Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Friday, February 27, 2009
Persimmon or Not Persimmon
I need to amend my 2008 Tomato Review. It's come to my attention that there are at least two tomatoes calling themselves 'Persimmon'. MSS at Zanthan Gardens is trying to decide which tomatoes to grow this spring. She grew 'Persimmon' in the past and loved it. I grew it and thought it was OK. But now I think we're comparing two different tomatoes.
First clue: photographic evidence. I've shown the same photo of my 'Persimmon' twice already, so here's a different one.
This is a medium-large tomato with fairly symmetrical seed chambers. MSS's 'Persimmon' is much larger with a beefsteak-type arrangement of seed chambers.
Well, let's just Google it and then have a cup of tea. I think I found the answer at idigmygarden.com forums (sponsored by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds).
mrtomatoexpres has the beefsteak-type 'Persimmon'; blu bastian has the kind I grew.
blu bastian wondered what was up with that. Nobody answered that I could see.
Looking at the Seed Savers Exchange 2009 Yearbook, searchable online, the growers' descriptions of 'Persimmon' are quite varied.
Tatiana's TomatoBase and Hanna of This Garden is Illegal both say that 'Persimmon' is a beefsteak tomato.
But Tatiana's TomatoBase shows 'Russian Persimmon' very similar to what I grew and does not categorize it as a beefsteak tomato. Almost all the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook growers say that 'Russian Persimmon' is high-yielding, but the plant I grew was not.
For the record, I grew one plant of 'Persimmon' from seed purchased in 2008 from Territorial Seed Company, and the fruit I got looks like the photo on their web site. The text, however, describes it as a beefsteak tomato.
So there you have it. I don't really know what I grew. Where's the teapot?
Labels: tomatoes
3 Comments:
I'm going to order seeds for 'Persimmon' tomatoes from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I wonder which ones I'll get?
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
Ooooh. I love a puzzle. My 'Persimmon' was definitely a beefsteak, weighing in at 1lb 3oz.
Thanks for the link to Tatiana's TomatoBase, which I had never explored before. Tatiana also says it is an heirloom dating back to the 1880s while other sources say it was grown by Thomas Jefferson in 1781.
It doesn't surprise me that people saving seeds over a couple of hundred years and across varied geographies and climates would end up selecting different characteristics and creating different strains of a plant under the same name.
One thing I read about 'Persimmon' (and I can't remember where) is that it's a very heavy feeder. Maybe that's why so many people report that it doesn't produce heavily.
Carol & MSS: I think I'll try some seeds from another source this year and see what develops. Carol's got Baker Creek covered so I'll choose a different one. I'll grow the Territorial seed again too for reference. It'll be interesting to compare notes.
We have deep sandy soil here at Tangled Branches South - it's a dream to dig, but not particularly fertile. I haven't used any fertilizer, but for the last 2 years the tomatoes have been grown on beds newly dug from a meadowy area. Eventually I'll run out of room for that strategy. Hoping to keep the fertility up with compost, but we'll see.
I recently bought Carolyn Male's book, 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, and while looking for more information about her, found a whole crowd of heirloom tomato growers who don't have blogs but are online elsewhere. They hang out at specialist forums and at GardenWeb where Tatiana and Carolyn have been longtime participants. That's how I found Tatiana's TomatoBase.
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