Dr. Tomato?

[DuckCreekFarms]

I'm new to the forum and not sure where to post this, but here goes. Has anyone had experience with ordering Tomato seed from DrTomato.com? They are not even listed on the Garden Watchdog so I am not sure how they rate thanks gary

[amideutch]

Here's the website if anybody is interested. Ami

http://members.aol.com/Dr%20Tomater/drtomato/Dr_Tomato_hunx.html

[Sherry_AK]

Well, "they" say not to order from a web site with typos and spelling errors.

[carolyn137]

Sherry, I didn't look at the trees and shrubs but I did go thru ALL the tomatoes offered.

Yes, there were errors but more important to me there were some hybrids offered and they say they offer OP's and for only one of those hybrids did they say it was an OP version of the hybrid, and that was for Big Beef.

I did feel a bit unconfrotable with the plea to send in pictures of the various varieties for them to use b'c my feeling is that they should be showing pictures of what they themselves had grown so that folks could decide if indeed what's shown is correct for the variety.

I'd not heard of this source before and it looks like it's pretty new but I also would have appreciated knowing a bit more about the owners as is usually posted at most websites where tomato seeds are sold.

At $2/25 seeds that's a good price and competetive with Sandhill Preservation re price but not with number of varieties or excellent reputation, so if this place has varieties not available elsewhere that a person wants it seems to me that they should be given a chance to prove themselves.

[DuckCreekFarms]

After I found the site, I emailed him (his name is Tom) to see on the ordering process. Tom was quick to rely and seems nice. I did ask him about the "Big Zac" and he did say it was the F2. (which I think should be in the discription). After I emailed him, he noticed a glitch in the ordering system and thanked me for calling it to his attention and offered to send me a free pack of seeds, so we'll see what I get...gary

[LoreD]

I was looking through the site and saw Egyptian, the description stated that the seed had been found in an Egyptian tomb and believed to be 4000 years old.

I didn't know that they grew tomatoes in 2000 B.C. Egypt.

LoreD

[kygreg]

I have some Egyptian seeds and a friend is growing it from some seedlings I gave her; in the info I saw on it, it did say the original seeds were from an Egyptian tomb that dated before BC, but I dont remember the number of years.

PS the source of my info and seeds was not Dr. Tomato.

[clara]

I, too, found the description that Roter Nil/Red Nile is a descendant of seeds found in an Egyptian tomb, dating back 4000 years. I have some doubts: Maybe there have been contacts between Northern Africa and Southern America, as Thor Heyerdal tried to prouve with his expeditions ("Ra"), so I wouldn't say that it is absolutely impossible that the old Egyptians had already tomatoes. But what about the germination after 4000 years??? I know that wheat seeds have germinated that were found in old amphoras on board a ship sinking 2000 years ago. 1 of 5 seeds germinated. But 4000 years? I really would like to know more about the tomb seeds - if there ever have been some. And I would like to know which tomb it was (as I have visited some of them).

By the way, this year I'm growing Roter Nil - not bad, but not exciting, just the average.

Does anybody know more? Then please let me know, clara

[carolyn137]

Oos Pei, the supposed Egytian variety, was listed in the SSE YEarbooks for many years with the same information given above.

Given that the first persons to even see a tomato were the Spanish in Mexico in I forgot the exact year but it was about 1450 CE, or so, you know darm well that no tomatoes were being grown in Egypt in 4000 BCE.

There have been several outrageous claims for other varieties as to how old they are, etc. One that I remember clearly was one called Sandia Mt trying to prove that seeds found in a knapasack were 100 years old and said to be confirmed by C 14 dating. Problem with that is the C14 dating can't even be used for that time period.

[clara]

Columbus arrived at the island of Guanahani = San Salvador on october 12, 1492; Cabot(o) in Labrador 1497, but that' s not Middle or South America; Hernandez de Cordova at Yucatan peninsula in 1517. Thor Heyerdal, as I said above, prouved in 1970 that there might have been contacts from Northern Africa to South America, using a raft build after old Egyptian drawings.

And what is really astonishing, when doing hair analysis of old mumies, traces of cocaine and nicotine were found and it is a fact that the first coca plant was brought to Europe in 1569 by Nicolas Monardes. So, how did those old mumies get the cocaine and the nicotine if not through contacts in precolumbian times? And that might have happened with tomatoes as well. But many things/knowledges have been forgotten/lost during the times, maybe the tomato in old Egypt, too. And maybe it was not well spread over the country or got lost because of floods or droughts, something that happened very often in Egyptian history.

clara

[newatthiskat]

I was just looking though this website and noticed soemthing. There are some exact phrases that are on the tomatofest website. Specifically noticed it on the isis candy cherry. They have almost word for word with Reimer seeds on the Atkinson tomato. They were not put in quotations and no credit was given. hmmm
Kat

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by newatthiskat

I was just looking though this website and noticed soemthing. There are some exact phrases that are on the tomatofest website. Specifically noticed it on the isis candy cherry. They have almost word for word with Reimer seeds on the Atkinson tomato. They were not put in quotations and no credit was given. hmmm
Kat

Kat, I scanned the tomatoes at that site and saw quite a few errors. I'd never heard of it before, but from some of the info posted I'm pretty sure that the person is an SSE member and thus has access to all the variety descriptions in the SSE Yearbook/

It's not at all unusual to find blurbs that read the same b'c there are some sites that just copy from other sites and quite a few of them use the SSE Yearbook for verbiage as well.

And I saw some info apparently lifted from my book on heirloom tomatoes and that's not new either.

At SESE Jeff McCormack, the former owner, described the taste of German Red Strawberry as being quintesennial and it didn't take long for that word to appear in others descriptions as well, to give one example/

So I'm not one bit surprised at what you say about blurbs reading about the same at different sites.

[simmran1]

http://members.toast.net/drtomato/dr...mato_hunx.html