dobro13
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Brandywine Tomatoes Anybody?

I’m awaiting 4 Brandywine seedlings to pop up in a couple of days. Anybody else growing these this year? This is my first try at heirlooms. :shock:

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kayjay
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Me. :) I first bought a Brandywine seedling at a grocery store in 2014. I've saved the seeds ever since. They're slowpokes but worth the wait; they're easily my favorite tasting tomato.

HoneyBerry
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Good choice. I usually plant at least one Brandywine. Last year I had an extra large tomato on my heirloom Brandywine plant. Heirlooms are so much fun to grow.
I have been feeling overwhelmed, so I decided to scale back on gardening stuff, so no tomato plants this year. All I have this year are Honey Berries.

PaulF
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I have grown maybe ten of the 15-20 varieties with the name Brandywine connected with a variety of tomato. Some are slower than others. Some produce more than others, but most all are worth the wait.

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applestar
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This year, I’m growing ‘Yellow Brandywine’ from seeds my MIL saved from fruits produced by farmer’s market-purchased plants.

The leaves are potato leaf — so they appear to be conforming to type so far.

pepperhead212
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I've grown a couple of the BW varieties, but was not impressed, so didn't grow either again. Very late, not productive, disease prone, in one of the bad years, and both were in the middle of the taste tests of those years. So I gave up on them.

dobro13
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I’m got some slowly popping up now. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

dobro13
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So far, so good. The plants are still small but look healthy.

catdaddy66
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Just put my first brandywine tomatoes in the ground! Had six recently purchased and honestly got them due to hearing so much about them so pulled the trigger and decided this is the year to grow some.

I kind of went heirloom bonkers this season because I could lol... Can't wait to try it soon!

imafan26
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I have planted Brandywine before. There are a few different strains. They were not particularly slow for me but tomatoes in general it needs to be at least 50 degrees consistently to germinate well. Brandywine is a very large rugose leaf plant with almost no resistance to fungal disease. So, plan ahead if you have any kind of humidity to do preventive fungicides. The fruit is large and they do have a nice sweet tart tomatoey taste. The fruit is soft and does not keep well. The birds loved them, so you will need to protect them. Because they have such large fruit, they are not as productive as tomatoes with smaller fruit and easier care.

Vanisle_BC
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I only grew Brandywine once, and wondered why it's so popular. Mine were large & pink and to my taste didn't have much flavor. Maybe the seed was mislabeled and they weren't Brandywine at all, or they didn't like something about my climate or growing conditions. In any case I prefer smaller & sweeter varieties so I never tried Bw again.

I grow several varieties but if I had to stick with one it would likely be golf ball size Camp Joy (Chadwick's cherry). The biggest ones I grow are Longkeeper (because it keeps!) and Ailsa Craig. For 'pop it in your mouth straight off the vine' I like Sweetie and of course the supersweet Sungold; but that's a hybrid so I can't/don't save its seed.

For paste type I usually have Principe Borghese (someone online sent me 'real Italian' seed) but this year my seed saving had failed and I'm trying Roma VF which is what was available locally.

Apologies for wandering off the Bw topic. Sometimes my 'garrule' just takes over :).

imafan26
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I found out that tomatoes will concentrate their flavor if you restrict water while they are ripening. If they get a lot of water, then the flavor becomes diluted. I found this out when I had tasteless tomatoes from varieties that are normally very flavorful.

catdaddy66
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imafan26 wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:52 pm
I have planted Brandywine before. There are a few different strains. They were not particularly slow for me but tomatoes in general it needs to be at least 50 degrees consistently to germinate well. Brandywine is a very large rugose leaf plant with almost no resistance to fungal disease. So, plan ahead if you have any kind of humidity to do preventive fungicides. The fruit is large and they do have a nice sweet tart tomatoey taste. The fruit is soft and does not keep well. The birds loved them, so you will need to protect them. Because they have such large fruit, they are not as productive as tomatoes with smaller fruit and easier care.
I wondered about the leaf pattern as I thought it was something else. Totally unique for tomatoes. Also need to be wary of the higher humidity where I live. Thanks for the information ☺️

imafan26
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Tomatoes are usually rugose (potato leaf) or regular leaf. Rugose leaf varieties are usually heirloom or older varieties. Most of the modern hybrids will have regular leaves unless they are being crossed with rugose leaf plants.

https://underwoodgardens.com/heirloom-t ... ular-leaf/

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digitS'
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If earlier and similar are wanted, you may find that Gary O Sena is a good choice.

I have grown Brandywine OTV several times but haven't explored all of those available. That one was just almost out of the range of possibilities in the open garden and this tomato-unfriendly climate. For some reason, Gary O Sena has come through for me year after year :).

It is a stabilized cross between Brandywine and Cherokee Purple. Neither are early varieties but, maybe, this cross was selected for early maturity.

Recently, I had to buy seed from Restoration Seeds and toss my saved seed. The plants were no longer producing fruit that fit the standard. I have read that cross pollination occurs more commonly with the potato leaf varieties.

Steve
Last edited by digitS' on Sun May 01, 2022 8:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

imafan26
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I know people say that about peppers and tomatoes and I have seen some crosses that people have made deliberately. I don't have the space to isolate tomatoes or peppers and I grow many of them in close proximity, but have not really had issues with cross pollination. Now, hybrids are different. Seeds from those are not stable so chances are that the genetics will be different in the progeny.

I grew a generic brandywine, brandywine OTC, brandywine Sudduth strain. I bought seeds from Burpee of Yellow Brandywine, but it turned out it was labeled wrong. The company sent new seeds to everyone who ordered it from their catalog with an apology letter.

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digitS'
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I have grown a regular leaf tomato (Porter) from saved seed for about 30 years. Just a few plants each year and they are right in with all the others.

Only once has there been an obvious cross. I did not save seed from the plant and tossed out the seed that I had used to grow it. I could do that because there was older seed that could be used for the following season.

It's a little bit of a bother to save seed from the same variety every year but the arid climate here makes it quite simple and the sandwich bags of seed take up very little room on the shelf ;).

Porter was my Grandmother's tomato. It's a very different from a Brandywine but, especially depending on your climate, may be a good choice.

Steve

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applestar
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I’m going to bit of a stickler :> and mention that Brandywine leaf shape is more commonly called “Potato Leaf”. “Rugose” is the other not-Regular leaf shape that is attributed to genetic DWARF category varieties.

Although Brandywine is probably the most widely grown Potato Leaf (PL) variety, there are others. It’s a recessive trait so if saved seeds produce regular leaf seedlings, you’ll know right away that it had been accidentally crossed with a more common Regular Leaf (RL) variety.

I admit I haven’t grown Brandywine that often. My impression is that it is later maturing, and has typical heirloom habit of only setting 2 good sized fruits per truss, and since a floral/fruit truss only forms after every 2 leaf nodes, number of fruits each plant produces during shorter growing season is limited.

I have preference for Terhune (PL, shorter stature about 5 ft tall plant, pink beefsteak), which some people think was an unidentified Brandywine. My strategy is to grow multiple plants to compensate.

imafan26
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Brandywine does take a while to get going. It can take up to 100 days to ripeness. For me it is not a problem, but for short season gardeners, it means you will have to start indoors well before your last frost date. The plant itself is huge. When I had the tomato container demonstration at the garden, everyone was drawn to it because it looked so different from the other tomatoes.

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lakngulf
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I agree with the above. Brandywine is a good tomato with potato leaf, big fruit but few per plant, takes a while to germinate, very tasty but can lose flavor with too much water, does cross easily.
I told this story some years back but will again. At one time I planted several heirloom varieties (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Amos Coli, and others). The Amos Coli is a pear shaped tomato, small but very good taste. Well the Brandywine and the Amos got together and the saved seeds from Brandywine one year produced an interesting fruit the next year.
I had HUGE pear shaped tomatoes. I have some of that seed in my frig now and I called it Amos and Brandy (only the older folks will get that, as there was once a comedy duo called Amos and Andy)

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applestar
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Love it! 😍



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