What's your favorite variety with old-fashioned taste?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by zipcode

It's definitely the real deal. Yes, the fruit does fall off.
Also it does have gold speckling, as I've seen many times mentioned in this forum (by Carolyn for example). I think it's described as white, which is possible, I haven't grown it in a few years, my memory might be playing tricks.
As for the colour, it's lighter than other pink varieties to my eyes, including my false EPB, or Gregori's Altai, but I guess this might depend on growing conditions as well.

OK, let me step in here.

EPB was a family heirloom of Joe Bratka, one of the few along with Marizol Purple and Marizol Gold, all the others he bred himself and passed them off as family heirlooms which they were not.

And let's not confuse what Joe bred with what his father bred, such as Red barn, Great Divide, box Car Willie, etc.

I convinced Joe to join SSE and in the 1992 SSE YEarbook we both listed EPB and my original seeds were from joe and I've grown it many times in the intervening years for new stock for SSE listings as well as for seed offers I've done over the years.

What EPB has is white stippling on the surface, I've never seen gold flecking on it ever. And very similar to it is Redfield Beauty which also has white stippling on the surface, and yes, ripe fruit fall from that one just as they do for EPB.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Eva_Purple_Ball

IT's hard to see the stippling in photographs and I have to correct myself since Joe and I introduced it in 1991.

For some reason Tania doesn't list Redfield BEauty so I had to Google it and here's that link.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...+beauty+tomato

Supposedly from the Livingston Seed CO in 1885.

There are some who have wondered if EPB and Redfield are the same, but I don't think so, I've grown both and they are different with regard to taste and there's another reason why I do think that EPB was a family heirloom of Joe's.

One of my students was German, and I admit I was always trying to get family heirlooms from some of them as well as the faculty, and since Joe's family was from Germany I asked this student if she had ever heard of a Marizol place in the black Forest where Joe had said his family lived.

She ASAP said that Marizol was a shortened form of the place called Maria's Zell, which means Maria's village or town which was in the Black Forest.

I rest my case.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Since this thread is supposed to be about varieties with old fashioned taste that your father or grandfather might have grown I did see someone who mentioned Valiant and I very much agree with that one as well as the one calld New Yorker.

I see that some are still listing varieties that are much more modern than those grown many decades ago, but my mantra these days is.....whatever.

Carolyn

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by sjamesNorway

Hi feldon30. Thanks for the tip. I checked out their website, and it looks like an interesting place. Køge would be an overnight ferry Oslo-Copenhagen, plus an hours drive, from here. How did you come to be there?

My partner and I relocated to Copenhagen for 2 years. I found out about the Toftegaard tomato tasting and took the S-Tog (train) to Køge and then cycled the last 15km to the greenhouses. Quite fun although I got rained on the second year.

Photos of Toftegaard Smagedage 2010 -- Tomato Tasting in Copenhagen, Denmark:
http://feldoncentral.com/garden/phot...smagedage2010/

Photos of Toftegaard Smagedage 2011 -- Tomato Tasting in Copenhagen, Denmark:
http://feldoncentral.com/garden/phot...smagedage2011/


We visited Oslo twice and saw the outdoor museum, the North Pole ship museum (and the museum across the street), and the companion castle to Kronborg, but would have enjoyed exploring Oslo further.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by sjamesNorway

Hi feldon30. Thanks for the tip. I checked out their website, and it looks like an interesting place. Køge would be an overnight ferry Oslo-Copenhagen, plus an hours drive, from here. How did you come to be there?

Feldon has just answered you but I'm chiming in b'c after I visited Sweden and Norway, and Steve knows why I was in Norway so long, I took that overnight ferry from Oslo to Denmark, and never before on any cruise I ever took, well, just the one in the Greek islands, have I ever enjoyed the buffet and all else that was served, and always with a smile.

After touring Denmark I went by train to France and then over to England on my way home after three months of going almost everywhere. I loved it and took several other trips as well, but that one stands out in my memory.

Carolyn

[PNW_D]

I recall browsing through Organic Gardening Magazine many years ago - gardeners were asked their favourite tomato ....... funny the name should stick in my head, but Red Bird was the only tomato one of the gardeners would grow ......

found a Red Bird Valiant on Jeff Nekola's website - introduced in 1937 .... wonder if seed is still available for this one

also note K3vin in earlier post mentioned Valiant

http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heir..._valiant_A.jpg

http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/tomatoesR.htm

[imccallusa]

great white

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by PNW_D

I recall browsing through Organic Gardening Magazine many years ago - gardeners were asked their favourite tomato ....... funny the name should stick in my head, but Red Bird was the only tomato one of the gardeners would grow ......

found a Red Bird Valiant on Jeff Nekola's webiste - introducted in 1937 .... wonder if seed is still available for this one

also note K3vin in earlier post mentioned Valiant

http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heir..._valiant_A.jpg

Denise, Valiant I know well:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...b=General_Info

And I once remember looking up Red Bird for someone, Tania doesn't list it and I found only one link where it was mentioned pn Google

http://www.backyardgardener.com/plantname/pda_bb34.html

In my 2015 SSE Yearbook I found two listings for Red Bird, one from SSE itself and the other from someone in Maine and it was listed as Red Bird Fields ( the latter the seed co)

But I've never heard of a Red Bird Valiant.

Was there any description that went with the picture b'c Jeff almost always indicated his source of seeds as I know you also know.

Carolyn

[PNW_D]

Carolyn - I've added the link re Jeff's source ......

http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/tomatoesR.htm

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by PNW_D

Carolyn - I've added the link re Jeff's source ......

http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/tomatoesR.htm

Thanks Denise, I posted to you last night with some links but hit a wrong key and I lost it, so I gave up for the night.

Now here's what Jeff wrote:

(If same as the yearbook listing for Valiant, introduced in 1937, adapted to northern US and Canada. A 'Red Bird' was last commercially listed in 1994 by Henry Field Seed Co.)

He's noting that he doesn't know where the Red Bird addition to Valiant came from himself based on the fact that Red bird was last commercially listed in 1994.

But in my original post that I lost I found one seed site that still referred to it but I didn't check the plant finder it.

http://www.backyardgardener.com/plantname/pda_bb34.html

And in my post above I referred to two folks still offering it in the 2015 SSE Yearbook, and no one referring to Valiant.

I did a lot more Googling that that since I was interested in Tania's link for Valiant to find Fireball mentioned and yes, my father grew that one, and then I looked more and found that Fireball was also a parent for New Yorker, which my father also grew, the last two bred by Harris seeds in Rochester NY and my father got all of his seeds for everything from Harris Seeds.

Their local rep would come to a person's home, describe what was new, answer questions, etc and then take the order. I know my father was one of the first in our area to grow Fireball and I can still picture the field where it was grown b'c it was so spectacular at the time that word got around and farmers would come to the field to take a look.

Summary? Referring to the person from WI who was the source of seeds to jeff, I think the Red Bird part of Valient was more of a Red Herring than anything else since no one subsequent to that ever mentioned Red Bird in con★★★★★★★★ with Valiant.

Carolyn