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Old November 15, 2019   #1
Greatgardens
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Default Thessaloniki tomato?

Any experiences with this one? Red OP, RL, medium size, (and supposedly) highly crack-resistant, sun scald resistant, sweet. Sounds like a good candidate for next season. Found it at Victory.
-GG

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Old November 15, 2019   #2
Gardenboy
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It's an Awesome tomato in my book. I grow it every season as 1 of my top ten choices. Red, RL plant, good production. Tomatoes grow in trusses of 5 or 6. The only complaint I have, is that the limbs break under pressure from the tomato weight. U need to support the limbs by supporting them with stakes or tying them onto some fence or post for support. I have plenty of seeds if you need some.
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Old November 15, 2019   #3
Greatgardens
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardenboy View Post
It's an Awesome tomato in my book. I grow it every season as 1 of my top ten choices. Red, RL plant, good production. Tomatoes grow in trusses of 5 or 6. The only complaint I have, is that the limbs break under pressure from the tomato weight. U need to support the limbs by supporting them with stakes or tying them onto some fence or post for support. I have plenty of seeds if you need some.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I already have some fresh seeds that I got last winter from Burpee. (I hit one of their $3.00 sales or more accurately 5 for $15.)

Good to hear the vote of confidence for Thessaloniki! I was also thinking of attempting a cross with Mat-Su Express or Pale Perfect Purple with Mat-Su for an F1. I've never tried crossing, but maybe next year I'll do it.

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Old November 15, 2019   #4
Fritz77
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I grew Thessaloniki in 2018. It was too acidic for my taste. I also prefere more ribbed or irregular shaped tomaatoes.
I won't grow it again
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Old November 15, 2019   #5
Nan_PA_6b
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Smooth round red acid tomato? Sounds like my sister's dream plant.
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Old November 15, 2019   #6
PaulF
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In my garden Thessaloniki was an early tomato (69 days) with most of the production in later August. The size was medium to small with thirty-five tomatoes on one plant for a 6 ounce average and the largest at 10 ounces. Mine were on the sweet side and my bias is for sweet tomatoes; my notes give it a 7 of 10 rating.

All your descriptors match what I grew. I obtained the seeds from Tatiana's. I would trust Victory to be correct.
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Old November 15, 2019   #7
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I've grown it a few times:

2016: I overwatered my tomatoes, this year, but it was one of my top-performing tomatoes, in these conditions (out of about 100 kinds). The fruits were similar to Creole's, but it was later, more prolific, and easier to harvest. Thick walls. Durable, softball-sized fruits. Not particularly sweet or acidic, but the taste was fine. The texture was excellent, however. Lots of seeds. Mine didn't break without support. They probably had a good supply of potassium in the soil, though (which can help prevent that, I think). I grew two plants. Round fruits. We did not use black plastic. I used seeds from Timeless-tomatoes.com.

2017: I gave all the tomatoes in the ground drought this year. I grew Thessaloniki from seeds I saved in 2016. They ended up small, soft beefsteaks with powerful taste, but very good taste (one of the best-tasting out of about 105 kinds). Not very prolific. We did not use black plastic. It was earlier this year than the others (including the following years to date), but it wasn't particularly early. I think it was a cross this year, but I don't know.

2018: We got a volunteer that might have been Thessaloniki. It got fruits that looked a lot like those in 2016, and seemed productive, but it was a volunteer and didn't have much time to produce as much as it might have. I don't remember the taste. It had moderate to low water conditions and was grown in plain soil without black plastic.

2019: I used seeds from the original packet that I used in 2016. I transplanted this late and as a very small plant. We used black plastic and gave the plant drought conditions. The plant grew about the size each plant grew in 2016. It produced decently well, but late. Fruits were maybe a little smaller than in 2016, and not quite round. Fruits had more flavor and softer texture than in 2016. They were harder to harvest than in 2016. Most of the fruits didn't ripen in time (probably because of the late start, and the early frost we had this year). Parts of this plant were variegated for a while. Despite my pruning off the non-variegated portions, for a good while, they won out, and grew better than the variegated parts.

I didn't give the Thessaloniki plants support any of these years, although in 2016, it grew onto something or other that was next to it, which may have supported it a little.

The fruits didn't crack or split any year, as far as I recall.

The plants were medium-sized, and vigorous.

Anyway, my conclusion is that it has a lot of potential, and has desirable fruits, but in my garden, it's kind of late. It's supposed to be early, though. I'll probably grow it again some year.

I prefer Marion to Thessaloniki, so far, but they're both great tomatoes. Thessaloniki seems to get a big flush of tomatoes over a short period, but Marion is a lot earlier, with different flavor.

Last edited by shule1; November 15, 2019 at 06:43 PM.
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Old November 16, 2019   #8
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"...I prefer Marion to Thessaloniki, so far, but they're both great tomatoes. Thessaloniki seems to get a big flush of tomatoes over a short period, but Marion is a lot earlier, with different flavor."

You sure grow a lot of tomatoes! What do you do with all the tomatoes and vegetative waste? Curious about what characteristics of Marion you find superior to Thessaloniki. Can you elaborate, please? Is it just a taste issue? How about crack resistance? Foliage cover? Plant size/sprawl?

My "hot buttons" for tomatoes are (in this order) taste, crack and split resistance, sun scald resistance, tolerance to Septoria (although I spray), plant size, and somewhere near the last -- production.

-GG
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Old November 16, 2019   #9
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Greatgardens,

It's mostly the earlier maturity that I like about Marion. It produces all season (more spread out than Thessaloniki, in my garden). The tastes are so different as to not be terribly comparable, but the fruits have a comparable look and feel. Thessaloniki's fruits are somewhat larger and probably more acidic in drought conditions. Marion (in drought conditions with black plastic) has a gentle flavor that is unusually good, in my opinion, but it's not devoid of acidity, if I recall.

I've only grown Marion once, though (2019).

Anyway, they're both prolific, round to roundish red tomatoes with great qualities. Perhaps Marion has a somewhat smaller plant, but it's no less vigorous. I'm not sure how to describe the differences in plant habit, but they're different. Thessaloniki gets weighty, thick, wide branches that could easily weigh something under them down. Marion is more usual, and compact, but still vigorous. Marion would be easier to cage, I suppose (I did cage Marion, with a wire cage; Thessaloniki probably would have squashed a wire cage). They're both fairly durable and not terribly prone to blemishes, it seems. Marion had extremely remarkable germination, how neatly and orderly they came up.

So it's mostly due to ease of growth, the number of tomatoes I get, and when I get them. In an area with a longer season, or else a garden where Thessaloniki were early, I'm not sure how they'd compare, but they both seem to do well in a wide variety of areas. I think Marion is popular in one of the Carolinas.

I'm not sure what to say about disease resistance, at this point.

I don't grow 100+ varieties every year. I've cut down to 40 to 65 kinds or so, lately; maybe 70 or 80 something plants). I only did 100+ twice. They smothered each other a lot before I cut down on the number. I might do 60 to 70 kinds next year. If I had more land, I'd grow more, though. I'd grow every kind I have that I haven't tried, I think (perhaps multiple times).

My area has arid summers with cold winters. So, fungal diseases aren't a huge issue. Cleanup takes a while unless we just let the plants sit out and dry up to become light and papery over the winter before we deal with them (but that can be a visual disturbance to people); they're easy to pull up and burn then (but they smell just like tobacco when burned, and that can be awkward; but either way, they're easy to pull up and compact then). However, we're pulling up the plants in the fall and throwing them out, this year (it's taking some weeks, as we only have one garbage can; most of them are already pulled up, though). It's not usually up to me what we do with them. I choose what to grow (for the most part) and start the plants, but the garden isn't technically mine, and I don't make all the decisions. Last year, we just put them in a huge pile in the fall, but that was a mistake. We couldn't easily separate them to throw them away, and being piled up, they didn't dry out over the winter. They attracted rodents, I think (otherwise, we might have composted them). Someone managed to throw them out, eventually. If it were up to me, I'd probably pull them up whenever and compost them with weeds. In an area where fungi would be a problem, I might do something different: pretty much everything I've said here is supposed to be a bad idea where fungal pathogens are a big concern (except maybe pulling up the plants right away and throwing them out).

We use the tomatoes for canning (stewed, blended, and/or juice), fresh eating, sandwiches, salads, etc. I make such as spaghetti/pizza sauce with some of the canned tomatoes, but it also works for chile, tomato soup, and other stuff. We give some fresh tomatoes away.

I grow a lot of kinds in order to find the ones I like the most, and for plant breeding purposes. Plus, to learn and share what I learn. Plus, to save a lot of seeds. I think it's important to have a wide variety on stock (and know how to use them) in case they become unavailable otherwise.

I grow a lot of watermelons and other things, too. Watermelon are more of a challenge than tomatoes, due to spider mites and how larger and even some smaller watermelons often tend to be under-sized in our garden, but we get plenty to eat. I prefer winter watermelons, since you don't have to eat them anytime soon after harvesting them. We had watermelons all over the house, this year, especially with a volunteer Citron watermelon we got (29 fruits from that one; definitely the most prolific watermelon I've grown to date—but it's a preserving melon—a vegetable rather than a fruit, by the supermarket definition; I like it for stir fry and mock apple crisp; it's not meant for eating fresh on picnics!)

Last edited by shule1; November 16, 2019 at 05:12 PM.
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Old November 17, 2019   #10
Greatgardens
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Thanks for the info on your growing!
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Old November 17, 2019   #11
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Gg...you reminded me that I have Thessaloniki seeds somewhere in my stash. Thanks!
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Old December 13, 2019   #12
taboule
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I've been growing Thessaloniki for the past few years since my wife brought back seeds from her native Greece. Aside from the personal bias, we love it because it rates fairly high on all the important to us qualities. Tasty, early, productive, moderately disease resistant, produces until frost, and just the right size, shape and firmness for stuffing with a rice mix and baking.

Although I'm cutting back to only ~15 plants or so this year, it will still have a place in the garden.
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Old December 14, 2019   #13
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The two times I grew it, it produced beautiful, red round tomatoes, but with a thick/tough skin that's a complete turn off to me. My seeds came from the MMMM which are always hit or miss, so I may try it again someday from a commercial seed source.
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