform works.
Using the esteem app. They occasionally vote on posts and comments that originate from their app.
Thanks! I'll have to check that out. I'm still over here with my head swiveling around trying to figure out how it works 😋
Yeah, i really have no idea! My husband helps me a lot!! Any questions you have let me know and I will ask him. He's super handy that way 😉
I'm following both of you and I'm taking notes! Best to learn from people doing it right, than pay a toll to take advice from a troll Thanks for helping out! 🙏🏼
I have over a hundred heirloom tomato varieties in seeds . I am obsessed! You have some I don't have. Want to trade? Upvoted, resteemed, and followed.
Thanks @wholesomeroots, I'm a new Steemian, tomato grower/ seed collector also (bordering obsession..lol). One reason I grow heirlooms is to produce seed. As far as seed goes, I source them each year (ones I do not have) and grow others to collect seed. Since we sell tomato plants to cover costs of production here, we 'grow' thru seed like crazy! I let my kids scan the catalogs and we find ones with a great story.
What varieties are you interested in trading? I'm all ears 😋 . What's listed is what I've got growing. I have a bunch not listed, but not quite at your level yet!
IDK, it's hard now because I lost my spreadsheet when I switched computers somehow. I need to redo it from scratch... too many seeds!
I am an affiliate for SeedsNow.com and I order from them frequently for tomato seed. They offer small quantity 'sample-sized' packs, many times for .99¢ or less for approximately 15 seeds. I love it because I don't have to store a ton of seed - plant & collect. I like to test new varieties before buying bulk seed and this is the cheapest way to do it (that I know of).
Where do you usually shop or swap for seed?
You'll notice that many of the varieties we are growing are from Seeds Now. All Non-GMO, Organic, Heirloom seeds. As an affiliate I can offer friends here a discount code for 10% off your order
I'll be sharing some of my favorite & most trusted seed companies very soon! Stay Tuned! Thanks again for dropping by! 😎🍅
Man, now I need a tomato and mayo sandwich! That made me hungry.
How are you picking your crop? Are you still doing it, or do you hire workers?
How do I prevent my seedlings from dying? I wasn't sure if we ever got to the bottom of that in the other thread. I think people need to be careful not to transfer them from a cool space to a really hot one.
Do you can (glass jar) any of your crop for your personal food storage? Sell those canned goods in addition to the raw tomatoes?
Thanks @finnian! It makes me hungry working around them, too!
I grow everything from seed, maintain it, pick it myself. Hiring labor is far too costly for the scale we are currently. That might not be far off though at this pace!
For seedlings: placing them in a shady area that gets filtered light (under the canopy of a tree) or somewhere that is not getting midday (harsh) sun. Sometimes small seedling so can die from a fungal disease known as "damping off". This is easily preventable, naturally, with a chamomile tea remedy. I grow chamomile largely for this purpose. Overwatering is typically the cause of damping off. I up-pot seedlings after 3 weeks and allow them to dry out until they wilt once before watering deeply again. It forces the roots to seek water, but this technique has to be applied very soon after the plants wilt - close attention is needed.
When hardening off young plants and 'acclimating' them to their new full-sun environment it is best to move them from a shaded area out to get more morning or evening sunlight and slowly introduce them to full sun. Just putting them out right away is almost never going to work well. The sun can basically cook them if they are not acclimated properly. Even store bought plants from a nursery or big box retailer will still require hardening off
We can and freeze all kinds of produce that we grow. In fact, we are finally finishing last years peppers. My uncle has a dehydrator that we also make tomato chips with. We do not sell any canned /processed goods or sauces because state laws are absurd. They consider cutting a tomato "processing" and requires a license 😐. I sell raw produce to avoid numerous licenses and inspection fees just to stuff a tomato in a jar..lol It is ridciulous. In some states, like Maryland, just removing a stem from a fruit is considered "processing".
My wife looked into selling butter, and it too was absurd because of the local government. They would have to inspect the house, we'd have to block all pets from the kitchen, etc. We are not even making the butter. It is just being changed from store bought organic butter into glass jarred containers.
That is the same case here. The lincensing is a money trap and is remarkably similar to how the mafia works..haha Pay up is the motto.
Your tomatoes are beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I wish I could pick them through the screen. Congratulations on the success of your garden!
Thank you @mombliss! I could really use the help, so I wish it were possible also! I look forward to finding my fellow garden-steemians here, thanks for dropping by.
I bought some plants at a local Lowes a few years back, and they were infested with the tomato horned worms. How do you prevent them from eating all of your product?
Neem Oil + Water = good riddance to all leaf eaters. I use cayenne pepper crushed up and mixed with water to deter deer as well. Also increasing the brix levels and health of the plant is a great pest deterrent in itself. Pests are predators and most predators target weaker plants. They do not prefer healthy, stocky, thick-leaved plants because they require more effort to extract the nutrients from the plant. Weak, sickly plants will always be the primary target. I start everything from seed, cull the weakest plants and nothing goes in the ground here until it meets certain criteria for health and vigor. I use natural remedies and organic methods to eradicate pests because it is safer for the environment that I'm growing in and also for the beneficial insects aiding my productive season. I release thousands of lady bugs to help keep the balance in my gardens. Praying Mantis is also a best buddy of gardeners and tomato farmers. I try to allow nature to do what it does with minor intervention here and there. So far, so good here! 100+ tomato plants thriving 😎 (*the first reply I wrote disappeared - reappeared and now gone again..beta quirks
Thanks! There are glitches in this matrix.
I can understand that. It was odd that I typed it and it went away. I searched and it was gone. Then it came back to taunt me from purgatory before disappearing again..haha I get that it's a beta. I read a review for a new app for Steemit and a reviewer exclaimed there were bugs and lots to be desired..it is a beta, right? 😋 I cannot confirm it was not simply my error that erased the reply.