Top 5 hearts...

[Tomatovator]

Thanks to Jim in Washington I was able to try SRH/Rostova this year and it is a great tomato. The first 3 from one plant have all been over a pound and the flavor and texture is outstanding in my opinion. I want to grow more heart-shaped tomatoes next year but know the least about this type. I could use suggestions for a few more varieties for next season. SRH/Rostova will be and every year for me. Thanks

[piegirl]

Hungarian Heart has become a regular in my garden - very large pink fruit. The plants become HUGE taking over three CRW cages (laying over the tops of the adjoining cages) appears a bit wispy but really thick stems. One of my top five piegirl

[sprtsguy76]

My suggestions to you would be:

Kosovo
German Red Strawberry
Reif Red Heart
Ukrainian Heart
Wes
for starters, and if you need help with seeds just shoot me a PM.

Damon

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tomatovator

Thanks to Jim in Washington I was able to try SRH/Rostova this year and it is a great tomato. The first 3 from one plant have all been over a pound and the flavor and texture is outstanding in my opinion. I want to grow more heart-shaped tomatoes next year but know the least about this type. I could use suggestions for a few more varieties for next season. SRH/Rostova will be and every year for me. Thanks

Unfortunatley you don't have true Rostova which is a wonderful beefsteak variety and NOT a heart.

When Gary Ibsen first renamed Rostova to Sunset Red Horizon, with the permission of the folks who were listing Rostova, for the first couple of years it was correct as a beefsteak.

Then several years ago questions started popping up all over the place asking why they were getting a wispy leaved heart. Apparently there was some problem with seed production, whategver, and the original folks who lisited it agreed and said that they were going to go back and try to resurrect it, but to date that hasn't happened.

I was sent a pack of seeds of the true Rostova by someone who had gotten it from TF when it was correct, grew it out and loved it.

There were few seeds in the pack when I got it, I never saved seeds from it b'c that was the year that I ended up in a walker from a fall, that was Dec of 2004, so had darn few seeds left from the original pack.

I saw that Llinda at TGS was also listing it as a heart and I've known Linda since about 1990 and called her and told her ASAP what was going on. I sent her the reminader of the true Rostova seeds this past Spring and in a couple of years if they germionate well for her and her subcontractor does a good job she should be listing true Rostova.

And surely there must be others out there who got true Rostova, not only from the original palce where it was offered or the first few years when offered at TF.

So enjoy what you have but it isn't Rostova.

I'm a dedicated heart lover and sportsguy, Damon, who posts here also is and a couple of years I sent him seeds for some of my faves. Here's some off the top of my head that I really do like:

REDS

Danko
Linnie's oxheart
Indiana Red
German Red Strawberry
Rief Red Heart
Russian #117

PINKS

Nicky Crain
Kosovo
Anna Maria's Heart
Ukrainian HEart
Anna Russian

ORANGE

none that I'm wild about, off hand

BLACK

Only one and that's Brad's Black Heart and it's wonderful

WHITE

Just White OXheart, bland as most so called whites

GREENS

None to date but a couple being worked on, I'm trialing one.

I could have made those lists much much longer but those are the ones that came to mind ASAP at my age.

If you want a more comprehensive list you can always go to Tania's TOmato data base and get a list of a lot of them, with pictures and seed sources as well.

here's her data base if you don't have it, and I think everyone should:

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Main_Page

Check the most popular links on the home page to get to the list of heart varieties.

Hope that helps.

[tjg911]

wes and kovoso. last year i grew Linnie's Oxheart, Monomakh's Hat, Nicky Crain, Reif Red Heart, and Tsar Kolokol but then there was LB so i was not impressed by any of them and i write that off to LB. this year i'm trying brad's black heart and linnie's oxheart as i did not have any seeds for the others.

wes is so good that if i could grow just 3 tomatoes wes would be one of the 3. kosovo is very good but i like wes better.

[carolyn137]

I agree with Wes Tom, and it should be in my list of red hearts, it really should.

[elmtree3]

I'm growing out 3 hearts this year:

Giant Oxheart
German Red Strawberry

and another one I received from a seeds exchange called

Yasha Heart, that all that was ritten on the envelope.

Anybody here heard of it?

Thanks, Jeff

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by elmtree3

I'm growing out 3 hearts this year:

Giant Oxheart
German Red Strawberry

and another one I received from a seeds exchange called

Yasha Heart, that all that was ritten on the envelope.

Anybody here heard of it?

Thanks, Jeff

Jeff, the correct name for what was sent to you as Yasha Heart is Yasha Yugoslavian. It's a variety I introduced at the same time I introduced the better known variety Crnkovic Yugoslavian which is a pink beefsteak/

Seeds for both varieties were given to me by Yasha Crnkovic who was head of the computer Dept at the last place where I taught.

The varieties came to me unnamed and Yasha and I named them. They are both from the Vojvod region of what was then Yugoslavia.

Here is a link to Tania's Tomato base for the variety Yasha Yugoslavian:

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Yasha_Yugoslavian

I'ts a good site to have in your faves, or anyones faves as far as that goes, to look up varieties. Tania lists more than 3000 and gives you the backgrounds when known, many from the SSE YEarbooks and other sources, as well as pictures and also seed sources for those that have commercial seed sources.

[elmtree3]

Thank You very much Carolyn! I did look up my Seedsavers Yearbook and thought that it may be Yasha Yugoslavian. The tomatoes on my plants are beautiful and I can't wait to taste them.

P.S. It's added to "My Favorites"

[Wi-sunflower]

Last year partly due to Carolyn's posts raving about hearts, I grew quite a few new-to-me hearts.

Personally I loved Vera's Seed (it also goes by a long foreign name i can never remember let alone spell). It is a large pink heart and I had plenty over 2 lbs.

Another I've grown several years is Orange Strawberry. always seems to have plenty still on the plant when we are expecting a frost. Hubby will pick a bucket of them and ripen them in the greenhouse. Must taste decent or he wouldn't keep picking it.

Carol

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

Last year partly due to Carolyn's posts raving about hearts, I grew quite a few new-to-me hearts.

Personally I loved Vera's Seed (it also goes by a long foreign name i can never remember let alone spell). It is a large pink heart and I had plenty over 2 lbs.

Another I've grown several years is Orange Strawberry. always seems to have plenty still on the plant when we are expecting a frost. Hubby will pick a bucket of them and ripen them in the greenhouse. Must taste decent or he wouldn't keep picking it.

Carol

Vjerino Paradajiz Sjeme

.....which translates out to Vera's tomato seeds and I can't spell it either without looking it up.

Seeds given to me by and named by friend who got them from her mother-in-law Vera in Bosnia.

[b54red]

I grew some hearts for the first time and a couple went right to the top of my must grow list.

Kosovo - tops because of great production and it is very good tasting. It also maintains large fruit to the end and has far less splitting and seems more disease tolerant than the others I tried.

Donskoi - far and away the largest and best tasting but it is a shy producer. It is also very juicy yet doesn't have many seed.

Wes and Linnies Oxheart - both good tasting but a little more disease prone for me. They also tended to split fairly often after a rain. I thought the taste of both was excellent though their production was only moderate.

German Red Strawberry - Good tasting, with more inconsistant fruit size than the others and split often.

Rief Red Heart - I think my seed were not true because I got a very small tomato usually not much bigger than a large cherry that was very susceptible to diseases and didn't taste very good.

I've already got the seed for Hungarian Heart and now that I've heard of Brad's Black Heart I will have to try it because most of my favorites this year have been either hearts or black tomatoes. What could be better than putting them together. Does anyone know where there is a good source of Brads Black Heart seed?

[dice]

Wild Boar Farms shows "sold out" on Brad's Black Heart. They will
probably have more sometime this winter, but harvest for
seed restocking there may be a couple of months off yet
(long summer).

Gleckler Seedmen has it:
http://www.glecklerseedmen.com/Tomat...88_173815.aspx

[habitat_gardener]

One year Orange Strawberry was one of my best producers, and I liked it a lot. This year I'm growing Sweet Horizon, which is supposed to be an orange heart, and so far I've gotten one small tomato with BER and a big one that split on top and partially rotted, and also had some bird sampling. But there are lots of huge greenies on the plant.