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  • From: maroc AT islandnet.com (Maroc)
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: tomatoes
  • Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 07:34:16 +0000


This year, against the better judgement of a large greenhouse grower, I
decided to try some open pollinated tomatoes named Brandywine. When his
other arguments didn't work he told me they were more prone to late blight,
which we have suffered in both tomatoes and potatoes. I did a small
planting (in an unheated greenhouse). The plants did not seem as vigorous
as the hybrids, nor did they flower as early, but the fruit set well and I
eagerly awaited the results. The fruit developed ridged and generally
misshapened. As they ripened the tomatoes didn't have the robust red
colour of the Fantastics, Early Girls, and Moneymakers, they were pale and
more pink than red. I knew I had a loser, I'd be lucky to give them away,
never mind sell them. I really didn't want anyone to see the things in the
greenhouse near those beautifully round, deep red hybrids. To avoid a
total loss I thought they might be okay for processing, so I picked some
ripe ones for canning. As they fully ripened their colour deepened. A lot
of the fruit weighed two pounds and just over. I started cutting them up
for canning. Wow, the flesh was solid and meaty and as deep red as the
thin delicate skins, and the texture is smooth and velvety. Of course I
had to have a taste. Nothing I was growing, none of the beautiful hybrids,
could even come close. This was a real tomato, this is what tomatoes are
supposed to taste like. Now I'm saving seeds from the best fruit, the
one's most nearly smooth and spherical. The problem is how to make these
magnificient tomatoes marketable without losing the flavour and texture. I
think we don't want to change the tomato, we want to change the customers.
Good luck, eh.

Don Maroc
Vancouver Island, Canada






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