First Heirloom Tomato Seedlings

I can’t tell you how weird it feels to sow tomato seeds in December! These seedling will be for the high tunnel. My target for transplanting them into the ground is the beginning of February. The high tunnel is unheated, of course, so if any insanely cold weather comes after February, I’ll be out there with blankets and row cover to try to  keep them from freezing. However, I’m pretty confident the passive heating of the high tunnel will keep it toasty enough. It hasn’t even come close to freezing in there yet. The end result should be ripe tomatoes by mid April or possibly earlier! How awesome would that be? Here’s the list of varieties I have started. They are all heirlooms except for one, and I chose them based on taste and yield.

• Peron Sprayless- A variety I heard about via the Seed Saver’s Exchange forums. Everyone seemed pretty impressed by the yield and hardiness of this variety, so I gave it a shot.
• Brandywine OTW- released by Dr. Carolyn Male and Dr. Craig LeHoullier, A celebrated strain of the ever-popular Brandywine. Considered the best Brandywine by many, I have yet to taste it for myself.
• Stump of the World- I know very litte about this variety. Tomato Growers says it’s very productive, and the name is freakin awesome. So I’m giving it a shot.
• Rose de Berne- A very pretty, light colored tomato by all accounts.  Never tried this one before either.
• Russian 117- An heirloom oxheart variety. Gotta love oxhearts.
• Orange Russian 117- Same as above but with a beautiful bi-color red/orange pattern.
• Black Krim- For whatever reason, black tomatoes seem to do very well here. I grew this one last year and loved it’s vigor and tasty fruits, but honestly it wasnt a big seller at the market.
• Giant Belgium- Free packet that came with the order. No idea.
• Big Beef- We grew this variety at my friend Luther’s farm while I was apprenticing there this spring. It was very popular with customers. It is a hybrid however.

My goal is to save seeds from all these varieties (minus the hybrid).  I’ll be building screened in cages that will cover some of the plants along the row. I will have to hand pollinate those.