Saturday, June 23, 2007

Monster Tomato, saving seed

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It's green. It has many arms. It's taking over the garden!

What is it?

Last year, I had many volunteer tomatoes and in a moment of weakness I let many grow. Only one was an interesting plant. The rest produced large beefstake types that were spindly (probably because they were growing in a tangle with squash and beans) and only had a few tomatoes each. The star was the first to flower and produce in the garden, laughed at the chilly (not frosty) nights, had dependable flavour throughout the season and was still pumping them out on comparably disease free branches until last frost.

I would be bowing before this tomato plant if it had a more exciting flavour. As I said, it is dependable, always the same from the first tomato to the last. That is not terribly sweet but not bad tasting, a little tart, but definitely worthy of being in a salad.

I saved the seed last year and planted it again this year. Well it made a strong very fast very fast very fast (no typo) growing plant. It seems to be as wide as it is tall, dwarfing all other plants in its garden row. It also is loaded with mid-sized fruit already. I suppose I should have expected this as it had started itself from seed last year in the open garden and was still the first to produce.

Where did it come from?

It wasn't a variety that I had grown so I imagine that it was from a store brought tomato that was thrown into the compost - probably part of a hybrid. It has many desirable characteristics such as dependability of taste, quick maturity, disease and cold resistance.

What is it called?

At my house, we simple refer to it as monster tomato.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. He really has a life of his own doesn't he? Waving his arms around, signalling to all the bees - come on down...So, just to clarify, have you actually eaten tomatoes off this monster creature?

Ottawa Gardener said...

Sadly no red ones yet but lots of lots of little green ones. As most modern tomatoes are inbreeding (so I've been told), I expect that the taste will be more or less the same but I will report back when I do get to sink my teeth into one!

Unknown said...

Amazing! You are inspiring me to save some seed this year... that is, if I ever get my tomatoes in the ground. :-P

Anonymous said...

It seems to have made itself home. By luck I got marrow and ground cherries at my old garden.