Hearts!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by camochef

I've never been fond of heart shaped tomatoes as they usually look spindly as if they're dying and detract from the overall appearance of my gardens. This had nothing to do with taste or production.
Then I discovered WES and decided a couple spindly looking plants were tolerable for such a great tasting tomato.
Then last year I planted some of my Kukla's Portugese Bullsheart seed that I had received from Jackie a couple years earlier. Move over Wes! Kukla's Portugese Bulls Heart is the best tasting heart shaped tomato I ever grew!
It is an end of the season producer and really puts out a decent crop while other varieties are beginning to wain in production. And to think, I almost pulled it earlier in the season as it just wasn't producing much. If you like hearts I recommend trying it, just be patient with it as it will please in the end!
Enjoy!
camo

M ( camo), you and I differ b'c the feathery drooping foliage of most heart varieties doesn't bother me at all, and they don't detract from my tomato garden at all, which actually is a small part of my larger garden which is mainly perennials. I grow varieties primarily for taste, not what they look like folaige-wise.

For me Wes does not have droopy wispy foliage and there are other hearts that don't either.

HEre's Tania's page for Wes and no one who reported there indicated wispy droopy foliage.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Wes

Readin that page it reminded me that I got seeds for Wes many years ago from Robert Richardson, now deceased, who was from England and a wonderful man he was, but his main interest was hot peppers and I got some great ones from him and two are still offered at SESE.

I offered all three Kukla's in my recent seed offer here, the beef, the heart and the paste, seeds all from Jackie as well, but some of her seeds were crossed so for a few of them she resent. And there's still some pink ones appearing for the paste, so I warned folks here to save seeds only from red fruited plants b/c it should be red.

For the heart, which is red, she called it Kukla's Portuguese Heart, not Bulls heart so I called it heart, and not bullsheart as well. I agree it's a good one, but my fave of the three is Kukla's Portuguese Beefsteak, which is PL and huge fruits and outstanding taste.

I can't rememebr which of the Kukla's I sent to Linda at TGS, but have in front of me the list of the ones I sent to Adam Gleckler which were the beef and the heart and I sent the same to Glenn Drowns at Sandhill. And I think I sent seeds of some of them to Reinhard Kraft in Germany b'c we've been going back and forth on seeds for many years now.

The reason my memory is no longer perfect, ahem, is b'c I don't know where my other 2012 data book is right now, except I know it's in my home somewhere.

As far as I know none of the three are available commercially yet, but that should change after this summer. I did distribute quite a bit of seed for all three in my recent Jan seed offer and actually ran out of seed for two of them, so hopefully those folks will also offer some of them here in the Fall.

As always, I hope that folks will buy maybe half of their tomato seeds from the several family run sites that so many folks are dependent on for really interesting varieties. And in these economic times IMO they deserve all the support that tomato growers can give them.

As for my tomato garden it's a mess. Freda, who does all my gardening for me has not been able to be here to do much at all in terms of the tomatoes as well as all the expensive replacement perennials I ordered and I can see that I've lost a lot of them.

I don't even know which varieties survived b'c there's been some serious woodchuck "pruning" of quite a few of them and as usual, almsot ALL of them are varieties that will be new to all or most. But major seed production is done by three others, Shoe and Lee in NC and Neil in IL, where they are in a very serious drought situation right now.

OK, gotta go, I can hear the TV back here and someone is beating someone else, as in tennis from Wimbledon.

Camo,

Granny's heart, Terhune, and Limbaughs did the same thing to me. They were not blooming or doing anything but growing tall while other varieties were producing ripe fruit. All three eventually became heavy producers when most of the others were almost bare of tomatoes after producing through the season.

It was interesting watching most varieties produce ripe tomatoes near the bottom of the plant while the three late producers didn't produce a tomato below twenty four inches above the ground.

Ted

"OK, gotta go, I can hear the TV back here and someone is beating someone else, as in tennis from Wimbledon."

That was probably Sharapova getting beat.

Ted

[camochef]

Carolyn,
Seems that you and I have continueing disagreements over the years. I never said Wes was wispy or droopy. I said most hearts are spindly. Remember, I grow mostly Brandywine, Brandywine crosses or Brandywine types with large potato leafed plants that grow tall and full. Put any heart tomato anywhere near them and it will look spindly and unhealthy. It might taste great, but it doesn't look great, it doesn't even look like it would live to see the next day.
Then too, I cage all my tomatoes so they stand tall and fill their cages with their gigantic leaves and heavy fruit. You seem to favor sprawling yours on the ground where you really cannot see what's going on or how they really look. Onto Kukla's
I went and dug up my letters, envelopes and homemade seed packets from Jackie T. Each Seed packet is clearly labeled and the one containing hearts, clearly says Portugese Bulls Heart. It doesn't say Kukla's at all. This was something you and I disagreed on in the past and I just decided to use the Kukla's name to avoid an argument. If I recall, at that time you also clamed it to be heart and not Bulls Heart. Then later on you were in touch with Jackie and reversed your outlook.
Anyway, it's not worth disagreeing about it. I too have sent seed to many, using the names as I had received them, until some time last year when I added the Kukla's name to them.
I also agree that Kukla's Portugese Beefsteak is the best tasting of the three Kukla Portugese tomatoes but this was about Hearts, therefore I didn't mention that fact.
I'm very sorry to hear that your gardens are a mess and that Freda hasn't been able to devote the time they really require. I cut back drasticly on the amount I'm growing this year. Instead of the hundreds I grew every year in the past, I only have 23 tomato plants, some herbs and some alliums. It makes everything so much easier. I watered this morning and it takes about 15 minutes ...tops. Weeding usally takes less than 1/2 hour. It's all, so much more pleasurable. No longer will I grow 300-400 tomatoes/year. As a matter of fact, once I see what amount of yield I get, and how many quarts we get canned, I may just reduce it even more in the future. I didn't realize just how enslaved I was by the gardens. It's nice to be free and be able to spend more time baking and cooking!
Enjoy!
Camo

[camochef]

Originally Posted by tedln

Camo,

Granny's heart, Terhune, and Limbaughs did the same thing to me. They were not blooming or doing anything but growing tall while other varieties were producing ripe fruit. All three eventually became heavy producers when most of the others were almost bare of tomatoes after producing through the season.

It was interesting watching most varieties produce ripe tomatoes near the bottom of the plant while the three late producers didn't produce a tomato below twenty four inches above the ground.

Ted

Ted,
I noticed the same thing last year with Terhune, and my Limbaugh's but to be honest Limbaugh's Legacy didn't stand out that much in previous years, at least not that I can recall.
So far this season, the only plant out there without tomatoes at all is Terhune. It does look rather impressive with its large healthy leaves, but I'd feel better if I would see a few tomatoes on it. There are so many with huge green tomatoes. Tomorrow is the 4th and I'm not gonna have a single ripe tomato. This has never happened to me before. Oh, well!
Enjoy!
Camo

[carolyn137]

Mike, a few points.

What I call wispy droopy foliage can also be called spindly, so we don't disagree at all.

About Jackie's varieties.

I'm pretty sure that when you got the three Portuguese ones from her that you thanked her and then didn't have any more direct contact with her.

It was different for me since what she sent me were seeds that were cross pollinated and she was getting the same at her garden. So we had lots of e-mails going back and forth, she sent me replacement seeds and asked me what I got from them, etc. Craig L raises all my plants for me in NC and ships them up here and from the seeds I sent him there were also problems as well as for me here at home from his plants b'c for some of them he got both PL and RL foliage as I recall. Right now I can't remember who was doing the seed production for me and what they got.

Jackie knew what each of the three SHOULD be based on the fruits that were given to her by Larry Kukla, so it took me a while but I finally got the three OK except for the paste that was still thowing some pink fruited plants.

Then I asked her if she could find out more info from Joe, who was apparently from Portugal, who gave seeds to Larry Kukla. When Jackie went to contact Larry she found he had passed away without her knowing that and she then had no way to contact Joe.

She decided to rename each of the three as Kukla's in honor of Larry Kukla and asked me to do the same and I mentioned that to you at idig where I no longer read.

So I added the Kukla to each of them, and from the get go she never referred to the heart as a Bullsheart, at least not to me.

So I SSE listed all three in the 2012 SSE Yearbook with the Kukla preface and heart for the heart one, did the same for my Seed offer here in Jan, and did the same to the commercial places where I sent seed for trial as well as to several friends with whom I've alwyas exchanged seeds.

Here's Tania's page for the heart one:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...rtuguese_Heart

I just noticed that Tania refers to the foliage as wispy as I do.

She has almost all of the history just fine but above I filled in the missing parts of it.

I never asked Tania to fill in the last name of Jackie, and we both know what it is, and actually Jackie lives in MA, not that far from me.

I see there are currently no commercial sources, as I said in a post above, but knowing where I sent seeds to trial and knowing they will be grown out this summer, I'm hoping that at least a couple of places will be selling seeds for some of the three in 2013 depending on weather and seed production.

I hope the above, including the link to Tania's page clarifies the information about why I added the Kukla, she asked me to and I passed that on to you and mogohead at idig, and why I used heart and not bullsheart/

Now back to tennis, as usual.

Camo,

Other gardeners varietal descriptions sometime confuse me. I saw one post this year reporting their Terhune production as "early". Mine were late, but the late production was causing me to question the purity of my seed.

I also saw someone comment this morning that their Stupice and Druzba were ripening or did ripen at the same time. My reaction was "Huh". For me, Stupice is very early and in my first year of growing it, Druzba has been a mid to late season variety. I am sometimes amazed by the variations that can be induced by planting dates, seasonal climates, and plant nutrition.

Ted

[camochef]

Originally Posted by tedln

Camo,

Other gardeners varietal descriptions sometime confuse me. I saw one post this year reporting their Terhune production as "early". Mine were late, but the late production was causing me to question the purity of my seed.

I also saw someone comment this morning that their Stupice and Druzba were ripening or did ripen at the same time. My reaction was "Huh". For me, Stupice is very early and in my first year of growing it, Druzba has been a mid to late season variety. I am sometimes amazed by the variations that can be induced by planting dates, seasonal climates, and plant nutrition.

Ted

Ted,
I'm in total agreement with your assesments. Last year was my first year growing Terhune, although I had received the seeds a couple years earlier from Tom, I just didn't get around to fitting them into my gardens. It was one of the later tomatoes to start producing for me. It was one I was looking forward to trying as I had heard so many good things about it.
Last year was a terrible year here for tomatoes. Just about everything that could go wrong...did! I was disappointed in my results when I finally got to try my first few, but remember it was a bad year for all my tomatoes. That's why I'm trying it again this year.
It's been years since I grew Stupice. Yes it was very early here. I think they called for them to be 55-56 day tomatoes. Mine were even less. I think it was around 48 days that I started get ripe tomatoes. Why they even beat out my little patio tomatoes which were always first. Unfortunately, I didn't care for the taste of Stupice at all. I only had two plants but they certainly produced an enormous amount of tomatoes.
Nowadays I don't grow any "early" tomatoes or cherry tomatoes either...I prefer large slicers and with the reduction of tomatoes in my gardens, everything had to go except my very favorites, or a few to try in hopes of some new favorites. (it does happen). A couple exceptions to the large slicers rule are Dana's Dusky Rose and Bear Creek, both of which I consider to be medium sized tomatoes. However, their taste is so good that they are welcomed into my large tasty slicer club.
It's hard to believe that out of the thousands of varieties of tomatoes I've grown in the past fifty some odd years that I've never grown Druzba, so I cannot comment on that one at all.
I realize that you and I are worlds apart as far as locale and therefore conditions, but that doesn't mean we can't expect the same results from certain varieties as long as we adjust our seasons accordingly. Planting as early as we can do safely, and feeding and caring for our plants to the best of our abilities. We should end up with the same basic results. Therefore, I wish you the best with yours, and I hope your happy with the results this and every year.
Enjoy!
Camo

[kath]

Camo and Ted-

We ate our first ripe Terhune on 7/2 from a plant that sprouted 3/2 and was planted out on 4/30- there's another on the counter almost ready and one more ripening on the vine. It ripened about 6 fruits in a cluster that's very close to ground level and I don't plant deeply. Last year it was rather low in production, but this year it has plenty of fruits. Last year seeds sprouted 4/21, went in the ground on 5/14 and the first ripe fruit was eaten on 7/26.

The varieties that ripened earlier than Terhune but that were sown and planted out on the same day were: Sungold F1, Amazon Chocolate, Fish Lake Oxheart and Work Release Paste. Next up will be Hays' tonight and then there is an Oleyar's German showing pink on the vine. Among that planting of 12 varieties, the following have only greenies so far: Granny's Heart, Giannini, Caspian Pink, Hawaiian Pineapple and "Chocolate Beefsteak".

Even given all the variables already mentioned in the above posts, it's still amazing to me that this variety can be a late one for some. It must be the presence or absence of that early fruit set that makes the biggest difference, no?

(Please forgive additional chat about a non-heart.)

kath