2012 Tatiana's tomatoes

[Tania]

Dee, Steve, Carolyn - thank you for your kinds and encouraging words! I am quite amazed to see the good results, given my limited energy and the medications that made everything so difficult. There was also a big scare at the beginning of August when we had a very bad late blight outbreak killing my potatoes and wiping out many tomatoes in the open ground. I thought I lost control and could not manage it, but then LB went dormant with drier weather, so I was lucky.

It was a sad day today, as our elder son left home and Canada and went to WA where he accepted a job at Google. He is 23, and I am sure this is a very good move for him, but I am still very upset that he will not be close to us anymore. He was a great help for me with TOMATObase and online seed store.

[Tania]

We finally had a chance to taste this one. The taste is mild and somewhat sweetish, just OK, but they sure look gorgeous.

Fruits are larger and ripen a couple of weeks earlier compared to Indigo Rose (which I am still waiting for a ripe fruit)

[Tania]

Although the seed source said red, it was definitely a pink, and so productive and great tasting, meaty with almost no seeds, sweet. The first fruit got some sun scald as I had to remove some diseased foliage, so it got a bad spot at the top, but it was still very good.

Very similar to Bychye Serdtse Rozovoe that I got from Russia, but the fist fruit was definitely much larger!

[Tania]

Large and slightly ruffled pink beefsteak. Fruits vary in size quite a bit, but the shape is pretty consistent. Meaty flesh, very good taste.

I also found an old entry in SSE Yearbook that lists Eh-Lim (SSE TOMATO 2865) as small round red. Not sure what happened with this variety or these just had the same name? Surely these are two different tomatoes. I know Ted who sent me the seeds also got a large pink beefsteak, so it did grow true to what he described.

[Tania]

Very large, flattened, and meaty. Many fruits are around 1 lb.

Consistent with what I had in 2005.

[Tania]

My new favorite, juicy, meaty, just perfect for slicing.

1 plant out of 8 was RL, not sure if it was a stray seed or a cross, so far it also producing large fruits, but nothing ripe yet.

[Tania]

Very good balanced taste, and I love the meaty flesh. Not many seeds, which is another plus for tomato lovers but not for seed savers!

PL segregation line has smooth red fruits, compared to the RL line with more ruffled and ribbed flat beefsteaks. But both are very good, and I will continue working with both lines.

[Tania]

Many more fruits are ripening, it is a very nice tomato with a great balanced taste. The name and the lack of history got me puzzled, and I was thinking that this perhaps could be the Russian commercial tomato 'Malinovyi Gigant', which name could have been translated as 'Lilac Giant' by Andrey, who sometimes used 'lilac' or 'raspberry' as a synonym for 'pink'. But I do not know for sure.

[Tania]

Another unexpected cross - NOT Shilling Giant, producing loads of beautiful red plums with some green shoulders.

I only managed to germinate 2 seeds from the packet, and the 2nd plant shows correct fruit shape, so I am still hopeful for a true thing!

[Tania]

More fruits ripening, no disappointment here

[Tania]

Now, that's the segregation line I would like to continue working on. Although I was hoping for orange fruits, this reddish orange was the best tasting and more productive out of all its brothers and sisters. Sonica is a working name.

SunGold taste is definitely lurking about here

[Tania]

Another 'no name' tomato I got from my mother in Russia who got it from her gardening friend Tamara.

Pretty early, large, and pretty good!

[Tania]

Fruit shapes and sizes are variable, but the wonderful taste is consistent.

[Tania]

Not sure why it is listed at SSE Yearbook in 'other colors' section - perhaps the pink blush that sometimes appears on the fruits made the original listed think it was a bicolor?

It is a beautifully shaped pale yellow with very good taste. Medium size.

Developed by the late Darrell Merrell (The Tomato Man) from a chance cross between the 1884 Tomato and an unknown yellow.

[Tania]

Plants were stunted due to a cold spell in April, so they just now starting to produce a good crop. The plants decided it is a good time to ripen most of the fruit at once! Very good taste, and nicely shape fruits, I liked it.