Caddie, I understand your disappoinment but there is NO company that hasn't had problems when it comes to OP seed. SOme companies produce their own seed, some buy wholesale off the shelf and some subcontract out seed production, and some do one or more of those ways of obtaining seed to offer commercially.

it would be great if every company could grow out all seed that they acquire, but that's not practical at all. ESpecially for those who don't produce their own seed and so have no way to check out seed sent them.

So I wouldn't write off Totally Tomatoes b/c of one error however upsetting it was to you pesonally. I don't think there are many folks who grow OP varieties who haven't had such a problem in the past and no doubt will in the future.

Carolyn

Caddie, when life gives you yellow tomatoes then make yellow tomato sauce ;-)

T

Sorry for your problem but Totally Tomatoes is a good source with an above average reputation.

However as Carolyn said, they like all the companies, are dependent on suppliers for accuracy for at least some of their seeds. I'd be willing to bet they have already taken this up with their supplier and assuming you gave them the needed info will probably be sending you free seeds.

Dave

Seed mix-ups are more common than you think. In just the last couple weeks I've seen mix-ups posted on here from Baker's Creek and Burpee as well.
Human error is just as much a part of gardening as insects, disease, and bad weather.
80 plants is a lot to grow out from the same batch of seed on faith. One way to avoid any unpleasant surprises is to plant with two year old seed, and only test it the first year. For example, buy two packets, plant one entire packet and 3 plants from the other packet. After you're certain those 3 plants are Early Girl, plant that whole packet next year along with 3 plants from a newly purchased packet. That way, any unpleasant surprises will be confined to a handful of test plants instead of your whole crop.
I have a packet of pelleted Ferry Morse Early Girl seeds from which I planted a few plants last year. I'm 100% certain they're Early Girl. You are welcome to them if you want them. Just email me.

I had pepper seeds that never germinated from TT years ago. Lots of folks used to complain about them. Then reports started appearing here and elsewhere they had their act together now. So two winters ago I ordered pepper PLANTS from them. Half came with main stems broken and the other half the leggiest pepper plants I had ever seen like they had zero access to sun or light...;-(

I'm having the same problem with my brandywine platfoots (not from totally tomatoes). I'm getting the wrong leaf type. So I'll just be calling those mystery tomatoes, and trying another pack of platfoots next year. I have about 80 varieties this year, so it could have been my mistake. I just wish I knew what they were, since I may end up liking them.

A random seed here and there is one thing but you'd think they would test the seeds before selling them...I wouldn't want that many yellow toms.

Yes, If I hadn't purchased and raised so many of the same seed, it wouldn't have bothered me. :> 80 varieties, (Gardningscomplicated), wow! That's unbelievable. Are they heirlooms and hybrids combined?

I'm thankful I have plenty other red tomatoes on their way to ripen. :) :)

caddie, if ALL 80 plants were yellow fruited then it wasn't a stary seed situation, obviously, and not a crossed seed situation either.

The problem could go back to the original supplier of the bulk seed where it was wrongly labelled or it could have been a wrong labelling situation when TT packed the seeds in TT seed packs.

jurassic, love that part of your user name, you asked why companies don't test seeds before selling them, and I posted about that in a post above:

(it would be great if every company could grow out all seed that they acquire, but that's not practical at all. ESpecially for those who don't produce their own seed and so have no way to check out seed sent them.)

And I'll say a bit more about that. Seed for retail sale can be acquired from wholesale sources, by seed production by the company itself if they have the room and by subcontracting out seed production. And individual companies may do one or two or even three of those ways of obtaining seed.

If a seed company doesn't do most of their tomato seed production, and few comnpanies do, Sandhill Preservation and Mariseeds are two that do, then there's NO way that they even have a place to do that.

They have to rely on thier suppliers and I know one seed company that has switched wholesale suppliers and subcontractors several times b'c of problems with the some of the seed sent.

In a perfect world it would be great for each seed company to be able to test ALL tomato seed received but it's not at all possible to do that. Even those who produce their own seed can see the plants are what they should be in the field but then the seeds produced may be cross pollinated b'c there's no way that raising tomato plants commercially for seed can have blossoms bagged and nor is geographic isolation perfect in terms of trying to prevent cross pollination.

And so it goes.

Carolyn

One problem with testing seed for variety, is that it takes an entire season. Then there could still be a mix up with labels being switched. I'd rather have fresh seed than year old seed.

Some seed companies don't even do germination testing. I've occasionally purchased seed where the germination rate was appallingly low. I don't buy from that company again, since seed is too expensive to pay for bad seeds.

80 plants. Wow. I hope they at least offered to replace the packs of seed. Not that it helps much, but at least it is polite.

I sure hope those are good tasting yellows.

Yes, If I hadn't purchased and raised so many of the same seed, it wouldn't have bothered me. :> 80 varieties, (Gardningscomplicated), wow! That's unbelievable. Are they heirlooms and hybrids combined?

I'm thankful I have plenty other red tomatoes on their way to ripen. :) :)

I have a fabulous yellow tomato-fresh ginger pasta sauce recipe if you're interested.

I had 2 seed mix-ups this year, but at least it's only one plant each. It happens.

-JoAnne

An above average reputation??? Does that include their catalog loaded with duplicate, inverted photos of fruit in a not-so-blatant attempt to mislead their customers??? At least all of their blurbs aren't loaded with misspellings and misinformation like some others.

Also one correction...early girl is not OP seed. C wouldn't have let anyone else get away with saying that, so I'm not gonna either.

caddie - They're all heirlooms, no hybrids. And it's a nightmare trying to keep track of them all. Next year I either need a better system, or fewer varieties. But knowing me, I'll probably end up with more varieties, and a bigger problem:)

Save your own seed. Problem solved!

Where did I go wrong? Did I miss someone saying that Early Girl was OP and said so in this thread?

John, last I knew and my TT catalog isn't here and in this heat I'll be darned if I'll go to the TT website but they and others have been offering Early Girl F1 for it's still being produced as an F1.

I made a seed offer elsewhere for PRS-37 which is an OP derivative done by Tim Peters, formerly of Peters Seed and Research.

And one person contacted me saying she would NOT buy seeds for Early Girl F1 and her reasoning was that Petoseed still does the F1 and now that Monsanto owns Peto she would not buy it, wherever it's offered.

I'll say no more on that issue and I hope no one else does either.

Hoosier posted comparison pictures of the F1 and PSR-37 at another site, for those who preferred the OP, to look at b'c at this other site someone else was also offering the PSR-37 seeds and actually it was from him that I got the PSR-37 seeds.

You may remember all this b'c you post there as well.

Carolyn, who agrees with problems still being at the TT site. I've tried in the apst to get some things changed and maybe will try again, but there's just so much that one can try to do with no repsonse that it, well, I may not try again.

When Jung's bought TT from Wayne Hilton no seeds came with it but all the wrong stuff written in that version did, and that's when I tried to do something, but after sending many pages of corrections to someone who said he knew the Jung's Seeds owner, nothing happened and he couldn't even remember what he did with all my suggested corrections/

I know there is disappointment with all that time put in on tomato starts, expecting a certain species and getting something entirely different. Those plants mentioned can be found most anywhere , might be a better option except for price.
So comes this question how does a person know exactly what hes getting in seed. Say you want a certain brand that is not on every corner such as , major lifter, big zac, giant belgium. How can you be sure thats what you get , especially since you cant find them in your local area.

A few very yummy.. YELLOW and PURPLE / INDIGO tomatoes showed up last year in my garden.

I NEVER planted color tomatoes.

<how does a person know exactly what hes getting in seed. Say you want a certain brand that is not on every corner such as , major lifter, big zac, giant belgium. How can you be sure thats what you get , especially since you cant find them in your local >

For the most part, very sure. Obviously mistakes and accidents happen be it a stray seed in a packet or a mis-labeled packet. And we always hear about the wrong one but never hear about the hundred of thousands of right ones.

But when dealing with the well known, reputable, top of the line dealers the odds are 9:1 they are accurate. Small second tier vendors and mom n' pop operations perhaps 7-8:1. For seeds obtained via trades the odds of wrong seed or cross-pollinated seeds are much higher.

Unfortunately, "they all look alike" at the seed level applies. But once germinated any obvious errors in leaf type appear and once fruit sets "wrong" becomes much more obvious in shape size and shoulder colors. So it pays to know what it should look like at all stages.

Dave

I've got 37 plants going and all but one seemed true to type, most were from trades, and I feel like I lucked out by not getting more non-trues. The one problem I had was Hillbilly RL. It was from a new source (trade). Maybe I'll ask but I think it is just gonna be one of those trades that has slowly faded away into the tomato variety noise.

It looks more like Flame, but most tomatoes had little or completely absent red, and were very round, medium on the large side globes without fluting. Wish Carolyn still was active since she knows what's going on with some of the HB issues. Tatiana's was no help on Hillbilly. If someone is growing it from known sourced seeds it would be nice to see, and maybe you can give Tatiana some photos to pin up which would have been nice to see there for such a 'common' heirloom. The plant actually was a top 5 winner in heat, whatever it is.
PC

I'm active from a distance when I'm sent e- mails about an update to a thread I've posted in and I did in this one now about 5 yo and if I have the time and interest I will update although most of the time I don't.

Tania lists both Hillbilly RL, which is the original, and also the PL variant and here's the link to the PL one:

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Hillbilly_Potato_Leaf

And both the RL and PL ones should look like what you call Flame, for the following reason.

A seed site listed Olympic Flame when the summer Olympics were held, I think in LA. The US Olympic Comm said they couldn't do that and so it was renamed Flame and yes, Flame is a typical Gold/red bicolor as are the two Hillbillys, both RL and PL.

Hope that helps.

Carolyn

"I'm active from a distance when I'm sent e- mails about an update to a thread I've posted in and I did in this one now "

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks so much for posting a reply to my Hillbilly/Flame issue that I know you had researched or shared information about in the past. I did not see the reply on the date it initially was made, since I assumed by mistake you wouldn't see those GW notifications or come back and post. I certainly would have answered with the following and am sorry I missed your post last month until now.

I guess you gave me the Tatiana's Hillbilly PL link since I mentioned the Hillbilly RL on her site was not helpful, and you saw she had no pics of the heirloom Hillbilly variety fruit which appears to me defined by a regular leaf type (?). Tatiana's site currently has the same origin for both versions of the name Hillbilly, but all the recent history is with the PL and the regular has no illustrations of the fruit as the database stands at this moment.

If you get around to it, kindly let me know why you think it is a good bet that the PL version is the result of the Hillbilly variety genetics, if this is why you gave me the PL link, since usually when I see this case of PL's showing up, knowing full well it is possible to have some mutations or recessive PL plants show up if the variety wasn't fixed to begin with, I think there's also a reasonable chance it could be an accidental cross as an alternate explanation. I really can't rule out whether the PL was the original HB after reading theses sources which are missing key citations.

If the tomatoes look similar from both RL and PL I guess that's a bit stronger evidence, and I wonder if that would be your threshold. I have a hard time telling many bi-colors apart and I know you'd agree with that for many bi-color cases too, so that's partly why I have a bit of skepticism with these PL's.

Perhaps you know something about Seed Savers introduction of them that I don't, and who exactly found the PL, or under what circumstances. Tatiana currently has the PL appearing from a member in Ohio, somehow getting to the USDA by Dr. Griffiths from Cornell and it is unclear from the blurbs whether the Hillbilly variety was just copy pasted into there, since she is helpful to put the 2004 PL USDA narrative, which was at least a decade after HB was listed. Similarly, the USDA then has registered that PL was collected in the hills of WV. I honestly don't know whether to not take the USDA notes seriously, or what, but it is a massive grain of salt the way it all reads to me since it seems ambiguous at the very best and more likely misleading when it comes to where the PL's came from and when. If the info is there, it is convoluted.

The only way I can reconcile this (and I'm trying not to roll my eyes due to the difficulty of researching heirlooms in general and taking scraps I get sometimes) is if some genetic studies for some reason were done on this variety comparing Hillbilly and Hillbilly PL, for the USDA to say their specimen was collected in the hills of WV. "Collected in WV" means just that to me and I hope no extrapolations are showing up in the USDA source database. Or maybe the OH SSE person, Jerry Lee Bosner , who is not even mentioned on the USDA online record went to WV on a seed collecting expedition and just found a bunch of similar bi-colors that only varied in leaf type. Just to make it more strange, Tatiana's says Craig LeHoullier in 1994 the year apparently that the RL was SSE listed (?) by Bosner, was in Craig's hands and then yours within a couple of years.

That is a bummer simplylisalisa, and shared by all those before us who've complained of the same sorts of mix-ups. Keeping babies organized is a big deal even for people or paternity tests would be unnecessary, and I say this tongue-in-cheek because when it comes to people, accuracy is a life changing experience (just ask the hospitals about their settlements for negligence anywhere along the line in accidentally swapping babies!). When it comes to tomatoes, you might get back a lousy pack of seeds despite having put all those months of labor into raising enough plants which which can keep your hands full as much as raising any living thing if you love them or have duty to them. Maybe we need a T-shirt that says "So & So sold me 80 Early Girls and all I got was this lousy replacement pack of seeds, some yucky yellow tomatoes I didn't want, and this T-shirt"

Cheers

PC

Just saw this. We purchased "Goliath" seed from a retailer in Kentucky this last fall. We grow tomatoes hydroponically - it is our living. When the tomatoes ripened they were yellow and there is no market for them!! We are losing thousands of dollars because of it. The company does not acknowledge any error on their part. They said they purchased the seed from "Totally Tomatoes" by the 25 pound bags full and repackage it. No happy grower.

rollinsandra, what a disappointment with terrible repercussions! Yellow sell here in lower volumes at a premium price, maybe time to load up and sell or offer U-pick. I hope you can make a go with lemons and get some lemonade.

Totally Tomatoes may not be the guilty party or they may be. They have a yellow version of Goliath that they market. The variety may have got mixed up by your reseller.

Totally Tomatoes yellow-gold variation of red Goliath

Cheers

PC

We do sell a few of these yellow tomatoes but there simply is no market here for them. We end up throwing most of them away for lack of buyers. We have given a lot away hoping some will take a likening to them but very few do - not enough buyers. We sell at farmer's markets but not enough people out there hankering for yellow tomatoes. We also have some red Goliath plants but we are not certain they are Goliath - they do not have Goliath characteristics at all. Have been looking on the web for the producer of Goliath tomato seed but have had no luck, yet. If other retailers get their seed from Totally Tomatoes, how can we ever again trust a retailer?

Yeah, varieties have frequently fallen victims to the shameless manipulations of seed vendors that could care less about keeping uniformity and in some circumstances have "created" variety "exclusives" for marketing purposes and accidentally or purposefully added to the confusion, or have a cash cow variety and breed into it some additional traits but still refer to it as the old name to capitalize on its following under the guise of being "improved" (when they may have messed up the parents in some cases too lol). In the case of 'Goliath' it appears extreme: this name does not refer to a single strain, variety or whatever description we get thrown at us to make a sale. It seems like it is a "series" of "strains" leveraged off the name of a tomato that may once have been known as a hybrid tomato variety named 'Goliath', itself an early maturing derivative of the popular 'Big Beef' hybrid that has great production and was developed by a friend at Petoseed in the years before the Mexican buyout.

Check out the 2017 catalog of Seeds and Such: Catalog link.

In there, J. Wayne Hilton's discusses the Goliath hybrid which suggest to me it was possibly a European adaptation from the parentage of Big Beef, he says:

“When I founded the company ‘Totally Tomatoes’ in 1993 ... and in 1995 I introduced Goliath (Indeterminate, 65 days), a European version of Big Beef, with gorgeous, blemish-free, bright red fruits, weighing 10-15 ounces and endowed with a perfect balance of acids and sugars to give it that old-timey, real-tomato flavor.

After I sold Totally Tomatoes in 1999, the new owners changed Goliath to the “Pio” strain to gain even more productivity. But the ‘Pio’ strain of Goliath is not as round and uniform as the previous strain I first introduced.

The current strain ‘Pio’ [DTM 70] further refines the original Goliath to add more productivity, better disease resistance and greater adaptability ..."

Hilton also lists the 'old fashioned' Goliath 'Beef Maestro' variety [78 DTM], the Goliath 'Jubilation' yellow one [70 DTM] you probably got, and then the Goliath 'Boy-O-Boy' strain [75 DTM], which all seem to be newer additions to the "Goliath series". To be honest, it sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook to me and between that an Totally Tomatoes listing 'Pio' as the original 65 DTM, I would run away from that.

But if you really must find out, email Hilton at the address given in the catalog as he is the one who probably knows best what is going on if he chooses to kindly share it with you. Add to that that there is an open pollinated variety 'Goliath' you can get from TGS claimed to be an unrelated 1800's Pennsylvania pink OP heirloom at this link: Goliath 85 DTM pink 'heirloom'

and there is a Bush Goliath and an open pollinated version of that one, as well as an open pollinated version of one of the Goliath hybrids from Marianna's called Goliath Red: Marianna's link to 75 DTM OP Goliath derived from some Goliath F1 of Big Beef parentage.

I hope this helps you not lose the farm. Personally, I would go for Big Beef F1 (73 DTM) and not touch that Goliath of a mess with a ten foot pole. I know some people get a hankering for a variety name, but as you can see, varieties come and go and between falling from use, bogus marketing, and those who really care, it is sometimes like being stranded on a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, springing leaks to keep track of what is going on. If you think you know, it might just be a $5 name and an illusion to go with it. Best of luck I understand your frustration.

Cheers

PC

There was a tomato variety we loved-Quest, a greenhouse variety. It did well, customers loved them. Terrible expensive seed ... Then they quit producing it and now we are trying to find a suitable replacement. Goliath did ok but had a short shelf life. These yellow tomatoes are very nice but they have the wrong color and lack acidity and flavor which the customers demand. PC, thanks for the insight- gives me info I will check out.

Quest was a De Ruiter hybrid that got supplanted by more disease resistant varieties. Have you trialed their newer ones Big Dena & Torero, or checked out the older similar ones, Geronimo & Trust? I don't now about acidity, especially Trust, but if I had to pay $0.50 - $0.75 per seed would inquire. Note each variety name is a link in this post to a reputable vendor, but all four probably sell all varieties and the link is not always the most economical depending on the quantity needed. If you want to really follow in the footsteps of Quest, just contact De Ruiter and tell them the location, conditions, acidity requirement, and ask them for a recommendation at this contact page: De Ruiter Sales and Inquiries

Though these specifically bred greenhouse varieties will certainly be worth the price for maximum yield, if they do not meet your expectation, Big Beef is always there and the packets can be gotten on clearance soon enough at the big box stores now that the season is getting over ... seeds less than a nickel a piece.

Cheers

PC

FYI Reimer Seeds generally isn't considered a reputable vendor.

You're right, I probably shouldn't have included them with the other three as there is a huge gap in reputability between them, and my single positive order (but unfriendly communication which is why I think they are dinged mostly) means little or nothing. The problem with these expensive seeds is buying in small quantities is difficult and that was why I slipped them in without thinking too hard, since they cater to selling five packs for trialing especially if you want a half dozen it gets into big bucks.

It is never a good idea to cut corners on seed when your livelihood is at stake. Sorry about that JustAGuy, good point, and with a lot at stake for the
main growing variety you are right. But trying a bunch ... I guess
Johnny's if not Reimer.

Cheers

PC

No one sells, or should, 25 # bags of tomato seed. Do you have any idea of how much seed that is and how it must be stored and each year viability going down and down? Check out how many seeds that is by going to Tomato Growers Supply and looking at the numbers.

I know Wayne Hilton very well, who was kind of forced to sell all but one of his other companies to Jung's, so I'm not even going to try to go there with his reincarnation Seeds n Such.

Do NOT believe everything you read at Marianne Jones website,aka, Marianna's, her original site in TN was fine,I know her well,but for reasons I'm not going to go into this newer one in WI, well,it has problems.

I've said before that Houzz has become a very different site from what the original Garden Web was,and yes,I get notices all the time and and with few exceptions don't bother to come back here, as I did when I saw someone referring to Black Cherry as an F1 Hybrid., but oh my has it ever gone downhill,at least in my opinion.

I have obligations elsewhere in terms of a message site, there is some X pollination from there to here and it really bothers me when I see info being posted from there to here with no reference to who or where that info originally came from.

On a more positive note I hope all of you have a wonderful growing season this summer.

Carolyn

I don't know about 25# of tomato seed but I notices on a Stokes web page they boast that they have accepted $100,000 orders for something

IMO we should not add this to Totally Tomatoes based on an anonymous reseller's reputed excuse not verified by those who got hurt by this, as this was not a transaction with Totally Tomatoes, like them or not, it is an unfair ding.

Doing the math at 3 milligrams per seed which is what I use to sometimes estimate what is in regular tomato seed packets, it's over 150,000 seeds per pound. Is that 4.5 million plants at 100% germ/seedling to ballpark dimension it, for 25 pounds? For reference, US fresh market tomatoes is about 150 million plants @ 18#/plant ballpark guestimate. And how many people do I know growing this relatively obscure "variety" if we can call it that? So, not only does the bag size not make sense, but also that would be enough seed for longer than I'm going to live for the entire US!

The way I took it was they perhaps had 25 bags, but that's not what the post says, as Carolyn pointed out, so who knows.

Cheers

PC

Carolyn, All I did was quote the salesman who told my husband this. In any case when one buys seed and it is labeled one thing but upon maturing proving it is another you are talking about an immense financial loss - and they did not offer to give us any compensation. To get the wrong seed for a few garden plants is one thing but when this is your livelihood it is a totally different ballgame.

Sandra, I was raised on a farm in upstate NY, in our part of the country it was called a truck farm, and it was our only source of income,so I know very well what can happen when wrong seeds get thrown in.Or even more of a problem when wicked hail storms came in June and destroyed most of what we were growing for that summer.

We never had that problem with seeds since we got all our seeds from Harris Seeds,in Rochester,NY,an excellent company.

Stokes is a major supplier to both commercial and home growers in two countries,both in the US and Canada.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Stokes+seeds&hl=en&site=imghp&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjur6W_p_jTAhUJ5GMKHbajD-0Q_AUICSgA&biw=1402&bih=788&dpr=1

Carolyn