Helpful Gardener Wild Boar Farms Tomato Seed Giveaway!

[webmaster]

These are leftover seeds from last year and 2011. Private Message (PM) me with the name & address to mail the seeds to and they're yours!

I paid for the seeds. I pay for the envelopes and postage. 100% free to you. All I ask is that you spread the word about the Helpful Gardener Tomato Forum! If you love our forum then tell your friends and family.

I have mostly AAA Sweet Solano. If you really want one of the others let me know and I'll see if I have them. Otherwise, it will be AAA Sweet Solano. I also have:

Sweet Carneros Pink
Amos Coli
Lush Queen
Red Boar
Pink Boar.

AAA SWEET SOLANO:
Mutant discovered in Yellow Boar (Yellow Stripe). Very attractive yellow with green stripes turning deep orange color with gold stripes. Some hang time ability. Stays firm, very sweet with a hint of tropical fruit. 2 – 4 OZ.

AAA-SWEET-SOLANO.jpg (6.76 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

[Ozark Lady]

Cool! These are gorgeous tomatoes!

[Juliuskitty]

I love the gorgeous tomatoes Brad grows, and most taste delicious. I have tried red boar, and black and brown boar, Sweet Carneros pink. All succumbed to the extremely high disease pressure we have here in the land of no winter. They were the first ones sick in my garden. I do have quite a lot of tomato growing friends across the country that just love Brad Gates's wonderful creations.

[applestar]

Ah ha! I KNEW. Duh_Vinci had posted one of his beautiful photos of AAA Sweet Solano!
His review in this post as well
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... 77#p154777

[webmaster]

All succumbed to the extremely high disease pressure we have here in the land of no winter. They were the first ones sick in my garden.

I agree with you JuliusKitty, 100%! South Florida can be a challenging area for growing tomatoes. Brad is lucky because he's out in the heart of the wine country in Napa, CA. Very different from South Florida. Here's a post from three years ago that discusses growing tomatoes in Miami:

I have some experience growing in Miami, mostly bad. The rainy season is impossible. I lost a lot of starts. You need a sheltered area to start seed. Seed needs to be started about 60 days before plant out. Plant out date is the end of the rainy season, usually in early October. Planting in what passes for "native" soil here is hopeless. You must have either a raised bed or use containers. Compost mixed with potting soil will do for a raised bed. For containers, use a soilless mix like Promix.

Is it the case that smaller fruit will do better in South Florida because it has a shorter hang time for reaching maturity? In other words, smaller fruit have a better chance of escaping various diseases by virtue of maturing faster?

[Juliuskitty]

These are some of my tomatoes grown this season. You can see the soda can in the back as a size reference.

[webmaster]

The comment about size was in reference to tomato species that are not known to be salt-tolerant for growth in areas like South Florida (and yes I understand there are methods for preparing tomatoes in germination stage and post germination for that environment). I think a substantial issue is that Wild Boar Farms tomatoes are bred for taste (in his terroir) and don't seem to be bred for hardiness in a wide variety of environments- judging by discussions of his tomatoes on HelpfulGardener.com.

I had issues growing those tomatoes myself because of multiple challenges of living out in a forested environment. The soil and weather environment where I am located is different from where Wild Boar Farms is located, in the heart of California wine country. He's not growing his tomatoes for hardiness or ease of growth. He's growing them for taste in his particular soil and weather environment. Perhaps not surprisingly, I had best results with BLACK AND BROWN BOAR, which is described as an aggressive grower and with cherry size tomatoes, that had a shorter hang time. For me, the longer the Wild Boar fruit remained on the vine the higher the possibility of an unsuccessful result.

[Juliuskitty]

Mine all succumbed to foliar diseases early on, with the exception of Red Boar, which I was able to get a fair yield from. They tasted and looked great! Never got as far as fruit set with any of the others.

Many other varieties do better here. I don't need salt tolerance too much as I am about 20 miles inland, but I am intrigued by germination stage preparation to increase salt tolerance. Can you tell us a little more about that? I never heard that before. Super curious!

[phonelady61]

These are some of my tomatoes grown this season. You can see the soda can in the back as a size reference.

May I say that is a beautiful sight .

[rainbowgardener]

Just curious, did anyone else receive giveaway seeds? I PM'd webmaster re the pepper and tomato seeds, but never received any. I don't know if mine got lost in the mail or the giveaway never happened.

[webmaster]

Seeds are on their way. Sorry for the delay.

[Ozark Lady]

Seeds have arrived! They look really good thank you!

I can hardly wait for tomatoes to start rolling in from all of the wonderful seeds that I will be growing for a first time this year! Which one will knock OSU blue cherries and Arkansas Traveller off of my favorite all time tomato list??? Can they do it, I am pretty convinced.... Let my personal competition of taste buds begin... umm in a few months!

Thanks, again!

[lakngulf]

I have 10 or so plants from the giveaway seed, now in the ground.
Amos Coli, Lush Queen, Indigo Apple and one of the Boar (red I think, but I will have to look).

The seed germinated well and plants looked healthy. I broke one Amos during planting, so now have three Amos, two Indigo Apple, two Lush Queen and three Boar, along with two Fantastic. I did not dedicate my best growing area, but they are in a good spot, with pretty good early morning sun.

I look forward to production. Are all seeds heirloom?

[webmaster]

Are all seeds heirloom?

Bradley Gates starts out with heirloom tomatoes then singles out plants that show interesting variations, to manually breed them and cultivate certain qualities that he finds interesting. Here's a video about Wild Boar Farms.

[gixxerific]

Gates is a great guy I have many of his prodigy's going in many different fashions.

I wonder were the huge pack of seeds I sent for this are. Hmmm?

[webmaster]

Wah! I got off to a late start with the seeds. You know the things I've been working on behind the scenes that I'm going to be unveiling soon.

[Juliuskitty]

Ooh! A teaser!

[lakngulf]

Giveaway tomatoes still doing well. They have begun to bloom a bit, and showing good growth

[lakngulf]

Here are the giveaway tomatoes by variety
Indigo Apple


Red Boar


Lush Queen


Amos Coli (on either end. one died so a Fantastic is in the middle)

[lakngulf]

One tomato harvest from these tomatoes----a Lush Queen. I love the striped colors of the fruit....black and green, then purple red and pink (sorry I will get a picture on the next ones). But, this one was great. Very dark red slice and good taste. I will definitely save some seed from this one.

[ReptileAddiction]

One tomato harvest from these tomatoes----a Lush Queen. I love the striped colors of the fruit....black and green, then purple red and pink (sorry I will get a picture on the next ones). But, this one was great. Very dark red slice and good taste. I will definitely save some seed from this one.

And send some to me?

[lakngulf]

Had some friends from North Carolina and South Carolina visit during the weekend. We used to vacation together in Garden City, SC and I always took tomatoes. We enjoyed a lot of them. During the weekend we had tomatoes every meal, but for one meal we had a "taste test" of heirloom tomatoes, mostly the ones from this giveaway.

We tried Amos Coli, Red Boar, Lush Queen, Indigo Apple and what I call Thomas Jefferson Monticello Brandywine. All votes were in and the order was
1. Brandywine
2. Lush Queen
3. Amos Coli
4. Indio Apple
5. Red Boar

[applestar]

Ooh! I haven't grown Lush Queen yet. I'm putting it on next year's must grow list.