Czech OP tomatoes- my project 2014-2016

[coYote]

thanks Vladimir, you are an invaluable tomato resource. hope you get well soon and are amongst your tomatoes again

[Spartanburg123]

Vladimir- my wife's family is from Harrison County, West Virginia. They have all grown an heirloom that they call "Big Czech", which was hand-carried by a Czech immigrant to this county many years ago. I may be able to identify this guy.

I've grown it for a few years, and wow. It's a large pink beefsteak, 1-3 lbs fruit, regular leaf, and indeterminate. My vines last year got 14 feet tall. They are really delicious slicing tomatoes, and very productive.

I wonder if there is a way to get this registered with Seed Savers somehow?

Thanks for your input! I am a novice Tomatovillian!

Darin

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Spartanburg123

Vladimir- my wife's family is from Harrison County, West Virginia. They have all grown an heirloom that they call "Big Czech", which was hand-carried by a Czech immigrant to this county many years ago. I may be able to identify this guy.

I've grown it for a few years, and wow. It's a large pink beefsteak, 1-3 lbs fruit, regular leaf, and indeterminate. My vines last year got 14 feet tall. They are really delicious slicing tomatoes, and very productive.

I wonder if there is a way to get this registered with Seed Savers somehow?

Thanks for your input! I am a novice Tomatovillian!

Darin

Darin, SSE does not register tomato varieties. And the last thing you should do is to send seeds directly to SSE and here's why.

Marjorie Morris is just one who sent seeds directlyto SSE and never heard anything back and then sent them to me, as a listed memember and asked me to list them in the annual SSE Yearbook.

I did, and that variety was German Red Strawberry,a family heirloom of hers and very well known.

If you want to get the variety more widely known there are a number of ways you can do that.

You can send seeds directly to certain seed companies and ask them to trial it,or you could send some seeds to me and I could do it since I know the owners of quite a few seed companies and do send them seeds for trial

You can make a seed offer here at Tville since there are many owners of seed companies who are reistered members here, but that would leave out quite a few seed companies, who while their websites are here, they are not.

Therre may be folks reading this thread who will ask for seeds. but that's considered poor form to expect someone with a new variety tocopy down the user names, etc. When someone has seeds to offer it should be done in one of the two seed subforums here, which are open only to registered Tville members, and hopefully folks who dont just come here to get sees, rather, be part of the community and post, etc Ihaven't postedmyowngrow outlistforIthink thepasttwo years b'c it really bothers me when folks start asking for seeds before I even know if I will.

That would also give access to other registered members here as well.

Or if you wanted to you could send some seeds to me and I could send some to several SSE listed members so they couldist them. And could give you names via PM where I would send them.

I'd offer to list them myself but my listings in the 2014 Yearbook are the last Ill be doing, and have been doing since 1990. The reasons are many, but I don't like the ways in which SSE has been going the last few years.

Or you could do several of the above.

If you look in an annual Yearbook or many o of Tania's variety pages you'll see, sometimes, an accession number next to a variety. For many years SSE would send money to each person who listed a new variety and then give it an accession number which was only for their data base and not a regisration number. Most of us would return the money and send the seeds. But they haven't even done that in the last few years.

I hope the above helps and I'd be glad to answer any questions you might have in terms of getting your varietyout there. Also know that when you send seeds for trial and a place likes it and sells seeds you don't get paid anything. If that weren't true I'd be a very rich woman right now.

Lastly, you should find out everything about the background of your variety, names,places, dates, etc., so that it can be properly named. Having to name several hundred of varieties that came to me not named all I can say is that I'd be glad to help with that.

Carolyn

[Spartanburg123]

Why thanks Carolyn, that was very informative! I will find out the heritage of this heirloom in the next few weeks, and I will let you know. It is a special tomato in my wife's family! We have hundreds and hundreds of seeds saved. I'll keep in touch!

Thank you so much!

Darin

[MrBig46]

Darin, when I first read your post (in Google translation), I thought you would like to learn what the real name of this tomato. When Carolyn answered you, I understand what you mean. With that I cannot help you also to, because I´m not a fan of renaming tomato varieties.
I'll be glad when you will include here some photo of this tomato.
Have a nice day Vladimír

[Spartanburg123]

Vladimir- here are a few pictures of these tomatoes from last year....

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

Darin, when I first read your post (in Google translation), I thought you would like to learn what the real name of this tomato. When Carolyn answered you, I understand what you mean. With that I cannot help you also to, because I´m not a fan of renaming tomato varieties.
I'll be glad when you will include here some photo of this tomato.
Have a nice day Vladimír

Vladimir, Darin wrote:

(Vladimir- my wife's family is from Harrison County, West Virginia. They have all grown an heirloom that they call "Big Czech", which was hand-carried by a Czech immigrant to this county many years ago. I may be able to identify this guy.)

They called it Big Czech, not Czech Bush which Milan Sodomka sent originally to the US.

Of course Darin can keep that name if he wishes to, it's just what the family had named it themselves, I was only encouraging him to find out as much as he could about it, and then perhaps a new name to reflect that background might help.

For instance, seeds came to me with no name, the person who gave me the seeds helped me make some contacts, I found out more, and actually started a thread at Gardenweb to let folks know what goes into naming a variety,gave all the background info I knew , 22 folks posted, and I sent seeds as thanks to all of them.

That variety was Neves Azorean Red, a favorite of many,

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Neves_Azorean_Red

Neves, b'c it was Anthony Neves, Azorean, b/c he came from the Azores, and Red,b'c the fruits are red.

Darin;s family received it with no name, gave it their name, not knowing what it was originally called, so quite similar to my example of NAR.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Gorgeous pictures Darin and looking like a possible pink in the pictures, so is it pink?

Carolyn

[Spartanburg123]

Carolyn, I believe so- although I didn't know about the skin color determination technique until quite recently when I purchased your wonderful book and have been reading posts on here. With this year's harvest, I will certainly check it out to confirm.

Thanks!

Darin

[Spartanburg123]

Here is a picture of a BLT- looks like a pink to me. Enjoy!

D.

[MrBig46]

Darin, your tomato is really beautiful. Sure I would be happy if it was found that the tomato is really the result of breeding work of someone from Czechoslovakia. No matter what I think, you can call this tomato as you want, but I hope you do not mind, when I adduce my reservations in this thread entitled "Czech tomatoes".
Vladimír

[Brandon558]

That is a pretty tomato.....reminds me of how much I cant wait untill I can make a mater sandwitch and BLT's.

[Spartanburg123]

Me too Brandon! I'm growing these, Omar's Lebanese, Big Zac, and Cherokee Purple. Oh, and one German Queen. We should be into some serious BLT's this summer

[MrBig46]

Carolyn,
I read the story of Darin´s tomato in this way: Czech imigrant imported to the USA some seeds of tomatoes. He or somebody else called tomatoes grown from these seeds "Big Czech" because he was from Czechoslovakia. The big problem is that no such or similar Czech tomato did not exist. The largest Czech tomatoes before 1989 was less than 1/2 lbs.
In Czechoslovakia before 1989 was to grow only Bulgarian large tomatoes similar to those on the pictures.
Big Czech- country Bulgaria? This probably is not the best solution.
Vladimír

[Spartanburg123]

Vladimir- the seeds were hand carried by a Czech immigrant and the seeds were grown out in Harrison County. I am meeting many of my wife's relatives this weekend for an annual beach vacation, and I will find out who this immigrant is. He is known, that I'm sure of. I just need to get a name. I will even go so far as to contact his family and discover more about the history of the tomato.

I will also find out when they were carried to Harrison County. It could be more recent than I thought. I'll let you know!

My intention is not to rename anything- in fact, to give credit where it's due. And I most want to share this great tomato while honoring it's heritage.

Thanks!

Darin