Mail from Краснодара
 

Supposed to Em-Champion, for next season's salsa canning :D, posted June 5 in Krasnodar, Russian Federation, arrived Fort Worth, Texas today, August 29.

Mail from Eastern Europe if not air mail specifically coMes on a ship and takes weeks
KarenO

Just recently, received 2 different orders from Ukraine, took about 4 weeks to the day but had tracking so I wasn't worried. Thought it might longer, but pretty normal timing.

EM Champion in my garden is a low to moderate producer of mid-sized to very large (very rare, but up to 24 ounces) red hearts, with harvesting over a relatively long season. About one ripe tomato a week from a single plant is what I get. It is the best fresh tasting determinate variety I've ever trialed.

For salsa and canning (processing a lot at once?), you may want to have many plants.

Thanks. Was hoping for good flavor and maybe a bigger one time batch. We have 8 of these currently planned along with 31 other slicers, so we should be able to get a case or two of 12 oz jars put up, one way or another:)

[URL]http://tomatoville.com/album.php?u=6756[/URL]

EM-Champion is my favorite outdoor variety. It has tasted great and been very productive in normal Norwegian summers. In the hot summer we had a couple of years ago - not so good. Here it has a DTM of about 65 days, and produces until the first frost.


Steve

[QUOTE=decherdt;759566]Thanks. Was hoping for good flavor and maybe a bigger one time batch. We have 8 of these currently planned along with 31 other slicers, so we should be able to get a case or two of 12 oz jars put up, one way or another:)

[URL]http://tomatoville.com/album.php?u=6756[/URL][/QUOTE]

Maybe in Texas you'd get more to ripen at once. No matter what, I believe adding one or more EM Champions to other tomatoes in the batch just might improve the overall flavor.

Ok so I can move a few of them in with the other slicers, and go with a mix of Marglobe and Burbank for salsa, getting to try 3 new to me varieties:D
[URL]http://tomatoville.com/album.php?u=6756[/URL]

I trialed a number of Russian hearts this year and concluded their historical OP varieties are more reliable than their F1 strains. OPs: Danko, EM-Champion, Mazarin, Pink Honey. Hybrids: Amber Heart F1, Sweet Heart F1. Like yours decherdt, my seeds were from SibSad-nsk. Somebody had suggested to grow both Danko and EM-Champion since at least one of them will do well in any summer. That was good advice since although EM-Champion was covered with flowers, very few of them set fruit, while Danko was remarkable, a tiny plant only a foot or so tall absolutely covered in very large fruit. Mazarin turned out to be excellent in the driest spot in my garden and with Pink Honey I tried one from SibSad and a second from Ohio Heirlooms. Next year it will be Danko, Eagle's Beak, EM-Champion, Golden Heart, Mazarin, Pink Honey (SibSad), Wolf Fang and Zest.

Fastest growing heart I have ever seen is Old Italian Pink from Casey's Heirloom. Remarkable.

These Em Champion first clusters showing some multiflora :-)