I've tried wtih Google and Dogpile and I've not found any reference to Marihanas Peace other than these posts. Is Marihanas Peace the same as Marianna's Peace? Joe

Terry,
I've grown both Marianna's Peace, and Rostova. I consider them both excellent tomatoes. I grew Marianna's Peace from Mariseeds the first year, and they were excellent tomatoes. I grew them from another source the next year, and they were somewhat ribbed(as opposed to smoother, from Mariseeds). They didn't taste as good. It was a cooler year, and this could have been part, or all of the reason. I'm growing seeds from Mariseeds this year(another seed pack), and they are the smooth version again. I haven't had any ripe yet.
Last year was my first year growing Rostova. I had one that was probably over 2 lbs. The production seemed to be very good. They ripened early for their size. I was impressed. I'm growing them agian this year. None ripe yet.

Douglas

Hi-Joe, Yeah" it is the same , its just my darned spelling, I just cant seem to get my head round some of these names with double NN's and double this and that, Sorry,
Douglas,- thats very interesting, I bought mine from Gary Ibbotson when they were the crazy price of the worlds most expensive tomato seed, all mine came ribbed and quite large, potato leaved, and nice flavour, from which I have saved the seed evry year for three years, the only problem I find with them -is that they ere not very desease resistant, especialy leaf deseases. although they was billed as the worlds most expensive tomato seed-they was not" as I paid much more for a single packet of genuine Russian seed, of a very large red violet, almost black variety that was considered very rare,when growing at the side of Marihannas Peace you cant tell them apart,same leaves, same shape tomatoes,same style of growth, its only when the tomatoes ripen that you can see the difference in the colour.

If any of you are wondering-why I migrated to Vol-2, post,it was because they were too busy fighting on the original "Marihannas Peace and Sunset Red Horizon post", they are still at it now, if you look below, so I left them to it,as the post went way off tangent and was nothing whatsoever about what I originaly wanted to know,and I just couldnt stand the bickering any longer, and sniping,when after all (tongue in cheek ) it is Marihannas Peace,- some peace".

Terry, your form of homour could be annoying to some but I'll bet it wasn't something that came on overnight! Like mine, probably took 66 years to perfect!

Actually, I don't think that there is a better or worse source for Marianna's Peace. The original source seems to not have a good track record for being 100% honest with all things tomatoey. When I first began following the story, Tomatofest seemed to have been considered in high regards by many. Going back to 1999-2001 GW postings seem to confirm that. There have been some recent grumblings heard among the troops in regards to Gary Ibsen's Tomatofest. It now seems to have come to the point where previous supporters won't say yes or no but attempt to avoid or gloss over it. (It's also a GW sponsor so one has to be careful about alleged problems.) Crossed seeds, wrong seeds, wrong descriptions or histories, etc. have been mentioned as possible problems which Tomatofest no doubt it aware of. And with ALL offered seed being grown by them, they would be the only ones with the best chance of having "pure" seed of a given vareity, if such a thing ever existed. You see, the reasoning is this. Any grower would maintain a reserve stock of known pure seed. If anything went wrong, that's the insurance policy to set it right or it's lost potentially forever. Marianna's whatever has apparently been wrong from day one, which was 6 years ago. If it were a old stable variety, there should have been ample time to correct any possible mixed seed problem with a single growout. But if the best that they can offer now is maybe an F5, it's probably still better odds than getting them through SSE or another GW member. As I recall, 20% wrong type showed up in early releases. By now, perhaps it's down to 10% or less if the sale inventory is being maintained annually by fresh seed.

Oh, I got mine from a GW member whom I would definitely trust as much as I would trust myself when it comes to seed saving. And yet I have what appears to be two entirely different varieties, neither fitting the accepted standards for Marianna's Peace.

Martin

Here is a link that might be useful: Marianna's Peace Source

Dash it- there I go again, putting an "H" in Marianna's Peace, I also goofed on Gary Ibotson instead of Gary Ibsen, cant seem to get the darned things right,- and yet" I have a little Italian Cherry tomato which is rare -called
Pomodorina Ciliegia Pugliese (spelled absolutly correctly ) which seems to roll off the tongue as easy as pie, the reason its rare is that it only comes from a little village in Italy called Ciliegia , and no where else.
Martin-thanks for the updated info on Marianna's Peace I enjoyed reading it, and the link also, I shall persevere with this variety for a while yet and see what I can get out of it,

(I am very suprised that Andrea doesnt seem to list this one on his avalable seeds of russian tomatoes ,its a superb tomato -is there any more history on it avaiable regarding its original parentage etc,)

Rostova was introduced by Anioleka Seeds, also known as Seedfest. In their blurb for it no parentage is given and I assume b'c as represented as an heirloom, none is known.

I'm not sure which Andrea ( but I think you mean Andrey or Andrei) you're referring to.

There's an Andrey/Andrei from Belarus who has been distributiung seeds for Russian varieties to many GW folks and the owners of Anioleka Seeds are Kelley and Andrey/Andrei.

They originally started in Oregon in the US and then moved to Scotland and now are moving back to the US. And they also list online, although not right now, many Russian varieties.

Gary Ibsen and Kelley and Andrei entered into discussions of Gary wanting to rename their Rostova to Sunset Red Horizon. The end result is that it happened. From the blurb at Anioleka Seeds apparently it didn't turn out as expected, in some way, and I don't know what the problem was but know they were unhappy about what happened b'c of what they wrote at their website.

I don't know Gary's side of this , have not asked him and don't intend to, for this variety.

I'm growing Rostova for the first time this year and if the weather doesn't start behaving I may have to grow it next year as well. Sigh.

I've followed the Marianna's Peace story from the beginning and asked Gary why he didn't just save seeds himself and sell them at a reasonable price. His response was that as long as folks were willing to pay that high price he was OK with that. (smile)

I've known Gary for a long time since he subscribed to a newsletter on heirloom tomatoes called Off the Vine that Craig and I used to publish in the early 90's.

But as time passes I don't think Gary's and my approaches to heirloom tomatoes are similar, aside from the fact that his is a business.

I don't know what MP was like when he got it so can't speak to any instability problems since he represented it as an established heirloom with the history given at his website.

I can share the following.

He had contacted me about locating a variety he wanted to name in honor of Julia Child to ask if I had a variety I hadn't yet listed at SSE or distributed seeds for that was worthy of her name, to him.

I said I did, but he wanted an exclusive, as some do, and I'm not willing to give exclusives to anyone. What I have others can have.

The variety I could have sent him is now known as Neves Azorean Red and it's a very very good variety.

Hope that helps.

Carolyn, who also noted your remark about books in the main forum, re me. IMO it wasn't necessary to do that but.....

Hi- Carolyn, thanks for the info on (Rostova ), I did read part of it on anioleka seeds web site a year or more ago (actualy they ruined their own business in a way ) by suddenly creating about fifty new web site names to do with seeds of all kinds, and it so confused people they didnt quite know what was going on,they also used to sell seeds on e-bay quite a lot, and listed dozens of tomatoes on there last year,, but now they seem to have stopped,perhaps e-bay chargeds were too high,
Unfortunatly I got the wrong andrea- I meant the one in Belarus, I would have thought he would have listed it on his very comprehensive lists of tomatoes,but I couldnt seem to find it,
I absolutly love the Sunset Red Horizon (Rostova ) tomatoes I am growing this year, dissapointing at first, but after they reached the halfway stage-then they realy seem to come into their own, producing truss after truss of large-to very large tomatoes, not bad flavour-sort of savoury rather than sweet, very-very strong plants, i am having a bit of a job stopping mine after they reached six trusses, as they seem to want to go on forever, I chopped the tops off at that stage-but within a week they were sending out new side shoots all over the place,
I dont quite know what eventual height or girth they would finaly reach under ideal frost free growing climates, but I bet they would be some size, overall. the only thing I dont like about this variety is the long wispy leaves, as they seem to be twice as long as normal tomato plants, and tend to get in the way a bit when you are trying to service each plant in the normal way, side shooting, pollinating , general inspection etc, etc,
I am sorry-and appologise, with your reference to your book,dont be so darned touchy at everything anybody says ,nothing is meant by it, its a damn good book-I have a copy of it I often refer to it myself for certain things and info,but it would have been far better if it had run to perhaps a thousand different varieties, rather than a hundred, I know it would have meant a lot more work involved , or even an updated version to bring it up to date with all the new varieties that have come to light recently, as nobody seems to have taken up the challenge to carry on where you left off, and often find themselves wanting-in that respect,
I myself was the other day looking round for info on a variety called Oaxacan Jewel but couldnt find much info on it,
The only reason I mentioned the other book , was because everybody to a tee, seems to use your book as a reference point regarding tomatoes, whereas the other book by Terry Marshall covers purely organic culture,varieties in limited amounts,greenhouse construction-scientific breakdown of the suns rays and angles it strikes the glass,for best effect,seed germination, root growth to maximum possible,flower bud enhancment with temp control in the early stages, deseases of every kind and of course pests,composts from home made to commercial -which gives very suprising results,especialy on root growth,for example a natural peat product gleaned from the fine grains of peat washed down the mountain streams and collected in sieves at the water treatment plant,as a by-product of their water filteration, gives superior results and massive root growth to tomatoes -than peat dug out of the ground, nobody seems to know why ?, something seems to happen to it on its way down the streams that makes all the difference, photographic evidence in this book shows roots nearly bursting out of eight inch pots and curled round in the bottom several times,it also covers pollen forming temp and heat temp pollen destruction, giving the max and min of temp for pollen usage, just as a general guide,also lots of favourite recipes for favourite organic feeds,from hen dip-to comfrey green soup, also covering, pigeon, turkey, and animal manures, and their various effects on tomatoes,Loam production from turf heaps,etc, etc, altogether a different type of book to yours entirely,covering different aspects of the tomato world completly,so you see- you musnt be so darned touchy if anyone happens to mention another book other than yours,its a very good book and I still read it on a regular basis,you musnt take any notice whatsoever of me when I might have said in passing-there are other books on tomatoes other than yours,nothing was meant by it, other than almost everyone in the USA uses your book to refer to, as a general guide,in its own right its ideal for reference to varieties , but it doesnt cover many other aspects of tomato growing-nor was it designed to do so,and other books do cover other aspects,
Personaly I wish you would write a new book -covering many more updated varieties , I would probably be one of the first to buy a copy,

Carolyn,

A little off topic, but I loved your book. I too wish you would write another book. I'm very new to the heirlooms. And your descriptions and photos have helped me immensely.

My Great Grandmother used to grow a tomatoes from seed during my youth. They were the best. When she passed away so did her tomatoes. Had I known what I knew now I would have saved the seeds and continued growing her tomatoes maybe one day they would have been an heirloom also.

Charles