Saturday spotlight - more tomato varieties and saving seeds

Today I'm joining Our Happy Acres and Liz at Suburban Tomato for spotlight - more tomato varieties. Here are some examples of tomatoes that I plan on keeping for next year:
  • Kellogs Breakfast and Black Brandywine - KB is good in salad, has consistency of a beefsteak but not as acidic as red varieties.  It doesn't last as long as others but I think I'll keep it.
  • Black Brandywine - one of my absolute favorites! Intense deep flavor, great in salads and on sandwich this one is definitely a keeper! Not very big this year but good producer.
  • Ox Heart - huge fruit, very few seeds, great in sauce or in salsa, very dense and meaty.
  • Bulls Heart - varied in size, but the same principle as Ox Heart - large, meaty and great for cooking or eating raw. Very few seeds. Though wish both varieties had more fruit on the vine.
  • Pineapple - sweet and fruity taste, average size but very bad when it comes to cracking due to the weather conditions. Not going to plant next year as most had to be tossed out from bugs inside the fruit by the time they were ripe.
  • Amish Paste - Pretty good size for a paste tomato. Holds better than plum and did not get BER like San Marzano always does.
  • Red Zebra - great tomato for salads, good flavor and holds very well after picking. Definitely planting it again.
  • Paul Robeson - almost on-par for Black Brandywine - very good for eating, smoky, complex flavor. great in salads or on sandwiches or for sauces.
Cherokee Purple - Great tasting but horribly cracks when water supply is uneven or when it gets too hot (like it's been this year). Did not produce many tomatoes this year.

To find other great varieties, visit Suburban Tomato where Liz hosts the Saturday Spotlight series.

note: Also if you want to save seeds from any varieties that you grow and you know they are heirlooms you can do it very easily - I used egg carton. Take out the seeds from very ripe tomatoes and label each so you know what's what and let them sit "fermenting" until seeds separate from mushy membrane. Take them out and dry out and package in paper pockets with labels for next year.

2 comments:

  1. Of those I'm growing Purple Cherokee this year - I will clearly need to take care with my watering regime. Thanks for linking - I have added your post to the index and will link to you in my Monday Harvest post.

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    1. I hope your CP harvest will be far better than mine!

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