Burpee sells 3 types: Brandywine, Brandywine Red, and Brandywine Pink. ***** What???? Since Brandywine IS pink why would they sell something called Brandywine Pink? With all the negative comments about Burpee these days re Black Pearl and now their F1 Tie-Dye, which is stealing a name that Brad Gates named one of his varieties and e-mail letters back and forth with Burpee about that have been posted at another message site, well, you couldn't pay me enough money to order anything from Burpee, especially tomato seed. I didn't get a catalog this year, thank heavens, but are they still selling their hybrid Bucks County Red? They first listed it as F1 Red Brandywine, and then that name disappeared and all of sudden the name Bucks County Red appeared with no connection made with it being an F1 RB, then several years went by and they only then said it was the same F1 RB they started out with. Burpee is headquartered in Warminster, PA and that's in Bucks County PA, thus the "clever" name. Years ago when they first listed it I bought seeds for it as well as plants b/c it was the first time that a hybrid of a known heirloom variety had been available and quite frankly I was upset with that. I raised plants from their F1 seed, from my own stock of OP Red Brandywine and then compared the plants of the F1 they sent as well as the plants from my RB as well as the plants from the F1 seed. There was no darn difference at all. Triple Sigh. Carolyn, who notes that the Burpee of today is NOT the Burpee of old.

"Please rate flavor of both Brandywine and NAR on a 1 to 10 scale." [John] John, the Brandywine I used as the seed parent may not have been Sudduth. I have no idea really. It came from a contract seed vendor called Livingston Seed Company (Columbus, Ohio) who leaves displays of garden seeds in hardware and big box stores all around the Midwest. The Brandywine parent was potato leaf, pink, large, mostly smooth without a lot of lumpy green shoulders, but somewhat irregular on some fruit like maybe a gnarly side or two on some. It had what I would rank as a 7.0 out of 10 flavor ... or about the same as the Earl's Faux I grew right next to it. In fact, I could hardly tell the difference between the two vines or their fruit except the Earl's Faux had bigger belly buttons and the Brandywine was harder to pick off the calyx. The Neves Azorean Red came from a grower in New Jersey and I don't recall where he got his original seeds. The plant was erect, compact, grew about 6 feet tall, was stingy with fruit, didn't like to set in the heat, and had large, red, heavy, dense, really meaty fruit with an unusual flavor ... some sort of twangy aftertaste that I cannot describe. Very tomatoey though. I would rank it about an 8.5 out of 10. "Does the powerful aftertaste of NAR increase it's rating?" [John] Yes ... mainly because it was curious but not offensive and not altogether "tomato." So, it stood out; and since it tasted good, it bumped the rating up. For me, a 10 would be something in the Cherokee Purple family or something like Indian Stripe. Cherokee Green was a 9 for a green-when-ripe, I guess. But then I haven't eaten many green-when-ripes and nothing better than Cherokee Green so far. So far this year I have not had a 10 of any color or shape ... even cherries. The Indian Stripes are starting to come in farther up the vine and getting more and more flavorful. So maybe soon. As far as green-when-ripe, I've eaten one tomato off a dwarf plant derived from Green Giant x Golden Dwarf Champion that I would rank as a 8.5 with great possibilities. So, I'm looking forward to eating my first Green Giant soon, too. (Golden Dwarf Champion was totally unimpressive, IMO.) I had one tomato last year that was off the scale of 1 - 10. So, I don't even compare other tomatoes to that particular degree of great flavor. That special tomato last year was more like a 15, and I have no idea if it will ever repeat as it was an F2 from Sudduth x Unknown RL. Believe me, I am not easily impressed with tomato flavor. It has to be rich, sweet and tangy ... meaty, not overly soft or mushy ... not watery but definitely juicy. And no need for salt whatever. That's cheatin'. Gotta be awesome right off the vine in the morning and cool only from the night air. Bill

Big Daddy, the reason I sent out 16 - 32 F2 seeds of the Brandywine x Neves Azorean Red to each of the few people I sent them to, in 2008 and 2009, is so y'all would plant all of them at once and select the healthiest potato leaf (PL) seedlings to grow. See, if you'd plant say 20 F2 seeds, you'd likely have 4 - 5 PL vines to look at and select from. The F2s were sent mainly to a few folks who I know prefer PL vines. But then it seems most the folks I sent them to only planted a few at once and either forwarded a few seeds to other folks or held on to the rest and planted a few the following year. This reduced the chances of selecting out PLs and increased the chances of RLs becoming the dominant selection. That's fine with me, because some of the other folks ended up with nice RL types. I'm just sayin' what my original idea was. We do have one really fine red fruited PL type selected out here in Indiana in 2009, and grown to the F3 in Tishomingo, Mississippi; and that I'll be growing a few examples of here this year. It's a real dinner plate sized, great tasting beefsteak on a vigorous, potato leaf vine. And yes, there are several lines that seem susceptible to the damp weather blues like Septoria and Early Blight, but I have found a few lines in the F3 (I grew 10 plants last summer) that were very tolerant of that type of thing. And yes, those were PL vines, as a matter of fact. And also yes, I continue to find PL seedlings out of seeds saved from RL plants which is due to exactly what Spice Ham detailed above ... recessive PL lurking under the RL expression in many of the vines. By the way, I took that great, large red, PL F2 I was talking about and outcrossed it to a highly desease resistant, tart, red, Italian tomato, and now am growing out the F2s from that one too. Have a few PL seedlings among the mostly RL siblings to sort out for the garden this summer. I hope to capture the disease resistance from the Italian parent.

OK, it's not Brandywine but it's good. I ate my first one today.Looks like they go 1 to 2 pounds with a few slightly over 2. Not the 2 to 4 as Burpee promised. They are big beefstakes and some gravy boat shaped. I don't prune so I am not disappointed in their size. PH makes consistently large tomatoes that taste good so I am happy with it. My plants are very bushy and about 7.5' tall now. Production is very good for such large fruit. I will take pics of individual toms in a couple days when they are totally ripe. The one I just ate was a "little" guy about 10 ounces which is about as little as you can find one on the plant. I am happy with PH so far this season.