Market Farming

[Lucy Goodman <goodows AT infinet.com>]

It should work but it will take you at least 5 years to get a stable 
type. I had opalka cross with pink brandywine and now get striped 
tomatoes that look like neither parent in shape. the plants themselves 
are not like either parent either looking more like a sungold cherry tom 
plant more than anything. I am on year 3 for stabilizing this cross and 
seem to have mostly striped fruit this year. Last year I had all sorts 
of fruits from round small red to oblong pinks to this sort of peach 
shaped striped fruit. I believe I counted 8 different expressions in the 
fruit. This year I seem to have either pink or stripped roundish fruits 
with a pointed end, all softball sized or larger.

The one thing I did not do right was the first year I did not plant 
enough of these. I believe I planted about 300 seeds and kept about 50 
plants. If I were to do this again I would plant around 2000 seeds and 
transplant 1000 plants rouging out the plants I did not like after the 
fruit appears-I would not go by just the potato leaf trait, you might 
just destroy your best plants if that is the sole criteria. I'd wait it 
out until you start getting ripe fruit the first year. The second year 
you can be far more draconian with rouging because you should have a 
much better idea of what you want/what to expect.

Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulerbelt.blogspot.com

Christine & Marlin wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Christine &
> Marlin
> Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 8:51 PM
> To: 'Market Farming'
> Subject: [Market-farming] (no subject)
>
>
> For several years I have been fascinated with the heirloom tomato variety
> Eva,s Purple Ball.  It is a beautiful smooth round pink tomato which has a
> small core and seldom cracks.  It's only fault is its size, average size of
> a tennis ball, smaller ones about golf ball size, and the largest about that
> of a baseball.  My customers don't pick them up very well as they are
> looking more for slicing tomatoes.  I have similar luck with Red Zebras
> despite their beautiful appearance; again I think an issue of size.  They
> are too big for cherry tomatoes and too small for regular eating tomatoes.
>
> Last year I thought of crossing them with my popular Blosser, a pink slicer
> that averages around 3/4 lb or larger.  It never worked; I was too busy with
> everything to properly hand pollinate my plants for crossing.
>
> Now I am thinking of using Brandywine instead of Blosser to cross with Eva,s
> Purple Ball.  Brandywines and Blossers are pretty much in the same league
> when it comes to superb flavor and are about the same size, the only
> difference being that Brandywines tend to be a little flatter than Blossers.
> I often cannot tell them apart once I have them on the table.  I would
> interplant EPB with Brandywines at a ratio of about 1 to 5 in the row and
> save seed from the EPB plants about mid to late season.  Upon starting the
> seed next spring I would keep only the plants with potato leaves, a
> convenient marker to tell me that I have a cross between EPB and Brandywine.
> This seems to be about the most idiot proof method I can think of to get the
> job halfway accomplished.  Will it work?
>
> Marlin Burkholder
> Virginia
>
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