Craig’s Picks for ‘96

This is my favorite time of the gardening season. The seed requests from SSE members have just about dried up and the weather is near perfect for working the soil. In fact, nearly all of my garden is planted as I sit typing this article in mid-May. As usual, my original plan of limiting the number of varieties of tomatoes has gone out the window! The population in the soil will end up at around 90 types. There will also be about 30 pepper plants. I guess that I owe Carolyn that bottle of wine; she clearly knows me only too well!

This year, the decision of what to grow was the most challenging yet. The past two years focused upon older commercial varieties that Carolyn and I “rescued” from the USDA seed storage facilities. This year I returned to concentrating on the true heirloom tomatoes. Over the past five years I have requested many varieties from the Seed Saver’s Exchange members. This is the year to see what they look and taste like in my garden. There is always room for some old favorites, of course, and even a sprinkling of oddities and mysteries. Yes, it will certainly be an adventure in the garden this summer. Hopefully, the deer who keep visiting the garden for nibbles (a habit that they developed last fall and continues through the spring) will find a better food source. It would be nice if my plants can avoid the foliage disease that was so prevalent last year, due to the cold and rainy June. So, I will arm myself with bars of red Lifebuoy or Irish Spring soap, or eggs, or kitty litter, or hair (all various deer-away ideas related to me by various other gardeners) and prepare to defend my tomatoes and peppers from the critters! Some consistently good weather would also be appreciated, but that factor is in hands much more powerful than mine.

Enough chatting; it is time to get down to the business of showing you how I lost my bet to Carolyn. Let’s start with my old friends, shall we? Among the tomatoes that I would not be caught dead without are Aunt Ruby’s German Green (large pale green), Yellow Brandywine (large smooth potato leaf gold), Polish (large potato leaf pink), Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom (large potato leaf bright yellow), Cherokee Purple (large dusky rose), Green (large amber green), Halladay’s Mortgage Lifter (huge pink), Brandywine (large potato leaf pink), Anna Russian (large, early heart shaped pink), and Sun Gold (gold cherry tomato) hybrid. Other more recent favorites that are now an addiction are three delicious yellow tomatoes, Orange, Azoychka, Golden Queen (the bright yellow version originally developed by Livingston in the late 1880’s), Mennonite (huge red/yellow bicolor), Indische Fleische, Great White, and Abraham Lincoln (the large, red, USDA accession). The tomatoes that I have not grown for some time, but will experience again this year, are Andrew Rahart’s Jumbo Red (very large red), Yellow Bell (bright yellow, indeterminate plum tomato), Gallo Plum (long red sauce tomato), Black Krim (for the appearance, being a dark, dusky rose, not the flavor, which is a bit odd to me), Soldacki (large potato leaf pink), Marizol Purple (large pink), Indian Reservation (large red/yellow bicolor), Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume (very large pink heart, and the weakest seedling I have seen), Giant Syrian (very large red heart), Price’s Purple (large, potato leaf dusky rose), Gregori’s Altai (medium to large pink), and Coyote (ivory colored cherry tomato, grows wild in Mexico).

This is the large list of heirlooms that I have collected over the years but will grow and taste for this first time in 1996. The list consists of Aunt Ginny’s Purple (potato leaf pink), Tap (I have both potato leaf and regular leaf seedlings, so of course will grow both; sent to me by James Garvey of PA, color unknown), Aker’s West Virginia (from Carl Aker, PA, color unknown), Page German, Druzba, Zogola, Sandul Moldovan, Manyel, Eckert Polish, Olena Ukrainian, Mirabelle, Russian 117 (these 9 from Carolyn’s Hall of Fame), Kellogg’s Breakfast, Green Zebra, Snowball, Amelia Rose, Whittemore, Plumsteak, Sojourner, Plum Lemon, Selwin Yellow, Leo Harper Yellow, Elfie, Arlene’s Poland, Pike County Heirloom, Adelia, Middle Tennessee Low Acid, Penny, Early Annie, Old Virginia, Bridge Mike’s, Guiseppe’s Big Boy, Brown’s Large Red, Red Brandywine, Deep Yellow German, Regina’s Yellow, Berwick German, Russian, Hungarian, German Heirloom, Rasp Red, German, Niemeyer, Brown’s Yellow Giant, Honey, Curry, Big Junn, and German Pink (the first tomato listed in the Seed Saver’s Exchange list, originally from Diane Whealey’s Aunt).

The short list of mysteries include recently appearing potato leaf versions of Bisignano #2, Madara, and Sun Gold F4 generation, Cherokee Brick Red cross, Robinson’s Red (sent to me as a bicolor, but this red one showed up the first year I planted it), and Purple Perfect X Price’s Purple F2. Finally, there are five new USDA accessions, including Perfection (one of the original Livingston pre 1900 varieties), Dwarf Perfection, Yellow Beauty, Chartreuse Mutant, and Peach Blow Sutton, of all things! (Your guess is as good as mine for the last two!!). So, as you can see, I will have a lot of good eating this year if the weather cooperates. I cannot even think yet about all the cups of moldy, stinky fermenting seeds that lie ahead. The fruit flies are planning on it, you can be sure!