Seek No Further Love Apple (SNFLA)
 

There is one thread from last winter in which this variety is one among five discussed, but it seems to be the only source of information on it, so I thought I might open up a dedicated line on the topic and post some photos of my plant this year.

Here is the original thread where Tormato lists his [URL="http://tomatoville.com/showpost.php?p=319447&postcount=45"]grow notes[/URL] and promises to follow up with variety history (though I cant find it...anyone else have a link?)

I was very curious about snfla when I received seed from a swap and could find little beyond the above post where the info gets lost among discussion of five varieties, so wanted to start a dedicated post to hear from others who have grown.

So I thought I'd add my early grow notes. In my Z5 garden SNFLA mostly confirms what tormato posted. It was easy and quick to germinate, fairly robust as a seedling but not immediately the most impressive at the seedling stage. It grew quickly and now it is the tallest in my garden by almost a foot, already 8' in a slow year when most indet are still 6' or less. It set 3-4 toms per truss. It was the second plant to begin setting fruit in my garden and has set steadily through hot weather and cool wet weather. No signs of disease thus far. Was e en ignored by aphids when it's neighboring toms were invaded. It does not sucker aggressively and makes for a plant neither too bushy nor too sparse.

My toms are still green but what has surprised me most is their size. They seem HUGE. I won't know until it is ripe and harvested but the largest fruit right now looks to have a diameter over 4" at its widest point and there are two others nearly that size on the same truss.

I will report back on taste but so far I'm very pleased w it's growth performance.

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7411/9463370125_742f927bd1.jpg[/IMG]
The largest fruits more than fill the palm. There are four or more of this size already plus a dozen smaller fruits.
[IMG]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2886/9463364395_6998132fdb.jpg[/IMG]
There is a fourth tomato on this truss hidden behind the others, it is as large as the other large ones shown here.

[IMG]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2876/9463367929_0cb3203022.jpg[/IMG]
The SNFLA is the plant on the left, already reaching towards the top of the 8 foot cage.

That is a beautiful tomato

WOW! I'm so envious!

I'm growing SNFLA this year also, I agree with most of what EMCD124 has posted, mine I would say are on a little the sparse side, with large but not huge toms, I have 1 or 2 starting to blush and can't wait to give them a try.

Apparently they are not so much heat loving. I'll get a few, but nothing like what are in those pics.

Is that the name of it SNFLA or does it stand for a another name and where do the seeds come from?

Ken,

SNFLA stands for Seek No Further Love Apple (I believe to be a 'take-off' if you will, of the apple named "Westfield-Seek-No-Further"), but if you follow the link to the earlier discussion that EMCD124 provided, the name is sort of a 'place-holder' name, but it may be becoming 'official'

Chris

I too am growing this tomato among many others. Sadly it has not been a good tomato season for me (compared to last year's fabulous results). My plants grew great for half of the summer but the cool and wet conditions halted most of my garden's development. Alas, I will not be able to compare this year but will try again next year. This has been the coolest July/August in quite some time.
I do look forward to tasting them though!

Two I picked this morning, 1lb 1oz and 1lb 3oz I'll take some pics of some slices before I try them a little later.
[ATTACH]37614[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]37615[/ATTACH]

My tomatoes are averaging 16-18oz, like JiminNJ.

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/9509715481_81a757c0b6.jpg[/IMG]
The skin is a beautiful pink shade, which has green shoulders when incompletely ripe (see above) that almost totally disappear when ripe.

[IMG]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3811/9567265744_05c8ab0694.jpg[/IMG]

I found the inside pretty meaty with relatively few seed locules, most of which are located toward the end of the tomato (as seen in the slice below. Note this is the same tomato as above, but the above shows the true color better. The color balance is off on this one, making it look too red).

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7312/9564474275_d83f23e2eb.jpg[/IMG]

I also finally got to taste them, and I'm going to put myself on the line and say: I found the taste of this spectacular. Superlative. I love GWR tomatoes when I want a citrusy zing in a tomato, and I love Cherokee Purple or Black from Tula when I want a dusty, earthy full tomato flavor, but when I want a tomato that tastes like a tomato through and through, tomato the way it would taste in my head but so rarely does in life, it would taste like these. I cant think of anything I would add or subtract from the taste. My husband, who tolerates my garden madness with good humor and loves classic tomatoes melted into a puddle of joy when I gave him a bite of the SNFLA. Divine simply sliced, great in caprese salad, heaven on a BLT. Juicy with good mouth feel but not so juicy as to ruin the bread.

I know people love brandywine (and heck, maybe this IS a pink brandywine) but I have never been able to get those prima donas to produce well in my garden, typically getting one or two tomatoes that are still green when I pull them inside to ripen before a frost hits. Even comparing my garden SNFLA to the brandywines I've purchased from my local farmers, I would say I prefer the taste of the SNFLA, though the general category of taste is similar. If you like a brandywine I think you'd probably like these.

This is productive with big tomatoes and a great taste. It is the tallest plant in my garden right now. Disease resistance seems fair as far as I can observe: I have some septoria in other plants in my garden but none yet on SNFLA. It has shown a tendency to crack with all the flash rains we got, and to crack more than other varieties I'm growing, but I dont mind cutting around the crack.

Verdict: A definite thumbs up. Besides, my husband would probably leave me if I didnt grow these again every year.

Wow, beautiful!!

Wish there was a like button. Beautiful.

I too am growing Seek No Further Love Apple. Like CrissyB I am in Wisconsin and am having a very bad year. While my plants do have some nice fruit set, this plant has yet to have a fruit with a blush. I have only had 2 tomatoes from my garden this year and these were from a store bought Cherokee Purple. Hopefully I will have some ripe fruit at some point. As late as it is though it will not be during the warm weather where I can really enjoy a fresh tomato taste.

I do still have a few seeds left and definitely will try to grow this one again next year. In fact most likely all of my plants will be a repeat of those grown this year. All but one was new to me varieties. I really would like to taste them all.

emcd124,

The history/mystery is at another S-N-FLA thread, here...

[URL="http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost.php?p=329637&postcount=25"]www.tomatoville.com/showpost.php?p=329637&postcount=25[/URL]


You had me worried. I thought I posted it a while back. And, I think I'm too young to have a senior moment.

Gary

I'm going to start out by saying this hasn't been a good year for Tomatoes.
I've tried 3 so far, they were meaty, and very mild tasting, so mild I would
call them bland, I'll need to sample a few more, but so far I'm a little disappointed.

[ATTACH]38455[/ATTACH]

I finally got a huge tomato to ripen and it was wonderful! I thought it had a lovely taste, but then I mixed it into my pot of sauce as I needed more tomatoes to finish my recipe. It did remind me of a brandywine tomato (though i havent grown one in awhile because they take Forever to ripen here for me!) :bummer:
I have a few more ripening so i will try them on a bagel cream cheese sandwich (my ultimate tomato test).

For us, SNFLA turned out to be mediocre. The tomato lacked sweetness, was a bit sour and generally bland tasting. The flavour did not improve later in the season.

After many years of trialing SNFLA, I've finally had mixed results. The early tomatoes were great. Then after three rain storms in one week the next batch to ripen were almost bland, interiors were mushy and also had puffiness. The late ones returned to having great flavor.

This tomato should not taste sweet. In ideal growing conditions, it, for me, is firm, with a rich tangy flavor. No sweetness, and no tartness.

Filling in the history, thanks to Neil Gillard from Ontario ("retiree" here at T'ville) who saw the J.O. initials and suspected it was Jason Olson from Kansas. He contacted Jason and confirmed that seeds were sent to David Lemasters, and then David sent them to me. Jason's original source was Heirloom Seeds. He still has his original seed pack (Red Brandywine) from 1999. :?:

Gary

Sampled only once, and it had the old fashioned taste to me. Most of my crop gets processed into tomato sauce and frozen, which means dh throws all the tomatoes in a bucket and I can't tell them apart, so I didn't compare flavors at different stages. Very good producer throughout the entire season for me. Excellent actually. Had no trouble ripening, but the shoulders did remain bright green. Did not split or puff after recent heavy , rainfall. Saved seeds for next season.

[QUOTE=Tormato;376981]
This tomato should not taste sweet. In ideal growing conditions, it, for me, is firm, [B]with a rich tangy flavor[/B]. No sweetness, [B]and no tartness[/B].
Gary[/QUOTE]

Maybe we're both describing the same tomato! :))
Yes, agreed, SNFLA is not sweet at all. But I thought tangy = tart = acidic = old fashion = bite = zippy = sour. I could be wrong.

How do people define these terms which, for me, are all synonyms?

Daren

For me when it matures fully, as shown in my photos above, it no longer has the green shoulders. I thought it had a good balance of flavor but I would not call it particularly acidic nor particularly sweet. For reference it was definitely less sour/zippy than Rutgers, a popular benchmarker. Its productivity and disease resistance during a mediocre growing season really makes it a standout for me.

Though I would agree with Tormato that the tomatoes produced during the wettest part of the summer were bland, and had some cracking issues, but those produced during moderate watering were very good, particularly given its other characteristics. In a summer in which my Cherokee Purple, KBX, and Gold Medal all just sat there and did nothing, each producing only about four tomatoes by this point, I have harvested well over a dozen SNFLA each in the 16-20 oz range. Its neighboring plants are now heavily under the spell of septoria, and it still has very few spots on it. So far this is the only one I am certainly growing again next year.

[QUOTE=Tormato;376981]After many years of trialing SNFLA, I've finally had mixed results. The early tomatoes were great. Then after three rain storms in one week the next batch to ripen were almost bland, interiors were mushy and also had puffiness. The late ones returned to having great flavor.

This tomato should not taste sweet. In ideal growing conditions, it, for me, is firm, with a rich tangy flavor. No sweetness, and no tartness.

Filling in the history, thanks to Neil Gillard from Ontario ("retiree" here at T'ville) who saw the J.O. initials and suspected it was Jason Olson from Kansas. He contacted Jason and confirmed that seeds were sent to David Lemasters, and then David sent them to me. Jason's original source was Heirloom Seeds. He still has his original seed pack (Red Brandywine) from 1999. :?:

Gary[/QUOTE]
So, SNFLA is actually Red Brandywine, or did I misunderstand?

Marsha

[QUOTE=ginger2778;377320]So, SNFLA is actually Red Brandywine, or did I misunderstand?

Marsha[/QUOTE]

Marsha,

SNFLA is a pink tomato. It showed up in my garden, from a seed out of a pack labeled as Red Brandywine. Red Brandywine it is not.

Gary

[QUOTE=Tormato;377515]Marsha,

SNFLA is a pink tomato. It showed up in my garden, from a seed out of a pack labeled as Red Brandywine. Red Brandywine it is not.

Gary[/QUOTE]
Thanks Gary,
Glad to hear that, because I am growing it now. Also growing Red Brandywine.

Marsha

[QUOTE=ginger2778;377518]Thanks Gary,
Glad to hear that, because I am growing it now. Also growing Red Brandywine.

Marsha[/QUOTE]

You're growing Red Brandywine, as long as it's not '99 seed from Jason.;)

[QUOTE=Tormato;377609]You're growing Red Brandywine, as long as it's not '99 seed from Jason.;)[/QUOTE]Especially with bought seeds.

who is Jason?

Marsha

[QUOTE=ginger2778;377632]who is Jason?

Marsha[/QUOTE]

See thread #22. Jason Olson from Kansas. ;)

Patti

Just harvested my first one and ate it. The flavor, and texture is over the top! Thank you for these seeds, Dr. Love Apple.;)

Marsha

Sorry to be late to the party.

I grew this one last season here in the Philippines.I don't document the tomatoes I grow as well as perhaps I should,but I liked this tomato.It wasn't the most flavorful,but it had pretty darn good flavor and yielded well for me here.This is one that I will grow every year,as I do like it very much.A hearty "Thank You" to the kind member who shared these with me.

BTW:There was no stitching present.