Introducing Beefsteak Plum Family Heirloom

[barkeater]

My Grandmother's nurse in SE Pennsylvania brought this tomato to her 2 years ago, but the nursing home wouldn't let her have it. So my mother took it home and told me it was the best tomato she'd had in years - AND, she saved me seeds to plant. Last year I grew it but the weather was so bad I only got one half-ripe which I saved seeds from, and tried again this year.

It is the best tasting tomato in my garden! The first few were well over a pound but has settled down to about 10-12 ounces. It is the best heart I ever tried. It has the creamy texture of Brandywine and the assertive tomato flavor of Ramapo.

The nurse told my mother the following week after my mother raved about the tomato that her granny crossed a beefsteak tomato with a plum tomato many, many years ago and came up with this fantastic heart variety (Is that how we got oxhearts?). She kept it in the family until she died. They just called it Granny's tomato. I have the nurses e-mail address and will try to find out more and if she wants to name it differently and if it is OK if I distribute seeds.

[Farmette]

I sure hope she lets you distribute seeds. I fell in love with hearts this year and am looking for some great hearts to grow next year. Please keep us posted.
Chris

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Farmette

I sure hope she lets you distribute seeds. I fell in love with hearts this year and am looking for some great hearts to grow next year. Please keep us posted.
Chris

Chris, you've got some dedicated Heart lovers here, I'm one, Damon is another one and there's lots of heart threads already here so by all means do a wee search and I know you'll come up with some great ones and if not I know many of us could list some of our faves, Tania has a seperate list of hearts , but check already existing threads first if you have the time b/c they are extensive and have some great recs.

Bark, you'll remember that I Pmed you when you first mentioned this new variety in another thread. So I do hope it will be OK to distribute your seeds.

I have a new heart as well, called Kukla's Portuguese Heart, which is a large red delicious heart on PL foliage, which isn't all that common as to leaf type. BUT, just ONE fruit. Craig was supposed to be doing seed production for all three of my new Portuguese ones, the heart, a paste and a beefsteak, but his plants got wiped out with Septoria.

So here I am with ONE heart and now ONE of the pastes and all I can try to do is to get enough seeds to grow more plants next year.

Two other new hearts for me were Hays' from Bulgaria and Bobbie, both excellent tasting red hearts. Jeff Casey lists Hays' at his seed site and I didn't check to see where Bobbie might be listed, other than in the SSE YEarbook. But again, just enough seeds to regrow next year.

What a lousy lousy tomato year for me.

[Farmette]

Carolyn:
You're right, I will be searching the threads for hearts. This past year I grew Volovsko Srce and Brad's Black Heart. I tried to germinate some Wes seeds twice, but none came up.
On the other hand, this was a great tomato growing year for me in terms of quantity and quality and I'll try to post some pictures this weekend. I also had one of the most BIZARRE looking tomatoes!

[recruiterg]

Reminds me of the variety Shannon's. Wide variety of shapes and sizes, red, excellent taste.

[barkeater]

The tomato is pretty easy to pick out from all the others as it is pretty distinctive. I wish I had taken pictures of the first few big ones but I was too busy eating them!

I e-mailed the daughter this morning and hopefully I'll get a reply. I'm fermenting seeds now from about 5-6 of the tomatoes and will do more when there are more ripe ones. Seeds are very small but there are more than in a lot of hearts. In about a month if I get permission I'll announce the seed offer for whoever wants to try them.

I'll be growing them with Sarnowski's Giant Polish Plum and Wes next year.

[b54red]

I would love to try them if you are able to distribute the seed. I grew a bunch of hearts this year and became a real fan of some of them.

I can trade you some very tasty heart seeds. Donskoi a huge red heart and the best tasting to me, right up there with the best of the great beefsteaks. Kosovo which is a very tasty, beautiful, pink heart, averaging a pound, with very little splitting and great production. I also have Wes, Linnies, and German Red Strawberry all good but they did not produce as good as Kosovo or Donskoi for me this year.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by barkeater

The tomato is pretty easy to pick out from all the others as it is pretty distinctive. I wish I had taken pictures of the first few big ones but I was too busy eating them!

I e-mailed the daughter this morning and hopefully I'll get a reply. I'm fermenting seeds now from about 5-6 of the tomatoes and will do more when there are more ripe ones. Seeds are very small but there are more than in a lot of hearts. In about a month if I get permission I'll announce the seed offer for whoever wants to try them.

I'll be growing them with Sarnowski's Giant Polish Plum and Wes next year.

Bark, you can take the Giant out of Sarnowski Polish Plum. the latter name is what Mike Sarnowski and I named it. And I think it was Mike himself that you met around the Canadian border, recognized the name, asked him if he knew me, he did and as Michael said in another thread here, small world it is.

If this isn't the first time you're growing SPPlum, did you get any doubles and triples as I did when I first saw it growing at my farmer friend's field right next to my own ones that were growing? As soon as I saw those then unnamed ones I HAD to have them, and that's how the story went.

I did have to laugh b'c Mike Sarnowski had given Charlie I think a whole flat of them and Charlie planted them all so I had lots and lots of fruits to save seeds from initially. I'm pretty sure that was the summer of 2003.

Fingers still crossed that you get permission to distribute seeds. I do that with any new unknown variety that I receive and to date I've not known ONE person to turn me down.

And if only Carl Swidorski could see how popluar his Opalka has become or Heidi Iyok her namesake or Chuck Perry and his seeds to me for Neves Azorean Red or Carm Artino with his Soldacki or Omar Saab with his Omar's Lebanese or Chris Symanski with his Chris Ukraniain or John Adams with his Large Pink Bulgarian or Andy Durbak with his Sandul Moldovan, and on and on, I know each of them would be delighted to see how popular their varieties have become which also helps to preserve the varieties they shared with me due to all the folks who now grow them.

Makes me feel good anyway, especially since there were no varieties from my English side of the family nor any from the other side which was German and Swedish.

[barkeater]

Carolyn,

The only reason I put Giant in the name is because Mike wrote on the seed pack from 2008 he gave me a couple months ago Giant Polish Plum. Next year will be my first year growing his Polish Plum and I'll let you know if I get many doubles or triples.

barkeater

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by barkeater

Carolyn,

The only reason I put Giant in the name is because Mike wrote on the seed pack from 2008 he gave me a couple months ago Giant Polish Plum. Next year will be my first year growing his Polish Plum and I'll let you know if I get many doubles or triples.

barkeater

So..... it looks like Mike forgot what we named it when we talked on the phone. He had asked his father about the background and Mike and I talked several times, and yes, the name we decided on was Sarnowski Polish Plum. As he might have told you they have a nursery business in Schenectady and Charlie sold wholsale to them and many others.

I'm telling you that through the years I've come up with some family heirlooms in the strangest ways.

How come you never requested it from me in all my seed offers here or maybe you didn't know it existed, and maybe you didn't know it's as good as it is.