Need help with Heirloom

[magsmom]

Hi everyone , I have been growing an Heirloom tomato for the past 7 years. problem is, I don't know it's name . The seeds were given to me by my husbands Grandmother and she has passed away and no one else in the family knows the variety. Can someone suggest a good place to try to help me identify this ? I will also post pictures later this summer. My plants are only about 10" tall right now ! It is a beautiful, meaty pink tomato.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by magsmom

Hi everyone , I have been growing an Heirloom tomato for the past 7 years. problem is, I don't know it's name . The seeds were given to me by my husbands Grandmother and she has passed away and no one else in the family knows the variety. Can someone suggest a good place to try to help me identify this ? I will also post pictures later this summer. My plants are only about 10" tall right now ! It is a beautiful, meaty pink tomato.

It sounds as though it's been grown within the family for a very long time and maybe it didn't even have a name at all, which is not uncommon, and maybe it was a commercial variety that was grown and the name long forgotten.

Since there are about 15- 20,000 varieties known and about 6 - 7000 thousand available commercially, and hundreds upon hundreds of
large meaty pink varieties that all look about the same, there's no way that any pictures are going to be able to ID a specific known name for a large pink fruit.

It happens to me all the time when I'm given a family heirloom variety and then I have to name it myself along with the person who gave it to me, and what they knew about it.

So that's what I suggest you do and I'll give you one example of how to go about it. Well, I can't do it b'c the backposts at that site don't go back that far.

But it's a thread where I asked folks to help me name a tomato b'c it came to me with no name. There were 22 folks who posted in that thread and the final name decided on was Neves Azorean Red and I sent seeds to all of then as thanks.

I did that thread so that folks would know what to do when faced with the same problem I've had many times and you now have, in naming something that doesn't have a name. I'm not suggesting that you start you're own thread about it, I've had to name many such varieties and that's the only one I started a thread about.

If you want me to I can describe what information I posted in that thread that allowed folks to agree on a name.

[magsmom]

I never thought to name the tomato myself ! It would be nice to incorporate my husband's grandmothers name into my new tomato ! I think I will wait until harvest so I can get a good look at them and a good taste of them to get a feel for a name !

Magsmom, It will also help if you can describe the leaf shape and plant growth habit. For example, I am growing a large, beef steak pink tomato this year called Prudens Purple. It is always identifiable for me because it is usually the tallest plant in my garden (about nine feet right now, but the season is still early) It has potato leafs instead of regular leafs. Each leaf is also very, very large when compared to other potato leaf varieties. You probably are not growing Prudens Purple, but that type of information can assist in identifying the variety. Ted