Need heirloom seed source

[olddaddy]

I just signed onto the forum to help me get my garden back on track. We got hammered by hurricane Irma and it's taken all these months to get back to the garden. I am looking for a source of seeds to grow some good tomatoes. I have room for about a dozen plants and would like a variety. Any advice greatly appreciated.


Life is Outstanding!

[PaulF]

My favorites are http://www.sandhillpreservation.com, http://www.sampleseeds.com, www.knapps-fresh-vegies.neftirms.com, http://www.tomatogrowers.com. There are are lots of very good sellers out there, but these people are all very good to deal with, have excellent prices and customer service and their seeds are always good and true to variety.

Another of my favorites, tatianastomatobase has announced her retirement and more power to her.

[imafan26]

There are probably hundreds if not thousands of tomato varieties to choose from. The best tomato really depends on what you are looking for in a tomato. Do you want old fashioned tomato flavor, sweet tomatoes with no bite, or sweet tart tomatoes? Applestar has a good thread on tomatoes she has tested, and I did try some of them. Problem was, it was a Northern tomato and did not do well in a hot, humid climate for either heat or disease. I am thinking that some tomatoes may be like vidalia onions that soil and climate impacts flavor.

Unfortunately catalogs rarely tell you the bad points of a tomato, so you may have to do some sleuthing to find the right ones, or you can make a list and try them out a few at a time. I found that reading catalogs you have to look for words like excellent or superior. If it doesn't talk about flavor, it may not be its best point, if its says good, then there is probably better. I also look up the tomato cultivar in Dave's garden and see if anyone has grown or rated it. Some other places like Baker seeds also have ratings with comments so it is helpful when you have limited space and more time to check out what other people say about it. Some years, climate does affect the crop so you need to see how the variety does over time and not the results of a single year. Some tomatoes may deserve a second chance.

These are the tomatoes I have tried and they have done fairly well in a hot and humid climate. You will have to decide if the taste is to your liking. Some are heirlooms, but not all of them.
Sungold cherry- yellow, very sweet but prone to cracking. Good production
Sunsugar- red cherry, very sweet and does not crack as badly as sungold
Sun cherry- smaller than sungold, but very sweet and less cracking.
Supersweet 100, red cherry, sweet, not as sweet as the first two but very productive and consistent from season to season
Brandywine, suddith strain and OTV- Large tomato with old fashioned tomato flavor. My favorite for beefsteak and flavor. However, it is a very large plant and needs regular fungicide in high humidity. It is not the best producer, but not the worst. The birds liked it too and got almost all of the early fruit so I had to cage and bag the fruit. I grew them in large pots off the ground since I have nematodes.
Pruden's Purple- flavor is almost as good as brandywine but with more production
Creole- A southern bred tomato. It is not very large but very well adapted for heat and humidity.
Early Girl- Surprisingly resilient for a northern tomato. It does stop producing in the heat, but starts again when temperatures are cooler. Taste is pretty good, but it is not brandywine.
Celebrity- Not much taste but in hot humid climates, it is the market tomato. It yields well even in the heat and is disease resistant.
Currents are tiny, but really sweet and productive
Arkansas Traveler does well in the heat and has good flavor

I have tried others, some of which I won't do again because they either had no disease resistance and never lived long enough to fruit, or they fruited and I and the birds did not like them. I usually judge the worthiness of any fruit based on whether the birds will go after them or not. They always seem to know when the fruit is ripe and if it is worth eating. Most of the black tomatoes tasted good, but were not productive. The yellow and orange tomatoes tasted better. The round red ones seem to be bred to look pretty, the uglier lobed and colored ones win taste. In hot climates, 10 oz tomatoes do better than larger ones and are more productive.
if you are going to grow tomatoes in the south and in a frost free zone, they are better in the fall and only heat resistant ones in summer. The heat resistant Solar Set,Phoenix, and Heatwave II will produce longer in the heat. They don't have great flavor but are better than what is in the market in the middle of summer.

https://www.morningsunherbfarm.com/toma ... t-results/
https://www.tomatofest.com/Shop_Organic ... s_s/87.htm
https://www.rareseeds.com/
http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomatoes-for-the-south.html

[olddaddy]

I appreciate the replies! I bought seed from Tomato Growers here in Florida. I am hopeful of a good result.

[dobro13]

That’s a really good post imafan26.

[imafan26]

Thank you.

I can't grow too many varieties of tomatoes of genovese basil anymore. Basil downy mildew and Tomato yellow leaf curl virus has limited basil to Tulsi and African varieties.

I just started some seedlings of Charger which is supposed to have good resistance to TYLC virus. Unfortunately, all of the tomatoes resistant to TYLCV that I can find are determinate.