Quote:
Originally Posted by coloken
I have no idea what they are, but I had a couple of packets of Rutgers.
Greene Valley seeds.
Packed for 1992, run No. 19
Two or 3 years ago i had no problem germinating from these. But I don;t remember at all how they acted. Nice if you could tell me.
If these would do you any good i will mail you some. No postage or anything else needed.
KennyP
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Thanks! I will try them to see. Who knows? I'll PM you with an address.
The description is a semi determinant with very strong vigor and huge regular green leaves. (Not the dark blue green as some varieties) Some of the leaves alone would get 2+ feet long during the peak growing season. The plants were bushy and it would grow 3 to 4 feet tall without staking just because of the many vigorous intertwined branches. (the main vine seldom got more than 4-6 feet long max but would partially lay over since we usually didn't stake them) Some of that vigor probably was the chicken manure and sheet mulching, but we grew other varieties too and the Rutgers always were more vigorous, even more than the hybrids. (Though not as long a main vine as the indeterminant type Rutgers)
The tomatoes themselves were medium and red with typically 3 or 4 per cluster. They were very juicy and had lots of seeds, so not meaty, but the flavor was fantastic. Skin was thin though, and if we had a dry spell followed by a heavy rain we always had some cracking issues. Mom actually liked the thin skins, because it made canning easy.
Yield was very good with each plant ripening several tomatoes every few days all summer long right up to frost. But they seemed to ripen in "batches". This variety ripens from the inside out. So our fried green tomatoes were always pink in the middle. I wouldn't keep track of yield on individual plants, but every week or so we would get 20 buckets instead of the typical 1 or 2 buckets we got daily.
I never once had an issue with any bug besides tomato hornworm or occasionally bugs when the fruit touched the mulch, and never once had any disease on any of them and we grew them for years. But that might have been more due to growing conditions, rather than variety.