Just to give a little background, I use most of my tomatoes for canning salsa and sauces, and like to have a couple of cherry tomatoes for salads. I love the flavor of the beefsteak types, and find the small to medium tomatoes to much work for canning. So what I usually do is grow mostly heirloom beefsteaks, and use some paste tomatoes to thicken things up.

I only have space for 17 plants, which is where I need your help. Anyway, here is where I am at on the list, and these are all seeds I already have in my seed box. Don't have time or $ to place any orders, so trying to work with what I have on hand.

*Amish Paste (may grow a couple, unless I find seeds for another paste tomato in my seed box.)
*Aunt Gertie's Gold
*Box Car Willie
*Earl's Faux
*Caspian Pink
*Giant Belgium
*Neves Azorean Red
*Matt's Wild Cherry OR Red Currant ???
*Isis Candy
*Black Cherry OR Brown Berry OR Chocolate Cherry
*Indian Stripe OR Cherokee Purple OR Cherokee Chocolate OR Spudakee
*Amazon Chocolate OR Black Russian
*Gold Medal OR Mammoth German Gold OR Yellow Brandywine
*Hillbilly OR Pineapple OR Virginia Sweets OR Striped German OR Nature's Riddle
*Soldacki OR Rainy's Maltese
*Gold Currant and/or White Currant (I've read that these can be grown in a hanging basket. Will they really produce that way?

Okay, so please help me with the OR's

Thanks!
Bonnie

Matt's Wild Cherry
Black Cherry
Indian Stripe
Yellow Brandywine
Virginia Sweets

Don't care for any of the currants personally.

Dave

*Aunt Gertie's Gold ; yes
*Box Car Willie ; yes
*Earl's Faux ;yes
*Caspian Pink ; not impressed
*Giant Belgium ;ditto
*Neves Azorean Red ; yes
*Matt's Wild Cherry OR Red Currant ??? ; Matt's is a true tomato variety but a cersiforme, not a currant, I don't like the taste, generic red currants are such wee fruits you go crazy picking them, the best I know of is Sara's Galapagos.

*Isis Candy , not impressed

*Black Cherry OR Brown Berry OR Chocolate Cherry ;Black Cherry

*Indian Stripe OR Cherokee Purple OR Cherokee Chocolate OR Spudakee ; have grown them all IMO Indian Stripe is the best.

*Amazon Chocolate OR Black Russian; have not grown

*Gold Medal OR Mammoth German Gold OR Yellow Brandywine ; Yellow Brandywine, preferably Platfoot strain,

*Hillbilly OR Pineapple OR Virginia Sweets OR Striped German OR Nature's Riddle ; Virginia Sweets

*Soldacki OR Rainy's Maltese ; Soldacki

*Gold Currant and/or White Currant (I've read that these can be grown in a hanging basket. Will they really produce that way? I have no idea about hanging baskets, but with few exceptions I'm not thrilled about currant varieties.

Hope that helps

Carolyn, who spent many years in Denver and still misses the wonderful peaches and melons from the Western Slope of CO.

Looks like you two are in agreement with one another. That's helpful. I was afraid I would get a dozen differing opinions.

Carolyn, I live about 75 miles east of Palisade where those wonderful peaches and melons are grown. It's just a few degrees warmer there, and I don't have as good of luck with the melons as they do. I did plant a peach tree a couple years ago, so hoping to have a few this homegrown ones this year, if the deer or late frosts don't get them first!

I could also send you some seeds if you would like to contact me.

Cindy

I live in Pueblo, just a little bit east on the prairie side of the mountains. I grow tomatoes for the same uses you do, as well as for V-8 and Ro-Tel knockoffs for canning. I had gotten some Gold Medal seeds from you in trade last year and they produced well and tasted great. I have used Indian Stripe, Rainy's Maltese, and Virginia Sweets with excellent results. One plant of Virginia Sweets had 25-30 tomatoes between 1-2#, with the biggest almost 2.5#. And if the frost would have been later, there were another 20 or so green ones that could have ripened. But any tomato is fair game to be made into salsa which contributes to the uniqueness of each batch.

And as Carolyn stated, people are switching to great tasting hearts. My recently deceased aunt who would have been 100 years old this year, introduced me to a heart type that she had been growing for 40+ years in Missouri before she moved here to live. It has produced some huge tomatoes with great taste and very little seed cavity. If you are interested I can get some seeds out to you ASAP.

And regarding melons in Colorado, don't forget the famous Rocky Ford cantaloupe, grown just a few miles east of me in the Arkansas valley. They had a rough time last year because of the bad press from the previous year, for something that occurred 30 miles away. Hopefully, in spite of the drought we are in the middle of, that they have a better year.

George

Black Russian-the worst black I've ever grown. I'd go with the other.
Yellow Brandywine- I've had good luck with other Brandywines, but I've tried (unsuccessfully) to grow Yellow Brandywine for four years from 3 different seed sources. In the last 5 years in CO, I've started around 150 different varieties, and no single variety has been as weak as Yellow Brandywine. They always look sickly and weak compared to other varieties and they always die. Perhaps they have some special aversion to the arid climate in Southern CO? I would plant Gold Medal AND Yellow Brandywine, and if you get a vigorous Brandywine seedling, give the Gold Medal away. Perhaps you'll have better luck on the Western Slope!

See I knew you guys would try and talk me into stuff not on my list! Haha!!!

George, I have considered oxheart varieties, and I think I have seeds for a couple different ones. The thing that has kept me from switching is that I have read that they are not very productive, and I need a large quantity of tomatoes without a lot of plants. How productive is the one you grow?

I love the Amish Paste, and didn't realize that it wasn't a true paste tomato. Mine have never been overly juicy, have few seeds, and are nice and meaty, with a much better flavor than the other paste types I've grown. Most are mealy and bland to me.

I really like both the Gold Medal, and the Striped German, so I am hesitant to switch to the Virginia Sweets, and Yellow Brandywine, but I want to be open minded as well.

It's so hard when space is limited, and I want to grow the ALL!

EDIT: Hi Euarto! It looks like we were posting at the same time.

Now I'm even more hesitant to try the Yellow Brandywine! I don't have space to waste on weaklings. Have you had any luck with Hillbilly? I have tried 2 or 3 years in a row and got no germination.

George, I am in Pueblo too. Let me know if you want to get together some time and trade some seeds.

After going back through my seedbox here are the oxhearts I found:

Anna Russian - no date though, so not sure how old the seeds are
Cour di Bue
Oxheart - no further description given
Red Oxheart
Orange Oxheart

Edit:

Oh, wait! I just found a plastic baggie full of tomato seed packets that hasn't been filed yet. Here are some more heart shaped varieties that I have to choose from:

Butter and Bull's Heart
Heart of Compassion Pink Oxheart
Homer's German Oxheart
Huge Lemon Oxheart
Ludmilla's Pink Oxheart

So out of all of the ones I have, which would be the best choice for productivity and flavor?

Oh, and Carolyn, I also found a packet of Sara's Galapagos that you mentioned above!

Thanks!
Bonnie

That could be one of the drawbacks to growing hearts. The variety that my Aunt grew was a late producer, 80-85 day, but that plant would grow. Most years it would outgrow most of the other varieties with the frost deciding how much it would climb...most years it has been over 8' tall. Production was good but not overwhelming.

One variety that I grow which outproduced anything else was Big Beef Hybrid...but taste was not as great. But considering all the other flavors that are introduced making salsa, it wasn't a big concern.

Good luck in your decision. I too have limited space and with all the new varieties that I have run across with seed trades and swaps, I wish I could try just a tenth of the seeds that I have.

George

I'm also with you on the Amish Paste. I didn't know they weren't true pastes, either, but mine haven't been overly juicy. And since I can sauce I want bigger tomatoes. Tried the Opalka but had constant BER problems with them so they're out this year.

Also couldn't resist the Burpee SuperSauce. I'm not expecting it to live up to the company's hype, but we'll see. My guess is it will be pretty big but probably blah tasting.

Caryl

There are several hundreds of heart varieties and not all are late, meaning over 80 days where I live, and it also depends on any given season as to weather in terms of maturity times.

If you aren't sure of the seed age of your Anna Russian seed, just put some seeds in a cup of water, I don't know how many seeds you have, add a pinch or two of blue stuff ( Miracle Grow or Peters, etc), or if organic a few drops of either seaweed or fish stuff, undiluted, stir from time to time so that the seeds become hydrated and sink, much older seeds are often dehydrated, let them sit in that mix for about 24 hours and then sow the seeds. If you have enough seeds you can double sow to be sure you get plants.

The additives I posted above have lots of nitrate ion which is known to help with seed germiantion.

Carolyn, my second choice would be Ludmilla's Pink Heart and third would be Cuore di Bui.And could also use a crate of Rocky Ford melons in your spare time. LOL

Caryl, I didn't have any luck with Opalka either. My problem wasn't BER, but mine were still green when the first frost arrived, so they won't be making an encore performance.

Carolyn, I will give those suggestions a try, and hopefully get at least one to sprout for me.

I was reading good things about the Ludmilla's Pink Heart, so I am tempted to sow one just in case I don't have any luck with the Anna Russian.

Carolyn, my melons are usually the size of a navel orange or at best the size of a small grapefruit. Not sure what I'm doing that's so different from those Rocky Ford folks, but they make it obvious that melons can be grown in Colorado, and it's apparently user error on my part.

Bonnie

Reinhard Kraft in Germany and I have traded seeds for many years and it was from him that I got the Ludmilla ones the pink, red Plum and yellow Giant.

I think the heart one is very good but the Ludmilla's Red Plum is outstanding, but not a heart.

I don't know if you've been to Tania's superb website before, but when on the page I linked to go to the upper left and click on Main, look around, but them click on shortcuts at the top and when you know the name of a variety I find it's easier to use the alphabetical way of searching, so just click on that link.

Many other ways to search for this and that are also on that shortcut page.

Tania now has pages for over 4,000 varieties with pictures and seed sources for those that do have seed sources, and that link is on any specific variety you look at.

She also sells seed for about 600 tomato varieties.

Good luck with the Anna Russian seeds and let us know how that turns out.

Carolyn

Here is the list of what I ended up sowing:

Aunt Gertie's Gold
Amish Paste
Amazon Chocolate
Anna Russian
Black Cherry
Box Car Wilie
Earl's Faux
Galina's Yellow Cherry (the few Isis Candy seeds I had left didn't look viable, so I had to pick another cherry type.)
Giant Belgium
Gold Currant (I'm going to give the hanging basket a try.)
Gold Medal
Indian Stripe
Ludmilla's Pink Heart
Matt's Wild Cherry
Neves Azorean Red
Soldacki
Virginia Sweets

I sowed 2 - 6 of each, depending on the age of the seed. Tomato plants are usually pretty easy to give away around here in May, so not worried about the extras, assuming I can find space for them until then!