15 year old seed

[KarenO]

Setting dome nice fruit and showing the blunt heart with distinctively ridged shoulders
KarenO

[Jimbotomateo]

That's a pretty tomato and vine KarenO. I'd love to grow some of those. Amazing that 15 year old seed can be brought back to life!. Their gonna taste great, I just know it!. Lol. Jimbo

[Spartanburg123]

Beautiful maters! I especially like the high flute density on the shoulders- most fluted tomatoes have perhaps 6-8 flutes. Yours look like a Shar Pei!! The blunt heart shape is also interesting- is this what you have seen in the past?

[KarenO]

The fluting and the overall shape is different than anything else I have grown and I have grown quite a few varieties over the years. The fluting is very typical and very similar in every fruit. The general shape is somewhat unusual as well, it's an oxheart but with a blunt rounded bottom so the big 11-18 oz fruits are big and nearly round as a softball, never flattened or oblate and also never pointed.
The only tomato, again if the many I have grown, that is consistently this shape. It's an interesting tomato. Few seeds, nearly solid interior like most oxhearts, thin delicate skin and pink with no green shoulder when ripe. I will add pics of fruit when ripe and interior as well.
KarenO

[KarenO]

As these. Always Very consistent. And consistently early for a big tomato.
KarenO

[Spartanburg123]

Gorgeous, simply gorgeous!

Originally Posted by KarenO

So happy! 15 years ago I was given a few seeds of a really great tomato. I have grown it out a number of times and have much fresher seeds but I had four of the original ones left and decided to see if they would germinate.
Paper towel soaked in dilute (1%) food grade hydrogen peroxide, placed in a baggie and kept warm. 3 days later, 3 out of 4 seeds showing a radicle!
Now to see if they grow well for me. I will pot them up today.
Zena's gift, a tomato that keeps on giving.
H2O2 is unstable and easily degrades producing water and oxygen. I believe the enhanced oxygen environment aids in germination along with the moisture and warmth.

KarenO

My Anna Russian seeds this year were marked 2003. The plants sprouted about the same time (with the same treatment) as new Anna Banana Russian seeds. A friend who grows super old seeds a lot gave them to me with confidence that they would germinate. I planted them in worm castings with a little peat moss in an unheated greenhouse, in April. I guess I did zap them with a Z4EX before planting, though (I did that with all gifted and traded seeds that I planted this year), but my friend's seeds tend to germinate well.

[KarenO]

first 2 fruit are blushing, plants are about 5.5 feet tall so far. Doing well and early for a large fruited tomato.

KarenO

[Starlight]

So beautiful Karen! Makes my heart go pitter patter. : )

[Spartanburg123]

Can't wait to see pictures of the ripe fruit!

KarenO, those are beautiful tomatoes and such a great story - thank you for sharing it and for thinking to save and grow the variety over the years. People like you are why we have some great holdovers from years passed.

[KarenO]

first ripe fruit, 12.7 oz today. Large blooming seedlings were put out in the garden mid May.

KarenO

[ddsack]

That is early for such a large fruit! Please save lots of seeds, this is a wonderful rediscovery for tomato fans!

[Spartanburg123]

No picture, it never happened!!



D.

[KarenO]

Originally Posted by Spartanburg123

No picture, it never happened!!



D.

you saw the pictures... business in front, party in the back...on my Northern Gardener Page
KO