Early Observations from a North Carolina Tomato Jungle

The theme for gardening in 1994 in Raleigh is tropical! Nearly every day since June has edged into the 90’s, with oppressive humidity and frequent evening thunderstorms. The rain is certainly a refreshing change from last summer’s bone dry conditions. Somehow, Craig managed to squeeze 110 tomato plants into his ever-too-small garden, and the dense growth has made it hard to visit some of the plants. His family now refuses to pick any varieties that would require them to delve into this tomato vine jungle (due, in part, to the amazing numbers and varieties of spiders that have chosen to stretch their webs between the plants). This year’s sultry temperatures have led to massive vine growth, but the sometimes excessive moisture, when combined with his poorly draining red clay, means a lot of blossom end rot, especially on certain varieties. Craig has also noted that a few types seem reluctant to produce flower clusters at all! Blossom drop has not been a problem, however, and most of the vines are loaded.

An additional theme of Craig’s garden this year is one of surprise, in that there are about 10 varieties that are not turning out the way that they were advertised. But, the presence of many old commercial varieties obtained from the USDA (see Lost Tomatoes article for details) and a generous selection of old favorites are leading to a very interesting year in the tomato patch. Just about all the varieties have ripened, and our next newsletter will contain detailed highlights, low lights, and other observations from both Carolyn's and Craig’s gardens.

Among the early standouts in Craig’s plot are Wins All (from a man in North Carolina; this is his way of spelling it, which makes more sense than the one word method used in the SSE Annual), which is providing smooth, large pink beefsteak fruit with a rich, sweet taste; Lutescent, primarily for the weirdness of seeing a bright yellow foliaged plant in the middle of the patch that has fruit going from light green to snow white to pale orange yellow to scarlet; Golden Queen, giving beautiful tomatoes that are lemon yellow on the shoulders, shading to pearly pink at the blossom end (but no pink bleeds through to the flesh), and Nicky Crain, a huge pink oxheart of delicious flavor that was sent to Craig by Carl Aker, Pennsylvania. Among the many varieties obtained from the USDA collection, early standouts have been Favorite, a Livingston introduction, which produces smooth, medium sized oblate scarlet fruit, Abraham Lincoln, which, although lacking the bronzy foliaged plant, has provided large (over 1 pound) delicious fruit more in line with the catalog descriptions, and Dixie Golden Giant, one of the largest fruited varieties seen so far this year, and very similar looking to the Gleckler variety Goldie.

One of Craig’s all time favorite tomatoes for eating, and the only commercially produced hybrid that he allows in his garden, is Sun Gold, an orange cherry tomato that has a phenomenally rich and luscious flavor. One of his ongoing projects continues to be growing out F₂ seed saved from the fruit in effort to stabilize an open pollinated version of Sun Gold that maintains the color and, especially, flavor. This year, Craig has 4 of the F₂ plants growing in his garden (he grew 3 last year), and the results have been quite interesting. One plant yields small orange cherry tomatoes (a bit smaller than the hybrid) that are very similar in flavor to its parent; another gives large yellow orange cherry tomatoes (lighter in color and larger than the hybrid) that are a bit milder, but still delicious. A third plant gave Craig large scarlet cherry tomatoes with a point on the bottom that were very mild in flavor, and finally one plant looked like an ordinary small red cherry tomato, but with a more delicious flavor. The plants all had different looking foliage, vigor, and yield, so clearly there is a lot of interesting genetic information in the parents of Sun Gold hybrid.

Among the crosses or mixups that are not what they are supposed to be are Yellow Beefsteak (small red rather than bicolor), Hunt Family Favorite (small red instead of large pink), Marizol Purple (medium red globes instead of large pink), Cherokee Purple (round medium pink globe instead of large oblate purple), and Acme, Queen of the Purples, and Mikado (the last three all red instead of pink). Craig and Carolyn are disappointed that some of the USDA collection varieties seem to be crossed, but it may be that when things start to ripen in Carolyn’s garden, she will find that she has the “real thing”. We’ll just have to wait and see.