Gold Medal

14 years ago

About 10 years ago, I had the best tomato of my life standing in a farmer's market in northern California. It was red and yellow, and the flesh was striped all the way through. Medium-large to large. It was a super-sweet low acid tomato.

For years I have been searching for that tomato, but of course I don't know what it's called. Gold Medal is one of the varieties I purchased as a lead -- although the photos show it as more yellow than I remember -- but this is my 4th year trying to grow it and I have yet to get a single tomato or even a large healthy plant.

Has anyone successfully grown these, and do you have any tips for the conditions it likes? It may just be too hot and sunny for it here, but my other maters always do fine.

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Comments (6)

catman529
14 years ago
Not sure about Gold Medal but check out this list if you want to see a lot of bi-color varieties, many with photos included.
homegardenpa
14 years ago
I am growing Gold Medal this year as well, but my experience so far has been a little contrary. Of all the seedlings I have, my Gold Medal seedlings are by far the strongest. Strong dark green leaves, very thick stems, almost a picture perfect tomato plant - very symmetrical so far. Now, obviously, I can't comment on the fruit just yet, but the plants so far are very healthy and very vigorous.

AS far as it being too hot and sunny by you, I did find one very interesting comment on this particular variety mentioned from a couple different sources, all along the same lines as this comment: "... plants grow well in cool nighttime temperatures."

That comment is a little bit of hearsay, but could possibly coorelate to what you are seeing.
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alabamanicole
Original Author
14 years ago
Hmmm. My seedlings always look happy, but that's early in the season, they seem to get about 2' high and then struggle. Once summer hits, we usually have hot and muggy nights, so that could be it. If so, I could be just out of luck for this variety.

catman, I wonder how many years it would take me to get all the way through that list with my existing garden space?!
ikea_gw
14 years ago
I am also growing Gold Medal for the first time this year, and my experience is the same as homegardenpa. The seedlings are the healthiest among all my seedlings along with Cherokee Purple. I do find in the past that orange tomatoes do much better than red ones in shadier and cooler conditions, but I don't know if this applies here.
marcos_2010
14 years ago
In 2007, I was working for a friend in the Napa Valley who decided he wanted to grow Heirlooms. That year we grew about 12 acres on the valley floor in Rutherford. We sold them to Andronico's, Mollie Stone's and Greenleaf Produce Sales mostly. Gold Medal's flourished there along with 90% of the varieties we grew. Hillbilly did well too. I am now in the high desert in Southern California. In 2008 we tried growing 18 acres staged in 4 plantings and between the periods of severe heat in June and July and the soil pathogens, Rhizoctonia and Pithium, all but the first 4 acre block, planted on April 10th got wiped out. The Gold Medals did well but none of the Green tomatoes did squat.Aunt Ruby's German Green, Tasty Evergreen, Spear's Tennessee Green) Needless to say I am no longer in the tomato business, licking my financial wounds but I am growing tomatoes in my garden and have a Gold Medal plant going that is about 3' tall at present. It was a little slower than the many other varieties I planted but appears very healthy and is flowering now. I'm using Al's 5:1:1 and Miracle Gro 24-8-16 full strength every other watering and added MicroMax micronutrients and Garden Lime when I originally transplanted.
alabamanicole
Original Author
14 years ago
Interesting theory, Ikea_gw. It would have to be the amount of pigment. Yellow tomatoes go crazy for me -- but wouldn't a yellow tomato have less red pigment than an orange one?

My garden at the new place will be getting shade in the morning, so less daily intense sunlight. That may change the equation.

Since I get good healthy seedlings, I don't think I have poor seed stock. It's either something I am doing or not doing, or a characteristics of the tomato variety.