Plant Local: 15 Tomato Varieties for a Southern Landrace Garden

Beautiful, but lonely

The nights are long here on the farm, but, fortunately, I have a stack of seed catalogs to entertain me.  This year I'm trying to zero in on varieties that can stand the heat, humidity, and, surprisingly, drought of this area.  So, I'm looking for heirloom varieties that were found or developed around the 35th parallel, and east of 97W.

With those open-pollinated varieties, I'm hoping to develop landrace adaptivars, specifically suited to my microclimate, by saving seeds of the varieties that thrive.  As I understand it, one key to developing landrace adaptivars is to, instead of isolating a pure strain, encourage genetic diversity by continually introducing new varieties into the landrace alongside the saved seed.  The resulting varieties should produce more reliably under marginal conditions--which certainly describes my area.  For more information about landrace adaptivars, visit Joseph Lofthouse's page.

I've identified three tomato categories:  table, canning/paste, and currant.  While the first two categories are self-explanatory, the currant category may be unfamiliar.  Currants are a different species of tiny (1/2" and smaller) tomatoes which absolutely thrive on my farm.  During the 80-degree-plus nights, when other varieties fail to set fruit, they continue to produce prolifically.  They are delightfully flavorful, and worth the garden space.

So, here's the beginning of my landrace plan for this year, so far.

Table

Taste is the overriding criterion here, leaning toward the "smoky" flavored varieties.  There are some blue/purple varieties, too, so it will be interesting to see what we get.

Bradley:  a wilt-resistant pink-red developed at the University of Arkansas

Ozark Pink:  a tall, flavorful pink suited for humid, disease-prone areas

Richardson:  a huge (1-3 pound) dark pink Tennessee beefsteak with a well-balanced flavor

Arkansas Traveler:  balanced flavor is the hallmark of this rose-pink suited to heat, humidity, and drought

Blue Beauty Tomato:  modest beefsteak whose good flavor and interesting coloration blessed with resistance to sunburn and crack

Cherokee Purple:  prolific rose to purple beefsteak, legendary for its complex flavor

Canning/Paste

While taste is important, essential criteria are a high meat/juice ratio, low seed count, and productivity.

Costoluto Genovese:  an Italian red, almost ruffled, described as a pungent sauce tomato

Debarao:  an early red paste variety, small but crack-free

Early Annie:  short plant with few seeds, fruit matures all at once

Tennessee Sweet:  suitable for slicing or canning, a large red sweet

Big Italian Plum:  a large red thick paste plum

San Marzano Gigante:  the legendary flavor and twice the size!

Currant

The flavor of these single-bite beauties just explodes on the palate!  I wonder if I could dry them . . .

Broad Ripple Yellow Currant:  big bush, sweet, prolific

Hawaiian Currant:  tiny, sweet, tasty

White Currant:  heavy clusters, very sweet

Red Currant:  smoky, sweet, tiny, prolific

The development of landrace varieties fits in quite nicely with my interest in permaculture, which also promotes diversity.  It's going to be interesting to see how the two intersect this season.

What about you?  What are your plans for your Savory garden?

Nancy