Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I came across this wikipedia link on the various Heirloom Tomatoes... Has a fair bit of info on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_tomato

I have been wondering if anyone else is using these tomatoes. They would be great here because you can reuse the seeds. Is anyone else using them in their systems?

we have Brandywines, the other four varieties are all open pollinateds, but I don't know if they are classed as heirloom (Grosse Lisse, Brandywine, Australian Red, Hardy Tom, Roma )

Just about all that is raised here are Roma. I would like a bigger variety. What do you recommend Jaymie?

DT,
Lots of heirloom paste tomatoes here:
http://www.tomatogrowers.com/processing.htm

Read the descriptions to be sure of what is heirloom and what is not. Some are noted as being quite large, but since I haven't tried most of these, I can't make a recommendation.

I don't eat tomatoes! Axl really liked the Brandywines though

Brandywines are a good eatin' tomato. Roma is for paste.

beefsteak.
Massive and tasteeeeeee!

The diggers club in victoria has many and varied heirloom fruit and veggies.They have a mail order catalogue or go to www.diggers.com.au email,info@diggers.com.au
colin

www.edenseeds.com.au have got a good selection too.

Do the beefsteak do well in AP and are they open pollinated?

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_tomato)

Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tomato_cultivars) the Beefsteak is listed as a heirloom. However, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefsteak_%28tomato%29, there are hybrid varieties out there.

This is the mob I last used http://www.kingsseeds.com.au/ - heaps of tomato varieties as well as other stuff. Haven't used the seeds yet so can't advise on germination rates, but I can tell you that in the past I have bought a lot of seeds from one of the other mobs often linked here and the germination rate was pityful. Really bad to the extend that for some seed types only a couple of seeds from a whole packet would germinate.

Looking at the sites you cant really afford to have too many not germinate....Here they are running $.08 $.10 per seed. A package of 25 for $2.50. Here being in the US where I would get my seeds from.

Look at it as a long term invetment DK. Once you are saving your own, you won't have to buy again. One funny story about my germination problems is that we were having particularly bad fruit fly problems so I bought a little orange grape variey that it very unlikley to ever be hit by fruit fly (Broad Ripple Currant). There were quite a lot of seeds in the pack and I split them with my mother (who lives 10km or so away and also has dome fruit fly issues. She was unable to get a single plant - while eventually I go 1 (so 1 out of about 100 seeds - pretty bad). I nursed this plant through and it produced well, though I was slack and failed to pick a lot of the fruit and also didn't save any seed.

Next season I didn't buy any seed for this type - because of the germination issues (or of any other type, at least not from that mob). To my surprise though, the plants started popping up all over the place - some as many as 100 metres away from where the original plant was. The birds must have eaten the fruit and distributed seeds all over the yard. Needless to say I have never had any issues with getting these plants ever again, because each year they pop up all over the place.