Heart Tomatoes

[jmsieglaff]

Hi everyone,

I see a lot of attention paid to heart shaped tomatoes here on the forum. I haven't grown a heart shaped tomato and I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something? There seems to be a special allure with these tomatoes for some. From what I've read they aren't necessarily overly productive, do they have a special, unique flavor or texture or is just a neat looking unique shape that many are drawn to? Just curious to you heart tomato growers out there--what is it about them that you are drawn to compared to a regular oblate or round tomato?

[PaulF]

For me, the hearts I grow tend to be sweeter, meatier and larger. As with many of the OP varieties the unique flavor and texture is just that...unique to the variety. Some may be just what you are looking for or the opposite. I have my favorites, but I have never grown a heart I didn't like. At last count there may have been upwards of twenty hearts grown in my gardens. So far as production, some are very prolific and some not so much. To make a blanket statement about hearts being less productive the writer you read clearly doesn't know much about tomatoes or heart shaped tomatoes.

As someone on Tomatoville has as their signature,"Never met a heart I didn't love."

[BigVanVader]

My allure to them is that they can be used like a paste tomato but don't suffer BER problems and (some) have much larger fruit. Plus they are great for fresh eating as well. I'm growing Wes this year and is a beast of a plant and loaded with very large fruit. I'm excited to start making some salsa with them.

[KarenO]

I admit I am also drawn to the shape <3



They are smooth, generally very easy to peel and tend to ripen more evenly without green shoulders for me. Large and meaty, Fewer seeds nice small blossom scars, basically zero catfacing for me either. nice for cooking and also as a slicer
KarenO

[carolyn137]

I'm also a dedicated heart lover and in addition to what others have said above I also find that they have much better tastes than most of the non-heart varieties I've grown.

There are many threads here at Tville about heart varieties that folks prefer and I chose this one to link to:

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...eart+varieties

What amused me is that in the above link I never got around to listing my own fave heart varieties.

Carolyn

[AlittleSalt]

We are growing two heart varieties. Work Release and Mayo's Delight. The Work release has one very typical looking heart shaped tomato on it. The Mayo's Delight has two. One is getting really large and looks like it should - the other one looks more like a Valentines heart.

This is our first time growing heart tomatoes.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

. . . I chose this one to link to:

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...eart+varieties

What amused me is that in the above link I never got around to listing my own fave heart varieties.

Carolyn

Never to late to hop over to that thread and post your current favorite hearts

I'm sure hearts would never have gotten the attention they have here without your love of them.

[MrsTwigg]

I second the above, in that I'd like to know Carolyn's favorite hearts, as well!

The only one I've grown is Anna Russian. It was very productive, making LOTS of big hearts. I liked the flavor, though it was maybe a little more on the sweet side than I am used to from a tomato. My family loved it. I'd grow it again, just for its productivity and the beauty of its fruits.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by JLJ_

Never to late to hop over to that thread and post your current favorite hearts

I'm sure hearts would never have gotten the attention they have here without your love of them.

I'm not one who lazarizes, aka, revives, old threads just to post but yes, perhaps I could list some of my faves in this thread after the French Tennis Open ends on Sunday, I get my bills paid , I catch up on e-mails not answered, check in with my seed producers, motivate Freda to get my few tomato plants out which are to arrive this Saturday, and go down the long list on my to do list to check off other items, well, you get the picture.

Carolyn

[Fiishergurl]

I'm growing a lot of heart varieties this fall because last fall it was so rainy that most of our tomatoes were watery and we used them mostly for sauce (which was delicious!). I thought about growing paste varieties this fall, but hearts have the benefit of a paste variety (meatier, less seeds) with the deliciousness of all the non-pastes varieties. So if it isn't a rainy fall for me, I will have awesome hearts for fresh eating and if it is super rainy again, I will have delicious slightly watery hearts that will make wonderful sauce and won't require as long to cook down.

I am growing a wide range of hearts this fall so I can pick out my few faves from the group... just like I did with the purple/blacks last fall.

Ginny

[bower]

I just don't have enough experience to generalize about hearts. So far they are all individuals, like any variety, for both production and taste. The heart shape is quite variable and I admit I find it super pretty, some are even prettier than others. Also noted what KarenO said, they don't get catface which is a big plus for us northerners who want an early start and plants that can set quality early fruit in less than ideal conditions.

It's true that most hearts have fewer seeds, some less than others, and are meaty, at their best a supremely textured and flavoured treat for fresh eating. I can say that some had terrible texture after freezing, which I think plums also do, lose their texture on processing because the ones I used to buy in cans were like a mouthful of rags. But can't generalize that because it wasn't true for all the hearts I have grown and frozen. Some were better sauced, though, if not eaten fresh.

[PaulF]

Tatiana's site has a listing of heart shaped varieties that is quite extensive. Of those I have grown thirty-six varieties. Paring that list down to both the best tasting and most productive still left me with a long list but pardon me for expressing my preferences:

(in no special order)

Hungarian Heart, Julie's Red Oxheart, Reif Red Heart, Slyvan Guame, Wes, Zore's Big Red, Butter and Bull Heart, Eagle's Beak, Nicky Crain, Fish Lake Oxheart, Joe's Pink Oxheart, Couer De Velours, Giant Syrian, Oleyar's German, Yugoslavian Heart.

Another that receives special comment is Orange Russian 117 (a bi-color); some years it is the top of the list for beauty and flavor and production. Other years it is a flop. A black heart is Brad's Black Heart which for me is good some years and not so good others.

This year I am growing another five varieties not grown previously. You think I like hearts?

[bower]

Originally Posted by PaulF

Tatiana's site has a listing of heart shaped varieties that is quite extensive. Of those I have grown thirty-six varieties. Paring that list down to both the best tasting and most productive still left me with a long list but pardon me for expressing my preferences:

(in no special order)

Hungarian Heart, Julie's Red Oxheart, Reif Red Heart, Slyvan Guame, Wes, Zore's Big Red, Butter and Bull Heart, Eagle's Beak, Nicky Crain, Fish Lake Oxheart, Joe's Pink Oxheart, Couer De Velours, Giant Syrian, Oleyar's German, Yugoslavian Heart.

Another that receives special comment is Orange Russian 117 (a bi-color); some years it is the top of the list for beauty and flavor and production. Other years it is a flop. A black heart is Brad's Black Heart which for me is good some years and not so good others.

This year I am growing another five varieties not grown previously. You think I like hearts?

I think if Carolyn is the Queen of Hearts, then you must be the King of Hearts.

[PaulF]

That honor goes to Neil Lockhart of Illinois who has grown more hearts than anyone I know of and shared seeds with the world. His numbers are at least in the hundreds.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by PaulF

That honor goes to Neil Lockhart of Illinois who has grown more hearts than anyone I know of and shared seeds with the world. His numbers are at least in the hundreds.

Well you know me and I think I've grown more than Neil since while I started growing all kinds of varieties in the early 80's after I moved back home from Denver to the family farm, I didn't join SSE until I think about 1988 or 89 and very quickly three of us got to know each other, that's Neil, Bill Minkey who has also grown a lot of hearts and for many years we sent the best we had in a season to each other and that included hearts as well. My first SSE listings were huge since I'd saved seed from almost all the ones I grew before I joined SSE.

Neil has been one of my best seed producers for SSE listings and seed offers for many years and each year I rotate who goes first in choosing varieties to be fair to all, and this past early Spring it was Neil's turn to go first and sheesh did he pick some good ones.

I just took a look and he chose 14 varieties and of those 8 are HEARTS. The plus for him is that he gets to SSE list what I send him as does Bill Minkey. I'm no longer a listed SSE member, my choice.

So yes, Neil is a heart lover as am I, but not so much Bill M since Neil and I never liked to grow det varieties, but Bill would grow anything.

But Bill has also been doing seed production for the Dwarf project as well as growing all his own, and Neil grows a large number of his own in addition to what I send him seeds for and Neil has also been sending extra seeds of some great varieties, not necessarily hearts, for me to offer in my seed offer and I mean some great varieties, perhaps some would say oldies and goodies, and I think more folks new to growing Op's should look at them rather than wanting to grow the newest and latest. But we've had newest and latest threads here before, one started by me, and we don't need another one IMO.

Carolyn