My 2014 Varieties - you can't buy 'em.

I've chosen the tomato varieties I'm going to grow this year, and my hobby has finally arrived where it was always going - not a single one of them is available commercially! Somehow, it just worked out that way.

► SWEET OZARK ORANGE - the stable F5 generation of the intentional cross of Dr. Wyche's Yellow and German Red Strawberry I made in 2009. See the thread by that name in this forum if you want seeds for a S.A.S.E. I have plenty of seeds yet. This is a large, productive, meaty, semi-heart, mid-to-late Orange tomato with excellent flavor. Mmmm - orange salsa!

► UNSTABLE F2 GENERATION of the above cross, seeds saved in 2010. Yes, I'm going to grow a few plants from these again. The seeds are old, but they've been stored cool and dry and should be mostly OK. Only 12 plants of this generation have ever been grown, in 2011, and they were unstable as all get-out. Red hearts, red semi-hearts, pink hearts, a pink oblate, and the orange one that S.O.O. descended from. I bet there are other interesting gene combinations in there, so I'm gonna have some fun looking.

► SHANNON'S - a medium size, mid-season, Red tomato of variable shape, grows in bunches of 2 to 4, regular-leaf foliage a bit wispy. Excellent flavor. An heirloom brought to Pittsburgh decades ago by a Russian immigrant, the original name is unknown. Seeds sent to me by a gardener who requested S.O.O. seeds.

► NEVAS - A new OP variety developed by a plant breeder in Finland. I don't know much about it. It's Red and has a very strong, sturdy stem. I'm guessing it must be an early variety because of the climate it is designed for. Maybe its sturdy, compact growth habit will make it resistant to springtime Missouri thunderstorms as well as Finnish gales. Sent to me by a gardener in Finland who requested S.O.O. seeds.

► TARASENKO PINK - "A Russian variety by the Soviet breeder Tarasenko." According to Tatiana's TomatoBase, The late Feodosiy M. Tarasenko of Ukraine was a Physics teacher who started to breed tomatoes after he retired in the early 1970s. Feodosiy Tarasenko developed about 50 tomato varieties, some of which he called 'Hybrid', although they were stabilized and hence open-pollinated. He used the word 'hybrid' to emphasize that he made crosses to develop his varieties." I couldn't find anything specifically about Tarasenko Pink, but found that Tarasenko created many indeterminate tomato varieties with excellent flavor that were very large and productive - traits that sound good to me. A lot of his creations have prominent "nipples" on the blossom ends - and how could ya go wrong with that? LOL Seeds generously sent to me by the same person in Finland.

So that's the 2014 lineup. I'll be saving seeds from the good ones, and maybe next season I'll be able to make them more available than they are now.

This message was edited Feb 18, 2014 4:40 PM

This message was edited Feb 18, 2014 5:25 PM

Sounds like fun, but not even one Big Beef? : )

David

Boy, that's tempting - I've even got leftover Big Beef seeds. Now you've got me thinking, Big Beef is hard to pass up alright..

My upcoming tomato season may have just become a little less exotic. LOL