Sometimes you just get lucky.

[eyolf]

I know a few may remember my nickname from the past; I'm just too busy lately to be online a lot and we had some serious health problems in our house this year. Things are looking up, now, thanks. I even feel kinda bad for not being around much, but you know how it goes...

A couple of years ago I bought some gardening stuff at a neighborhood garage sale; in an old set of gardening encyclopedias was an old packet of "Roma" tomatoe seeds, marked in ballpoint pen "NO Good". Commercial packet was dated 1998, and inside were 8 seeds. 3 germinated, but one didn't have the pep to shed the seed coat, and didn't make it, leaving two.

Look what I got!
P1010085.jpg

I know there are a few yellow pasters; I'm not aware of any striped ones, and am assuming its less common. If anyone knows of any, that would be cool, but what I think is really cool is that I got lucky enough to get two variations.

[Fusion_power]

Look up Striped Roman.

DarJones

[habitat_gardener]

wow!

I've grown Roman Candle, a yellow one
http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Roman_Candle

and Speckled Roman, which looks like your red one
http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Speckled_Roman
(look at a larger-size photo to see the stripes)

[troad]

eyolf,

Lucky to get two variations from so few seeds. I wonder if the original purchaser had similar results or if they could have accidentally mixed seeds?
The red one looks like the Casady's Folly I grew last year. Seeds from Tom Wagner. It is listed at Tania's site with pictures. Very prolific but flavor was so so (as were many others in our sunless summer).

[eyolf]

No way of knowing much at this point. I'm assuming whoever wrote on the packet was disgusted about not getting plain old "Roma". I'm happy to get something different, and two get two variations.

I guess I might have been fishing for named varieties as well. Thanks.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by eyolf

No way of knowing much at this point. I'm assuming whoever wrote on the packet was disgusted about not getting plain old "Roma". I'm happy to get something different, and two get two variations.

I guess I might have been fishing for named varieties as well. Thanks.

B, if you're getting stuff like that from a packet of seeds that someone wrote on with a ballpoint pen then it seems to me that they could well have been saved seeds from what was initially some romas.

Aha, I just went back and read that it was a commercial pack from 1998 so that would possibly eliminate some varieties, but not the ones named here b'c, for instance, I trialed a lot of varieties for Tom Wagner in the mid-90's and Casady's Folly was one of them.

And John Swenson's Striped and Speckled pasters were also pre 1998 as is Banana Legs, another one of Toms.

But are all seeds in a packet even from a commcercial supplier always the same and true to the variety? Nope, not at all. So at this point I'm more likely to conclude that there were crossed seeds in that commercial pack b'c of the date, 1998, and not really knowing of any commercial firm who at that point would have packed up seeds for the ones talked abut here.

Ah, sweet mystery of life, etc.

Finally, are you willing to tell us which commercial company it was from for that might help?

Really great to see you back posting here.

[eyolf]

Packet was from Northrup King. Big name in seeds at one time in MN. I doubt they were saved seeds; I assume that whoever NK was buying seeds from wasn't careful about purity. But since such wild variations suggest F3 or so, NK might have been politely looking the other way while getting seeds for cheap.

Further, I assume crossed seeds, because they ARE a paster, just not Roma. The plants do generally exhibit the older "Roma" growth habit...large, rangy plants. newer pasters often follow a more compact plan. Finally, while I didn't know these neighbors well, I don't believe they saved seeds.

I believe 1998 would have been after NK divided off the consumer garden seed division and some employees and investors purchased the name and sold seeds out of Chattanooga Tenn. They really struggled. I had a packet of wrong seeds once from NK during this period: pole beans that didn't need poles, LOL