Recommended Heart Tomatoes?

Heart-shaped tomatoes are versatile. They are often meaty, have few seeds, taste good,make good sandwich slicers and sauce as well. In the past I have had fairly good results with Reif Red Heart, Kosovo and Anna Russian but yields have often been low.

In looking for others to try, out of over 400 heart varieties I found on the web, German Red Strawberry, Thieneman’s Australian Heart, Russian 117, Ponder Heart, Tsar-Kolokol, Ukranian Heart and Wes look interesting. Before I decide what to order for next year, does anyone have experience with any of these (or any other heart with a good yield) that you could share?

Our climates different enough that this may not apply . German Red Strawberry was my most prolific, big vine, lots of tomatoes, got clobbered by EB. Wes was my least productive two years in a row. We picked a lot of Anna Russians, and probably will again. Danko is a bush type that made lots of fruits. The best tomato I can ever recall eating was a Fish Lake Oxheart a couple of years ago. Not sure that it will repeat, but I keep giving it a spot.

I've had good luck with Belize Pink Heart. I got the seeds from Baker Creek.

Don, in Ct you can grow any darn heart you want to and I know that. I've grown close to 200 heart varieties b'c they are my faves/

I've grown all but one of the ones you list as candidates and can comment on those and/or some others that work well for me not that far from you in upstate NY.

I haven't been here in a while since it's been 2 gall bladder surgeries, long rehab, am now homebound still in the walker but still very active at Tville and making an annual seed offer and have several seed producers who do that for me after I send them the starter seeds.

If you want suggestions from a specific country I can suggest those as well formany countries. Some like to grow varieties where their parent or grandparents came from.

Carolyn

Carolyn:
Thanks for the "heart-to-heart" talk and encouragement. I'm glad to see you back on DG and still feisty after so many health problems. I know what a bother the walker can be, having broken my leg a few years back.

I don't have room for many more tomatoes (unless I can persuade DW to give up some sunny lawn!) but I'm going with Kosovo and Russian 117 for my hearts this year.

Your comment on ethnic varieties prompted me to remember that I had a grandmother from the Netherlands. I have never heard of any tomatoes from Holland, maybe they have been crowded out by tulips.

Don.

The two you mention are really good so why don't you go with those.

As for tomatoes from the Netherlands, no, they don't have a tomato based cusine there and never did and nor do the Scandinavian countries either,now thinking of my Carlson maternal relatives.

Are tomatoes grown in Holland? Heavens yes, several companies that are world leaders in breeding new, primarily F1 varieties, but also a few OP's as well and almost always in large greenhouse operations.

And it's b'c of those large companies that tomato seed cannot be sent to Holland without a phytosanitary certificate and I know about this since for many years I was very good friends with Kees Sahin , now deceased, who owned Sahin Seeds, now owned by one of the large Japanese companies, perhaps Tokita or Sakata. When sending seeds to Kees I had to use a green customs label and write on it seeds for experimental purposes, which he told me to do and they always got there.

Carolyn