Granny's Heart in Central Texas

[texasrockgarden]

It started here two weeks ago http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....9&postcount=58

The next stop was here http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=21918

Here is 1st picture of Granny's Heart on its way to tomato stardom. The seed for this seedling was sown 3/27/2012.

Photo 2 - 4/19/2012 - twenty-three days from sowing at about 4" tall.

Photo 3 - 4/26/2012 - thirty days from sowing at around 6" tall.

Photo 4 - 5/2/2012 - Almost 9" tall.

Will post more photos as she progresses.

[texasrockgarden]

OK, Granny's Heart transplant was set out into the garden yesterday, 41 days or approximately 5 weeks from seed sowing. I'd say it's just about on schedule.


It has a bloom cluster emerging that I let remain. Normally when I transplant I remove the blooms. However since it is late in the season for transplanting tomatoes in my area, I decided against removing them.

Hopefully there will be fruit set by the end of May about the time it starts getting too hot for some tomato varieties to set fruit here. I don't know how Granny's Heart will perform in hot weather.

We had 1 1/4 inches of rain last night which was good for the new transplant but bad for all the ripening tomatoes. I am expecting many split tomatoes tomorrow and several days thereafter.

[texasrockgarden]

She is coming right along. She may give me a tomato for seeds this year after all...

[sfmathews]

Nice healthy plant. Hope you get some fruit to eat as well as save seed!

[texasrockgarden]

Granny's Heart is 42" tall with 3 tomatoes set on June 3rd. The first bloom cluster failed to set fruit. There are several more bloom clusters. One on the main steam and several on suckers.

There is a good chance for some ripe tomatoes this season before it gets too hot. The forecast temps for the next ten days is low 70's / upper 80's - lower 90's.

[texasrockgarden]

6/15/2012

Well it has been hotter this last week than previously forecast. Interestingly Granny's Heart managed to set fruit, 15 tomatoes so far.

It has been 80 days since the seed was sown.

The plant seems to be doing very well even with the number of increasing hot days.

I would like some reassurance from those of you who have grown this tomato that the foliage and tomato shape are true to the Granny's Heart variety. If so then I can plan to save seeds.

Maybe Carolyn can weigh in on this.

[Crandrew]

Its looking great!

[Dewayne mater]

I keep studying your time line and thinking that just beats all conventional wisdom. Well north of you I'm planted out before your seeds arrived because it gets too hot up here to set fruit if you don't go early. Impressive results!

Dewayne mater

[texasrockgarden]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

I keep studying your time line and thinking that just beats all conventional wisdom. Well north of you I'm planted out before your seeds arrived because it gets too hot up here to set fruit if you don't go early. Impressive results!

Dewayne mater

All the plants that were set out 1/16 and 1/23 have finished for this season. They are not even worth watering. Plants that were set out on two different times in February are within a few days of being finished. I have a Tomato Country Taste I set out a few weeks before Granny's Heart. It looks fresh as a daisy and is loaded with large tomatoes. Plants set out after March 1st in wheat straw bales are still beautiful and have a good amount of tomatoes still in progress.

My goal with Granny's Heart was to get at least one tomato to set by the end of May. I felt if this could happen before the heat set in I would have a chance at getting one ripe for seed for next year.

I got lucky in that we had a longer spring than usual meaning it hasn't been all that hot.

[Sun City Linda]

Real beauty. I thought all hearts had wispy leaves. Guess not!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Sun City Linda

Real beauty. I thought all hearts had wispy leaves. Guess not!

Most but not all do have wispy leaves.

TX asked in post 6 if I'd take a look and I did and the fruits are looking "hearty", if you will, Granny is more of a blunt heart like Wes, than one with an acute tip, but right now I can't remember exactly what the leaves looked like.

My problem when growing the different varieties here at home is that while Freda brings in fruits for me, I can't get out there in my walker to check leaf form although if there's a question about PL or RL then I ask Freda to bring in leaves.

I was just checking what I said in my SSE listing for it and was reminded that this variety has been grown for about 50 years in the family and a granddaughter said it was a deliberate cross that was made between a beefsteak and a plum ( varieties not known), and finally got a red heart.

So with that background and not knowing what the varieties were and knowing that I don't know any beefsteaks off hand with wispy foliage, perhaps one could predict that the foliage would not be wispy and not knowing which plum that was used either.

Heaven knows I distributed enough seeds for Granny in my recent seed offer so there should be many folks growing it who can comment more directly on the foliage than I can.

Neil G, who posts here, also SSE listed it and made no comment about any wispy leaves, just listed it as RL as I did. And both of us loved it.

Barkeater is the one who offered seeds here initially and from whom I got my seeds so if you want to you can ask him about leaf morphology if no one else chimes in.

But it is true that not ALL hearts have wispy foliage. In one of my long lost data books I know that I listed that trait for many hearts I was growing in a specific year b'c I was trying to make a correlation between hearts and lack of seed viability .

Almost all did have wispy foliage but not all. And it's still true, at least for me and some others that the seeds of hearts lose viability quicker than others.

[texasrockgarden]

Carolyn, Thanks for the great information.

They look like my Granny's Heart I grew this year. They look almost identical to the WES hearts I also grew this year, but not quite as large, productive, or tasty as WES. I have saved seed and will try again next year. Although both plants were planted out on March one, The WES had ripe fruit almost a month earlier than Granny's. I will switch locations for Granny's and Wes next year to see if they perform the same after being switched.

Ted

[texasrockgarden]

7/3/2012

Picked this Granny's Heart this morning. It will be a few more days before she is ripe. Have to get them at first blush else the birds will intervene.

It has been 98 days since the seed were sown.

So far I am very plaesed.

[Sun City Linda]

Thanks Carolyn, interesting observation that heart seeds lose viability quicker than others. I will have to give Granny a try next year!