Surrogate Gardens (pic heavy)

[bully]

I have a few, how about you?

And when I say surrogate garden let me make it perfectly clear that I just started the plants, these folks do all the hard work.

My friend Dennis

My friend Dennis has a great garden and he's growing 25 plants. He let me pick the varieties.
He lives about 2 miles away and has a fantastic yard.
Me and the girls visited Sunday.

Here's Dennis in and amongst the plants with his map.


Here is his Olena Warshova, what a plant, loaded up with fruit the size of softballs

We ate some great tomatoes, I brought over a Livingston's Favorite and a few others and he had a ripe Brandywine Sudduth a Moskvich but none were better than this big Giant Syrian.

It was hot and the girls were sticky from the tomatoes so we took a dip in the pool.


These are the varieties that I picked for Dennis
Olena Warshova
Mother Russian
Moskvich
Milka's Red
McClintocks Big Pink
Louisiana Pink
Livingston's Beauty
1884
Ailsa Craig
Kalaman's Hungarian
Heatherington Pink
Grightmires Pride
Andromeda Ukraine
Elfie
Nicholejevna Pink Giant
Demidov
Stump of the World
Franchi red Giant Pear
Giant Syrian
Lithuanian
Mary Robinson
Livingston's Golden Queen
Brandywine Sudduth

The only two I have grown are the Stumpy and the Brandywine, I gave him those with the explicit directions to call me any time day or night if any tasted as good as those two.

I have another 6 or 7 spread all over town I plan on showcasing all of them.

I'd love to here about your surrogate gardens

[Tomstrees]

Very cool Bully ~
I do the same for my Grandparents (Santorini & Thessaloniki, 4 of each) my Aunt (Cherokee Purple, Red Brandywine, 2 of each (condo) ) and a whole bunch of
people that work at the misses hospital ~
Everyone loves it ~

Tom

[montanamato]

Great pictures Bully...I have been convincing people to grow my seedlings for the past few years too.

My mother lives about 5 hours away in Billings, MT and generally has a longer season than I do. She does not have much of a green thumb, but really beats the odds. She often plants out weeks before she should and gets away with it. Leaves for the summer, and just relies on auto sprinklers etc. And always gets a great crop...

I gave her Yates Beefsteak, June Pink, Valiant, Red Beauty and County Agent....She has been getting ripe fruit for about 2 weeks from Yates. All her plants have 28 or more tomatoes each on them.

The upside is next week she is sending alot of surplus back to me.

I also always supply the postmistress with varities I don't have room for , plus 4 or 5 others. They always return tomatoes for me to save seed....I just hope they never find out how few I really need back in order to obtain enough seed!

Jeanne

[tylenol]

Nice pics Bully !

My wife just brought home from work a White Tomesol and a Kellogg"s B fromm a lady I had sent plants to this spring ...she couldn't tell the name's , other than the "white"one and "orange one" your incredibley adorable,sp (lol) DH sent me.They tasted much better than the one's I grew here.
Today's harvest:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...l/IMG_0889.jpg

Rob

[jerseyjohn61]

Bully,
surrogate is a great term as I have been using
auxillary as a description for mine. Have 6
locations growing toms. 4 of which are freinds
or in-laws. They are not extravagant gardens,
but they are staffed by some great folks who
are getting the chance to taste some really
good maters for a change. It also gives us the
oppertunity to grow many varieties we would
have to wait till "next" year to grow....JJ61

P.S. Farmed out my Kalman's Hungarian Pink
also. Plenty of green ones on my old neighbor's
vine. Let's compare when they come ripe.

P.P.S. If the KHP come out funny-blame Tomstrees
for not bagging blossoms. :wink:

[Tomstrees]

lol ~ John ~
oh man, your killing me !!!
Those aren't my saved seeds !!!
I got them from a friend in Australia
in a generous "package" of seeds!!!
Do have them growing though ~
Everythings on the "up & up" ~
lol ~ Tom

ps.
oh, wow ,,, ~ hilarious ~

[Grub]

Hi Bully,

Great looking plants and a nice friendly looking guard at the gate. Is the red tomato top with the cut-off sleeves the latest haute coiture? Where are the camouflage comando pants? Think you could turn my sister-in-laws around to offering me some space? They've got a great wardrobe.

One thing begs your response. Few mentions in passing now. So what do you think of Livingston's Favorite? I'm dying to know. Grew it last year, got great production, was a nice medium fruit, with good honest tomato flavour. A real stock variety around which I will build my next patch. Your thoughts?

Best, Grub

[bully]

I liked it a lot.
Not much in the way of production though.
It has been fighting early blight so that may have something to do with it.
The flavor was just one point short of Brandywine, more on par with Stumpy but not as sweet more old fashioned.
When I popped it in my mouth it hit the high note and carried it but there wasn't a strong enough linger factor to give it a 10.
A strong 8.5 to 9 though.

[nctomatoman]

Oh No...not again!!! That Favorite has an awfully large stem scar and is quite large for Favorite. When I grew it from the USDA, and each year since, it is a consistent 5-6 ounce, smooth, oblate red tomato with quite a small attatchment point. I also don't recall green shoulders. Do you know what the seed source was?

(I know...I am being a party pooper on these varieties!).

Here is mine:

[Grub]

I'm with Craig all the way.

Funny thing is, every imposter seems to be the same. Large red thing like what Bully posted above. All my ring-ins from Chuck's site are always like that. It's as though someone has hacked into the heirloom gene pool and planted this trojan mato.

Some Livingston's Favorite (note correct spelling) chat in this thread. Pic at bottom, the reds with smooth shoulders, are the ones.

http://tomatoville.com/viewtopic.php...orite&start=45

Glad the faux tastes good though.

[Sherry_AK]

Livingston's Favorite, Livingston's Favorite, Livingston's Favorite ... am I the only one who picked Livingston's Perfection? Did I make the wrong choice? No one mentions that one. Hmmm.

[nctomatoman]

Ah, Perfection! I only grew it once, in a large collection of stuff out of the USDA. I recall it as being quite similar to Favorite, perhaps just a bit smaller. I found all of the Livingstons well worth growing, as long as you don't use the big heirloom beefsteak types as reference points! They are all really good salad or canning tomatoes.

[Sherry_AK]

That's good to hear. I was beginning to worry, what with all the discussion about Livingston's Favorite!

[pbud]

I guess I'm growing a surrogate garden with about 7 plants from GTG, though I'm feeling a bit orphaned as there have been no visits. They (sugar lump, brandywine suddeth, Kalman's, prue, and a black cherry and two marianna's peace that I snuck in) are all doing well. Hopefully a nice crop is on the way.

[carolyn137]

About Olena Warshova.

That's not what I named it but that name has popped up in European circles.

Did you get those seeds from Geza?

It should be Olena Ukrainian and I've noted in my book and elsewhere that I got the seeds via John Bartkowski from Olena Warshona, not Warshova, that I named the variety for her and she was from Odessa.

Why does it bother me so much when folks change the name of varieties already named?

And I agree that's not Favorite at all.

As to whether one adds the Livingston name to it, some do, some don't, and in the SSE Yearbooks sometimes a Livingston variety is listed as Livingston's this or that and somtimes it's listed just with the variety name without Livingston.

Same dealie with all the earlier Burpee varieties.

Personally I can't get bent out of shape if the Livingston is there or not b'c there are many other varieties known to come from commercial breeders and some do and some don't carry the seed company name.

How many times have you seen Wins All as Wins All Henderson or Henderson's Wins All listed at a seed source?

How many times have you seen White Queen as White Queen Earl May or Earl May's White Queen listed at a seed source?

None to less than none on that.