Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.
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#1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Canada (Zone 6b)
Posts: 119
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I notice on these forums that there is a lot of talk about heirlooms. I have tried growing both, but I find that most heirlooms succumb to diseases readily, have poor fruit set, and poor keeping qualities.
I would like to know what keeps people interested in heirlooms. |
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#2 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Vancouver Island
Posts: 5,931
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As a home gardener, it's all about flavour and variety for me. I don't have much disease in my area. I also like to save OP seed and collect many different varieties. "If you have Seen one red regular leaf hybrid beefsteak, you have seen em all"
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#3 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Alabama
Posts: 2,250
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Heirlooms have traits that are unavailable in hybrids. The most important is flavor. If you want a typical cardboard grocery store tomato, grow most any hybrid. If you want a juicy ripe delicious home grown tomato, grow heirlooms. There are exceptions. By and large, Big Beef and Ramapo are very good flavored hybrids. You are correct that there can be more problems with heirlooms, but I have plenty of heirloom varieties that outproduce all but a handful of hybrids.
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#4 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: SoCal Inland
Posts: 2,705
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Like others, I grow for my own use and taste is the most important factor. I don't have a lot of disease pressure where I live either. I do grow a few hybrids, like Sungold and Brandy Boy also.
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#5 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: FL 8b/9a
Posts: 262
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1) Open Pollinated varieties can be saved and grow true 2) No need to maintain parent lines and possibly lose the hybrid cultivar 3) Variety of shape, texture and flavor viewed as unavailable in hybrids 4) Nostalgia, the impression of preserving a piece of the past 5) Price premium when sold due to consumer perceptions of heirlooms 6) Personal satisfaction to successfully grow challenging tomatoes 7) Maximum yield not always important for the home gardener growing more tomatoes than they can eat |
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#6 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Montreal
Posts: 1,140
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I'm growing one or two hybrids, but last year I grew Brandy Boy and I didn't have great results. My heirloom tomatoes did much better and flavor is outstanding. Sun gold and sun sugar will always have a place in my garden.
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#7 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: ny
Posts: 1,219
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The variety and flavor. Also it makes sense to me to grow things that normally would cost $$$ in the stores (and harder/impossible to find) versus typical hybrid tomatoes that are everywhere and cheap.
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Subirrigated Container gardening (RGGS) in NY, Zone 7! |
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#8 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: S.E. Wisconsin Zone 5b
Posts: 1,831
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Hybrids are made from OP's so why wouldn't you just grow the OP(heirlooms).
Dutch
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"Discretion is the better part of valor" Charles Churchill The intuitive mind is a gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. But we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. (paraphrased) Albert Einstein I come from a long line of sod busters, spanning back several centuries. |
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#9 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Ontario Canada
Posts: 323
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7 years ago, I didn't think I really liked tomatoes. Sure, I ate them in salads and salsas, I even grew two or three plants in my garden,but could take or leave them. I tried the nursery tomato starts the proclaimed they were sweet, best tasting, exceptional, etc. They were all exactly alike. Then one summer I ate a strange pale yellow cherry tomato from my CSA box, and I nearly cried at how delicious they were! So much Flavour! It was like I knew that this is what a tomato was truly supposed to taste like. I saved seeds from that yellow cherry and grew it the next summer alongside plants from the nursery. The weird yellow tomato was earlier, tastier and produced more than the nursery starts, and I had no idea what I was doing! Now I have given up hybrids, and grow more thana dozen heirlooms/op tomatoes. I have discovered a fabulous community that shares seeds, knowledge and stories. I feel connected to agricultural history through passing down of varieties, especially those likely grown by my Crimean ancestors.I feel rich beyond measure looking at the large bin of seeds I saved myself that promises beautiful harvests for many years to come. I have learned about plant biodiversity and Am passing down that knowledge to my children, who know what labour goes into backyard vegetables, and that tomatoes don't have to be red, nor carrots orange. Not to mention the beauty of ribbed multicoloured or striped fruit! Heirlooms give me a sense of community, connectedness, creativity and culinary delight that hybrids simply cannot offer.
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#10 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Southern WI
Posts: 2,742
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From someone that grew up eating hybrid red cherry tomatoes as well as hybrid red globe/beefsteak tomatoes, I always liked tomatoes. The garden fresh tomatoes were loads better than the s**t at the grocery store. When I started gardening for myself that's what I grew. Then one day I was at a greenhouse and was talking to the guy working there about tomatoes. He asked me, have you ever grown this one? It was Sungold F1, I said no. He said try it you won't regret it. I've grown it every year since. He also asked me if I grew Black Krim before, again I said no. He said try it, you won't regret it. I've grown it every year since. I've grown those tomatoes every year since because I was amazed at the flavor of both--how different they were (from anything I had grown and from each other), how delicious they were.
So 1 wonderful hybrid and 1 wonderful heirloom peaked my interest in the variety of tomato flavors. Which has lead to a constant trial of new varieties--generally heirlooms because I enjoy the variety of flavors--all a bit unique, but all quite delicious. I think a unique, wonderful delicious hybrid is a rare tomato. A unique, wonderful delicious heirloom is a common tomato. Hence I like to grow new (to me) heirlooms (and old favorites). I also do like saving seeds as other have mentioned. I do not find in my garden (with being in the north lacks most soil-borne pathogens and only foliage fungal issues present themselves) any difference in disease resistance between the hybrid I grow and the heirlooms. Production? Sungold F1 is a very robust, productive plant. But I grew an OP cherry tomato this year that out produced everything in the garden and it wasn't close. Last edited by jmsieglaff; February 17, 2015 at 11:14 PM. |
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#11 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Princeton, Ky Zone 7A
Posts: 2,208
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I grow approx.25 plants for size competition each season. The overwhelming majority of these are hybrids.
I don't do anything else with these tomatoes than grow them for size then seed, they don't get eaten because there is only one tomato allowed to grow per plant. I grow another ten or so plants each season that are heirlooms. I grow heirlooms because I absolutely love the history, the taste and the complexity of growing them. People who grow heirlooms tend not to be sitting on the sidelines watching them grow and waiting for a ripe tomato. They take part in their nurturing and their protection in order to assist in the creation of their fruit. I spend copious amounts of time each day of the growing season inspecting leaves and the overall health of the plant in order to catch any disease as early as possible. Hybrid tomatoes for eating are just fine but the lack of variety and them being devoid of any personality causes me to ignore them. If you don't have any time to spend in a garden, want something you grew so you can have a tomato or two to eat throughout the season then hybrids are for you. If you approach tomato growing as an art form and find satisfaction in the complexity of growing heirlooms then heirlooms are for you.
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#12 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: ny
Posts: 1,219
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![]() Can I what is this OP cherry that outproduced Sungold F1? Thanks!
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Subirrigated Container gardening (RGGS) in NY, Zone 7! |
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#13 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Brownville, Ne
Posts: 3,290
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As for me, I had the opposite experience with hybrid vs heirloom. I grew hybrids since beginning gardening in 1971. I grew my father's varieties: the bigs, betters, boys and girls and some others purchased from the hardware store. It was a race to see how many ripe tomatoes that could be picked before the plants all died from disease.
And then, they all tasted the same; very tart and very tough skinned (that's the keeping ability) No wonder no one in the family cared whether we had tomatoes or not. In 1998, I discovered heirlooms (me and Al Gore made our discoveries about the same time...him with the internet and me with real tomatoes) and there has been no looking back at the flavorless, disease ridden cookie cutter round red excuse for tomatoes. I can't say there have no diseased plants, but very few. Harvest has done very well for a home gardener and there are ripe tomatoes from whenever they start to ripen until frost. This year will mark having grown my 500th different variety. In that time there have been a few spitters and some ho-hummers but many more successes. A hobby grown to an obsession. Maybe you have not grown the right varieties; climb on board the heirloom train, it's a fun ride.
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there's two things money can't buy; true love and home grown tomatoes. |
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#14 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Southern WI
Posts: 2,742
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#15 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 4,488
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Scott AKA The Redbaron "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison co-founder of permaculture |
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Tags |
disease resistance , heirloom tomatoes , hybrid tomato , shelf life |
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