Dr. Dester
 

Has anybody ever heard about this variety? It's introduced on Baker Creek's Facebook page. History of the tomato is given below:

[SIZE=2]"A large pink beefsteak variety that reaches 1-1 ½ pounds. Its rich sweet flavor makes it an excellent slicer. The seed came to us from an Amish lady just a few miles from our Baker Creek farm. Anna worked as a house cleaner for Dr. Dester and his wife in Indiana in the 1970's. Having acquired the seed from Germany, the Desters shared their favorite tomato seed with Anna, who treasured it and now shares it with us."[/SIZE]

[QUOTE=chancethegardener;305000]Has anybody ever heard about this variety? It's introduced on Baker Creek's Facebook page. History of the tomato is given below:

[SIZE=2]"A large pink beefsteak variety that reaches 1-1 ½ pounds. Its rich sweet flavor makes it an excellent slicer. The seed came to us from an Amish lady just a few miles from our Baker Creek farm. Anna worked as a house cleaner for Dr. Dester and his wife in Indiana in the 1970's. Having acquired the seed from Germany, the Desters shared their favorite tomato seed with Anna, who treasured it and now shares it with us."[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Sure have heard of it and here's a thread from several weeks ago about it. It was given to SSE last year for their taste testing by Larry Pierce and seeds were also available last Fall from the SSE Public catalog and seeds also available from Larry Pierce himself, his website is linked to in the thread and I gave it below as well, and it was he who gave the seeds to SSE.

When I was interviewed by Dennis this past late summer, he lives about an hour from me, he brought two HUGE Dester fruits with him for me, I took a big bite from each and set up both for fermentation.

I thought the taste was terrific. Dester took 1st place in the SSE taste event last year and 2nd place this past summer.

Then a really nice Tville member sent me several hundreds of seeds so I could offer it in my next Seed offer here.

So Baker Creek either bought seeds last Fall from the SSE public catalog or bought them from Larry Pierce,

Here's the link:

[URL]http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=20540[/URL]


I'm not sure why Baker Creek said that Anna shared it with them when it was Anna who first gave the seeds to Larry. if you click on ABOUT at his website you'll see that he grows stuf for SSE and maybe he grows for Baker Creek as well.

[URL]http://www.piercenaturalfarm.com/seeds.html[/URL]

2012 SSE Results

[url]http://blog.seedsavers.org/tomato-tasting-awards-2012/[/url]

Glad to see the SSE is now offering the seeds individually instead of only as part of a variety pack. I have seeds I received from an SASE offer on here and am looking forward to trying them next year.

Now to figure out if I'll have room for a couple of Italian Heirloom plants next year...

Could anyone answer the question as to the correct name of this variety? I've seen it as Dester, Dester's, Dester's Amish and now Dr. Dester. Has there not been a firm settled on name for this one yet? Curious....?

I did write to Larry Pierce to tell him there was a lot of positive discussion
of this variety on T'Ville and asked him to tell us a definitive name. His
wife said she'd show him the e-mail and have him get back to me. Haven't
heard from him yet-I'm assuming he's very busy at this time so I'll follow
it up again. It's starting to get a bit complicated with the addition of "Dr.
Dester". I was under the impression that Larry also grew for Baker Creek-
the Pierce's Pride that's been on Baker's site is actually from Larry Pierce.
Darlene

[QUOTE=Blk_Vegan;305051]Could anyone answer the question as to the correct name of this variety? I've seen it as Dester, Dester's, Dester's Amish and now Dr. Dester. Has there not been a firm settled on name for this one yet? Curious....?[/QUOTE]

Your question was addressed in the link I gave above and Greyghost was going to contact Larry and get some clarification.

Since I haven't seen an update why don't I just go ahead and PM Larry and ask him to clarify not only the name but also who got the seeds first, Baker Creek or Larry, or whomever, and if he knew the background in as much detail as Baker Creek indicated.

I don't remember Baker Creek offering Dester last year and at the same time that Dester won the taste testing at SSE and seeds made available last year via both SSE and Larry himself.

I'll do that today.

Darlene, your post wasn't there when I started mine so I'll let you do the followup.

I know Larry does growouts for SSE and wondered if he also did them for Baker Creek as well.

Could you also ask him if he could stop by here in this thread and help with clarification not just for the name, but also about the background info given by him as opposed to the more detailed info given at Baker Creek.

And since there's two Dester threads now why don't you send him this link b'c it has the earlier link in it as well.

Thanks so much.

Will do. I did invite him to join when I wrote-have no idea if he did.
Darlene

Hello Tomato Friends,

We know both Larry and Anna well, friends with both and both are former employees of BC. Yes, Larry got it from Anna and grew it first, we got it from Anna, but just grew it this year. But have known about it for awhile from visiting Anna's house.

It is a great tomato, one of our new favorites.... But my overall Favorite this year, was Green Giant, it was incredible tasting and was our heaviest producer... No we don't have it this season... But Victory Seeds does.... It was my favorite of two hundred varieties.

[QUOTE=JereGettle;305133]Hello Tomato Friends,

We know both Larry and Anna well, friends with both and both are former employees of BC. Yes, Larry got it from Anna and grew it first, we got it from Anna, but just grew it this year. But have known about it for awhile from visiting Anna's house.

It is a great tomato, one of our new favorites.... But my overall Favorite this year, was Green Giant, it was incredible tasting and was our heaviest producer... No we don't have it this season... But Victory Seeds does.... It was my favorite of two hundred varieties.[/QUOTE]

Good to see you here Jere, and thanks so much for the clarification on Dester. I do think it's unfortunate that there are now two names for it. As you can see Darlene was again going to contact Larry for clarification, for you call it Dr. Dester and most of us have just been calling it Dester, and Larry/his wife sent out seed packs with some alternate names as well.

What's the chance that you and Anna and Larry can communicate with each other and decide on ONE name for this excellent variety? I do hope that could happen b'c it would benefit everyone.

If you look at the thread here on what was first called Siberian Pink Honey there was a similar problem with that name but that was resolved , see the thread, and it was agreed to call it just Pink Honey:

[URL]http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=23701&highlight=siberian+Pink+Honey[/URL]

As for Green Giant, I know I love it as well as do many others who have grown it, and thanks to Reinhard Kraft for it as well.

Here's the link to Tania's database about it for those who would like to know the background:

[URL]http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Green_Giant[/URL]

And as you can see from the above link there are many places where seeds for Green Giant are sold in addition to Mike's Victory Seeds.

I think it's also interesting that many in the south see no amber blush with this variety, but most of us in the northern climes do see that amber color which is so typical of most green when ripes except for the GWripes that have a clear epidermis such as Verde Claro, another favorite of mine and some others.

Finally, I hope all is well with you and your family and that adorable daughter of yours has inherited some of your enthusiasm for growing anything and everything.:)

Edited to add that SSE has been selling the seeds for two years now from their public catalog and selling the variety as Dester, I forgot them above, but you already know that since you're a listed SSE member. I know that many folks grew Dester this past summer as well and will be offering them in seed offers/trades and some at Tville are seed site owners so they too will be listing them for 2013. Just saying that if it's possible to have one name for this variety it would be great.

hmm, I think I have about 8000 Green Giant seed from this season. I might be able to send them to Glenn at Sandhill.

DarJones

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;305157]hmm, I think I have about 8000 Green Giant seed from this season. I might be able to send them to Glenn at Sandhill.

DarJones[/QUOTE]

That's a whole lot of seed you're talking about Darrel, and since he wants to sell seed no older than two years old, and does huge growouts each year to be able to do that, I'm not so sure he could sell 8,000 seeds in two years.;)

I could have sworn that I might have sent him seed for GG for trial, but when I just checked his catalog for the green ones it's not there. Ah well, it's not the first time I've forgotten something, that's for sure. I'd have it recorded in one of my data books, but they aren't all in the same place, so no reason to go on a search mission.:)

OK Phyllis and Larry Pierce found time to clarify the name and a little
personal history on the Dester tomato that I hope everyone will find
interesting. (I think I had already given up calling this variety Dester's Amish
or Dester's.) I found the additional info on Egg Yolk and Pierce's Pride of interest,
too. Note the tool website---they have absolutely beautiful hoes for sale (I've
also seen them advertised in Gardener's Edge catalog, too).

As far as Dester vs. Dr Dester (Anna also provided this to Jere), I personally have
no opinion on that although if I had bought the seed at Baker Creek, I'd call it the
name that was on the packet. This issue is for others to decide if anyone feels it's
necessary.

Anyway, here's the letter copied and pasted:

Dear Darlene


I was first given the DESTER seed 3 years ago by Anna. We traded seed to grow out, I gave Anna Egg Yolk and Pierce's Pride, both of these tomatoes I developed. The Pierce's Pride was a cross between Tappy's Heritage and Black Krim. The Egg Yolk was a sprout I found growing in a patch of Muldovan Green. It took 4 years to stabilize the Egg Yolk. It is a super good tomato.
To get back to the DESTER . The day Anna and I traded seed, I asked her what was the name and she told me DESTER (verbatim). I added the nomenclature Dester Amish, since people go crazy anything Amish, at the time I wasn't interested so much in the correct name as I was wanting to have everyone try it, since it was the best tomato I had ever tasted. I send the Dester seeds to SSE two years ago. I had a conversation with Anna last year when upon my request to SSE sent Anna the magazine with the taste test winner. Anna felt she maybe able to capitalize on it. I told her then she may want to contact Baker Seed and see if they were interested in the tomato.
My commercial seed growing is coming to a end, because of our other business [URL="http://www.roguehoe.com/"][COLOR=#0066cc]www.roguehoe.com[/COLOR][/URL] has grown so large I just do not have the time or energy to do it. I have several ounces of seeds to finish out the upcoming season. I hope this clears up the water as for the name DESTER.


Sincerely
Larry D. Pierce

[QUOTE=greyghost;306485]
I hope this clears up the water as for the name DESTER.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks to all involved for clearing this up. Too bad it's already being sold under a different name.

Darlene, I think what I'll do is to cut and paste your post and send it to Jere since it's been my experience that he usually doesn't come back to check threads.

And I mean with a PM, not an e-mail, since the one e-mail addy I had for him was on a previous hard drive and so I don't have access to a current personal address.

it's good to know that it was Larry who suggested that Anna send it to Baker Creek, which straightens out the time line for me, at least. And it's good to know that Larry is fine with it being called just Dester.

But I do agree with kath that it's too bad that Baker Creek decided to use a different name after it already been called Dester when Larry sent it to SSE two years before, and Jere being a listed member and also getting the Public Catalog I assume would have seen that, since two years ago it won 1st place and this past summer came in 2nd in the annual SSE tomato tasting event, so has some staying power. Many of us have Dester, as Dester, already. I saved seeds from the two huge fruits that were brought to me when that fellow came to interview me, and then a very nice person sent me several hundred seeds so I could offer it in my next seed offer.:)

Maybe I'll cut and paste this post as well and send it to Jere via PM.

Thanks for offering to discuss the name with Jere-that's something I certainly
didn't want to do or more to the point, I guess I didn't feel it was my business
but I did wonder how I'd have id'ed Dester if I had purchased it from Baker Creek!
I know this variety is on the Baker Creek website and I'm guessing it might
be in their catalog which is probably being printed now--kind of awkward.

I did feel some sympathy for Larry calling it Dester's Amish initially. I kind of
like that name since I'm a sucker for Amish attached to a variety name too,
especially since I send plants into nearby Lancaster to a few people.

Now to pick out a couple of hoes at their tool website. 8-)

Darlene

[QUOTE=greyghost;306501]Thanks for offering to discuss the name with Jere-that's something I certainly
didn't want to do or more to the point, I guess I didn't feel it was my business
but I did wonder how I'd have id'ed Dester if I had purchased it from Baker Creek!
I know this variety is on the Baker Creek website and I'm guessing it might
be in their catalog which is probably being printed now--kind of awkward.

I did feel some sympathy for Larry calling it Dester's Amish initially. I kind of
like that name since I'm a sucker for Amish attached to a variety name too,
especially since I send plants into nearby Lancaster to a few people.

Now to pick out a couple of hoes at their tool website. 8-)

Darlene[/QUOTE]

Darlene, I don't know if it's my business either, but I do know Jere and I do know that Dester has been sold as mainly Dester for two years now so lots of folks have it either from Larry or SSE as Dester.

And yes, I was going to ask if consideration could be given at Baker Creek to just leaving it as Dester. Not hard to change it at the website, those kind of corrections are done all the time with various seed websites and hopefully the catalog hasn't been finalized. Even if it has the seed packscould still have Dester on them and not Dr. Dester.

I know that I asked Jere if he and larry and Anna could get together on this but I know he's busy and I know you started contacting Larry maybe two months ago about it, I can't remember exactly when.

So I'm glad that Larry did finally get back to you.

I'll wait until Subday to see if any others post in this thread and how they feel about it and then I can send Jere a link to the thread without having to do it post by post.

Since the source of the seed referred to it as Dester and it was introduced through SSE to the tomato growing public as Dester then maybe for the sake of uniformity and to avoid confusion the folks at Baker Creek would reconsider calling it Dr Dester. If it is truly a great tomato as claimed it deserves stability of name.

I grew Dester(or whatever name is decided on) this year. I thought it was an excellent beefsteak variety, that had good production for me. I also grew Brandywine Sudduth, and Marianna's Peace. All three are very good varieties IMO. They were all pretty similar in size and were meaty, with not being overly juicy. That's what I look for in a tomato, for BLT's/sandwiches. They all had great taste, but I couldn't pick a favorite.

If Baker Creek took the liberty to rename it Dr. Dester, I can't wait to see what Amishland comes up with. How 'bout Dr. Dester and Mr. Pie's Magic Mutant Beefsteak. Extremely rare and offered nowhere else.

I will also try to get some seeds for Dester to grow it out next year as it looks and sounds like a great one :)

[QUOTE=Iva;306557]I will also try to get some seeds for Dester to grow it out next year as it looks and sounds like a great one :)[/QUOTE]

Iva, I owe you for the two great varieties you sent me this past Spring, but it looks like Neil won't be able to get any significant seeds from either one b/c of the drought, and I think you said you had more seeds you could share with me.

I think I said above that a nice person sent me several hundred seeds of Dester, which I planned on offering in my next seed offer, so let me just send a few to you this Fall before I start puzzling over what I might have to offer in my seed offer here.

I'll PM you about it .

I'm pretty sure I have your address so let me just send some to you now, noting that the Post Office is raising the prices of stamps on Jan 1, 2013.

Going up one penny for first class in the US and while it's still 98cents to most places in Europe and 85cents to Canada, they are now going to be selling a stamp for $1.10 which can be used anywhere in the world, but over the oz mentioned, and I didn't note that, still 20cents to be added.

Folks, you heard it here first about the postage increases coming up and I just read about it in the paper this AM.

Iva, I'm happy to see that you'll be getting some Dester seeds from Carolyn-
it was probably one of the best pink heirlooms I've grown.

For anyone from other countries interested in purchasing seeds of Dester (or
a number of other fine varieties including Dwarf-even one of the newest, Dwarf
Sweet Sue) heritagetomatoseed.com may be an option. On the home page
of Heritage, Steve has stated that he's currently able to mail to several foreign
countries. In addition, he said to let him know the country to which you'd like seeds
mailed and it would be added to the list providing it's legal to mail seeds there.

I've ordered from this site several times and I think this vendor is absolutely wonderful-also a member here at T'Ville.

Carolyn, I hope you get a positive response from Jere-I'm sure he has a lot of
respect for you as an author/heirloom historian. If anyone can get him to agree
to "Dester", I think you can!

Darlene

Dar

As a side note to this discussion -- I can personally vouch for the quality of the Rouge Hoes mentioned in this thread. I didn't know they were Larry's.

I bought several of them when I was at the Michigan vegetable show on more than 1 occasion. I like their small "onion" type for close weeding. Because of a bad elbow, personally I like the "scuffle" type as you don't have to "chop". Both are strong and stay sharp for quite a while.

Something a bit different is the large squared off hoe that is like a large wide pick ax. Those are great for the way we plant our tomato plants. We use a 1 row plow to dig a furrow. Lay the plants on the low side. With maybe 3-4 pulls with these heavy hoes you can pull a lot of soil over the plants and they are done. We can do 1,000 or more plants with a 3 or 4 person crew and 2 or 3 hoes in about 3-4 hours. The rest of the day is spent watering in the plants.

BTW, I also grew Dester and Pierce's Pride from seeds from Larry this year. But due to the horrid weather we had, I don't think we got any ripe fruit. I do hope we have some greenies tho that I can get seeds from. It will be a bit tho before I can check as we finally got ALL the rain we didn't get this summer -- over 2 inches over the weekend. It will be knee deep in mud for a few days.

Carol

Carol, Keep us informed about your Dester seed-I was a bit worried about yours
knowing you got an especially early frost-also, it seemed a bit late in my garden.

Thanks for the info about the Rogue Hoes-glad you have some. They have a
large number of styles-it was hard to chose. I was tempted by the onion hoe
but went with the triangle; first choice was a low profile regular type. Next year,
maybe I'll get some hand tools-they looked very appealing, too. Also liked their rakes but we have several common ones. We're moving aged manure from one
of our large bins. It's completely composted but because of all the rain the last
couple of years, it's very compacted. All I can think of is how much easier it'd be
if we had had a couple of those very heavy, very long-tined rakes! Darlene

BTW, I will be growing Dester along with Dwarf varieties indoors over the Winter. Seeds were started last week. I'll have to prune it I am sure, but it will be interesting to see how it produces under grow lights.

Raybo:D

Greyghost gave me a plant. It was a very fine tomato. I saved a bunch of seed and will grow it again next season. 81 DTM. Once they got started they came on gangbusters. Thank You greyghost...:)

Dester is on my grow list for 2013, folks. Thanks for the excellent comments posted in this thread, which sent me to Heritage to order the seeds.

[QUOTE=carolyn137;306560]Iva, I owe you for the two great varieties you sent me this past Spring, but it looks like Neil won't be able to get any significant seeds from either one b/c of the drought, and I think you said you had more seeds you could share with me.

I think I said above that a nice person sent me several hundred seeds of Dester, which I planned on offering in my next seed offer, so let me just send a few to you this Fall before I start puzzling over what I might have to offer in my seed offer here.

I'll PM you about it .

I'm pretty sure I have your address so let me just send some to you now, noting that the Post Office is raising the prices of stamps on Jan 1, 2013.

Going up one penny for first class in the US and while it's still 98cents to most places in Europe and 85cents to Canada, they are now going to be selling a stamp for $1.10 which can be used anywhere in the world, but over the oz mentioned, and I didn't note that, still 20cents to be added.[/QUOTE]

Carolyn, I do have seeds saved especially for you from both the varieties in question, Istra and Primorski Pacug. I'll be happy to send them to you before the end of the year and trede them for some Dester seeds:D