Lost My Heart

[Starlight]

to a heart tomato. This is the first time I have grown a heart tomato and I tell you I am in love with the shape and the prettiness of the tomato.

My first heart is Anna Russian. I don't know how it will taste but I sure do enjoy looking at the shape of it.

Just on shape alone I can see why folks want to grow them. I am definitely hooked and now want to grow more of the older heart heirlooms.

One of the things though I wondered about is when I looked at pics on Tainia's site to get the history of this tomato, mine doesn't have and never had any stripes. Is that normal?

[b54red]

That's the way they looked on mine last year. I'm only growing one heart this year and that is Donskoi because I like the flavor better than any other heart. My second favorite is Fish Lake Oxheart with Anna Russian taking third place.

Bill

[luigiwu]

That's how I felt last year when I tasted my very first heart - Fish Lake Oxheart!
Bill, I will need to try Donskoi next year!!!

[ginger2778]

Ya gotta try Grightmire's Pride. Trust me.

[pauldavid]

I am growing a heart on accident. It looks like your picture Star. The bad thing is that it was supposed to be Bradley, bought from a commercial vendor. I also have one plant that kind of looks like Zapotec, but I bought Sioux. Oh well. Maybe they taste good!

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by b54red

That's the way they looked on mine last year. I'm only growing one heart this year and that is Donskoi because I like the flavor better than any other heart. My second favorite is Fish Lake Oxheart with Anna Russian taking third place.

Thanks Bill! Glad to know mine are normal. I'll have to add Donskoi to my wish list and see about getting some of it for next year. I googled it last night and looks good.

Bill

Originally Posted by luigiwu

That's how I felt last year when I tasted my very first heart - Fish Lake Oxheart!
Bill, I will need to try Donskoi next year!!!

I have been reading posts about Fish Lake Oxheart , so it's another one to try.

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Ya gotta try Grightmire's Pride. Trust me.

Oh I do. I have drooled myself silly over the pics of the tomatoes you have posted.

Originally Posted by pauldavid

I am growing a heart on accident. It looks like your picture Star. The bad thing is that it was supposed to be Bradley, bought from a commercial vendor. I also have one plant that kind of looks like Zapotec, but I bought Sioux. Oh well. Maybe they taste good!

Makes you a little sad when your hoping for one thing and get something else, but like you said maybe they will taste good and you'll have a couple of new favorites. I am going to look more into Bradley though since you mentioned it and I did a quick google and saw where one company said it is good for the South.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Starlight

to a heart tomato. This is the first time I have grown a heart tomato and I tell you I am in love with the shape and the prettiness of the tomato.

My first heart is Anna Russian. I don't know how it will taste but I sure do enjoy looking at the shape of it.

Just on shape alone I can see why folks want to grow them. I am definitely hooked and now want to grow more of the older heart heirlooms.

One of the things though I wondered about is when I looked at pics on Tainia's site to get the history of this tomato, mine doesn't have and never had any stripes. Is that normal?

It is normal for many unripe varieties to have some green areas, call them stripes if you will, at the stem end, we just talked about this is another thread, but don't ask me where that was. They will ripen up just fine.

About Fish Lake Oxheart. The original was red, but when I first offered it in my seed offer here some were getting pink fruits, Save seeds from pink and you get plants, some with pink and some with red.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Fish_Lake_Oxheart

My seeds were from Neil G and when the pink /red stuff started I asked him for more of his original red ones, he sent them and they also went to pink or stayed red, you can see that in my Fall performance threads that I put up each year.

I've concluded, at least for now unless someone has another idea that there's flip flop, genetically, between a yellow epidermis ( red) and a clear epidermis ( pink) and it wouldn't be the first time that that happened, since I saw the same thing when I was sent seeds, already named, for Dr. Carolyn Pink, except this was for fruit size.

Epidermis mutations are not unusual. I used to keep red and pink versions of several varieties but never sent out the wrong colored one, but the pink and reds I kept were genetically stable.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Dr._Carolyn_Pink

Right now Neil G and I are exchanging e-mails since he thinks he may miss when I'm going to put up my 2015 seed offer and I can't tell him when. No way am I going to type out what the new ones are and I asked him in general what he was after and chose some to set aside for him. Neil has been a wondereful source of some great varieties in the past, such as Ashleigh and Gildo Pietroboni,

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Ashleigh

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/G...b=General_Info

Since Neil G was the first to SSE list it making it more available.

More to the point he has a new pink heart he wants to share with me, and well, here I am, ready and willing.

Carolyn

[pauldavid]

Star, Bradley was developed at University of Arkansas in 1961, I believe. It is a good one if you can find a good seed source. It was heavily grown by commercial growers in Bradley County, Arkansas. It was named after the developer's father, not the county though. I am originally from Bradley County, Arkansas and they just had their 59th annual Bradley Couny Pink Tomato Festival in Warren, AR. That is the main reason I wanted to grow it.

[Tall Tier]

I second that for the grightsmires pride, grew last year and was a nice producer with lots of taste, the original oxheart is in my garden this year and its vigorous

[carolyn137]

I grew Grightmires Pride so many years ago I can't remember if I liked it or not. I think I got the seeds originally from a Canadian Seed Co but can't remember which one.

There was a recent thread here about favorite hearts and I decided to look at Tania's list of hearts, copied down all the ones I'd grown and stupidly offered to type out all of them, which came to about 250 varieties and said I would if anyone wanted me to.

Thank heavens no one asked me to and I've now decided that offer is no longer viable.

Yes, I've been a heart lover almost from the time I first started growing heirloom varieties, and that would have been in about the early 80's after I moved back East to home from Denver.

Carolyn