Mystery Potato Leaf Volunteer

[JayPoc]

This little beaut emerged in the spring in my brussels sprouts bed, presumably from my compost or possibly the 2 year old mulch mulch I used. I didn't really plant any potato leaf varieties last year, I don't think, so I'm leaning toward the mulch. Anyway, I scooped this guy out of the sprout bed, into a solo cup, then a half gallon pot, ultimately into this little corner of one of my garden beds. It was really an afterthought at every step of the equation and almost got "culled" more than once. Right now its probably the healthiest plant I have going. A little more foliage than I'd like, but there are a good dozen or so maters on it at the moment (many bigger than a tennis ball and still growing) and lots of blooms. The cage its growing up and out of is a standard box store 5 foot cage (its in there somewhere). Click below to enlarge:



I guess there's no way to know what I have, right? I love tomatoes, but I certainly don't know enough to ID these guys by taste or appearance alone. I'll update with pictures of the fruit inside and out once some start getting ripe. If they're good, I suppose I'll continue on with the experiment by saving seed. Thoughts?

[rainbowgardener]

Well, tatiana's tomatobase lists almost 400 potato leaf varieties.

tatiana's is not quite a searchable data base, but you can search it for various categories and sometimes multi categories.

https://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:Tomatoes

once you know what color and shape they ripen to, you should be able to at least narrow the choices down.

[digitS']

JacPoc, good thing that it's healthy. There is nothing more important than plant health . . . unless it is production. There is nothing more important than health and production . . . unless it is flavor. There is nothing more . . .

You know what you might have? An offspring of a hybrid . . . I'm not quite sure what might have been in your mulch that you are wondering about but if you grew hybrids recently, you may be surprised what might turn up as a volunteer.

I had a couple of potato-leaf volunteers in a packet of hybrid tomato seed one time. There were 2 sowings and 1 PL plant showed up each time; so it is unlikely that I was the person contaminating the seed. The seed company only sold 1 PL variety and I'd grown it & could identify that it was NOT that variety. So, what was it?

The fruit was exactly like the hybrids the PL plants grew beside that season. I saved seed and grew a few of the plants a 2nd year. Once again, it produced fruit exactly the same. I figure that I got seed from a self-pollinated fruit that a worker missed. Unfortunately, none of these were healthy plants - foliage problems.

My dad's youngest brother gave me seed from my grandmother's garden from something she called "the peddler's tomato." After 20+ years and growing "Porter's" 3 different season, I have become convinced that grandmother was growing Porters. The fruits are virtually indistinguishable, there seemed to be some difference in the mature plants but that might just be because of location in the garden. Finally, compared to the 20+ other tomato varieties I have, Porters look different as seedlings but they look exactly the same as "the peddler's tomato!" How about that? 75 years must separate them since she was growing them from the Depression on . . .

You can have some fun with these kinds of things, JayPoc.

Steve

[JayPoc]

yeah....it is fun. I suppose it could be just about anything. I did grow a potato leaf variety a couple years ago. Plus, I suppose it could be from any of the store bought maters that ended up in my compost over the last couple years...

[mattie g]

yeah....it is fun. I suppose it could be just about anything. I did grow a potato leaf variety a couple years ago. Plus, I suppose it could be from any of the store bought maters that ended up in my compost over the last couple years...

Jay...I've got four compost volunteers in my garden, and I was excited to see what they might be, especially since I had some great plants last year that I figured might have wintered over in my compost. After waiting patiently for them to start producing, I think I have all store-bought volunteers!

One is a grape tomato. We don't eat grape or cherry tomatoes, but I did have one small volunteer that popped up in a nother location in my yard last year. I decided to to nurture it, and used them in my salsa, but there were so few of them compared to the rest of my tomatoes that I'm completely shocked that one of my vounteers ended up being a grape. Must have been a 1/1000 chance of that happening...if that.

Another is a paste-type. Huge fruits - probably 4-5" long and 2-3" wide, with very little liquid in them. I haven't tasted one yet since they're not fully ripe, but their weight suggests the paucity of liquid. Easy to assume these are store-bought paste tomato seeds.

Third is a pretty standard "vine-ripened tomato" type. Not the biggest fruits (maybe 1/4 lb each, if that), but very symmetrical and a uniform brilliant orange-red color.

The last one is still unknown to me. The fruits are small (maybe 1.5" wide), but very symmetrical. They still haven't ripened fully, so I'm at a loss on the color. Thing is...I don't recall every buying tomatoes of that size, and I certainly didn't grow them last year. It's another that I assume is a store-bought variety that is some sort of second-generation spawn of a cross.

I just wish I had a growing set up that I could utilize to grow my on tomatoes. I'm loving the feeling of nurturing these volunteers from seed...it's just that I'm not terribly attached to them because I have no idea what they are or I'm not that interested in the variety!

[digitS']

I don't always "get away" with having a volunteer in the tomato patch.

All of my tomato varieties are early or, at most, mid-season. Sometimes, a volunteer can ripen fruit in this neck of the woods - a relatively short season and the cool nights often keep that from happening. Still, I usually keep 1 volunteer just hoping I get something special .

I do grow cherries but only Dr. Carolyn is the open-pollinated one and I've had it for several years. I've got the hybrids and enjoy those but Dr. Carolyn is a good healthy plant and does real well. Last year, I had a volunteer that turned out to be a red cherry. Near the season's end, it was loaded with ripening fruit! I was plenty excited about this but it was far from the sweet thing that must have been its hybrid parent . . . oh well.

Mattie g, before I had a backyard greenhouse, I used the south window in my utility room. I was able to keep that room cooler and open the outside door while still keeping the door into the kitchen closed. Someone put that long window into that room with an idea of growing plant starts ! Well, probably not.

These days, plant starts usually go in what I call "hoopies" on my backyard lawn for several days, before being set out in the open garden. Often, the greenhouse is getting jam-packed and this is space saving as well as a hardening-off technique. I can uncover the plants during the day and may bring them back indoors on cold nights. The only real downside to these little pvc/plastic film things is that I have to move them at least weekly so as to not kill the grass under the flats of plants. I keep the flats on thin 1 by 2's so they don't sit directly on the grass and will also pull the flats out to sit on a table so as to give the grass a little breathing room thru a sunny day.

Steve

[TZ -OH6]

EarlyGirl is a hybrid with one PL parent so if the hybrid seed was contaminated with selfed seed some PL could show up. It could probably happen with other hybrids, too.


I have volunteers coming up after two years. I didn't plant tomatoes there last year and I let some tomatoes rot there the year before

[digitS']

Wow, TZ!

I don't think I talked about this before on the HG forum. Maybe but, yes! It was a packet of Early Girl seed!

Maybe I guessed right, then!

Steve

[mattie g]

Steve - I tried growing from seed a couple years ago by planting in a southwest-facing window. It worked OK, excet the seedlings were incredibly leggy and a lot got dampened off. In the end, I randomly planted on in a small planter just to see if it would grow. It did, and it gave me a few tomatoes, but that's it. Since then, I decided to save myself the hassle and just go with online-purchased seedlings.

I don't know...I'm debating long and hard as to whether I want to get a growing setup. I don't have a ton of room, so I wouldn't need a lot of seedlings. As long as I got a somewhat reasonable germination rate I think I could easily meet all my tomato needs.

(Sorry for hijacking the thread, JayPoc!)

[JayPoc]

Update:


click the pic to embiggen

They're coming ripe. These are the first 4 picked. The one in the bottom center is about ready to eat. My cell phone gives crappy color, but its a medium deep pinkish red. The others are not quite ripe. The biggest on the left is a little over a pound, the others are around 10 ounces, give or take. The plant is still doing amazing, and is still disease free and going strong. Plenty of new blossoms as well. It's absolutely dominating it's corner of the garden and is sprawling out of it's cage. It's so top heavy, I worry a big storm will destroy it. Anyway, I plan to taste the ripe one in the morning...I'll follow up again sometime tomorrow!

[digitS']

I think you are one lucky tomato gardener, JayPoc!

Of course, that taste test is all important .

If a volunteer like that showed up in my garden . . . oh, it would never do that well . . . but, I'd be guessing Prudens Purple. I grew Pruden several years ago and it did well but most of the fruit had to be picked green just before frost.

I hope your taste test proves it is one beauty of a tomato!

Steve

[JayPoc]

Holy moly.....this is one meaty tomato. This is sliced right through the middle (cross section). Almost no seeds and gel to speak of...and the same throughout. Cutting chunks perpendicular to the cross section gave me many slices with no seeds at all showing. I think it was still *not quite* ripe though. Taste was very nice (based on this one tomato). Mild, slightly acidic. Not quite as tasty as my German Johnson, but as good or better than everything else. I'll do one last update after eating a few more...

digitS' - I don't think its Prudens Purple, as I have one of those growing in another area. The fruit are not as "flattened" as the Prudens and taste better (my Prudens, for whatever reason are the least tasty 'maters I'm growing).

[JayPoc]

Well...this thread has about run its course, as has the plant....it's still full of tomatoes, but some disease is finally setting in. The quartet below met their untimely....or maybe I guess timely demise in a pot of salsa tonight. Anyway, I've got a coffee cup with some seeds soaking on the counter. We'll see if they turn out the same next season. This has been a fun and pleasant surprise....

[rainbowgardener]

Very nice! What a treat to have a volunteer turn out so well. I've never really grown a volunteer out to producing. I have so little sunny space for tomatoes, I want to use it for the ones I nurtured from seed.

[mattie g]

Damn fine looking maters, Jay.

One of my four volunteers has produced somewhat saveable tomatoes (if I were one to grow from seed). One is a grape (yuck), one had massive paste-type tomatoes that ended up with really hard flesh and almost no goo or seeds in the middle (almost like a bell pepper!), and one has small (3-4 oz or so) mealy and fairly colorless tomatoes. The good one looks to be a general "paste tomato" you buy at the store. It's been prolific enough to keep around if I were so inclined, but even then I'm sure I could find others I'd be more interested in growing.

Good luck on growing yours next year!

[JayPoc]

Hello all. Since things are slow on this board I figured it wouldn't hurt to update this thread. I saved some seed and have started one plant of this type for this year. I'd love to do more, but I just don't have the room to plant everything I want. Anyway, this plant is well on the way up. Its probably the most vigorous of all the seeds I started in this batch. And its showing the potato leaf trait as well..so maybe the fruit will be the same?

[gixxerific]

Cool keep 'em going, sometimes those mystery plants are very worth it. Let us know how it works out.