Help with selecting what to sell

[Gerardo]

Originally Posted by barbamWY

I have had good results with Moravsky Div, Sibirsky Skorospelyy and Rozovyi Myod. Do you think I could get people to buy them?
Thanks,
Barb

They would buy it if they see you're fired up about it, and if you have pics of how the plant will look, as well as life sized or larger (if possible) images of the fruit sliced.

May I suggest a few binders (so more than one person can view it) with images of sliced fruit for the ones you're selling. Plenty of pics here on TV that you could use, I don't think anyone would mind.

Images elicit immediate reactions, saliva filling their mouth, stomach saying give me give me, memories of childhood. who knows.

Go get 'em!

[Cole_Robbie]

People will react better to the translated name than the original Russian, when at all possible. For example, Sibirskiy Skorospelyi is "Early Siberian." If you want to be a purist, you can still write the Russian name on the tag in parenthesis.

[Fusion_power]

Please note that I suggested Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball. This is NOT the Eva Purple Ball you have grown. It has better disease tolerance.

[barbamWY]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Please note that I suggested Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball. This is NOT the Eva Purple Ball you have grown. It has better disease tolerance.

Thanks Fusion for the clarification. I did do a search and I do not see that the seeds are available. Will it be available in the near future? I might have to give it a trial myself and see how it does if I can locate some seed.

[Cole_Robbie]

Darrell was kind enough to share some BBxEPB with me, Barb. I have plenty. You're welcome to some of mine.

[barbamWY]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Darrell was kind enough to share some BBxEPB with me, Barb. I have plenty. You're welcome to some of mine.

Thank you so much, I will send you a message with my address.
Barb

[barbamWY]

Ok, this is a long list but here is what I have come up:
Early Wonder
North Dakota Earliana
Moravsky Div/Wonder of Moravia
Sibirskiy Skorospelyy/Early Siberian
Bloody Butcher
Siletz
Sheyenne
Applause
Legend
Sweet Tangerine
Goliath
Black Giant
Cosmonaut Volkov
Lemon Boy
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
Rozovyi Myod/Siberian Pink Honey
Pruden's Purple
Green Zebra
Mountain Fresh
Neves Azorean
Wisconsin 55
Delicious
Mama Leone
Amish Paste
Chadwick Cherry aka Camp Joy
Juliet
Sungold
Black Cherry
Fargo Yellow Pear
It is still a work of progress. Thanks everyone,
Barb

[JLJ_]

Few thoughts from the other side of the mountains -- east slopes of the Big Horns, between 5300 and 5400 ft.

Indian Stripe does great here, in any of its incarnations -- much better than Cherokee Purple -- and I think it would be a market-popular name.

Moravsky Div and Burpee's 4th of July perform similarly here -- but not necessarily in the same year -- several years one has done great, while the other loafed. I first tried 4th of July because there was a study done in Idaho a few years ago comparing varieties for this region, and 4th of July rated extremely well, both for early performance and for flavor.

Sophie's Choice is an unusual type tomato -- small, round bushy, early fruiting plant, fairly large tomatoes if it's happy -- that grows well here. Great container plant, but likes to grow in the ground, too, if voles aren't too dense.

I'd suspect that many of the released dwarf project tomatoes would sell well, there are so few good container plants. I'm particularly hopeful about Arctic Rose this year.

An early tomato I haven't grown, but am planning to this year because of favorable recommendations, is Latah.

I'm planning to try Daniels this year -- partly because of Fusion's frequent recommendations and partly because it is the probably other parent (with Indian Stripe) of Daniel Burson, and I want to see how they all compare in similar conditions here . . . but I'm afraid Daniels may be a little long season to be a good producer here.

If Delicious sells for you, then obviously you want it, but I think it's a little long season for us, here. If it does grow there, than you may be fine with Daniels, and perhaps with some Brandywine. I'm planning to try several Brandywines for comparison this year -- Joyces Brandywine is supposed to be a little earlier than some. Sandhill says it is similar to Sudduth's but matured about a week earlier, there.

Sweet Ozark Orange matures late season here, but it certainly a very good, and somewhat different orange, with what I'd think would be a good marketable name. A second choice orange for me would be Podarok Fei -- gift of the fairy -- good producer, latish, here, not as special as Sweet Ozark Orange, but differently good.

I have much better luck with Marglobe than with its child, Rutgers. Other Marglobe children, of which Break O Day is one, also do better than Rutgers for me, but not, usually, as well as Marglobe. A selling point with Marglobe is that it was a -- probably the -- top commercial tomato in the 1930's -- meaning that it was bred to be a rugged, somewhat disease resistant, productive tomato, in the days when no one was interested in growing a commercial tomato that didn't taste good. It was the *only* tomato my grandmother liked to grow -- good for eating, good for cooking, good for sauce, good for canning, she'd say, why grow anything else? However, while it's also my "main crop" tomato, it works for me here, most years, because I grow a lot of plants. A 75 DTM tomato, here, is more late season that mid season, so I grow enough to get a year's supply of tomatoes (when combined with the others I grow) put up from what is produced right at the end of the season.

For something hearty, Anna Maria's Heart has done well here. Also Fish Lake.

And George Detsikas was a *great* tomato, last year, in a bad tomato year. Now on my *always* list.

Cherries that do well for me are Super Sweet 100, Snow White, Sun Gold, and Ron's Carbon Copy looks promising, if it can get a year with at least normal-for-us weather.

Must run, but hopefully there's something useful there.

Kip says to tell Roy that if he hear's AwoooOOOoooo that isn't quite the wind, it's Kip, sending Malatalkative greetings your way.

[barbamWY]

Thanks for your input. I have grown 4th of July and my brother in Montana grows it. I prefer Stupice and Moravsky Div. I'm not a fan of Delicious but people buy it. I grow Break O' Day every year but it does not sell at our sale. It is very dependable and good yields. Cherokee Purple is a little late for me so I have been growing Black Early but now I can only get seed from a Canadian company that does not ship to the states. I have a cousin that lives there so she ordered them for me and is taking the seeds to Arizona and meeting up with my montana sister and I will get them from her next month when she heads home. Those are going to be well traveled seeds.

[SharonS]

Jet Star does very well in my part of Maine--one of the "producers" recommended by our Extension's Experimental Farm.

[barbamWY]

We added Jet Star and switched from Camp Joy to Gardener's Delight because of seed germination.
There was also poor germination on Delicious, Neves Azorean and the Jet Star. I have excess of Cuore Di Bue, Bobcat and Burbank that I could add. I have not grown Bobcat or Burbank before. May I have some input?
Thanks,
Barb

I've compiled a list of tomatoes that I recommend investigating to see if you'd like to sell or grow them. I didn't finish adding descriptions for all of them, though. There are more I could add to the list, too.

Some of those I call early in the following list might be up to 70 days, but I get the feeling most of them are (or can be) less than that. All of the tomatoes in the list below should be 75 days or under. If there's one late tomato I'd recommend looking into, though, it's probably Aussie (mine has set a lot of fruit already, especially a lot for a huge tomato), but you might also consider others, such as Valencia (orange; 8-10oz; 76-78 days). A lot of the information about the tomatoes below take cues from sandhillpreservation.com (an Iowa store that used to be in Idaho, I believe), timeless-tomatoes.com (a Nebraska store), tatianastomatobase.com and such.

• AHLO
• Alaskan Fancy (55 days; 2" wide, 2oz fruits)
• Alaskan Gold (4-6oz; early; productive)
• Alpine (6-8oz; outstanding yields; early; indet)
• Ambrosia Red
• Backfield (10-12oz; early; fruit ripens all at once; does well with direct-seeding; semi-det)
• Basketvee (70 days; 4-9oz; productive; from Canada)
• Beaverlodge Slicer (early)
• Beefsteak (an early one; there are many strains, apparently)
• Big Beef F1 (73 days; 12-16oz; popular)
• Big Sungold Select (a larger, OP Sungold)
• Black Bear (75 days; 4-5", 10-14oz fruit; canner/slicer)
• Black Giant (70 days; 12oz; said to be very productive)
• Black Plum (tastes great when it's cool, I think; heat-tolerant)
• Black Prince (70 days; 5oz)
• Black Sea Man (75 days; 12-16oz)
• Bonner
• Bounty
• Break O'Day (8oz; productive; early)
• Burpee Gloriana (6-8oz; productive; early)
• Burpee Sunnybrook Earliana (6-8oz; fruits ripen around the same time)
• Celebrity F1 (65-70 days; 7-8oz; productive; well-known)
• Chalk's Early Jewel (early; productive; 4oz)
• Cherokee Green Pear (75 days; medium-sized; from Cherokee Green, which is from Cherokee Chocolate, which is from Cherokee Purple)
• Chocolate Pear (70 days; heat/cold-tolerant; this was my first tomato to set fruit, this year, out of about a hundred varieties, notwithstanding I planted many 50-some day tomatoes. Every flower looks like it's setting fruit.)
• Chocolate Stripes (75 days; bi-color; red-brown with green and orange stripes; great taste; 1-2lbs)
• Chuda Rinka (early; productive; 2-4oz)
• Clear Pink (60 days; 4-6oz)
• Coldset (fairly early; reliable; heat/cold-tolerant)
• Cosmonaut Volkov
• Costa Rica (golf ball sized; compact indet; productive)
• Cougar Red (early; 4-6oz; productive)
• Creole (72 days; medium-sized; it's doing fine for me, so far; sounds similar to Celebrity F1)
• Cuostralee (72 days; 4-5" fruit; 24oz)
• Early Cascade (55 days; 2-3oz; extra-abundant fruits)
• Early Girl F1 (52-60-something days; heat/cold/drought-tolerant; acidic when orange before red; productive; medium-sized; 4-6oz; plants can break easily if they don't get extra of certain nutrients, but this doesn't hurt productivity; a VFF version is available, as well as at least a couple open-pollinated versions)
• Early Glee (early; 16oz; above-average yields)
• Early Rouge (early; productive; 6-8oz; said to make a great market tomato)
• Early Wonder (55 days; 5oz; productive)
• Farthest North (very, very productive; early; small; might be parthenocarpic)
• Firesteel (70 days; 6-16oz; productive; tasty)
• Fireworks (60 days; 8-12oz; plum-shaped; productive)
• Frosty F. House (medium-sized; early; productive)
• Galina's (60-75 days; 1" yellow cherries; people like the taste)
• Gem State (early; Idaho tomato; 4oz; was productive in Texas)
• Glacier (early; determinate, but produces all season; small fruits; it's taking it's time to get to production size and flower for me, but it's getting there)
• Gold Nugget (parthenocparic; compact yellow cherry; quite early)
• Golden Bison (early; productive; 2-3oz; yellow)
• Green Pear (70 days; green when ripe; I'm growing this, and it's fruiting fine)
• Grosse Lisse (75 days; 10-12oz; 4"; Australian)
• Gurney Girl's Best F1
• Heatwave II (68 days; 7oz; heat-tolerant; supposed to taste great and produce well; VFASt; said to have a salty taste)
• Husky Cherry Red F1 (it's early, compact, indeterminate, and a cherry, but in my area it splits; the F2s I grew didn't split, and they had more taste than the F1, though; the F1 was about 52 days for me)
• Ida Gold (yellow Idaho cherry)
• Imur Prior Beta (2-4oz; early; productive)
• Jackie (said to be the best-tasting blue, according to doublehelixfarms.com; mine seems to be part plum tomato, but it's still blue like Jackie, and it's early)
• Jet Star F1 (72 days; 8-9oz; VF; productive)
• Juliet F1
• Kara Market (70-day paste; productive; impressive taste)
• Lime Green Salad (60 days; 3-6oz; green-when-ripe)
• Maglia Rosa (it's productive for me, so far, this year, and it's supposed to taste great)
• Manitoba (58 days; 3", 6oz fruits; well-suited for northern gardens)
• Maria (early; 10oz)
• Maskabec (4-6oz; early; productive)
• Matina (4-6oz; 58 days; for me, it's productive, and was the second of about a hundred varieties to set fruit)
• Matt's Wild Cherry (said to be very sweet; 65 days; very productive; sprawling plants)
• Medovaja Kapiyia (sounds like a regular leaf version of Medovaya Kaplya that may or may not be earlier)
• Medovaya Kaplya (potato leaf; looks like Yellow Pear; supposed to taste awesome; it's setting fruit well for me; the plant is a nice color of green to my eyes)
• Menehune (said to be the wild tomato, Lycopersicon succentrianum; small beefsteaks with 7-8+ locules; 70 days; productive)
• Moravski Div (very, very early; said to be similar to Stupice, and have great taste)
• Mountain Princess (55 days; 4-6oz)
• New Big Dwarf (60 days; 8-16oz; does well in containers or the ground; I'm growing it and it's doing fine so far)
• Nodak Early (related to Sub-Arctic Plenty)
• North Dakota Earliana (60 days; 6-9oz; productive; heat/cold-tolerant)
• Olomovic (4-6oz; early; productive)
• Orange Minsk (6-32oz; early or midseason; productive; great taste; orange)
• Orange Peach (75 days; fuzzy, orange tomato)
• Oroma (70 days; parthenocarpic; cross between Santiam and Roma; productive; paste; said to taste great; related to Saucy)
• Ovita (small, ribbed, pink pear; looks productive and has fruits, but I don't know how early it is, yet)
• Parkenham Pear (70 days; 4-6oz; red pear; discovered from Australia)
• Payette (dwarf; 68 days; large salad to 3" fruits; slicer; I'm growing it; it's a very small, stiff plant, as the leafs and fruit don't want to move if you try to bend them)
• Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (this is said to taste phenomenal; 8-12oz; 65-75 days)
• Pink Bumble Bee
• Polar Beauty
• Pruden's Purple (75 days; easy to grow; large tomatoes; best-tasting tomato for hamburger's I've tried, yet; easy to eat lots of this tomato)
• Punta Banda (67 days; I only really recommend looking into this if your area is arid to semi-arid, but it's supposed to be heat/cold-tolerant)
• Purple Bumble Bee
• Purple Dragon
• Red Star (1"; heavily ribbed; semi-det)
• Reisetomate (funky-looking, but the size to earliness ratio is good; probably tastes better in hotter areas, though)
• Riesentraube
• Rocket (productive; early; cherry)
• Ron's Carbon Copy
• Rosabec (6-8oz; pink; early; productive; tart)
• Rousich (2-4oz; early; productive)
• Saladmaster (4-6oz; early; productive)
• Santiam (parthenocarpic)
• Scotia (early; 3-11oz; 2.5"x2" fruit)
• Sheyenne
• Shoshone (early; 2-4oz; productive)
• Siberian (early; fruit ripens all at once)
• Siletz (early; sizeable; parthenocarpic; I'm growing it, and it has at least a fruit that has set)
• Snow Fairy (early; large yield for plant size)
• Soldacki (75 days; 10-16oz)
• Sophie's Choice (early; compact; about 8oz; I'm growing it, and it's doing well)
• Stupice (early; heat/cold-tolerant; people like it; smaller than Matina)
• Sub-Arctic Maxi (similar to Sub-Arctic Plenty)
• Sub-Arctic Plenty (very early; productive)
• Sunsugar F1
• Superbec (early; 8oz)
• Sutton's Best of All
• Sweet Orange Cherry (similar to Sungold; it may be from it, but I don't know if anyone knows that for sure; it sounds great; I'm growing this, this year; I got mine from dianeseeds and they took a very long time to germinate, although the germination rate was excellent—so, I might recommend trying another place for potentially faster germination; because it took so long to germinate, the plant is behind the others, but it's growing fast)
• Sweetie (50 days; cherry; some fruits potentially over 14% brix, according to timeless-tomatoes.com)
• Sweetie (early; 1lb version at sandhillpreservation.com)
• Talbot Russian (75 days; 10-16oz)
• Tangerine
• Taos (65 days; heat/cold/drought-tolerant; 6-8oz; canner/slicer/salad; if you can actually get seeds; I ordered them, this year, from tomatofest.com, but got a couple substitutions instead; this is a different variety than Taos Trail)
• Tatura (68 days; Australian)
• Taxi (65 days; 4-6oz; yellow; productive)
• Thessaloniki (I'm not sure how this does in cooler areas)
• Tiffen Mennonite (75 days; 4" fruits; incredible taste; slicer/canner/juicer)
• Ultrabec (early; 8-10oz; productive)
• Urbikany (early; det; 6-8oz; productive)
• Variegated (early; 3-4oz; ornamental in cooler temperatures)
• Victor (early; det; 4-5oz; productive)
• Walter
• Wilford (det; small; very, very productive; ripens all at once?)
• Yellow Riesentraube
• Yorkbec (50 days; 4-6oz)

Out of what I'm growing this year, I would recommend Matina, Chocolate Pear, Maglia Rosa, Aussie, Sophie's Choice, Medovaya Kaplya, Purple Bumble Bee, Big Sungold Select, and maybe some others the most, so far. Keep in mind, I haven't tasted them, yet (the fruits are still green). If your area gets hot, I would recommend looking into more tomatoes than I've listed above, such as Super Sioux (but some don't do so well when it's cool, I've read).

You might experiment with Azoychka. It's early for some people (but it's considered late on a lot of sites).

If people in your area are anything like people where I live, they'll want early tomatoes more than anything. (I think where I live, people get Roma and Early Girl F1 more than anything, though—probably because that's what they're sold the most, and what they're familiar with). I would be sure to strongly advertise the days to maturity. People will likely take notice. Also, in short-season areas, a lot of people want big tomatoes that do well, if possible, because they're tired of small tomatoes all the time. Advertising expected size for larger varieties could go a long way, too.

For the awesome varieties you have that don't sell as well, you could always give a free plant away with every purchase (or on certain days). Then, next year, it should be a lot more popular, and people should know its value better. You might want to make the free plant a surprise gift after the purchase, if you don't want them to buy less plants, though, but don't force it on them, since some people very strongly only want a certain number of plants.

From the ones on your list, from what I've read about them, the following are ones I would recommend that you consider keeping (if I was your customer, that is, which may have little to do with how well it would sell):
• Siletz
• Cosmonaut Volkov
• North Dakota Earliana
• Sheyenne
• Early Wonder Pink
• Juliet F1
• Sungold F1

If Sweet Tangerine is the same as Tangerine, that might be cool, too. Tangerine is 75 days, but a big, orange tomato. I'm not sure how well it does in Wyoming, however. I looked it up; apparently, it's a different variety, and a hybrid, but it looks cool. I would keep it if you like it.

If Goliath is anything like Bush Goliath F1, I would definitely not offer it where I live (we grew it one year and it produced a few handfuls of tomatoes that all ripened the day before the first frost; it was not early here; you can get better taste with much earlier tomatoes). It might do fine in Wyoming, though. I've heard it does well in some areas.

Lemon Boy F1 will probably sell, but if it weren't for that, I would probably take it off the list, personally. It is heat/cold-tolerant, though, and has a decent acidic taste. My reason is that the fruit to vine ratio wasn't as ideal as I would have liked when we grew it. Otherwise, it's a fine tomato, if late compared to Early Girl F1.

I wasn't a huge fan of Green Zebra in my area, last year, but I didn't give it great conditions. It might be totally awesome for some. I'm sure it'll sell, though.

I wouldn't particularly recommend Delicious, personally, but if people buy it, go for it. It did have the record for the World's Largest tomato for a long time, after all.

Chadwick Cherry has some major heat-tolerance, but it's kind of late (80 days) for a cherry tomato for Wyoming, I would think—but then, I don't know what it tastes like, or how productive it is when it gets going. Maybe it's earlier in your area, though, but if not, there are lots of cherries that should produce more and earlier tomatoes throughout the season, in a short season.

Glacier, Kimberly, Stupice and Moravsky Div are probably all pretty good, from what I've read. Glacier is a whole lot slower to flower in my area than Matina is, though, but that may be because the plant is more compact. I would highly recommend Matina if it grows well there. Matina should have bigger fruits than those others, too. I'm not sure about the flavor comparison other than that people don't agree.

Legend could be good, but people generally like Siletz better, even though Legend is supposed to be bigger, earlier and more disease-resistant (I don't know that it really is any of those, though, according to most people—but maybe it is in the pacific northwest). I hope you're advertising that they're both parthenocarpic.

The tomato on your list that strikes me as the most interesting is actually North Dakota Earliana, from what I've read. It's fairly sizeable. It's early. It's heat and cold-tolerant. I've read good things about it; I'm guessing it would do well in Wyoming.

I don't have any particular thoughts I want to share about the other tomatoes you listed that I didn't mention, currently.

Oh, and from your second list, Pruden's Purple is a good one. Fargo Yellow Pear seems cool. I'm not very familiar with some of those you mentioned.

[BigVanVader]

Indian Stripe is a good seller. They are pretty uniform for an heirloom and tast like a better Chr. Purple to me. Plus they stay in the 10 to 16 oz range so they sell better than the huge tomatoes for me. Oh and Taxi is a good one, I'm growing them this year.