Why Tomatoes?, and a thank you to Mischka.

[COgarden]

First and foremost I want to thank Mischka for starting this forum. I won't go in to the reasons I was so excited to see this site. (No advertising, and completely dedicated to the best fruit/veggie there is!) I'm fairly new to tomato growing, 3 seasons now, but I'll offer my experience whenever I feel I have something to contribute. I know this kind of site will get the type of support that it needs to survive.

So, to get things rolling, what got you started growing tomatoes? Share a few good tommy memories.

Kurt

[Mischka]

I became hooked on growing tomatoes when I joined the old GW forum back in 2001. Up until then, I only grew the standard Big Boy/Early Girl storebought plants every year. Once my eyes were opened to the world of heirlooms, I never looked back.

I admit that I also grow hybrids, but it's more out of curiously than anything else. I have a very hard time walking past a seed rack in any store without buying at least one package of seeds :wink:

99% of my tomato seeds are bought online. I created a link post in another forum here to assist members in locating their favorite variety.

As for this site, I hope that GardenWeb members will discover it and perhaps migrate to it.


Mischka

[coronabarb]

Mischka,

Yes, a BIG thank you for all the work to setting up this place. And I want to thank you for the Marianna's Peace seed you sent out a few years back.

The computer really got my interest in tomatoes going. I usually had a small garden every year, but then I moved onto an acre and decided to expand. In 2000, I searched and found a tomato fan group, then another, then found GW. Now, I've found this place. And I've learned SO much in those years (and acquired so many different seeds too). Gotta love gardeners!

[greggf]

One of my very first memories - I was probably about 2, maybe 3 years old - was of my Ukrainian grandfather, who spoke no English, giving me a Yellow Pear tomato from his September garden. It was, like, "Wow!"

It's probably why, to this day, I favor mild or low-flavored tomatoes over certain heirlooms!

[Glenn 50]

Personally I blame Carolyn for everything!
Kosovo was my entry into heirlooms, and conversing by the wonders of the internet to Carolyn and others thru GW.
Within a year this seed from the Balkans was grown by Carolyn for the SSE and spread far and wide.
Then Carolyns book got me enthused.
Then us Southern Hemispherers started getting selections of Craigs and Carolyns collections. Their presence is right through my garden...says Glenn looking at a beautiful Dinner Plate B.
Yeah...I blame Carolyn and Craig.!

[PaulF]

My father always grew tomatoes...the hybrids with boy, girl, better, best etc. in the name. I hated gardening until after I was married and thought I would give it a try. I also grew the boys and girls until about 1998 when I went to an out of the way nursery that had a few heirlooms for sale. On a whim, I tried them and it was all over after that.

Soon after I found the GW forum and all the experts and the thousands of varieties and I was hooked. Soon after that I got Carolyn's book and asked Craig to grow out some of his old seeds and traded seeds with people all over the place and just plain had fun with my addiction. I even retired so I could spend more time with tomatoes; even moved where I had more room to grow them.

It's nice to see some familiar names and good to have new folks and their newfound enthusiasm joining in this nice tomato forum. Thanks Tomatoville.

[cottonpicker]

Both sets of my grandparents who came to the OK Territory from TX, Va & KY, before statehood, raised big gardens and canned a lot of garden produce for the wintertime. They also canned fish and wild greens such as "poke sallet" and Lambsquarters. My Mom, now 88 years young, started raising her own little garden at about age 5 near the windmill for a convenient source of water. So, I learned to garden by helping the grandparents & parents. I remember the grandparents raised something they called "Beef Heart" and Earliana.
LD

[Tomstrees]

My dad would always enter his tomatoes into the local firemans fair ... I would always love going to the fair at night and seeing his veggies with blue (1st Place) ribbons placed on his plates ... Inspired me for life ~ Tom

[clay199]

Personally I blame the famous New Zealand Gardener Glenn for my addiction to tomatoes. I was ok with just a few varieties when he was looking for some to try. I sent him a few odd dozen and had to try each one (the seasons are different as you know) before he did so we could talk about it. Now I am hopelessly stuck planting every square centimeter of our new lot in tomatoes.

Drat...

[carolyn137]

Go ahead Glenn, blame me, blame Craig, whatever. LOL

Many here already know me, but for those who don't, I was raised on a farm where we grew all sorts of veggies and fruits, and some of those fruits were in trees, so I've been digging in the dirt for a very long time and up close and personal with tomatoes for well over 50 years. Yes, I'm that old, will be 67 in June. LOL

Spent my life teaching, mostly medical students and in later years college students.

I didn't get involved with heirloom tomatoes until the early 80's when I moved back East from the Med School in Denver to take care of my aging parents.

And then I joined SSE, met Craig and we've been best friends since about 1988, and it's been a wonderful friendship, both within and without tomatoes. LOL

And both of us have now grown around 2000 varieties, but Craig is younger than I am and I expect him to hit the 3000 mark soon.

Once I started growing heirloom varieties I couldn't stop and soon was offering several hundred each year thru the SSE Yearbook. The inifinite bioliogical variety as regards fruit shapes and colors and tastes and leaf forms and all else just fascinated me.

I've sold fruits to farm stands as well as trading fruit to chefs in return for wine and food credits.

Then in 1997 I was contacted about writing a book and at first said no, but then gave in, and that book on heirloom tomatoes was published in 1999. Nope, not one cent of royalties, but I didn't write the book for money, so that's fine with me. I just wanted to share some of my tomato faves, but it was hard winnowing those down to 100 and if I were to redo the book I'd have quite a few additions and changes to make based on the varieties I've grown since 1998. No, I don't want to get into that here. LOL

I've made so many wonderful friends thru SSE and at the different places where I post. And have gotten to know the owners of many seed companies as well, since I send the best of my best to certain places such as Linda at TGS and Glenn at Sandhill and Marianne Jones in past years as well as Johnny's and Pinetree.

Currently I'm in a walker since I fell on Dec 12th, 2004 and severed all four of the quad muscles in my right leg. My tomato growing future doesn't look that good right now, but my mouth and my fingers work just fine. LOL

And I love answering questions when I can, and spurring folks on to try heirloom tomatoes. No, I don't grow those exclusively, for I do grow some hybrids from time to time and recently dehybridized F1 Ramapo.

And I started to dehybridize Big Boy to see if I could get out the heirloom variety Teddy Jones, which is one of its parents, as well as being a parent of Better Boy as well. But that project has been on the back burner for a while now. And I know others are now attempting the same.

So that's where I'm coming from and I'm delighted to be here at Mischka's new Tomatoville.

Carolyn

[montanamato]

I grew up with a gardening grandfather and uncle who were constantly expanding and perfecting their tomatoes. I remember my one aunt always put up enough tomatoes for my uncle to have a quart for soup each day of winter. My other grandmother was from Turin, Italy and I mostly remember tons of chard in her garden..but I hope she had tomatoes in there too.
In the late 70's and early 80's I began growing mostly OP varieties...just by dumb luck, as that is what I picked up at the nurseries...Sioux, Rutgers, Yellow Pear.
Then I began ordering my own and found Shepherds catalog. I grew Dona, Costoluto Gen, Carmello, Mortgage Lifter,Camp Joy, and Jaune Flamme.
Several years ago I was expanding our poultry and ordered fromSand hill. Each year I order some I have never heard about and give them a try.
Thanks to the web and seed trading my collection is really growing. I will plant 200-300 seedlings this year and have been given a large account to fill at a local mercantile.
I really enjoy reading about different varities in different locations. I hope I too can grow several thousand varieties out before my gardening retirement.
Actually , I don't plan to retire...I am already planning which dwarfs to grow in my retirement home.

Jeanne

[nctomatoman]

Geez....so many reasons for developing this obsession. Gardened with my grandfather as a wee one (wish I was more wee than I currently am!)...gardened with my wife from our first days together....grow bored with the ordinary and are prone to depth in hobbies, love history - the historical aspect of heirlooms...stickler for accuracy and detail so this also satisfies in that area. Great people met along the way (Carolyn et al from the SSE, so many at GW, those who I meet at the market with my seedlings in the spring, ...)Love to eat - love food - am a food snob in all dimensions (coffee, wine, chocolate, beer...yes, tomatoes!)....enjoy educating and being educated.

A good fit! No end in sight to this particular obsession...

[Oldseed]

Best of luck to this new web site. I am happy to join as a member and look forward to continuing to learn about my favorite fruit here.

[barkeater]

First, I want to thank you Mishka for starting this non-computer savvy, easy to navigate, sensible tomato forum, as the reasons you started it because of the new IV GW has been messing with me and my dial-up access big time.

My first recollection of tomatoes comes from the 3 tomato sandwiches in my lunch when my parents forced me to go out for Pop Warner football in 1965 at 11 years old. It was the day after my birthday and I was thinking, before lunch, this SUCKS (I was a basketball player) as it was about 100 degrees (OR seemed like it) the last Saturday in August, and I never played organized football before - AND they made me play defensive tackle (I was big and awkward then so now I can't blame them).

But whwn we broke for lunch, those tomato sandwiches were the BEST food I ever ate. When I went home that night I asked what kind of tomatoes they were. They were RAMAPOS! And for the first time since 1983, thanks to Carolyn, I got to eat them again . . without going on a football field first. I put myself through college in the seventies growing tomatoes and selling them wholesale to pizza places, sub shops, and italian restaurants in NJ.

However, I digress. Because of those tomatoes, I caught "farmers disease". I gave up a budding career with USDA, even to the point where I could have moved to DC, to present and justify my agency's (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service ) budget requests to Congress, to be a full-time tomato farmer in NJ again. From 1986-2000, I was. But with back-to-back droughts in 1998-99, I went back into the gov't - where I hope to retire in 7 years, 5 months, and open up another farm market selling home-grown tomatoes here in Vermont to supplement my retirement. I hope to find the best tasting, most productive tomatoes, hybrid or heirloom, for where I live here in the meantime.

The journey is as rewarding as the destination. ;-)

[bigcheef]

What can I say?

I always helped my mom grow toms and wanted to grow some myself last year. I was just searching the internet for seeds and found GW. I ended up growing 7 plants last year Heirlooms and Hybrids. This year I will be growing 15 plants @ my house 10 at my mom's and 5 at a friends house.

I blame all who post on the tomato forum @ GW :wink:

And now with the addition of this website, I fear it will only get worse