Livingston's varieties...

[cottonpicker]

Just wondering how many of you have grown Livingston's varieties, be they Magnus, Beauty, Favorite...whatever... IF SO, will you share with us your comments re: taste, productivity, etc... in your particular locale? Thanks!

[spudleafwillie]

Larry,
I grow Magnus in 5 gallon containers ( 2 plants/ container) here in sw NM. A vigorous indeterminate plant with huge potato leaves. Size is usually 8-12 oz with sometimes larger fruit. Yield is average with about 12-16 fruit/plant. Taste is good with a nice acid/sweet balance. Overall a nice showpiece PL plant.

Spud

[nctomatoman]

I've tried all that are available except one, I think.

Here are those that appear to still exist (at least varieties of the correct name are either listed in the SSE or were found in the USDA collection)

Paragon - a pretty ordinary medium sized red
Perfection - another pretty ordinary medium small to medium red
Golden Queen - nice looking medium sized bright yellow with a pink blossom blush - good flavor, worth trying
Favorite - very nice medium, smooth, oblate red - to me this is one of the better ones, very good flavor
Beauty - another nice one, medium, smooth oblate, pink, sweet flavor - I need to reevaluate it; did not pay enough attention to the flavor when I tried it
Stone - I've only tried an accession from an SSe member. A medium red, good flavor.
Gold Ball - pink pong ball sized bright yellow mild flavor - OK if you like that sort of thing!
Lutescent (may be Honor Bright - at least the descriptions are the same) - the odd ball of the bunch - from a mutation in Stone - foliage has a gene that makes it turn yellow though the plant is healthy, flowers nearly white, fruit is medium sized, goes from pale green to white to orange to red. Flavor OK - best grown just to see how weird a tomato can be
Magnus - another of my favorites, the only Livingston potato leaf still around, medium sized nearly round pink, flavor very good
Dwarf Stone - nice looking dwarf growing plant, dark green crinkled, rugose foliage (but not potato leaf), medium oblate smooth red, skin a bit tough, flavor OK.
Globe - nearly round medium to medium large pink, mild flavor - I like Burpee's Globe a bit better for its flavor.
Rosy Morn - another medium sized pink sweet tomato, tried it last year, was not overwhelmed
Marvelous - not strictly a Livingston but listed in their catalog, pink selection from the cross that produced Marglobe, nice medium smooth productive tomato that has excellent flavor
Giant Oxheart - I got this out of the USDA and Jennifer in Canada managed to grow it out, send me seed, I need to try it. Probably similar to the many large pink oxhearts out there, but Livingston was the first to introduce it - from a tomato that was sent to them by a customer.
Yellow Oxheart - Could be the same as the yellow oxheart sold by Southern Exposure (though the dates don't work out - still, could be that the person sent it to Livingston a few years after they got it) - terrible looking spindly plant but does catch on eventually - flavor can vary from mild to incredible. One of the more variable tomatoes - can grow to huge, deep yellow to a very pale orange, not lemon yellow. very meaty, few seeds. worth growing - for me tasted best when I grew it in PA
Ohio Red - Mike of Victory is working on this one - USDA sample was crossed.
Ideal - another that is a project - USDA seed was dead when we got it, hoping for a fresher sample.
Main Crop Pink - an improved Beauty, nice oblate good flavored medium to large pink.

there you go - my views on the Livingstons!

[carolyn137]

Larry,

I've grown almost as many as Craig has, and will come back later and give my report.

Craig, what happened to the sample of Ideal that I sent to Mike? When I grew it out it seemed to be correct. This was the one I got sent to me from Bulgaria, you might recall, not a USDA accession.

Larry, the only thing I'll relate to you here is how we came to have seeds for Magnus. And if I've shared this before, I apologize.

Craig couldn't get the USDA seeds of Magnus to germinate so he sent up the seeds to me. After trying all sorts of tricks I got up ONE and now it's almost two months later than all others.

So I babied, I coddled, I prayed over that one seedling when I saw it was PL.

Fast forward towards Fall and frost time. When the first frost warning came I stopped off at the farm on the way home from work, where my mother was still living, and picked two fruits that were on the turn, took them in, put them on the kitchen counter and told my mother I'd stop by on the weekend to get them/

So I did, but where were those fruits?

Mind you that mom had senile dementia and it was the next Fall when we had to move her to an adult home, but cutting to the chase, she calmly told me they had ripened up and she cut them up for salad and ATE them.

Can you imagine how I felt?


Anyway, the plant had not been killed, I covered it two more times that Fall and eventually got I think three fruits, saved seeds, and sent some to Craig ASAP.

So all seeds for Magnus that we have came from those three fruits , as in the ones my mother didn't eat.

Carolyn, who has a different slant on some of the varieties Craig reported on above, and he knows it. :wink:

[cottonpicker]

Good replies so far!! Thanks, folks!! Carolyn... wonder how Mom liked them?? LOL Neat story!!! I've seen some positive remarks about Livingston's Favorite by Grub & was looking thru Victory's catalog...that's what prompted me to ask. Maybe next year I'll try one or two....

[montanamato]

Carolyn...that is a great story.

I have seeds to be planted early March for:

Dwarf Stone
Magnus
Golden Queen
Favorite

After Grub's thread, I am really loking forward to Livingstons Favorite.

Jeanne

Unfortunately all new ones to me, so I won't be able to report until late summer...

[coronabarb]

L's Favorite has always done very well here in my hot, dry climate. It is very prolific and a good tasting tomato. It is not as good as some of my preferred tomatoes like Pruden's Purple or Y. Brandywine, but it surely beats the heck out of hybrids like Early Girl. I grow one or two plants so I am assured of lots of red tomatoes for canning and freezing.

[lumierefrere]

I love that story, Carolyn, and it will enrich the experience of growing Magnus this year.

Maybe I'll really go wild and plant a couple in buckets, too, since Spud does. As it is imagined now Magnus is in the pink row in the garden between Bychok and Mazarini.

Snow squalls this morning, can spring be far behind?--heck yeah.

Barb