Tomatofest

5 star rating

April 30, 2008

Jenn A. 364 reviews Send Message | Add to Friends

95% of gardeners grow tomatoes!

I have to confess - I lost total control when I visited this website. I ended up with 18 varieties of heirloom tomato seeds. This is the first time I have tried growing tomatos from seeds and they are all doing really well. Fantastic customer service and great selection. The descriptions of the tomatoes are interesting and compelling -- and there's a wide range of helpful information on the site.

Here's some info about Heirloom Tomatoes (http://www.tomatofest.com/what-is-heirloom-tomato.html)

An heirloom is generally considered to be a variety that has been passed down, through several generations of a family because of it's valued characteristics. Since 'heirloom' varieties have become popular in the past few years there have been liberties taken with the use of this term for commercial purposes. At TomatoFest Garden Seeds we chose to adopt the definition used by tomato experts, Craig LeHoullier and Carolyn Male, who have classified down heirlooms into four categories:

1. Commercial Heirlooms: Open-pollinated varieties introduced before 1940, or tomato varieties more than 50 years in circulation.
2. Family Heirlooms: Seeds that have been passed down for several generations through a family.
3. Created Heirlooms: Crossing two known parents (either two heirlooms or an heirloom and a hybrid) and dehybridizing the resulting seeds for how ever many years/generations it takes to eliminate the undesirable characteristics and stabilize the desired characteristics, perhaps as many as 8 years or more.
4. Mystery Heirlooms: Varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of other heirloom varieties.

Jenn A.'s keywords: tomato, veggie, vegetable, gardening, garden, seeds, sustainable

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