I'm moving with a seed collection

[svalli]

My next garden will be way up north on latitude 63°. Zone is about 3. Max temperature is just above 80°F and winter minimum about 22°F. Growing season is short with last frosts possible in early June and first frost in early September. So I will have to learn again how to grow in a greenhouse. I did buy a lot of seeds from TGS this spring, but did not plant them since I knew that we may move. I tried to choose early varieties, but I do also have quite many, which do require longer season. I have also saved some seeds from tomatoes I grew previous seasons and still have older purchased and traded seeds left.

If you were moving to a place, where you can not find such a variety of tomato seeds like here in U.S, which ones would you pack with you?

[Tomstrees]

I'd pack em all - grow them, and see what works
in the new area.

~ Tom

[svalli]

Yes, I will pack all my seeds. I just started to make an inventory of my collection and would like to know, if there are some, which I should make sure I have. I do still have time to order more seeds.

[Sherry_AK]

If winter minimum is 22° F, that sounds warmer than Zone 3. Are you moving somewhere that you'll not be able to order seeds from catalogs or online? I think if you have a large collection that you should work with what you have before spending money on ordering new seeds at this time just in case you need them later.

Besides, after you're all settled in, you know folks here are very generous if there's something you need and can trade for!

Good luck with your relocation.

Sherry

[svalli]

Thanks Sherry,

I forgot the '-' sign from front of the minimum temperature. I wish it would have been +22°F, but it is negative on both °F and °C.

We are moving to E.U. area, where many good U.S. online seed suppliers do not deliver. And I have heard that the E.U. has a list of commercially available seeds, which are mainly hybrids, so I want to have as many heirlooms with me as possible. I may already have so many tomato and pepper varieties, that growing all of them takes years, but I am still wondering, if there is some extremely good variety, which I have totally ignored.

I want to show my family and friends (moving back to Finland) that there are also other tomatoes than the bland, red and round, which they have been growing and buying.

Since the area where we are going is not the prime tomato growing area, I may not be able to find any tradable tomato seeds there, but hopefully there are some other plant seeds someone could want to trade for.

[bcday]

The best early tomatoes for me are Stupice, Kimberly, and Kotlas. There are also some determinate types that are early but have rather tart flavor -- I don't know what your taste preference is.

If you won't be able to get heirloom seeds from the U.S. commercially, you could still join the Seed Savers Exchange and request heirloom seeds from other members in the U.S. and around the world through the Yearbook. The Yearbook has thousands of varieties listed, and it's easier for individual members to mail seeds overseas than it is for a commercial seed company, so the only restriction would be on what Finland allows you to import.

The SSE already has listed members in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It's also possible that they have members in Finland who aren't listed -- you could fill that gap.
See http://www.seedsavers.org/products.asp?dept=16

And hopefully you can still post here at Tomatoville and we can all still trade with you.

[Ruth_10]

Some of the dwarf varieties would be good as well. Best of luck with your new home!

[Zana]

Last time I was in Helsinki it was January 1987 and they were experiencing an unusually cold spell. It was -70 F !!! They had to get the icebreakers out in the harbour because it was freezing over. Apparently that was something verrrrrrry unusual as its a deep water port. (Then again, one of my next stops on that buying trip was North Africa, and it snowed in Tangiers and Gibraltor! Go figure. All of Europe was in an ice freeze.)

The whole trip was a contrast to my previous trips....some in spring/summer but also another in January the previous year. The previous January it was only -10 F...lol...dang near balmy in comparison! And definitely something even a Canuck wouldn't complain about....much. LOL. All kidding aside, though, I found the country a series of breath-taking scenery...and great people.

I think if you look through the threads here, there are some people who are from Denmark and Belgium that seem to be commercial growers. (At least that was my impression - but I've been known to be wrong too....lol) Andrey_By should be also able to suggest varieties that would work in Finland, I should think.

Good luck with the move back, and converting/educating the Finns on the benefits of heirloom tomatoes.

[vegomatic]

It's presumably Zone 4 here, even a Zone 5, but due to high altitudes 5,000 feet and above, it's depends on exactly where you're at as much as anything. We almost always get a few -20 winter blasts and can see an odd frost in almost any month of the year, but we can also enjoy some 60 degree days in December or January. Highs can top 100 but the average high is closer to 80-something.

Just 9 miles away, a friend of mine has temps often 5 to 10 degrees lower than us.

If you can add supplemental heat and light to your gh, you should be able to grow most any variety. Starting indoors early under lights will help, too. I did that this season and got toms a month or more before normal ripening dates.

My ancestors hail from Norway. I don't think they were tomato farmers!

Good luck!
-Ed

[svalli]

Originally Posted by Zana

Last time I was in Helsinki it was January 1987 and they were experiencing an unusually cold spell.

I remeber that year. When walking from a bus stop to school, I had to wrap scarf around my head and put the hat on top of that. I think that since then it has not been so cold. We will move north of Helsinki to small city named Vaasa. It is by the sea, which makes the climate a bit better and we should not get so bad late frosts like my in-laws, who live about 80 miles inland.

I have finally made an inventory of the tomato seeds in my storage. I have 79 varieties which are 2004 or newer. I found also some older seed packets from the time, when I grew varieties like Sweet 100 and Celebrity, but I did not list them. (Well, I have a Wal-Mart Sweet 100 plant now in the garden, because I purchased all of the plants for this season. I found also some heirlooms in Wal-Mart and have two Brandywines and a German Queen.)

If I get a good size greenhouse, I may be able to grow 10 different varieties of tomatoes/year, so going through all of them takes 8 years. There is about 30, which I have not grown before, so trying them will take at least three seasons.

I start to finally agree with people; I should have enought varieties now.

This is my list in alphabethical order:
Amish Paste
Ananas Noir
Anna Russian
Aunt Ginny's
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Azoychka
Banana Legs
Big Zebra
Black
Black Cherry
Black Krim
Brandy Boy Hybrid
Brandywine
Ceylon
Cherokee Purple
Cold Set
Copia
Dr. Carolyn
Dwarf Gem
Earl's Faux
Fourth of July Hybrid
Galina's
German Giant
Glacier
Grandma Mary's Paste
Green Grape
Green Zebra
Gregori's Altai
Hungarian Heart
Ildi
Isis candy
Jaune Flammee
Jelly Bean Hybrid
Jersey Devil
Juliet
Kimberly
Lemon Boy
Lime Green Salad
Marianna's Peace
Mini Orange
Mr. Stripey (Tigrella)
New Big Dwarf
Old German
Old Ivory Egg
Opalka
Orange Banana
Orange Russian
Paul Robeson
Peron
Pink Grapefruit
Plum Lemon
Prairie Fire
Principe Borghese
Pruden's purple
Purple Calabash
Red Lightning Hybrid
Red Zebra
Reiesentraube
Rosalita
Russian Black
Rutgers
Sausage
Shellenberg's favorite
Silvery Fir Tree
Stroped Cavern
Stupice
Sun Cherry FT Hybrid
Sun Gold Hybrid
Thai Pink Egg
Todd Couny Amish
Unknown Green
Unknown Purple Plum
Watermelon Beefsteak
White Currant
White Tomesol
White Wonder
Wisconsin 55
Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot Strain
Zapotec Pink Ribbed

Next I need to make an inventory of the pepper seeds. With all these tomatoes and the peppers, I will need a huge greenhouse. Most of cucumbers have to be also grown indoors, so that makes me wonder why to move at all...