Seed for Growing Tomato

[tomatogrower]

The Most popular and recommended suppliers as per my point of view are: Suttons Seeds, Dobies Seeds, Unwins Seeds and Thompson & Morgan. May kindly share, if you have more variety in this regard.

[Zootal]

I've always bought from Gurneys and Henries (which are owned by the same parent company) and RareSeeds.com. RareSeeds gets more and more of my business as they have a wonderful selection of heirloom and different seeds from around the world, and I find myself more and more interested in these varieties. Gurneys is for the average run of the mill seeds.

[David Hare-Scott]

Knowing which continent you are on might help

David

[Zootal]

I might also mention that RareSeeds has seeds for over 200 different tomatoes, categorized by color into 8 groups.

[Jean B.]

Thanks for mentioning RareSeeds

I, too, am increasingly interested in such seeds and plants. I wonder why!

[Zootal]

Initially it was their variety that first attracted me. So many different types of tomatoes and eggplants! I grew ten different types of tomatoes last year, and I think eight different types of eggplants. About ten different types of peppers. None of their seeds are hybrid, so you can save the seeds if you are carefull not to cross breed them. Now I'm to the point of growing only heirlooms and open pollenated plants, and I save more of my seeds each year.

Now it's the end of December. I have one last tomatillo sitting on the shelf. Maybe 4 or 5 onions left. Everything else is either eaten, canned, or frozen. I almost never buy any kind of fresh or frozen produce from the store because I can and freeze enough to get me through the winter. I almost cry when I see the withered and overpriced zuccinis at the store, and remember all the fresh ones I had. Planting 10 summer squash plants was probably not the wisest thing I did, but I had no shortage of squash! And there are soo many to choose from!

[kate]

In the US, I like Johnny's, Park's, Pinetree and wherever it is I find Bradley's.

[Higgs Boson]

Glad to see this thread! I was getting tired of the "usual suspects" available at the nurseries and home-owner stores.

Which of the above-listed (including the heirlooms) would do best in So. Calif. coastal. Note that I like a "sharp" acidic? tomato, not a bland one. For eating, not necessarily cooking.

Your recommendations appreciated.

Persephone

[kate]

I really don't know about your growing climate - Bradley's are a southern tomato - pretty acidic if you grow the real deal. Johnny's has a tomato called First Lady that I like a lot too. Park's Whopper is a beefstake, I think.

Hopefully someone else will chime in.

[Jean B.]

Green Zebra's have a nice amount of acid, as do some of the other green types. Probably you, like I, would not be too fond of the black types.

[Wildbilly]

I had Black Krim last year, but they didn't produce much for me. Good tomato though.

I like Green Zebra and Blondkopfchen because they hold up well against encroaching winter, when other tomatoes have started to turn to mush. Then there are the Brandywines and the German Striped for slicing, the Stupice to get the season started, and the Yellow Pear, because it always volunteers:O)

It's winter, and time to plan. Spring is just a couple of months away, so I got pencil and paper, and I'm figuring out my crop rotation and what's gonna' go where.

Got me a T5, k5000 bay light this year. I'll start germinating seeds in Feb. Come May, I should have nearly mature plants to put in the ground. I'll put down clear plastic strips on either side of the row crops to warm the ground some (I'm on the north side of a hill), but I want to leave space around the plants for hand watering (It's therapeutic.).

[Mike]

My favorites were Pineapple and Cherokee Purple. I grew a Black Krim that was tasty

[Jean B.]

Yeah.... I am in the process of moving and need to figure out all of these things--being both gardens of edible things and trees. Etc. Fun, fun!

[Wild Bill]

I had a disastrous experience with Gurney's about 5 years ago and they did nothing to fix the situation. I will never deal with them again...ever! Rareseeds.com is Baker Creek Heirloom seeds, and one of my favorites. They are extremely generous with their packets also.