Best Heirloom Tomatoes 2014 - 2015 part 1

This year I grew a few different types of heirloom tomato, I figured I would write a comparison between how they went in my garden.  There are a few that are not listed here as I kind of want to keep them under my hat for now, or they are not yet stable so their details are not going to be relevant just yet.  Most varieties listed are regular leaf and indeterminate, if anything was potato leaf or determinate I have written it in italics.  If any variety is what I consider to be a dwarf variety I have also included that in italics.

Heirloom tomatoes

Many seed sellers tell you the days to maturity, unfortunately what they mean is days from when the seedling is 30cm tall and transplanted into the ground to maturity.  They never tell you how long from sowing the seed until the first fruit.  I know of one variety that is often stated as 55 days to maturity from transplant but 120 days from seed.  Obviously a host of variables can change the days to maturity, but I would find it more useful to tell me from seed to the first ripe fruit which is why I have used those dates here.

Quite often seed catalogues write glowing reviews even for substandard tomatoes with poor taste and low yields, I have tried not to do that and if I don't like it or found something that could be better I have said so.  Some I wont save seeds from or grow again, others have merit so will get another chance or be used as breeding material to develop something better.

Tomato flowers from a productive variety

All seeds were sown the same day on 9 August 2014 without heat, all seedlings were transplanted into the vegetable garden about 7 weeks later when the majority were 15 to 20 cm tall (they were all planted out on the same day, some were larger than others).  I have included the date the first fruit ripened after the variety name.  They are listed in order that their first fruit ripened, sometimes there was a large delay from first fruit to any subsequent fruit, this has been noted.

______________________________________________________________________________

Reisetomate tomatoes

Reisetomate (25/12/2014) was overwintered and was the first tomato to ripen any fruit, this is not characteristic of the variety as the seed grown plant took about 2 months longer.  This was the only tomato I overwintered this year.  The deep red fruit are odd lobed shapes that can be pulled apart like the segments of an orange.  The taste is sour and intense and the tomatoes look interesting.  This plant produces a large yield, it has regular leaf and is semi determinate, it is my favourite red tomato.

Snow White tomatoes - usually more pale than the picture

Snow White (07/01/2015) was the first of the seedling plants to grow ripe fruit in my garden, it took about 5 months from sowing the seed to harvesting the first fruit.  Perhaps I will overwinter this and see how early I can get tomatoes next Summer.  The fruit is round and white if it does not get sun and slightly yellow if the sun hits the fruit.  The flesh tastes very sweet and fruity, the seeds/gel taste a little sour which compliments the sweet nicely, a real winner.  This is a great cherry tomato which was loved by everyone who tasted it.  This plant produces a very large yield over a long season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Juane Flamee, some small

Juane Flamee, some large

Juane Flamee (spelled various ways) (12/01/2015) was the second seed grown plant to produce ripe fruit.  It is said to be one of the best tasting tomatoes, I think it is certainly very good but not overly great, I think people love it because of the high yields it gives.  The fruit is round and orange, as can be seen by the pictures above the fruit size is rather inconsistent.  This plant produces a very large yield over a long season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Yellow pear, mostly brighter yellow than the picture

Yellow Pear (12/01/2015)  is a variety that I have been keeping for years, it grows nice looking yellow pear shaped tomatoes.  The plant grows huge and is a real survivor that has proven itself over many years of harsh conditions.  The sweet tomatoes are great for eating fresh or in salads and look beautiful.  This plant produces a massive yield (both in terms of number of tomatoes as well as overall weight of tomatoes) over a very long season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Black Russian, often cracks like this

Black Russian (29/01/2015) is one of the most over rated heirloom tomatoes ever grown, certainly not the best tasting black tomatoes I have ever eaten.  It still tastes much better than anything from a shop.  The fruit is prone to splitting and cracking but that does not matter much.  The plant produced a lot of flowers that simply aborted and produced no fruit even in good conditions with masses of pollinators.  It is said to be an early variety but took about 3 weeks longer than Snow White, Juane Flammee and Yellow Pear.  January 29 was the date of the first ripe tomato, it did not give a second tomato until 14 February which puts it behind Speckled Roman!  The colour of the fruit is amazing and they are a good size, unfortunately the taste, yield and time it takes to mature let it down.  This plant produced a small yield over a short and broken season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Tigrella, the colours are far more vivid than the picture

Tigrella (04/02/2015) is a great little tomato, it looked beautiful and tastes great.  The round stripey fruit had a dark seed cavity and were pretty consistent in size, most were a little larger than the picture.  The taste was a little stronger and more sour than Juane Flamee and it produced less tomatoes too.  The plant produced a reasonably large yield over a long season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Roprecco Paste, most were a bit larger than this

Roprecco Paste, a good tomato

Ropreco Paste (06/02/2015) is a good tomato, it looks much like a Roma tomato and tastes like a great Roma tomato.  The tomatoes are a good size and nice shape, most were slightly larger than pictured.  I liked to eat these fresh or in sandwiches, they can make a decent sauce, soup or paste due to their rich tomato taste.  This plant produced a reasonable yield over a short season, it has regular leaf and is determinate.

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka, delicious!

 Malakhitovaya Shkatulka (06/02/2015) is a great tomato which I can't believe is not grown more commonly in Australia.  The size and shape of the fruit lend it to slicing for sandwiches etc, the taste is absolutely amazing, probably the best tasting tomato ever grown.  Everyone who tasted this loved it.  It is difficult to tell when they are ripe from a distance, but simple enough when you are close enough to touch them.  I wish that it was higher yielding as they taste so great.  Birds leave the ripe fruit alone as it is green.  The name of this variety is kind of fun to say but difficult to spell.  This plant produced a medium to low yield over a long season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Julia Child, large pink soft fruit

Julia Child (08/02/2015) grows the softest tomatoes I have ever seen, the flesh is like soft butter.  It has very few seeds and a nice taste.  The pinky red round tomatoes are large and rather pretty.  They are perhaps too large as they hang on the plant for a long time ripening and may be attacked by insect pests etc during that time.  The plants itself looked lush and ornamental, it could grow by the front door and would not look out of place.  This plant produced a high yield over a long season, it has potato leaf and is indeterminate.

Unnamed red cherry

Unnamed cherry tomato (08/02/2015), these were given to me at a fete, I didn't want to grow an unknown variety but accepted them as I did not want to be rude.  I disliked them last year but figured I give them another go this year as a comparison.  The plant looks nice as do the trusses of 6 small perfect round red cherry tomatoes.  This plant is why I try to never grow unknown varieties of tomato unless they are someone's family heirloom or something that someone has assured me is worth growing.  They tasted terrible (comparatively) and are low yielding.  I will not save seed from this horrible plant and will not grow them again.

Hillbilly - very glossy

Hillbilly

Hillbilly (12/02/2014) has firm flesh that is reasonably dry and smells great.  Tastes similar to a store bought tomato but much better, it smells fruity somehow.  The fruit is uniform in size and shape, good size for slicing onto a piece of bread.  The orange/yellow glossy fruit is interesting to look at but may cause people to turn up their nose as it is not red.  Probably not my favourite tomato this year but still pretty good, far better than most people have ever tasted.  This plant produced a medium yield over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink (12/02/2014) these grew some large tomatoes!  Wow, look at those things.  They were pretty uniform in large size and most were very round.  I am not overly fond of large tomatoes as they hang on the plant so long to ripen and a lot can go wrong during that time.  They look suspiciously like Julia Child, I could not tell them apart by sight, but the texture could not be more different.  Firm flesh, it has a lot more seeds than Julia Child.  This plant produced a medium to large yield (medium number of fruit, super large size) over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Unnamed Red Stuffer

Unnamed Red Stuffer

Unnamed Red Stuffer (12/02/2014) red round medium sized fruit that is hollow.  The seeds stick together in a tight clump in the middle and are simple to remove making this a good stuffing tomato.  They tasted much like a store bought tomato before they were completely ripe, their taste intensified a lot after they ripened properly.  Even though this is a stuffing tomato it still went well on a sandwich.  I don't think this variety is stable yet.  This plant produced a medium yield over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Yellow

Yellow (12/02/2014) beautiful medium to large yellow fruit sometimes with green shoulders.  The plant was one of the first to flower but the fruit took a long time to ripen which is a negative as the fruit hangs so long.  The flesh was soft and moist, they taste pretty amazing and are low acid.  This is one of the most useful and best tasting tomatoes that I grew this year.  I think this variety is stable now.  I really like this variety for a number of reasons.  The fruit splits a little but that doesn't seem to affect the storage time.  This plant produced a medium to large yield over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Speckled Roman, more beautiful in real life

Speckled Roman

Speckled Roman (13/02/2015) stunningly beautiful looking red roma style tomatoes with yellow/orange stripes.  Each tomato has unique swirls, stripes and patterns inside the fruit with very few seeds.  It has a deep rich tomato taste, it is meant to make a great paste or sauce and I love it on a sandwich, much like a great tasting roma tomato that looks amazing.  I prefer this to Roprecco Paste as it tastes better, looks better, has larger fruit, and is indeterminate.  Roprecco paste seems to have a higher yield than this one but this provides fruit over a longer season instead of all at once so ther is a trade off to be made.  This plant produced a decent yield over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Pineapple some had much more red

Pineapple tomato

Pineapple (17/02/2015) not quite round, yellow orange (to red) bicolour that looked nice.  Some fruit were as large as the Giant Siberian Pink, others much smaller.  The inside of the fruit was also pretty with swirls of colour through the yellow.  Some tomatoes had a thick core that had to be removed before eating, others from the same plant did not.  Flesh was very firm, dry and contained few seeds.  This plant produced a good yield over the season, it has regular leaf and is indeterminate.

Reisetomate - not quite ripe

Reisetomate fruit

Reisetomate, every fruit is unique and beautiful

Reisetomate (19/02/2015) first fruit from seed grown plants ripened about 2 months after the overwintered plant.  Fruit ranges in size/shape/number of lobes quite a bit.  I love this tomato, it tastes so intense, even a little on a sandwich with a more bland tomato livens things up a lot.  The deep red fruit has odd lobed shapes that can be pulled apart like the segments of an orange, the flowers and fruit look very unique and interesting.  This plant produces a large yield, it has regular leaf and is semi determinate.

This post is getting a bit long, I have been writing it since December though.  I will end here and continue this post in Best Heirloom Tomatoes 2014-2015 part 2

I may sell some of these seeds, if you are interested please look on my For Sale page.

Snow White heirloom tomatoes

This year I am growing a bunch of different varieties of mostly heirloom tomatoes, some are incredibly difficult to find while others are far more common.  I will try to write a post comparing them all later in the season once they have all ripened or decided not to ever ripen.  For now I want to tell you about one of the best tasting cherry tomatoes I am growing which is called Snow White.

Cherry tomatoes are good, but many lack any real taste, they are often good for kids who like sweet things.  White tomatoes are good, but many tend to be a little insipid, that being said there are some amazing white tomatoes around.

I had heard that Snow White was one of the best tasting tomatoes ever bred and one of the best cherry tomatoes around, this had me intrigued.  I have also heard from others that it is nothing special and I would be better off growing other varieties.  A very generous grower sent me some seeds last year, how could I resist growing this and seeing for myself.

Snow White cherry tomatoes

The plant grew well in my garden while a few other varieties did not even survive, it flowered early and was one of the first tomatoes to ripen in my garden.  It seems to have a lot of flowers and unripe fruit on the plants at all times, being an indeterminate variety it should continue to fruit right up until frosts. 

The plants themselves are nothing remarkable, they grow about 6 feet tall here like many other varieties but I assume that they could grow a lot larger.  They have regular leaf and everything looks normal enough.  It would be nice if they were a dwarf plant or if they had potato leaf or something, but in the end none of that really matters.  The plants grow well under adverse conditions, provide large yields, but it is the taste that truly matters.

The first tomatoes I picked may not have been properly ripe, the seeds in them were not properly formed so it may not have been pollinated properly, or perhaps they get better as the season progresses, all I know for sure is that the first few were not indicative of this variety.  When I tasted them they were ok, nothing special, it is probably fair to say that the taste was a bit confused.  Considering that they were bred by Joe Bratka who is an excellent tomato breeder that has been described by those who know him as 'confused' or 'eccentric' I was not overly surprised.  The flesh was sweet and tasted a bit fruity, almost like a bland peach.  The seed part tasted like a regular cherry tomato, good but not great.  Overall it was good but nothing special, if the rest of the tomatoes tasted like this I may not want to grow this variety again.  The tomatoes ripen to a very pale yellow if they are in the sun or white if they do not get any sun on the fruit. 

Snow White tomatoes - yellow in the sunlight

Visually they looked good enough, they produced a lot of tomatoes, but due to the fact that there are thousands of varieties of tomato available in Australia I do not want to waste time or space if the taste does not blow me away.  I would rather keep trying to find something amazing. 

Then there was a week with no new ripe tomatoes, I was ok with that as they were not that great and the weather was odd.

Then the plant started to ripen again so I ate another tomato.  WOW.  They really blew me away.

Perhaps the first fruit were not great but since then they have been fantastic.  The tomatoes look much the same as the first ones, perhaps slightly larger, but the taste is amazing.  The flesh part tasted like delicious fruit, perhaps a peach or sweet ground cherry or something similar to that.  If I was to remove the seeds and blind test people I doubt that they would even recognise this as a tomato.  The seed part tasted like a good cherry tomato, a little acid but not too much.  The two parts together compliment each other well.  I love this tomato, I want more of them, I walk past the plant a few times each day in the hope that another one has ripened. 

Snow White hidden in the back of this part of the garden

The kids love this tomato, in my mind this is one of the best sweet tomatoes that I have eaten.  They are low acid so good for people who normally can not eat tomato.  I probably wouldn't use it to make paste or sauce or for cooking (although many people claim they are great for this) but happily eat them fresh or in salads.  They are remarkable.

I would almost go as far as to say that they are unique, but they are not.  Apparently the man who bred these also bred a few others which were much the same or exactly the same or just renamed this variety.  It doesn't matter too much, what does matter is that these are amazing and I plan to grow them again and hopefully grow a few more plants so I get more of them. 

Why are these tomatoes rare?

I have often wondered why this kind of thing is not more common, if they are so great (and these tomatoes do taste great) why are they not available at the supermarkets.  People often talk about home tomatoes being better because they are picked perfectly ripe instead of mostly green, or that they are fresh, or that they are too soft to be transported, and a few other things like this.

I am sure this is part of the answer, but I think one of the biggest problems is marketing.  People think of tomatoes as red, they are wary of any other colour.  Bright yellow tomatoes have started to become better known and appreciated in salads for their attractive colour.  Some of the brown/black ones have started to come in, but they have backing from a multinational company who holds a lot of power.

These are 'white' tomatoes, they mostly ripen a pale yellow.  Many people think pale colour means tasteless or not fully ripe.  The difference between 'white' tomatoes and yellow tomatoes is that the white ones have translucent skin.

Some people have asked me if yellow tomatoes taste the same as 'normal' tomatoes.  I don't know how to answer them.  Where do I even begin?

Unfortunately this means that the average person will never try these amazing little tomatoes unless they grow them at home as they will not be seen in supermarkets anytime soon.  Some of the best tasting varieties of tomatoes ripen green, many people will not even try them, that is their loss.

Where to get Snow White tomatoes

Seeds of snow white tomatoes are reasonably simple to find in Australia.  Snow white tomato seed seems to be carried by a few different sellers as well as ebay.  I have saved seed from my plants and will most likely sell some on my for sale page with other heirloom vegetables and perennial vegetables.

How to graft tomato to a potato

Question:  What do you call a plant that is a tomato and a potato grafted together?  A tomtato?  A potmato?
Answer:  I don't know and I don't care.


Grafting Tomato scion to Potato rootstock

Potatoes and tomatoes are both closely related, they can be grafted to each other easily enough.  With a little effort a chilli, tomatillo, potato, tomato, ground cherry, eggplant and a few other things including some agricultural weeds can graft onto one another as they are all closely related.  If you could be bothered they could all be grafted onto a strong rootstock and a multi-grafted vegetable garden shrub could be created.

Many varieties of each of these plants are perennial, so in theory if a hardy perennial root stock was chosen a grafted perennial vegetable plot in one plant could be the result.  Yields would be low for each plant and care would need to be taken to ensure one graft did not take over the others, but it would be easy enough to create.  Perhaps I should make one next year just to prove how simple it is.

About 20 years ago I grafted the top of a tomato plant to the bottom of a potato plant.  I did not have grafting tape or grafting clips but I did misappropriate some plumbing tape from school and used that.  I had never grafted anything, I had never seen anyone graft, I had no one to answer questions or guide me, I had no books to read (and as far as I knew the internet did not exist) but I had heard about grafting so decided to give it a go.  How hard could it be?

I had hopes of getting two crops for the same amount of space and water.  It kind of worked, I guess.  I certainly got a crop of tomatoes, but the non grafted one in the next row cropped better.  At the end of the season I certainly got a crop of potatoes, but the non grafted potatoes returned a far larger crop.  Both crops tasted just as they should and looked normal.  The grafted plant used quite a lot more water than I would have expected, much more than the tomato plants or the potato plants in the other rows.  I considered it to be a failure due to the extra work resulting in lower crops an higher water for the same amount of space, in hind sight it was probably a success as the plant lived and cropped and I learned from the experience.

Recently I have seen these grafted tomato/potato plants being sold.  One very arrogant man claims that he is a genius who invented this process about 5 years ago.  Too late, I did it 20 years ago when I was a teenager and I seriously doubt that I was the first to try this successfully.

A few people claim that this method of grafting increases yields from both plants, unfortunately from my experience I do not believe them.  You will get both crops, but the crops are both smaller.  Larger crops from a grafted plant such as this is illogical.  If you do not have much space and can only grow one plant then this trade off may be well worth it.  I don't see the need to make erroneous claims, people will still buy the plants if you tell them the truth.  I sell a lot of interesting vegetables, there is no need to exaggerate as people who want them will buy them.

It would be interesting to see just how poorly these grafted potato tomato plants crop.  I should run some field trials to see if growing potato and tomato in the same pot will yield differently to a grafted tomato potato.  I wish I did not have to go to work so I had more time to do interesting experiments like this.

I also have read about someone from a large plant/seed/gardening company who claims to have been the first to have ever thought of the idea 15 years ago (but never actually tried it until more recently), again I not only thought of this but successfully tried it earlier than that!  If a teenager with no experience, no resources, no education or mentor can do this it can't be that difficult and I wish people would stop trying to big note themselves with such simple things.  I honestly believe that people have been trying this and succeeding for a few hundred years but it has not gone anywhere as the yields are too low to bother.  This type of grafting is simple, it is unproductive which makes it uncommon, being uncommon means that people have not seen it before and are often taken in by these lies.  Perhaps next Spring I should run some grafting courses and teach people how to create these grafted plants at home.

Tomato flowers

Reisetomate tomato flowers

Grafting Potato scion onto Tomato rootstock

Enough of my rant (for now), I don't want to talk about grafting the top of a tomato the the bottom of a potato.  I want to talk about the opposite.

This year I grafted the top of a potato plant (called the scion) to the roots of a tomato (called the rootstock).  You may ask why the devil would anyone do that, the resultant grafted plant would produce neither tomatoes or potatoes so would be a waste of time and space.  Well it is simple, I wanted potato seed.

Modern potatoes are grown from existing potatoes, they are genetic clones of their parent, it is essentially the same plant.  Seed potatoes are just small potatoes, a stem fragment from the parent.

I wanted to grow potatoes from seeds, true seeds, each and every one of them would be unique.  Some would be dreadful, some mediocre and perhaps some would be great.  I wanted to see if I could create a new variety that is better suited to my needs and will grow better in my climate.  To do that the potato plant needs to flower, then it needs to grow fertile seeds, often a potato left to itself refuses to flower.  Grafting onto a tomato will help to make this happen.

When I was a child we had an unknown variety of potato that would set seed each year.  I used to grow these seeds and nothing great ever came from them.  Each seed grown plant was different, they grew differently, some had slightly different colours, but the parent stock was dodgy and did not have the genetic potential to grow anything truly great.  I used to think it was my fault that nothing exceptional came out of that and felt like a failure, now that I am better educated I know that I actually achieved a lot back then.

I have a variety of potato that never flowers in my climate.  I don't know if it flowers anywhere.  Many modern potatoes no longer flower.  It is a great variety, it is easy enough to buy, but it struggles to crop well in this climate.  When I have grown this variety in other climates and without exaggeration it has cropped about 20 times higher than it crops here (I weigh things and keep pointlessly accurate records).  Planting certified virus free seed potato into new soil does not help, this variety struggles in my climate as it is not really suited to growing here.  But it tastes so good which makes me want to grow it.

If I could get some seed from this potato there is a chance I could grow a similar tasting potato that crops well here.  To do that I need it to flower and set viable seed.  This is a decent parent plant and has the genes to produce some exceptional new varieties of potato, but in the 7 or so years I have grown it I have never seen any flowers.

This year I grafted that potato scion onto tomato rootstock to induce flowering and hopefully convince it to grow fruit and set viable seeds.  As the potato will not be putting any energy into tuber formation it will be more likely to flower and more likely to have the energy to set viable seed.  I chose the most vigorous tomato I have and grafted them using 'tongue approach grafting' or 'inarching' as it is the simplest and most fool proof way to graft.  This is how grafting happens most often in nature, it is simple, fast to do and once done it is very low maintenance.  I could have chosen other forms of grafting but why make things harder than they have to be.

Picture thanks to http://extension.umass.edu/floriculture/fact-sheets/grafting-techniques-greenhouse-tomatoes

I grew a tomato seedling in a pot and the potato plant in the soil.  When the plants were both the right size (ie it had nothing to do with size, it was when I could find the time) I put a small cut into each stem part way through.  I then joined the two together and bound them with plumbers tape.  I still do not have grafting clips or grafting tape, but the plumbing tape works well enough for me, this time I bought the tape instead of helping myself to it.  Then I left the plants with two tops and two sets of roots so that the graft union could heal.  Perhaps my description is not that useful, the picture above shows roughly how I did it, but my plants were larger and much older than in the picture.

After the graft had taken (ie several weeks later when I found time) I cut off the top of the tomato and the bottom of the potato and was left with a grafted plant with tomato roots and potato leaves.  The potato plant went on to continue growing and eventually produced a crop (which is why it was in the soil to begin with) and the top of the tomato was used as a cutting so nothing was wasted.  I had a grafted plant in a pot which I planted into the vegetable garden.

I then had a plant with the roots of a tomato and the top of a potato.  I left the grafting tape on for another week or two then unwrapped it, the union was strong enough by this time and the tape was getting too tight.  The tape could possibly be removed earlier but this works for me so I have not experimented with other methods.

We are hoping to sell our house so I only grafted the one plant.  I did not want to put in a lot of time to graft a lot of plants only to sell and move leaving behind treasures like this that would not be appreciated.  Unfortunately we still are yet to find the right buyer, had I known this I would have planted a lot differently this year, hind sight is great.

This grafted plant flowered well, extremely well.  Considering that I have grown this potato variety for so many years and never seen a flower I think it is safe to conclude that grafting the top of a potato to the roots of a tomato actually does help the plant to flower.

There are a lot of different pollinators around my garden, I never saw them on the potato flowers but they may have been there when I was not looking.  I tried to pollinate the flowers in the same way that one pollinates tomato flowers, I think it worked.

Potato Flowers - the grafting worked

The plant started to produce fruit.  This is exactly what I had hoped would happen.  Then the ducks got in to the vegetable garden, they stomped around the garden a bit, broke a lot of plants, ate some leaves off things, messed around stealing vegetables and ate some fruit off the trees.

The grafted potato/tomato plant was still alive but all the fruit was missing, I don't know if the ducks ate the fruit or if they rolled away somewhere.  If they rolled away there is a chance they may grow next year but I doubt I will find them or even know that they are not just the normal potatoes.  The grafted plant continued flowering for a while but those flowers all aborted and did not produce any fruit, probably due to the heat.

If I try this again the next time I will try to graft a few more plants to help provide a little insurance against this kind of thing.  Nothing much can be done now apart from wait.

Since writing this post I have wondered if I should dig up the grafted plant and try to overwinter it.  I know the tomato rootstock can survive if I protect it from frost but I am not sure about the potato part.  I wondered if it was worth my time even trying, perhaps it would flower and set seed better, perhaps it would simply die, I don't know anyone who has tried to keep a plant like this alive for several years.  Come to think of it, I don't know anyone who has created a grafted plant like this one.

Once again the ducks got into the vegetable garden, they kind of made up my mind for me.  The top of the plant is now dead/missing, the roots are possibly still alive, if they sprout leaves I will let the frost kill it when it is time.  This type of grafting is worth another try if I have any land next year as it seemed to help the potato to flower, once I get this potato variety to produce viable seed then the fun part begins.  Perhaps I should get a different type of potato that flowers and fruits readily and cross them.  For now I am happy that grafting helps flowering and fruit set.

Tomatoes: Potato Leaf vs Regular Leaf

People often talk about regular leaf tomatoes or potato leaf tomatoes, I get a few questions about this so I figured I would write a post explaining what is meant by these terms.  I have also seen one place sell a variety of tomato that they call "potato leaf tomato" and I find this confusing as there are many varieties of potato leaf tomatoes, I am growing 4 of them this year myself.

Have a look at these two leaves, they are both leaves from tomato plants.  Please ignore the yellowing, that has nothing to do with leaf type, that leaf is a bit older.

Potato Leaf compared with Regular Leaf

It is not too difficult to tell them apart, the leaf on the left looks like the leaf on a potato plant, the leaf on the right looks like the leaf on most varieties of tomato.

Regular Leaf (RL) tomato

Regular Leaf (often abbreviated RL)

This is the typical leaf type that most people are familiar with, most varieties of tomato are regular leaf.  The leaf edges are serrated quite a bit.  There are a lot of variations on this basic theme in terms of the width/length of leaf depending on the specific variety, climate and growing methods.  There are a few other variations such as angora, variegated etc but they are not easy to come across in Australia so I wont talk about them.  Some leaves are very narrow and are sometimes called 'dissected', others are wispy or droopy or look like the foliage of a carrot.  These are easily recognised from a distance even by my 5 year old as the leaves of a tomato plant.  All of this is referred to as Regular Leaf (RL).

Potato Leaf (PL) tomato

Potato Leaf (often abbreviated PL)

These leaves usually have very few interruptions of the leaf edge.  They are fat and large leaves. Newly germinated seedlings sometimes don't show their PL nature until they are a few inches tall, others show it as soon as they grow their true leaves.  PL leaves often have a thicker cuticle than RL leaves or a higher density of trichomes (which are tiny little hairs on the leaf).  Some claim that makes them more tolerant of foliage diseases but I have seen no proof of this.   Leaf shape can be different on a single plant with some showing more or less smooth edges, all of this is normal for PL.  Scientists have divided the PL leaf forms into various different classes but few of them are available in Australia and it makes no real difference so I wont write anything about them.

What is the deal with growing Potato Leaf tomatoes?

Some people claim that potato leaf tomatoes taste better, unfortunately that is a half truth.  Almost all Potato Leaf tomatoes are heirlooms and generally heirloom tomatoes taste great.  Some tomato varieties have a Potato Leaf version as well as a Regular Leaf version, I can not taste any difference.

People often claim that Regular Leaf tomatoes do not cross pollinate while Potato Leaf tomatoes will cross readily.  Unfortunately this is not at all true.  Most modern bred varieties of tomato will not cross pollinate easily (literatures states around 5% crossing without intervention when being grown side by side), almost all heirloom tomatoes do cross pollinate, some far more than others.  As most Potato Leaf tomatoes are heirlooms people have got themselves confused here.  The tomato I grow that crosses most readily is Reisetomate, it is a regular leaf plant.  It cross pollinates so much that I even grow it in a separate garden to all my other tomatoes.  Try not to be fooled, Potato Leaf does not necessarily mean heirloom, just as heirloom does not necessarily mean Potato Leaf.

Potato Leaf is considered to be a recessive trait.  When breeding new varieties if Potato Leaf is crossed with Regular Leaf then all the seedlings will be Regular Leaf.  This makes it useful to see early on  if the cross has worked or if the flower self pollinated and the plant is worth growing on or not.  If growing different varieties of tomato then Potato Leaf can also indicate early on if that particular seed has remained pure.  If a potato leaf variety grows regular leaf the chances are high that it has crossed.  Some potato leaf varieties do occasionally throw a regular leaf plant even when they have not crossed, so things do get a little confusing here as there is a little more to it than a simple dominant/recessive trait.

"Julia Child" a great potato Leaf tomato variety

I have heard theories about potato leaf being more resistant to insects and regular leaf being more resistant to insects and visa versa, but I have found nothing conclusive that back up this.  Potato leaf would possibly restrict airflow more than regular leaf, so it is possible that potato leaf would face more mold problems in damp environments but again I have no proof that confirms or denies this.  I live in an area of low humidity, so it doesn't matter to me in the slightest.

I have also heard anecdotal evidence that potato leaf varieties are more 'hungry' than regular leaf as they require more resources in order to build more leaf, again I am yet to find any research that either backs or refutes this claim.  It kind of makes sense to me, but some of the largest tomato plants I have ever seen have been regular leaf, I assume they used a lot of resources to grow that large.  I have one regular leaf tomato that grows a large shrub to about 8 feet in every direction, it is surely using a lot of resources to build all of that stem.

Some people think the Potato Leaf plants look nicer, I certainly think they look more ornamental and would not look out of place in a flower garden.  To be honest, I wish that I had more potato leaf tomato varieties as I simply like the look of them.

At the end of the day though the leaf shape makes no real difference to me and I doubt it makes any real difference to taste, growth rates or anything other than aesthetics, so I base my planting decisions on the taste of the fruit and performance of the plant.

I do sell seeds of some heirloom tomatoes as well as perennial vegetables on my for sale page, you should have a look if you are interested.

Perennial Tomatoes

Everyone loves tomatoes, they are often grown as annuals and may people complain that they wish there were perennial tomatoes.  Well, there are perennial tomatoes.  I have seen seeds of perennial tomatoes for sale on ebay fetching serious money and I ask myself why.  Perhaps it is because people do not know about how to grow perennial tomatoes.  They are far more common than you think.

Indeterminate tomatoes can be grown as perennial tomatoes

Different types of tomato

There are many thousand different types of tomato, I am not exaggerating here, probably over twenty thousand recognised varieties world wide with a lot more being developed (by home growers such as myself as well as Government breeding programs) each year and a lot becoming extinct each year.  In the supermarkets we probably have access to half a dozen or so, by growing heirlooms we have easy access to several hundred varieties of all kinds of shapes/sizes/colours.  By growing heirlooms it is simple to save seed of the best varieties each year.  Of the many varieties of tomato that we have the easiest access to they can be roughly divided into two groups: determinate and indeterminate.

Roprecco Paste, a good determinate variety

Determinate tomatoes fruit pretty much all at once, then they tend to die, they are most easily grown as annuals.  They produce flowers at their terminal bud, after they flower that branch can not produce more leaves and stems.  These are great if you want all of your crop to harvest once, they are great for large scale farmers who only want to harvest once, as well as people who are into home preserving.  If you are planning on making paste or sauce then you probably want a determinate variety, there are several incredibly old and delicious heirloom varieties that are determinate.  I don't grow many of these, but I do grow a few, they serve their purpose well.  Some places claim determinate tomatoes are short and do not require staking, this is not always the case, please ignore anyone who makes such claims and stop buying seeds from them.

Speckled Roman, a good indeterminate variety

Indeterminate tomatoes can fruit over a long period, they keep growing as long as you protect the plant, they can be grown as perennial tomatoes if grown without frost.  They grow flowers from a side bud, not the terminal bud.  These are great if you want a few tomatoes each day or every few days, for many weeks/months on end.  Most varieties of tomato grown at home tend to be indeterminate, most heirlooms tend to be indeterminate (but there are some determinate ones too).  Some of these plants can grow massive while others can be rather compact.  Even though indeterminate tomatoes are perennial tomatoes they still tend to be grown as annuals.  Almost all indeterminate tomatoes are perennial tomatoes, no need to spend ridiculous amounts of money on "perennial tomato" seeds now.  Some places claim that indeterminate tomatoes are tall and require staking, this is not always the case, please ignore anyone who makes such claims and stop buying seeds from them.

Perennial Tomatoes

Many varieties of indeterminate tomato are a short lived perennial if grown in a warm climate, which is great if you happen to live in a warm climate.  Sometimes they can survive for several years but the productivity often drops off after the first year or two. 

I live in a frosty climate and have often wanted to grow the same tomato year after year, not just save seed, but keep the same plant going.  Even if you live in a frosty climate it is possible to over winter plants.  They probably won't produce a lot of fruit over winter (unless they are parthenocarpic), they will continue to flower but often the nights are too cool for fruit set, as soon as the weather is warm enough they will be ready and will ripen some early fruit for you.  This is a great way to get your plants to set fruit a few weeks to a few months earlier than from seed.

Overwintered Reisetomate set fruit 2 months earlier than the seed grown Reisetomate

Each year I overwinter some tomato plants.  Sometimes I do it because I am running low on seed, sometimes I do it because the plant was amazing and I want another season out of it, sometimes I do it because I am developing a new variety and would like to back cross its progeny with it to lock in a certain desirable trait.  Plants that are overwintered tend to crop a lot earlier and be more resilient than seedlings of the same variety.  Sometimes I overwinter a plant to help get an early crop and beat the extreme weather that we often get.

Yellow Pear tomatoes are simple to grow as perennials

How to overwinter an indeterminate tomato

This is one of those things that depends on a lot of different factors, mostly it depends on what you want to do and in which climate you are growing tomatoes.  You may wish to put up a shade cloth structure or something to protect a plant growing in the soil.  You may grow a plant in a pot that can be moved to somewhere safe.  You may live somewhere that the plants can be left as they are or just mulched carefully.  I take cuttings and overwinter these.

I take a cutting late in the season from the plant that I want to overwinter.  I use indeterminate varieties, while it is possible to use a determinate variety it is far more difficult as timing has to be just right and sometimes cuttings have to be taken throughout winter to prevent flowering.  Remember, if a determinate tomato flowers it will not grow any more or be able to produce new leaves or new sets of flowers.

The cutting will be genetically identical to the original plant, it is essentially the same plant.  I remove any flowers, remove the lower leaf or few leaves as they do not cope under water, then put the cutting into a glass of water.  The part I cut needs to be under water, the leaves need to be above the water, very simple.  You could plant the cutting directly into soil at this point instead of using water but I like to see the roots first so I use a glass of water.

Tomato cutting, ready to plant into soil

Normally in 3 days small roots appear, it may take a lot longer in cooler weather, it may be as fast as 8 hours in the right conditions.  The roots grow fast once they have started so I try to plant it into a pot of soil quickly.  Water roots are different from soil roots, so it is best to plant it after the roots are only short rather than wait a few extra days until they are long (like the picture below).  I then put this potted cutting somewhere safe over winter.

During this time it will grow and it should flower, mostly the flowers abort as the night temperatures are too low.  I grow them outside under the verandah against the mud brick where they get sun and warmth but no frost, if you live somewhere colder you could grow them inside near a window for light.  They need sunlight or they will become sick and attacked by insects.

This is the same cutting on the left, the second cutting was put in the water when the first picture was taken

After the frost has passed I often have a strong 3 foot tall flowering tomato plant ready to be planted out in the garden (or left in the pot and moved into the sun).  Quite often seed grown plants will only be 10cm tall at this time so the overwintered plant gets a significant head start.

This process of taking cuttings to overwinter can be continued indefinitely, each time you take a cutting you are restarting the clock and the plant will not die of old age.  If you have found a good F1 hybrid that you like and can not save seed from you do not need to buy new plants each year as you can simply take a cutting and overwinter the same plant.  You no longer need to waste money on 'perennial tomato' seeds, just look for a good indeterminate variety as they are perennial.

Far too easy, you now have perennial tomato plants even if you live in a frosty climate.  I sell some heirloom tomato seeds on my for sale page.  Many of these are indeterminate and can easily be over wintered, if you are interested please have a look.

________________________________________________________________________________
Edit to add:
I have grown tomatoes and overwintered them too many times to remember.  I am now wondering if in cold climates in small backyards if it is worth while growing them as perennials. 

Tomatoes grow so easily from seed and the space that they need over winter may be better used by something else that can not be grown from seed.  Overwintered tomatoes do fruit about 2 months earlier than seed grown, which is great, but space is so limiting now we live in town. 

I also have a few super early determinate varieties such as 'igloo' that will grow, fruit, and die before most other varieties start to ripen.  This means I can grow all from seed, have early tomatoes from 'igloo' and late tomatoes from other varieties and not have to protect anything over winter.

Immali Corn - Coloured Sweet Corn in Australia

I started messing around with corn breeding a few years ago. Corn genetics is messy, the more I learn the more I find that I don't know.  Genetics was so much easier when we knew nothing!

Many varieties of corn suffer from varying amounts of inbreeding depression, to save seed it is best to grow at least 200 plants and save seed from the best 50 to 100.  Some varieties of landrace corn have little to no inbreeding depression, but the down side is that they can be rather variable.  Using landraces as breeding stock means that genetic bottlenecks are not as tight and small populations can be slightly more forgiving.

Corn will happily cross pollinate with other types of corn that are within a few hundred metres up to a few kilometers of each other.  This makes saving corn seed difficult unless you live on acreage and have no one growing corn near you.

As I currently live on acreage and have no one growing corn close to me I save seed from a few different types of corn.  If I get the timing right, and am vigilant with selecting seed and rogueing out off types I could probably grow half a dozen types of corn each year without too much trouble.

I grow some interesting coloured corn, most of which is popcorn or dry corn as there are very few coloured sweet corn varieties available in Australia.  I once looked online at the amazing coloured sweet corn that is available overseas and asked myself: "self, why doesn't someone in Australia breed a decent coloured sweet corn?"  I looked around for someone who was developing a decent coloured sweetcorn in Australia, I could not find them.  I did find some people who are maintaining a few coloured sweet corns and a few who are developing the most wonderful yellow or white sweet corn, but none of this is what I was after.

So I decided to try to breed one myself.

Immali Corn 2015

I have some access to different coloured field corn and some different varieties of sweet corn that the average grower would not have seen.  I researched the varieties that I have access to in order to determine the best parental stock for my new variety of corn.  I got a landrace coloured sweetcorn, which tasted ok and has a lot of genetic variation.  This was one of the parents of Immali corn.  Every generation since then has been remarkably better tasting.

Some "Immali corn" seedlings

I planted some of the coloured seeds and saved quite a lot.  The results were good, but being so early it is clearly not stable and had a way to go.  A little back crossing would help to lock in the desired colours and also maintain a high level of genetic variation.

The early cobs lacked much colour, they tasted better than store bought corn but not as great as I had hoped.  Adding colour is not all that difficult, stabilising that colour is a bit more difficult, but I can do it.

Early Immali corn (ignore the yellow) - needs more colour

Tastes great, looks ok I guess, still a way to go

The later cobs look far better and taste far better too.  It is too bad I only get one crop of corn per year so progress is painfully slow.

Look how far it has come

Some fine looking "Immali corn" cobs

Still not there but look how far it had come

They still have a way to go, it is not yet stable and I do not want to distribute this seed until it is a bit more stable.  The colour will always vary a bit, but that is kind of the point.

The taste is a bit up and down right now, some cobs taste good while others taste simply amazing, all of them taste at least as good as store bought sweet corn.  This is mainly due to timing, if picked just right they blow me away, if picked too early or late they are not as good.  I would like to work out how to fix this, the genetics behind this are a bit beyond me at the moment as I do not have access to a good corn genetics book.  By only saving seed from the best tasting plants all of the Immali Corn should taste amazing by the time the colours are locked in properly.

I worked hard to get here, we ate this cob and the colours remained unchanged through cooking

Once the strain starts to look more consistently like the cob above and is a bit more stable I hope to distribute seeds.  It may never be truly stable, it may be best if it always stays a landrace variety at least to some extent.  I hope that some dedicated seed saver somewhere will see the merits of Immali Corn and continue to grow it after I am gone.  Perhaps I should tell you what i hope to achieve in this variety.

So if I can get more of the cobs to look like the one above, and get the taste to be a bit more consistantly amazing, what else have I tried to include in this variety?

I wanted a reasonably small plant that was productive.  I figure people have less land these days so need small plants that are highly productive.  While 12 foot tall monster plants such as the Giant Inca White corn is spectacular to look at, it is not practical for Suburban Joe to grow in the corner of his yard.  The Immali Corn only grows about 5 foot tall.  It is not a dwarf plant, but it is not a giant either, I think it is a nice manageable compact size.

Immali Corn, reasonably short plants

I also wanted to create a variety that would be productive.  No point having a variety of corn that only produces 1 or 2 cobs per plant.  So far the Immali corn has produced an average of 4 cobs per plant.  I always plant corn too close and the weather is not always kind to corn, given better conditions and more space I think it could average a few more per plant.  Each stem produces 2 good sized cobs on average (some only 1, others 4), but then this variety is very prone to tillering (growing several stems).  This is probably a bad thing if you plan to harvest using a combine, but it is a great thing for home gardeners who harvest by hand.  It essentially means you get several times the corn from the same amount of space.  I am deliberately selecting for plants that produce more tillering as it is this trait that has helped raise the average number of cobs per plant.

Sideways corn picture, note the 2 cobs forming up high and 1 more lower down

 As well as a great tasting corn that is productive and takes up little space, I wanted something that was good to look at.  The cobs needed good colour, which was the primary reason behind this project.  One of the bonuses to using a coloured landrace as one of the initial stock was that the tassels sometimes are purple, it makes the plant look a bit more ornamental.

Immali Corn tassels and cobs

Immali Corn silk

Some of the cobs also display coloured silk.  I do not know if I will be able to keep this trait in this variety, but I will if I can.  It is one of the least important things I would like in the variety, but it does add something special to it.


Where can you get Immali Corn seeds?

This variety is reasonably stable now.  The last two times I have grown it I have only seen one plant that was taller than normal and the cobs all look and taste the same.  Seeds are now available through my For Sale page.

I think that you should breed some type of vegetable that you like.  Perhaps don't start with corn unless you are already experienced in breeding and saving seeds, perhaps start with a tomato or some beans or something simpler like that.  You don't need any fancy equipment, I certainly don't use anything special.  You don't need formal training in Botany or Horticulture or Genetics like I have, but you can still produce something amazing that can be treasured and passed on to others.