I do like the fact that Orange Oxheart is mid season as compared to late season for Orange Strawberry.

Thanks,

Larry

I have found in the past that the generically named variously colored hearts that have been around for a long time just aren't as good as the ones with dedicated names. And that holds true for me as to Orange Oxheart vs orange Strawberry.

Quite a few years ago a woman sent seeds directly to SSE and never heard back from them so sent them to me and she'd named them German Red Strawberry, I grew them out and listed them in the SSE Yearbooks and also sent them to those owners of seed sites for trial where I'd known the owners for years and trusted them.

If you look at Tania's data base you'll see huge number of seed sources for GRStrawberry. Very popular.

Her name is Majorie Morris and GRS Strawberry was originally from Germany , brought to the US by her relatives and finally named by her.

She then sent me seeds for what she named Orange Strawberry. NOT a family heirloom and NOT from Germany. it was from a stray seed she found in a commercial pack of the variety Pineapple.

Some seed vendors, unfortunately, went ahead and changed the name to German Orange Strawberry, assuming the two had the same origin. NOT!!!!!.

I'm a heart lover, that is tomato heart varieties lest you think otherwise. I think Orange Strawberry is a bit drier than many other hearts I've grown, but still good taste, but not good as the taste of many other hearts I've grown.

If you want it for processing, I assume for sauce, it would work well since the flesh is dense and few seeds, which is true for all the heart varieties.

But my question is why just Orange Strawberry as compared with the many other heart varieties?

Carolyn

"But my question is why just Orange Strawberry as compared with the many other heart varieties?"

Actually I've 2 ea Anna Russian, Kosovo, and Orange Oxheart tomato plants (along with some other chile plants) on order from CCN due to be shipped last week of April. I've read good reviews concerning OO, placed an order for it, and then suddenly became aware of Orange Strawberry that could be possibly confused with OO. I'm out to make a clear distinction between those two for my own sake.

Other tomato babies I currently have under grow light are:

Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Green
Indian Stripe
Black Cherry
Kellogg's Breakfast
Brandy Boy

Larry

What's the name of this CCN place where you're getting plants from? Googling doesn't help.LOL

And it's the second list starting with CP and Cherokee Green that you started from seed?

Just curious but why some from seed and some from buying plants?

Carolyn

Yes. CP was seed from the only one I grew last season, CG I obtained from Victory seed along with the others (except for BB, which is a Burpee exclusive).

"Just curious but why some from seed and some from buying plants?"

Actually it was on a whim (not surprisingly largely due to the praises you yourself give the hearts for flavor as a processing tomato) while ordering several chile plants.

It looks like those folks had my heirloom tomato book since there's a very large number of varieties that were in the book that they show pictures for.

And darn few heart ones that I saw and I went down the whole list to Zogola, another one from my book, now out of print but you can get it online for a couple of hundreds of dollars. LOL As for me, Istill have four pristine copies in the backroom and when it hits a thousand I'll cash in and put the $$$$ towards my dark chocolate budget.( smile)

With shipping how much did it cost you to get how many plants. Just curious when I looked at the price of individual plants.

Perhaps next time you might consider buying your plants from Fusion, who posts here from his site Selected Plants you can find via Google, A HUGE selection and very reasonable prices.

Carolyn

Yeah, I'm spending a few dollars at CCN in order to get an initial start with the earliest Baccatuums for growing in my area, and besides, they do have a very good reputation. Tomatoes are not their forte (their website is chileplants .com), the half dozen (that's how you have to purchase, by sixes after the first dozen plants) of three heart varieties were bought on an afterthought, and if I like em', I'll save seed for the future.

I found this thread (third post down, zone 6b) that had this to say about the OO:

".... I've grown them for years. It should be planted in your best ground because you will love it. It's a big plant with big tomatoes. Most of mine will be at least 4 inches in dia. and 5 inches tall with a point on the bottom. the bottom portion is all meat with no seeds. The taste is wonderful, that oldtime tomato taste...".

Would love to hear more from others who have grown it.

I had to retire b'c I had two bad hips, but before I could get them replaced I fell b/c of that.

I'll be 74 in June and no longer can do any gardening at all, and fragrant perennials are actually my first love, so someone else does all the gardening here for me.

The last season I grew my normal # of tomato plants was the summer of 2004 where I had out several hundreds of plants and varieties.

I'm a long time Life Time member of SSE and used to list hundreds of varieties for SSE members in the yearbook and since about 1985 I've made seed offers at various places each year, for an SASE,no money involved.

Yes, I wrote a book about heirloom tomatoes and received a modest advance but absolutely no royalties since the cost of the photography was very high,

THe only thing I ever did for money was as a salaried teacher.

To date I've grown over about 3,000 tomato varieties and hope to live longer to make it to 4,000 but I don't know about that since I'm also diabetic and smoke, stupid I know b'c I used to lecture about cancer.

I was also raised on a farm where we had acres of tomatoes and have been up close and personal with tomatoes and many other crops since I was about five,

So now you know more about me, I have never had website and never will,, and freely give tomato varieties to seed vendorsfor trial where I've known the owners for many years and non-SSE and SSE members at several sites through the years for an SASE and I mentioned the dark chocolate since it along with cashews are two of my favorite snacking foods. The comment about the budget was a joke and many who know me well know that.

Carolyn

Thanks for the brief autobiography. I've known of and respected you for many years from seeing your name and work mentioned in seed catalogs, most notably in the beginning Southern Exposure Seed Exchange early catalogs.

My! That was some fall that you had there. Very sorry to hear of that. I myself experienced a life changing incident AFTER retirement in 2004 that has left me half lame with a limited number of steps available to me each day, and, 2004 was also the last large garden that I have grown. These twenty or so varieties of chiles and tomatoes I intend to grow this season is by far the biggest garden venture I've taken since.

I'm from burley country, I've been 'up close and personal with' and enjoyed tobacco most of my life and I still enjoy a good smoke now and then, but mostly now it's a chew or two of straight 'long green' burley each day. I'm actually going to raise about a dozen plants this year to make my own twists, or that's the plan anyway. :-)

Larry

P.S. I would think that if you did have a website it would be excellent and beneficial to all who visited it.

Heheh, I don't know anything about 'alleles', but seems I read somewhere that OO is sometimes streaked with red inside.

&&&&&&

I did take it in the wrong light when you asked about my business ventures, of which there are none.

I wouldn't have written what I did above if it weren't for that, since I didn't want you or anyone else thinking I was making money off something, presumably tomato seeds or profits frommy book, of which there were none.

I don't think folks realize that when I, or anyone else, sends seeds for trial to a seed vendor, there's no money that changes hands.If the vendo likes the variety and then listsit, all money goes to him or her.

As for SSE listings and a request piice, SSE sugggests $3 for a minimum of 25 seeds which I think is way too high, especially since most of the listers are not professionals, but amateurs ,so in the 2013 Yearbook I offered 10-15 seeds for $1 to both listed and unlisted SSE members ( the SSE request price for the latter is $4), anywhere on earth.

The SSE Yearbook in my opinion has become a seed catalog and no longer has much to do with seed preservation by relisting varieties requested.

For my seed offers elsewhere I let those outside the US e-mail me their requests and then I pay the postage for all of those wherever they go.Gunnar can attest to that. (smile)

Finally, you want to see my bill for supplies from Staples and my postage costs? No way can I cover what I need as supplies from SSE requests but my supply costs also pertain to my seed offer elsewhere, I agree..

What I prefer to do is to share what new and old vareities I have with others, for a SASE for my annual seed offer and going as low as I can with a request price for the SSE listed ones.

Ok, Peace.

Perhaps I over reacted, it's possible, but let's go forward now.

Carolyn, who has not seed any red streaks or blushes in OO or Orange Strawberry or Herman's Yellow or any of the orange hearts she's grown in her area.An allele is an alternative form of a gene, not all genes have alles, but to give one example, the gene gf ( green flesh) has I think 4-5- alleles, I didn't check those numbers but I'm close, and scientists have been able to determine the specific allele in different so called black tomatoes and put them into categories which then gives an estimate of where they originated from. And that helps distinguish heirloom ones from ones that have been bred more recently or are the result of natural cross pollination.Doing that it was found that the 100 yo variety Cherokee Purple was not that old, seeds given to Craig L by John Green of TN who was told that when the seeds were given to him.