Feedback: My 2010 Seed Offer

[peebee]

Tomato Goddess Carolyn,

The Big Sungold Select was true to seed. At first, I was disappointed at the taste, I think because the name led me to believe it would be just like the Sungold, just bigger. But I came to appreciate it for its own unique taste. Like Jeff said, very refreshing. Skin not that thick, which is a plus. Everyone likes it. I will grow it again.
Thanks for offering it,

Suzie

[rxkeith]

from this years offer, growing are

anna marias heart
bawole cerce
don camillo
ludmillas yellow giant
pervaya lyubov
green doctors frosted did not germinate.

only one ripe one from ludmillas so far.
picked 2 anna marias heart, haven't tried them yet.
i really, really like pervaya lyubov. plants are prolific, tomatoes look nice, and they taste really good. l will be growing this one again.
just a few ripe bawole cerce, and don camillo so far. don camillo is a big un.

i have seeds fermenting for 10 varieties this evening, and i sampled all of them, plus a few others. i'm stuffed.


keith

[GunnarSK]

Most varieties from your offer haven't bloomed or fruited yet, possibly because they were planted late (2. July) in a poor spot, but that may also be why they were not afflicted by late blight, which killed most of my Polish tomatoes and those from seeds purchased from Baker Creek.

Neves Azorean Red: Two planted, no flowers yet.
Red Barn: Six planted, no flowers.
Mortgage Lifter (Estler's): A slow sprouter, but this has become the most vigourous. Six planted, fruit set on two, and several are blooming.
Indian Stripe: Two planted, no flowers.
Green Doctors Frosted: Three planted, something is blooming, which may be them, but I'm not sure. If there are any (ripe) fruit, I will be able to tell from the size and maybe colour, as the only ones I could confuse them with are the ones planted in the same row: Paul Robeson, Brad's Black Heart and "generic" Oxheart from South Africa.

I will return, if I get more results, or a killing freeze ends my season.

[Bama mater]

GunnarSK, Those Green Drs Frosted are sometimes hard to tell when ripe, you'll have to look real close...........It's hard to explain.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Bama mater

GunnarSK, Those Green Drs Frosted are sometimes hard to tell when ripe, you'll have to look real close...........It's hard to explain.

So let me try to explain it.

Green Doctors is a typical green when ripe in that it has a yellow epidermis, so one sees an amber blush/

GD Frosted has a clear epidermis and so there is no amber blush and since it looks like frosted grapes, Jeff and Neil and I agreed that naming it GD Frosted was a good description.

( I will be able to tell from the size and maybe colour, as the only ones I could confuse them with are the ones planted in the same row: Paul Robeson, Brad's Black Heart and "generic" Oxheart from South Africa.)

Gunnar, when I made the offer for GD frosted I explained where it came from and noted it was a cherry tomato. You won't confuse it at all with any of the others you mentioned above, trust me on that.

[Jayc]

As a recap;
All sown on February 26th 2010,
Kazachka 2009; 8 sown, 6 germinated -75%
Green Doctors Frosted 2009; 3 sown, 3 germinated -100%
Danko 2007; 10 sown, 7 germinated – 70%
Medovaya Kaplya 2009; 10 sown, 1 germinated -10 %
Tsar-Kolokol 2007; 12 sown, 9 germinated -75 %


Kazachka, interestingly I seem to have ended up with 3 types?!
A large sized round cherry type,
A similar sized beefy one with flat belly,
and a larger double the size beefy with flat belly. All seemed to have exactly the same flavour, which was indeed very good. A big yes from me for next year

Green Doctors Frosted, Wow and yum yum. All three plants grew really well, super crop. All as they should be and will definetly be growing next year. I grew a couple of Green Doctors as well to compare and they looked super side by side in a bowl.

Danko, A bit of a disaster here on my part, lost several plants to blight early on (caught me on the hop) one plant remained which went on to produce a nice little crop of hearts, but I feel not as great as it could be and will be giving this a better spot next year. (True to type.)

Medovaya Kaplya, has gone on to produce a masive crop of delightful pear shaped cherries. Started the season with the flavour a little bland but has developed into a lovely sweet cherry. A keeper again.

Tsar-Kolokol, I only grew on 4 plants in the end, all equally productive and consistant with description. Well worth growing, though not as sweet as I had thought it would be.

Hope it is ok to add some pictures of Medovaya Kaplya and Kazachka

[carolyn137]

Kazachka, interestingly I seem to have ended up with 3 types?!
A large sized round cherry type,
A similar sized beefy one with flat belly,
and a larger double the size beefy with flat belly. All seemed to have exactly the same flavour, which was indeed very good. A big yes from me for next year

*****

First, sure it's OK to post pictures b'c most of the ones I offer in my seed offer are new and there aren't many pictures around to look at, except for Gleckler's and some at Tania's T-base and lately I've not been wandering around seed sites to see what's where.

I'm assuming that all cherries for Kazachka are on a single plant, the mini beefs on a separate plant and the larger beefs on yet another plant. Right? I say that b'c those of us who have grown it have never seed both cherries and mini-beefs on the same plant.

Would you please save seeds from that large beef for me, and I'll share them with Andrey as well, who is my source of the Kazachka seeds. I know I want to grow it out and it see what it gives. I dodn'nt plant either the cherries or mini-beefs this summer so if I'm a very good little girl could you save some seed from those as well so I can see what F2 seed does?

I'll be offering Kazachka again in my 2011 seed offer here so for anyone interested who wasn't here this past Jan/Feb, you can either ask for seeds in the Seed Forum, b'c lots of folks got those seeds from me, or look for those folks in the Seed Forum who have enough seed to make their own seed offer. And I say that partially to "protect" JayC from getting PM's asking for seed and one of the good reasons is b'c she's in Wales, UK, if you didn't notice.

Right now we don't even know if the saved seed from cherries gives rise to cherries, and same for the mini-beefs. And yes, I also found the taste was the same regardless of the fruit form, and I LIKE the taste as you do.

[Jayc]

Yes, each plant had just the one type of fruit

You are very welcome to seed, I've saved some from each type although the larger beefy has been the most prolific.

Could you expand further, I'm unsure if Kazachka is/was unstable or is in the process of breeding out, you mention you would like to see how F2 seed does? Why do the different looking forms taste, imho the same?
Before when I've grown out F2's, even when they look similar, taste can be so different?

I have to say I'm quite excited and can't wait until next year to see what develops. I'll be watching with interest to see what others report. For me, I have to say what a super little tom with many suprises, thank you for sharing.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Jayc

Yes, each plant had just the one type of fruit

You are very welcome to seed, I've saved some from each type although the larger beefy has been the most prolific.

Could you expand further, I'm unsure if Kazachka is/was unstable or is in the process of breeding out, you mention you would like to see how F2 seed does? Why do the different looking forms taste, imho the same?
Before when I've grown out F2's, even when they look similar, taste can be so different?

I have to say I'm quite excited and can't wait until next year to see what develops. I'll be watching with interest to see what others report. For me, I have to say what a super little tom with many suprises, thank you for sharing.

I was wrong to say F2 seeds b/c this variety is open pollinated. Clearly there is some instability in fruit form and even Andrey didn't know that when he sent it to me but when I asked him last Fall he too got plants with all cherries and plants with all mini-beefs.

I did outline above that it remains to be seen if seed saved from cherries gives all cherry plants, or whether some plants also give mini-beefs, and same for seeds saved from the mini-beefs.

You're the first one to report a larger fruit form which I find interesting.

And yes, if it were an F1 hybrid one would expect to see much more variation with F2 seeds, but it was sent to me as an OP.

Nothing is ever Black and White, is it, or for that matter Green and Black.

[sprtsguy76]

Green Doctors Frosted grew true for me as well, only one left for me is Jeans Prize.........

Damon

[wmontanez]

when is the 2011 offer happening? I missed 2010, when I read the message is was already closed. Looking forward for next growing season to try new OP tomatoes.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by wmontanez

when is the 2011 offer happening? I missed 2010, when I read the message is was already closed. Looking forward for next growing season to try new OP tomatoes.

I really don't know when it will be happening. Each year it's been slightly different depending on what my obligations to my SSE listings are, how many seeds I have of this and that, etc.

Last eyar it was posted on January 9th, and that was the earliest, I think, that I ever posted it.

What I do know is that there will be not that many brand new varieties as in past years b'c of lack of seed production this season. For what I normally offer you can take a look at the last one, and the ones before that if you look at the back posts in the Trade subforum of the Seed Exchange.

What I do know is that only a small fraction of the folks who got seeds from me from the 2010 seed offer have reported back in this thread and that certainly isn't the greatest incentive to me to keep doing it b/c packing up close to 400 seed packs is quite a bit of work. And as I've said above, I really need to know about the older seeds.

So sorry I can't be more precise, but that's just the way it is. I was just thinking that mybe it would be a good idea to skip a year so that I'm able to get seed production for many of the new family heirlooms that were grown this summer. The major seed production for all of my varieties was done this year by 3 folks in NC and one in KY, but the feedback is not as good as hoped for since one person's garden was wiped out by Septoria, andother person['s garden had TSWV and right now I don't know about the KY person so really only one person was able to get some seed saved.

I try to do a little here but it isn't easy with this walker, and what I've saved so far is just to be sure to have seed to grow next year, but not to distribute.

TIme will tell what happens.

But there are plenty of other folks who make seed offers, but most of them want to trade and I don't want any trades unless someone has a brand new family heirloom where the seeds haven't been distributed outside of the family and then I offer varieties in return.

[habitat_gardener]

All varieties came true for me. I germinated them in my cold frame, then we had a very cool spring so they got planted out in June and started producing in the past month, but got hit with disease and/or russet mites. I planted one of each variety. Pozhar and Pervaya Lyubov are already done, Medovaya Kaplya is limping along, Tsar-Kolokol is struggling, and Kazachka was the last to start fruiting but is still going strong. I saved seed from all of them. One thing I noticed is that I'm getting tons of predation on most varieties this year (usually I get one bird peck or squirrel bite on one red tomato all season!), but so far none of these 5 have been nibbled.

From this year's seed offer, I grew

2009 seed
Kazachka -- I'm getting the mini-beefs.

2008 seed
Pervaya Lyubov
Medovaya Kaplya
Pozhar

2007 seed
Tsar-Kolokol

[sprtsguy76]

Carolyn-Ok now I'm not sure if I have Green Doctors Frosted, I'm seeing a slight amber color to the ripening fruit, its not real evident but its there. Could the slight amber color be coming from within the fruit since the skin is clear?

Damon

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by sprtsguy76

Carolyn-Ok now I'm not sure if I have Green Doctors Frosted, I'm seeing a slight amber color to the ripening fruit, its not real evident but its there. Could the slight amber color be coming from within the fruit since the skin is clear?

Damon

Damon, if the epidermis is clear, not yellow, then I don't know what you're seeing that you think is an amber blush.

I had two sources of seed, one source was Jeff Casey and he's already told me that this summer's growout of GD Frosted was as it should be and at his site he offers both GD and GDF. The other source was Neil Lockhart.

If you read this threade you'll see that others who got GD Frosted got what they should have and the one person said that GD and GDF were grown side by side and were easy to tell apart.

Adam Gleckler also said that he had both GD and GDF in his growouts this summer and they were easy to tell apart as well.

I haven't grown GDF, but I have grown Verde Claro, which is also a GWRipe with a clear epidermis, so I know what GDFrosted shouyld should look like.

Since some others can tell the difference I just don't know what you're seeing unless it's that ole CA sun.

I can't see anything within the fruit that would allow for an amber blush. How many plants did you put out and are they all the same as to this amber blush you think you see? Strange, since no one else has reported that from the two seed sources I sent out.

IS it worth saving seeds from what you have and regrowing next year along with GD itself so you can do a direct comparison with epidermis color and whole fruit color?